‘He’s Doing This The Way You Might Attack A Mafia Family’: World Watches As Mueller Moves In

So on Friday night, we learned that a federal grand jury in Washington has approved the first charges in the Mueller investigation. Apparently, at least one person is going to be taken into custody as soon as Monday. That was originally reported by CNN has since been confirmed by multiple outlets. Of course there were the usual attempts to play this down and, amusingly, we noticed a couple of outlets suggesting that somehow this isn't real. That seems like a decidedly risky claim to impli

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11 thoughts on “‘He’s Doing This The Way You Might Attack A Mafia Family’: World Watches As Mueller Moves In

  1. On the other hand, the other spin interpretation which is no doubt coming down the pipes already is that now that it’s over and someone other than Trump is charged, obviously Mueller found all the dirt he could, the president is implicitly not guilty of anything, and now we can move on.

    1. yeah, and that’s a halfway plausible narrative, so i’m not going to rule it out. but in all likelihood, this will never end. they’re treating this like a RICO case. RICOs don’t ever really go away. and unlike the Clintons or [fill in the blank member of the political aristocracy], Trump isn’t connected enough politically to make this disappear. his family will never – ever – get out from under this. his great grandchildren won’t be able to do business deals with foreign countries without someone looking at it.

      1. You are so right about his family name and future generations but even if someone explained to him using pictures and bullet points, he would not care because he sees nothing beyond his own shadow.

        One other interesting possibility of this ensuing arrest/charge, Mueller could be using it to squeeze them to spill their guts and stay out of prison.

        Of course, Roger Stone said that no one would dump on trump, and it was kinda like a threat and we are now right back to that mafia comparison.

  2. Meh. One thing you are failing to take into account is NOBODY in this country whose indictment could conceivably have an adverse material effect on any BANK is EVER indicted for anything. Hasn’t happened since the S & L crisis in the late 1980’s. That’s why successful trillion-dollar heist perpetrators like Hank Paulson, Tim Geithner, Lloyd Blankfein, Jamie Dimon, John Meriweather, Dick Fuld, etc etc etc are still walking around in their $4000 Italian bespoke suits instead of orange jumpsuits.

    Trump owes so much money to so many banks, the messy disclosures brought on by indictments / plea bargains / trials would be a catastrophe for Goldman Sachs and, no doubt, several other major banks.

    So Mueller may round up myriad small fish like Manafort, Flynn, Cohen, etc, and possibly even Kushner, but this whole affair is not going anywhere near The Cheeto-In-Chief.

      1. You misunderstand. I didn’t write FINANCIAL effect, I wrote MATERIAL effect.

        I’m not saying the collapse of Trump’s debts could cause FINANCIAL harm to GS (nor others). His debts are less than the wrist-slap fines they pay out of petty cash every time they are caught manipulating markets, violating insider trading laws, inaccurate reporting, etc. But GS et al were never made to endure even cursory investigations after collectively causing the 2008 GFC and then heisting $4 trillion via Paulson and Geithner to make the effects go away. Do they really want a Mueller type poking around in their books and email servers as part of further investigations?

        1. Did you just connect the Mueller investigation to the financial bailouts from the GFC? That’s a stretch. Let’s suppose that even if somehow all of Trump’s dealings with GS came into view, do you really think that would somehow translate into investigating any and all financial crimes by Wall St??? That’s an even bigger stretch. TBTF (too big to fail, or in this case be investigated)

  3. Right now we are still every early in the spin cycle. If a close associate of Trump is charged with shady business dealings, it’s easy for Trump detractors (myself included) to reason that Trump will also be found to have dealt with Russian oligarchs, to whom he would owe favors.

    But that reasoning is far from the proof necessary to remove him from office. The Clintons survived the (petty) whitewater scandal, although some of their associates spent jail time. Nixon did not survive, as his role in the cover-up became clear even to his supporters.

    It could go either way for the POTUS (President Orange That Usually Survives).

  4. An earlier commenter suggested: “his great grandchildren won’t be able to do business deals with foreign countries without someone looking at it.”

    That’s quite a stretch. Although the Bill and Hillary Clinton carry more baggage than American Airlines, Chelsea is pretty much unaffected.

    1. “That’s quite a stretch. Although the Bill and Hillary Clinton carry more baggage than American Airlines,
      Chelsea is pretty much unaffected”

      The Clinton and Trump situation and power dynamics aren’t even comparable.

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