Will we ever know?

Are the following stories reported in the first couple of days this month mere coincidences, or no?

Story #1:

AMONG THE PROPERTY in the Aug. 8 raid of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property, the FBI listed 48 folders labeled “CLASSIFIED” and 42 folders labeled “return to staff secretary/military aide” that were empty.

  Rolling Stone

Emphasis mine.

Story #2:

U.S. federal agents on Thursday simultaneously searched properties in Manhattan, a posh Hamptons beach community, and an exclusive Miami island that have been linked to a billionaire Russian oligarch whose US$120 million yacht was seized in April.

[...]

Dozens of federal agents could be seen carrying boxes out of the Park Avenue property.

FBI agents and Homeland Security Investigations personnel searched the properties, linked to Viktor Vekselberg, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

[...]

All the properties searched Thursday are owned by Vekselberg's childhood friend Vladimir Voronchenko or companies tied to Voronchenko's family and associates.

[...]

Two are owned by The Medallion Inc., a Panama-registered company that lists Voronchenko's wife, Olesya Kharlamova, as a director.

  CTV

Hmmmm. Panama. Where have I heard anything about Panama recently?

Vekselberg is also connected to Trump through Michael Cohen. In addition, Mueller interviewed Vekselberg during the first Trump impeachment, so DOJ already has a lot of background on the connection between the two men. If these new stories are connected, and if some of the docs missing from MAL are found in Vekselberg's possession, I could see Trump trying to make a deal not to ever run for office again if he is given a pass and the truth buried.  And, if all that happens, I hope to fuck they don't make any deals with him other than a secure prison cell and a gag order.

Trump didn't have to hand any documents to anyone personally to be complicit in crimes against national security.  He didn't even have to choose which documents might be useful to whom.  All he had to do was have all the documents stored in unlocked boxes in unsecured locations, which is exactly the case.  Easy to do even for someone as incompetent as he.

Also, we can work Mitch McConnell into the periphery of all this if we wish.

And here.

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

Sarah Kendzior is right

It's an international crime syndicate running the world.

A charity run by Prince Charles received donations from an offshore company that was used to funnel vast amounts of cash from Russia in a scheme that is under investigation by prosecutors, the Guardian can reveal.

Money flowing through the network included cash that can be linked to some of the most notorious frauds committed during Vladimir Putin’s presidency.

In all, it is estimated that $4.6bn (£3.5bn) was sent to Europe and the US from a Russian-operated network of 70 offshore companies with accounts in Lithuania.

The details have emerged from 1.3m banking transactions obtained by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project and the Lithuanian website 15min.lt.

[...]

There is no suggestion that end recipients of funds were aware of the original source of the money, which arrived via a disguised route. However, the documents indicate that criminal and legitimate money may have been mixed together, making it impossible to trace the original source, before passing through screen companies into the global banking system.

“This is the pipe through which the proceeds of kleptocracy flow from Russia to the west,” said the anti-corruption campaigner Bill Browder.

[...]

The leak focuses on Troika Dialog, a leading Russian investment bank now merged with the country’s biggest high street bank. Emails reveal how certain managers at Troika kept money flowing through the pipeline for more than eight years, starting in 2004.

  The Guardian

In case you missed it, here's Gaslit Nation discussing how Brexit was connected to the Russians who are implicated in Trump's 2016 win.

The cash was then used legally to pay for private jets, custom-built yachts, luxury properties, holidays, football tickets and fees at top English private schools.

[...]

[M]oney went towards the rescue of Dumfries House, a stately home in Ayrshire with a priceless collection of Chippendale furniture. In 2007, the mansion and its collection were set to be auctioned off to private buyers. Charles came to the rescue, raising £45m at breakneck speed to save the property for the nation.

But the venture left his foundation in debt, and in his efforts to plug the hole, the heir to the throne went on a fundraising drive. Vardanyan raised a further £1.5m, from a group of Russian businessmen, and the prince thanked them with a black-tie dinner in 2014.

[...]

Two more cases suggest criminal funds flowed through the network: Companies named in the prosecution of a fuel price fixing scam at Moscow’s state-owned Sheremetyevo airport appear to have paid $37m into the Troika network.

A further $17m in transfers connects Troika-managed companies to a Moscow resident accused of laundering 50bn roubles using schemes that helped businesses evade tax and send money abroad.

A key component of the scheme using Troika companies was a Lithuanian bank, Ukio, which was shut down by regulators in February 2013 after being declared insolvent.

The bank is under investigation by Lithuanian prosecutors tasked with investigating the laundering of the Magnitsky money.

