The Useful Idiot

Good morning readers.    

Today’s post has nothing to do with the current drama surrounding the impeachment investigation.  Nor the spin and finger-pointing from both sides.    

This post is not about my continuing chagrin over how normally rational, honest, religiously-minded and generally upstanding individuals continue to defend and make excuses for the mendacious, faithless, dissembling, dishonest and equivocating individual who passes as our president.    

Nor is this post about my historical disdain for Donald Trump. 

To that end - let's be perfectly clear.  Since I first became aware of the existence of Donald Trump more than three decades ago I was struck by his sleaziness.  I have always considered him a con-man.  He has no moral center.  He is a liar, a cheat and a grifter.  He is draft-dodger.  He is a skirt-chaser.  What he is not is a role model for anyone’s children and grandchildren.  There is nothing he has done since moving to the White House, nor is there anything I can think he might do, that will cause me to change my low opinion of him.  Long, closely-held opinions die hard.  And this old man is entitled to this one.  

Today’s post is about something I have shared with anyone who has cared to listen to me for more than the past three years – about the time that Donald Trump began his quest for the White House. 

Here it is - I believe Trump (and the family business) have been laundering dirty money for some unsavory individuals from what is left of the Soviet Union.  Do I have any evidence or proof of this?  No, of course not.  All I have to go on is my general sense of his lack of character and an educated hunch having spent almost forty years in the financial services industry.  I also take some pride in the people I surround myself-with and I place a premium on character.  Character counts.  Donald Trump would never be welcome in my circle of friends.  Trump makes my ‘Spider Sense’ tingle.  

By now you’re probably thinking – Geez, Swamp, you’ve really gone off the rails with some wild conspiracy theory cooked-up in your own imagination.  Too much time on your hands, eh? 

Nope.  I've been talking about this since Trump commenced his campaign.  Nothing new here. 

Consider this:  Donald Trump lost vast sums of money over years after seven bankruptcies.  His credit was worthless.  Wait, he had no credit.  No U.S. bank would lend him anything.  It was likely that Russian oligarchs provided the capital he needed – and these Russian mobsters coincidentally needed a mechanism to ‘legitimize’ their illicit gains.  Launder their money.  Real estate development is almost the perfect vessel for laundering large sums of cash generated by organized crime. It’s a criminal enterprise – yet Trump agreed to do so without qualm – yet knowing it was a crime.  

There are three steps to laundering dirty money - Placement, Layering and Integration.      

I’m no fan of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi but I think that she’s on to something when she claimed - All roads lead to Putin. 

The Russians hold all the evidence and they’re holding it over Trump’s head like the sword of Damocles.  All of the Trump family wealth hangs in the balance as do prison sentences for some of them.  And as a consequence, Trump does the bidding of Putin or any other Russian oligarch. 

Don’t take my word for it though – modern day Russia is nothing more than a vast criminal enterprise that produces nothing of any consequence for the world economy or the advancement of its citizens.      

So when you observe small snippets of evidence of those roads leading to Putin it is likely because gangsters are adept at recognizing a weak and vulnerable individual.  Does anybody really believe the Russians are not proficient and skilled in recognizing – and cultivating – a useful idiot when they see one?