Robert Mueller ALL UP In Donald Trump's Business. (Literally! His Russian Money Business!)

Mama said knock you out

When Donald Trump sat down with the Failing New York Times to give them a good dose of Fake News to report about him, he said special counsel Robert Mueller better stay away from looking into his business dealings, because A) THAT'S A SECRET and B) THAT'S PROBABLY WHERE ALL THE CRIME IS and C) NO RUSSIA NO RUSSIA YOU'RE THE RUSSIA. At least those would be the three reasons he gave if he were an honest man, as opposed to the pathological liar with tiny hands he is IRL. Trump didn't definitively say he would fire Mueller if that happened, but he implied it.

 WELL LOOKIE LOOKIE:  

The U.S. special counsel investigating possible ties between the Donald Trump campaign and Russia in last year’s election is examining a broad range of transactions involving Trump’s businesses as well as those of his associates, according to a person familiar with the probe.

Oh no! Did Robert Mueller open a special investigation this morning when he saw Trump's NYT interview, just to get underneath Trump's very thin skin? Nah. We've known this for a while now, or at least we've been able to use the powers of deductive reasoning God put in our brains to figure it out. Mueller has been assembling a Grade A team of fine-ass lawyers, experts in money laundering and Russia and money laundering and organized crime and money laundering and terrorism, the types of lawyers who went bugfuck crazy on Enron and money launderers and Richard Nixon and money launderers and ... you get the idea.

As Wonk pal Charlie Pierce noted after the eighth person in Trump Jr.'s Russian conspiracy meeting was revealed to be a Russian MONEY LAUNDROMAT, "It Was Always About The Money." Rachel Maddow has been reporting on the Follow The Money aspect of this pretty much since the beginning. Here's a thing about connections between Trump and Russia and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, about FOLLOW THE MONEY. Here's one about Paul Manafort's Russian money going through Cyprus. IT'S ALL ABOUT THE MONEY.

As we hilariously joked this morning, when Trump said Mueller shouldn't look into the money, he might as well have been drawing a map to where the bodies are buried.

John Dowd, Trump's least brainless lawyer, is like GRRRR STOP LOOKING AT THE MONEY:

John Dowd, one of Trump’s lawyers, said on Thursday he was unaware of this element of the investigation. "Those transactions are in my view well beyond the mandate of the Special counsel; are unrelated to the election of 2016 or any alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia and most importantly, are well beyond any Statute of Limitation imposed by the United States Code," he wrote in an email.

Yeah, tell it to Ken Starr, bunky. (Note that we said "least brainless," as opposed to "smart.")

Even though Trump always says he has no financial ties with the Russians, his sons have said differently on multiple occasions, back when it was OK to tell the truth about that. In fact, a memorable quote from Dumb Prince Eric is, "We don't rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia." A good quote from Prince Poopypants Junior is, "Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia." A good quote from Daddy Trump is, "NO RUSSIA. NO RUSSIA. MY SONS ARE THE RUSSIA." (OK fine, we made up the last quote.)

Bloomberg says Mueller is looking into all kinds of shit, including "Russian purchases of apartments in Trump buildings, Trump’s involvement in a controversial SoHo development with Russian associates, the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow and Trump’s sale of a Florida mansion to a Russian oligarch in 2008." And there's probably so much more!

There's also this little tidbit:

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, according to the person. [...]

The Bharara probe was consolidated into Mueller’s inquiry, showing that the special counsel is taking an overarching approach to his mandated investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

OH SNAP! PREET BHARARA'S TRUMP/ORGANIZED CRIME/RUSSIAN MOB INVESTIGATION LIVES!

What did Donald Trump's MOST BRAINLESS lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, tell Trump about Preet Bharara? We believe it was, "This guy's gonna get you." That's when Kasowitz was helping convince Trump to fire Bharara. Trump, of course, heeded his advice.

Bloomberg is careful to note that this is just one little part of Mueller's investigation. There is so much more. Read the whole report, as it is very interesting!

We'll update this post when Donald Trump tries to Saturday Night Massacre Robert Mueller on Twitter later tonight.

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[ Bloomberg ]