[...]

Documents show money moved in and out of the bank in deals made by apparently fictitious businesses, tax haven-registered entities with no offices, no staff, and no presence online or in the world of commerce.

[...]

There appear to have been a number of others unwittingly caught up in the network. Troika-linked entities were used to pay for expenses that open a window into the world of the super-rich.

This will go quiet, right along with the Panama Papers.

But, here's some more info if you're interested:  What is the "Troika Laundromat"?

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

Criminal charges in "Panama Papers" case

Nearly three years after the publication of a massive leak of secret offshore shell-company documents known as the Panama Papers, U.S. prosecutors announced criminal charges Tuesday against four people, including a former top lawyer for Mossack Fonseca, the Panamanian firm that helped dictators, drug lords and the ultra-wealthy hide their cash.

Prosecutors in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York late Tuesday accused Ramses Owens, a longtime lawyer for Mossack Fonseca, of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit tax evasion and money laundering.

[...]

Also charged in the alleged conspiracy are German citizen Dirk Brauer, an investment adviser for Mossfon Asset Management, which worked closely with the parent law firm to invest and manage client money; Richard Gaffey, an American accountant based outside Boston; and Harald Joachim von der Goltz, a German citizen who formerly lived in the United States and paid taxes there.

[...]

In a news release, the U.S. Department of Justice said the four men “defrauded the U.S. government through a large scale, intercontinental money-laundering and wire-fraud scheme.”

[...]

Brauer, Gaffey and von der Goltz have all been arrested, authorities said. Owens remains at large.

  McClatchy

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

The other "Panama Papers"

Representatives of the hotel owners’ association formally sought to fire Trump’s management team Thursday by hand-delivering termination notices to them at the Trump International Hotel and Tower, according to a Panamanian legal complaint filed by Orestes Fintiklis, who controls 202 of the property’s 369 hotel units. Trump’s managers retreated behind the glass walls of an office where they were seen carrying files to an area where the sounds of a shredding machine could be heard, according to two witnesses aligned with the owners. The legal complaint also accused Trump’s team of improperly destroying documents.

The witnesses spoke on condition of anonymity over concerns they would be drawn into an expensive and protracted legal fight.

  AP

Practically guaranteed. It's the Trump way.

On Thursday, Fintiklis arrived at the property with management staff and lawyers intending to take over the hotel immediately. The Trump management team again refused to yield control of the property, and according to the legal complaint filed by Ithaca’s lawyers, refused to allow Fintiklis to check into any of his company’s 202 hotel rooms.

[...]

Elsewhere in the building, the hotel owners’ team and its allies were barred by Trump Hotel staff from entering the room containing the building’s closed-circuit TV system as well as key computer servers for the hotel and apartments that share the property. In response, they shut off power to the room — temporarily bringing down phone lines and internet connections within the building.

According to the legal complaint, Trump’s chief of security and six security guards “pushed and shouted at” Fintiklis when he came to deliver the termination notices. The complaint said the hotel employees then called the police.

[...]

The AP reported that the Trump management team ran off a group of Marriott executives who had been invited to tour the property amid a search for a replacement hotel operator.

[...]

The showdown is the newest low in a months-long fight over control of the property. Last August, Fintiklis’ Miami-based Ithaca Capital Partners bought the 202 units in a fire sale from the property’s struggling developer. As part of the deal, Trump Hotels sought and received some assurances that Ithaca would not seek to act against its interests as hotel manager.

Relations quickly soured amid abysmal hotel occupancy numbers and allegations by Ithaca and other hotel unit owners of financial mismanagement or misconduct.

Not the Trump organization! Who's gonna believe that?

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

Panama Papers

From the anonymous whistleblower who leaked the Panama Papers:

In the meantime, I call on the European Commission, the British Parliament, the United States Congress, and all nations to take swift action not only to protect whistleblowers, but to put an end to the global abuse of corporate registers. In the European Union, every member state’s corporate register should be freely accessible, with detailed data plainly available on ultimate beneficial owners.

[...]

It is an open secret that in the United States, elected representatives spend the majority of their time fundraising. Tax evasion cannot possibly be fixed while elected officials are pleading for money from the very elites who have the strongest incentives to avoid taxes relative to any other segment of the population. These unsavoury political practices have come full circle and they are irreconcilable. Reform of America’s broken campaign finance system cannot wait.   

Oh, but it will.

Legitimate whistleblowers who expose unquestionable wrongdoing, whether insiders or outsiders, deserve immunity from government retribution, full stop.

