Slate "Maybe What Russia Wants From Trump Is Permission to Launder Its Dirty Money"

[NRaleighLiberal]

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/07/20/robert_mueller_don_jr_s_russia_meeting_and_money_laundering.html

by Ben Mathis Lilley

Bloomberg reported Thursday that special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating Donald Trump's business connections to Russia. "The roots of Mueller’s follow-the-money investigation lie in a wide-ranging money laundering probe launched by then-Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara last year," the Bloomberg story says, attributing this information to "someone familiar with the developing inquiry but not authorized to speak publicly." (Bharara was fired from his job in March.)

Meanwhile, new reports about the individuals who attended Donald Trump Jr.'s infamous Trump Tower meeting last June all seem to have one thing in common: dirty money.

Some context:

1. Recent articles by Matt Taibbi and Julia Ioffe, who have both lived in and written extensively about Russia, assert that the Russian government works side-by-side with organized crime figures in the theft and embezzlement of corporate wealth, which is often ultimately derived from the sale of natural resources. According to these accounts—and to NGO watchdog reports like Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index—major business figures in Russia only operate with the approval and assistance of corrupt officials and organized crime.

2. Wealthy Russians have for years moved their fortunes out of Russia into assets and bank accounts in stable and/or low-scrutiny locations in the United States, Europe, and the Caribbean, and elsewhere. This process can run afoul of other countries' rules against moving illegally obtained money into the above-board financial system, a.k.a. laws against money laundering.


snip - long, and as always, a worthwhile read...more pieces of the puzzle

[dalton99a]

1. Pretty safe bet that's how the Trump crime family makes its money