Maybe Trump will actually read a book

Donald Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon has described the Trump Tower meeting between the president’s son and a group of Russians during the 2016 election campaign as “treasonous” and “unpatriotic”, according to an explosive new book [Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House] seen by the Guardian.

Bannon, speaking to author Michael Wolff, warned that the investigation into alleged collusion with the Kremlin will focus on money laundering and predicted: “They’re going to crack Don Junior like an egg on national TV.”

  Guardian

I've always thought it would be moneylaundering, too, but I also think now that there will indeed be at least some people who get nailed for helping Russia interfere with the election.

[The book] will be published next week. Wolff is a prominent media critic and columnist who has written for the Guardian and is a biographer of Rupert Murdoch.

[...]

[Wolff] told the Guardian in November that to research the book, he showed up at the White House with no agenda but wanting to “find out what the insiders were really thinking and feeling”. He enjoyed extraordinary access to Trump and senior officials and advisers, he said, sometimes at critical moments of the fledgling presidency.

[...]

[He] lifts the lid on a White House lurching from crisis to crisis amid internecine warfare, with even some of Trump’s closest allies expressing contempt for him.

That book is going to set a world record for sales, isn't it?

Bannon, who was chief executive of the Trump campaign in its final three months, [...] is a central figure in the nasty, cutthroat drama, quoted extensively, often in salty language.

He is particularly scathing about a June 2016 meeting involving Trump’s son Donald Jr, son-in-law Jared Kushner, then campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya at Trump Tower in New York.

[...]

Wolff writes, Bannon remarked mockingly: “The three senior guys in the campaign thought it was a good idea to meet with a foreign government inside Trump Tower in the conference room on the 25th floor – with no lawyers. They didn’t have any lawyers.

“Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad shit, and I happen to think it’s all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately.”

Why would they, though? And, Bannon himself, given his position in the campaign and following in the White House might have known about some of these things, his contrary relationship with Kushner notwithstanding. And if he did, he's in trouble, too. Or else he's also cooperating with Mueller. Kushner must be shitting his britches these days. If he's not so arrogant he thinks his relationship with Trump will land him a get out of jail free card.  Which it might, I suppose.  Until it comes to state crimes involving his businesses.  As I understand it, Trump can only pardon federal crimes.

“You realise where this is going,” [Bannon] is quoted as saying. “This is all about money laundering. Mueller chose [senior prosecutor Andrew] Weissmann first and he is a money-laundering guy. Their path to fucking Trump goes right through Paul Manafort, Don Jr and Jared Kushner … It’s as plain as a hair on your face.”

[...]

“It goes through Deutsche Bank and all the Kushner shit. The Kushner shit is greasy. They’re going to go right through that. They’re going to roll those two guys up and say play me or trade me.”

[...]

The rancour between Bannon and “Javanka” – Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump – is a recurring theme of the book.

[...]

Trump is not spared. Wolff writes that Thomas Barrack Jr, a billionaire who is one of the president’s oldest associates, allegedly told a friend: “He’s not only crazy, he’s stupid.”

I think we're all aware of that now, but do you think Barrack will deny he said it?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway. UPDATE:

Both Walsh, and Trump’s longtime pal Tom Barrack (quoted as calling Trump “crazy” and “stupid”), both claimed they were quoted inaccurately.

  The Daily Beast