Trump's Giant Vulnerability

Trump's big vulnerability is not Russian collusion.   It is Trump's finances.  

He joyfully admitted he hoped to get Russian help.  He has no political risk there.  Democrats should forget that. It might be a dead end, plus no one cares.

His problem is the money.  Did he he cut corners, arrange for bribes and "commissions" to get paid, and launder Russian money to finance projects?

That is how deals get done and projects get built in most parts of the world.

I am in Saigon and cannot easily illustrate this post with a photo, but imagine a stunning 50 story building, 95 percent complete, in Saigon's District One, the area of fancy international hotels, the financial towers, the Opera House, the fancy shops, the neighborhood with Bentleys and Jaguars being driven by men in dark suits.  It has been unfinished for seven years.  It is a giant scar on the skyline and a financial disaster for the developers.

 What went wrong?  

The bribes and "commissions" and "participation percentages" necessary to keep the project moving through the government bureaucracy could not be paid.  A media expose' revealed that the multi-country financing for the development some secret payments. Everyone got scared off doing business, including local officials here and the US, Swiss, Singapore and other countries with anti-foreign corrupt practices laws. The grease to turn the wheels end.  The project froze up.

Nearby a public high school's soccer field was sold overnight to a developer who immediately razed the field.  Up went a 40 story apartment building, without a hitch.  The right people gave approvals, against all rules and expectations.  

This is Saigon, but similar thing are notorious in China and developing countries everywhere.  Maybe even in New Jersey.

The USA and some other developed countries have strict anti-corrupt practices laws and prohibitions against paying bribes.  The laws are there for the very good reason that paying bribes is the default and actual real-world way projects get done in many parts of the world.  These prohibitions attempt to keep things honest, but unquestionably impede business.  

In my former work as a Financial Advisor at Morgan Stanley we had annual mandatory ethics and legal workshops warning us about having accounts with foreign businessmen, foreign government officials, about wire transfers, about the compliance hazards.  Dirty money from drugs or bribes needs to get glean and legitimate.  It is a huge problem and huge risk.  The temptations are real and the advantages for cutting corners are so huge.

This brings us to Donald Trump:  he is a deal-maker.maker.  He is not proud of his punctilious obedience to rules, and indeed he joyfully breaks rules he considers foolish.  Donald Trump is proud of getting deals done.  He gets deals done internationally.  And this is his vulnerability.  Corrupt practices.

Donald Trump can easily withstand close examination of who hacked whom and whether Russians really preferred Trump.   Democrats may find that the DNC leak was a disgruntled employee, not a Russian hack.  Democrats should stop pinning their hopes on Russian collusion.  It may come to naught.

Trump's own obstruction of justice regarding firing FBI Director Comey set into motion the real vulnerability: the Special Council will follow the money trail, first into Russian connections, then a Russian financing and then, as they uncover evidence, into project financing wherever they find criminality.  Russia billionaires are an archetype of financial corruption.  

Trump got deals done.  Did he cheat, pay bribes, make sure foreign officials were "taken care of" to get the deals done?   Did his project financing involve Russian money that was 100 percent clean? We don't know.  We may find out.

I can look across the Saigon River st a stalled billion dollar project and see that somebody didn't take care of getting that deal done.  And I think that, yes, probably Trump has good reason to be frantic at what James Mueller might uncover.