Not gonna happen.

In the meantime, I call on the European Commission, the British Parliament, the United States Congress, and all nations to take swift action not only to protect whistleblowers, but to put an end to the global abuse of corporate registers.

Won't happen.

The United Kingdom can be proud of its domestic initiatives thus far, but it still has a vital role to play by ending financial secrecy on its various island territories, which are unquestionably the cornerstone of institutional corruption worldwide.

Nope. Not happening.

The collective impact of these failures [legal,judicial, media, financial] has been a complete erosion of ethical standards, ultimately leading to a novel system we still call Capitalism, but which is tantamount to economic slavery. In this system—our system—the slaves are unaware both of their status and of their masters, who exist in a world apart where the intangible shackles are carefully hidden amongst reams of unreachable legalese. The horrific magnitude of detriment to the world should shock us all awake. But when it takes a whistleblower to sound the alarm, it is cause for even greater concern. It signals that democracy’s checks and balances have all failed, that the breakdown is systemic, and that severe instability could be just around the corner.

Already here?

Luckily, the Panama Papers leaker does not read this blog and will not be discouraged by the likes of YWA.

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

Shadow World

Per [the] official synopsis [of the documentary "Shadow World", based in part on the bestselling book by author, journalist and renowned global arms expert Andrew Feinstein]: "In this eye-popping montage of archival and news footage and interviews, Johan Grimonprez exposes the shadow world of the global arms trade, where corruption, lies, and greed drive covert relationships between politicians, industry executives, military and intelligence officials, and arms dealers. Their aim: to perpetuate war in order to generate more profit, no matter what the human cost." The film uses a bevy of interviews and insights from a number of sources, including whistleblowers, investigators, prosecutors, military and industry insiders. "Shadow World" promises to expose the real cost of war, and it's a shocking one.

[...]

"In working out the story with Andrew, I came to realize that corruption is not a dirty little side effect of the arms trade, but in fact its defining factor. Even more crucial is how it is entangled in driving foreign policy, and how it actually sets the stage for war...The business of war manipulates the media to cultivate an industry of fear, which in turn has created a reality defined by violence."

[...]

[Feinstein commented,] "The film unravels the extraordinary money laundering scheme at the heart of the world’s most corrupt arms deal, in which more than eight and a half billion dollars of bribes were paid, partly through the then venerable Riggs Bank of Washington DC. Pentagon insiders speak of the corruption inherent in the US defense system and how this economic motivation is sometimes a driver of war."

  IndieWire

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

Panama Papers Fallout: Britain PM Cameron in Trouble

Iceland's PM has stepped down after huge public protests in the streets.  I'm pretty sure Cameron won't (and so far, the protest is much smaller),  but let's see.

Live video stream

Story

The Panama Papers and the US 2016 Election

What makes this story particularly relevant is that it was partly predicted by Bernie Sanders when the Obama administration signed the Panama free trade agreement in 2011.

At the time, Sanders gave a prescient speech warning of the exact kind of scandal exposed by the Panama Papers. As Congress was debating the deal, Sanders said on the House floor: “Panama is a world leader when it comes to allowing wealthy Americans and large corporations to evade US taxes by stashing their cash in offshore tax havens. And the Panama free trade agreement would make this bad situation much worse.” (The speech is now going viral on Facebook.)

The Panama free trade agreement, of course, ended up being implemented, in large part due to strong support by Barack Obama and then secretary of state Hillary Clinton. As David Sirota has reported, the emails of a Clinton aide show that the State Department knew of the concerns that Panama would become even more of a tax haven that it already was but continued to push for the deal anyway.

[...]

The Justice Department is reportedly reviewing the leak for any potential leads.

  Guardian

Or any potential scandals that need to be hushed? Because...

As Vox’s Matt Yglesias wrote on Monday: “Incorporating your hedge fund in a country with no corporate income tax even though all your fund’s employees and investors live in the United States is perfectly legal. So is, in most cases, setting up a Panamanian shell company to own and manage most of your family’s fortune.”

[...]

In every election, there is vague talk of “closing” tax loopholes and ending offshore tax hideouts. Soon afterward, however, those issues are conveniently forgotten. This time it should be different – not least because there is a candidate campaigning to be president who warned of exactly this scenario.

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

I Don't Know How This Works

Iceland’s prime minister has resigned after questions were raised about his finances in the “Panama Papers” leaks, a member of the Icelandic government has said.

Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson is the first political figure to step down from office as a result of the scandal; he is expected, however, remain as leader of the Progressive Party.

  Newsweek

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