BY
President Trump has
good reason to be afraid, very afraid, of where Special Counsel Robert
Mueller’s investigation set off by the collision with Russia may lead,
according to an investigative
report by USA Today.
Under his mandate,
Mueller can follow the story, and the money trail, where ever the investigation
takes him, and increasingly that appears to be into the complex business
dealings, especially real estate sales.
“Experts say,” reports USA Today, “Mueller’s move to follow the money has the potential to expose Trump, his family and his associates to legal troubles that go beyond election-year collusion with the Russians.”
“It opens the door,” adds the report, “to revelations of any business-related malfeasance discovered during Mueller’s look at Trump’s business network.”
In an interview with the New York Times on July 19, Trump said if Mueller’s investigation goes beyond the specifics of possible Russian interference in the election, that would be a “violation” of the agreement under which he was named Special Counsel.
However, the actual
agreement written by Rod Rosenstein establishing the special counsel
investigation is quite broad. It says that he s authorized to
looking into any lines with Russia as well as “any matters that arose or may
arise directly from the investigation.”
Jack Blum, a former
Senate staff lawyer not a Washington attorney specializing in white collar
crime, told USA Today that Muller has to look at all kinds of financial
transactions to see if there is a flow of money, and figure out where it is
going and why.
Blum said, “real estate records and corporation records are likely to be of special interest to investigators, and likely would be more revealing than tax returns.”
Mueller is likely to
also go after Trump’s tax returns, which he has refused to make public. It
would require a court order in which the Special Counsel would have to show
cause (meaning he has something already and wants more) before the IRS would
release the returns, which could all be done in such a secretive way it is
unclear if even Trump would know when it happens.
“You can’t really tackle the broader problems of corruption or crime without also being able to follow the money and get at the financing of those activities,” Mark Hays, an investigator for the nonprofit watchdog group Global Witness, told USA Today.
Real estate deals are
ripe for corruption because a lot of
the sales, especially to wealthy foreigners, can be made through corporate
shells that make it virtually impossible to know who is really buying the
property.
Many times, foreigners
are looking for a place to invest or park money gained from questionable
sources, launder ill-begotten gains or hide unreported income from that
person’s home country.
USA Today did an investigation
last month which showed 70 percent of Trump Organization real
estate sales since Donald Trump became president were done through shell
companies, compared to only four percent before he took office.
“The clear shift to those kinds of purchases,” reports USA Today, “which helps obscure the identities of the buyers, raise questions about the source of profits that ultimately flow to the President because he has not fully divested from his companies.”
John Tobon, deputy
special agent for the Department of Homeland Security in Miami told USA Today
that luxury real estate sellers who do not screen buyers closely can be charged
with a crime, even if they can plead ignorance of the source of the money.
“The law of conspiracy reaches pretty far and every person in the conspiracy doesn’t necessarily have to be clued in to all the details,” explained Tobon, speaking about money laundering in general. “So legally you’re exposed in these transactions if you don’t take that extra step of asking who is the person behind (the shell company).”
Trump’s companies have been caught up in similar conspiracy cases. In the
1990s the Treasury Department fined Trump’s company for not reporting gamblers
who cashed out more than $10,000 in one day. The reporting is how the
government seeks to prevent money laundering.
Once Mueller and his
team get into these records, there are all kinds of ancillary records relating
to financing, mortgages, movement of money and more that can also provide them
information to establish patterns which indicate a crime was committed.
So while Trump’s big problem is the threat of being caught colluding with
Russia over the election, this case can end up moving far beyond that into
areas where other kinds of financial crimes can be found and prosecuted.
Remember, when the
U.S. government went after bootlegger Al Capone in the 1930s, they were not
able to prosecute him for making and selling alcohol illegally. They took him
down for violations of the federal tax laws.
Trump isn’t as obvious
a gangster as Capone was, but his company operates on a global scale involving
billions of dollars and under a microscope it is highly likely things will be
unearthed which violate some laws.
No wonder Trump is
rumored to want to fire his loyal retainer Jeff Sessions so he can appoint a
new Attorney General who will not recuse himself and will do his bidding to
find a way to quash or limit the Special Counsel’s investigation.
If Trump does that,
there would be a huge
outcry from people on both sides of the political divide, and
that could even lead to charges in a future impeachment case.
Trump isn’t there yet,
but Mueller is working hard, and there is still a lot to find out.
BENJAMIN
LOCKE IS A RETIRED COLLEGE PROFESSOR WITH AN UNDERGRADUATE DEGREE IN
INDUSTRIAL LABOR AND RELATIONS FROM CORNELL UNIVERSITY AND AN MBA FROM THE
EUROPEAN SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT.