You Will Anyway: Trump's lawyers are awfully quiet

Saturday, July 28, 2018

Trump's lawyers are awfully quiet

Except for Rudy, of course. And Rudy is standing in as deep shit as Trump is. Rudy, however, has more to lose. He's not president. He may get a pardon, but only for federal charges. And only if Trump is still president when he goes on trial. This is all in a world that finally rights itself, of course, and we have no guarantee that's going to happen in our lifetimes.

On Thursday, a court in Kazakhstan launched preliminary hearings of a corruption case against the former mayor of the Kazakh city of Almaty, Viktor Khrapunov, and his wife Leila Khrapunova, a couple with deep ties to the Trump Organization.

The former mayor and his wife have been accused of a wide array of crimes, including money laundering embezzlement, abuse of office, fraud and the creation of an organized crime group. They are currently living in Switzerland, but are being tried in absentia. The couple claims that the charges against them are politically motivated.

Reports and court documents have demonstrated that the couple has deep ties to Trump associates, including Trump’s current lawyer, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and former Trump adviser Felix Sater. They have also been accused of using purchases in a Manhattan Trump tower to launder stolen money.

[...]

Giuliani’s former law firm, Bracewell & Giuliani, opened an office in Kazakhstan in 2007, the same year the pair moved to Switzerland. The law firm was allegedly used to raise funds for Guliani’s 2008 run for president.

Newsweek

An office in Kazakstan. Is that a bit unusual for a US law firm?

The couple’s son Ilyas Khrapunov is wanted in Ukraine for allegedly orchestrating a hack of the computer systems of a law firm representing the Kazakh bank BTA Bank. The bank’s former chairman, Mukhtar Ablyazov, who is also Olyas Khrapunov’s father-in-law, has been accused by his former employer of embezzling billions of dollars of assets.

[...]

It is unclear if Trump or his associates knew about the origins of the funds when the purchases of the Trump tower condo were made.

Perhaps not specifically. But Trump and his associates knew the kinds of people they were entangled with, and these are the kinds of people who were pointed toward Trump's buildings because of their nefarious dealings. These are the people the likes of whom the Trump cabal - which includes Rudy - have been involved with for years. I have a feeling we'll find lots more stories like this when Mueller is done.

This wouldn’t have been the first time, however, that BTA Bank funds were directed toward Trump-affiliated projects.

Indeed not.

In 2005, the bank set up a fund to assist development projects in the country of Georgia, including a planned Trump hotel that was never built.

Wonder what happened to that money?

Also, speaking of Rudy, he's got no cover now for the bullshit he's spinning.

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

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"What we have is a foreign policy which is essentially a marketing strategy for selling weapons." -- Jill Stein

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"America: just a nation of two hundred million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable." ~ Hunter S. Thompson

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Life, as Explained in "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead"

GUILDENSTERN: What a fine persecution---to be kept intrigued without ever quite being enlightened.

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ROSENCRANTZ : The only thing that makes it bearable is the irrational belief that somebody interesting will come on in a minute.

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GUILDENSTERN: But for God's sake what are we supposed to do?!

PLAYER: Relax. Respond. That's what people do. You can't go through life questioning your situation at every turn.

GUILDENSTERN: But we don't know what's going on, or what to do with ourselves. We don't know how to act.

PLAYER: Act natural. You know why you're here at least.

GUILDENSTERN: We only know what we're told, and that's little enough. And for all we know it isn't even true.

PLAYER: For all anyone knows, nothing is. Everything has to be taken on trust; truth is only that which is taken to be true. It's the currency of living. There may be nothing behind it, but it doesn't make any difference so long as it is honoured. One acts on assumptions.

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GUILDENSTERN : We act on scraps of information... sifting half-remembered directions that we can hardly separate from instinct.

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PLAYER: Life is a gamble, at terrible odds-if it was a bet you wouldn't take it.