Could Russia Have Used Donald Trump's Business Problems to Recruit Him?

Recent news stories report that President Donald Trump didn't pay any income taxes in 10 of the 15 years starting with 2000. He reportedly paid only $750 in income taxes in each of 2016 and 2017. (See, e.g., https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/28/politics/donald-trump-taxes-election-2020-joe-biden-debate/index.html.) He supposedly took massive write-offs on his tax returns for business expenses and losses to avoid taxes on hundreds of millions of dollars of income.  These reports, if accurate, raise crucially important questions about whether Trump is the successful businessman he claims to be.  More chillingly, these reports raise questions about whether his business problems gave Russia leverage to recruit him as an agent.

When recruiting spies, intelligence services look for weaknesses.  One potentially useful weakness is financial need or financial stress.  A man with business problems is a possible target.  Could Russia have used Trump's business problems to recruit him as an agent?  Trump may be financially connected to Russia or Russians through Deutsche Bank, which has been a major lender to Trump and his companies. See https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/28/business/deutsche-bank-trump.html.  While no firm connection between Trump and Russia or Russians through Deutsche Bank has been established, Deutsche Bank has confirmed it has some of Trump's tax returns. See https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/trump-tax-returns-deutsche-bank-relationship-drawing-intense-scrutiny-2019-8-1028482268?op=1#.   So Deutsche Bank may well have known about Trump's massive tax write-offs.  Whether or not Russia knew about Trump's write-offs, it may have known that he needed funding.  U.S. intelligence has said that Russia sought to help Trump get elected in 2016 and is working to get him re-elected this year. What greater intelligence coup could there be than to have one's agent elected the national leader of an adversarial nation? 

So we have to ask whether Trump's business problems gave Russia an opening to recruit him.  The FBI may have been looking into this question, but the fate of its investigation seems to be clouded. See https://www.salon.com/2020/02/18/doj-appears-to-have-abandoned-possible-deutsche-bank-case-involving-russian-money-laundering-scandal_partner/.  Trump has been highly critical of the FBI and his Department of Justice is investigating the FBI's handling of the 2016 Russian interference in the Presidential election and also its investigation into the Clinton Foundation. See https://www.foxnews.com/politics/durham-assumed-parts-of-john-hubers-clinton-foundation-review-source. Is Trump trying to cow the FBI into avoiding a thorough investigation of his links with Russia and Russians?  

America deserves a complete investigation of Trump and his links to Russia and Russians.  That seems unlikely today, with Trump seemingly attempting to strip professionalism from the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI.  In the meantime, Americans can express their views of all this in the upcoming election.  Will America be truly secure with such a potentially vulnerable man in the White House?  

Will Russia Blackmail Mark Zuckerberg?

The news media has been running many stories lately about calls for the U.S. government to break up Facebook.  One idea is to separate Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, all of which are owned by Facebook and all of which are controlled by Mark Zuckerberg.  These three websites together dominate social media, and advocates of a breakup express concern about monopolization, and also the potential impact on freedom of speech of having so much of the social media business under a single corporate roof.  Indeed, it's not just a concern about a single corporate holding company.  We're talking about one guy--Mark Zuckerberg--who controls all three of these dominant sites.  Zuckerberg arranged to have himself given supervoting shares of Facebook when the company went public.  So he single-handedly controls everything at these three companies even though he has taken a lot of money from public investors.

Special Robert Mueller indicted a bunch of Russians and Russian companies for interfering with the 2016 election, and his redacted report discusses this problem in some detail.  U.S. intelligence agencies are supposedly combating Russian efforts to muck around in the 2020 election.  Only time will tell how effective the countermeasures are.  We may get a preview from the European Parliament election taking place later this month, which Russia is reportedly trying to influence.

But there's a simpler strategy for Vladimir Putin:  blackmail Mark Zuckerberg.  After all, Zuckerberg controls the whole shebang, and if you control him, you're in a sweet spot.  Zuckerberg is human like the rest of us, and all Putin and his henchmen need to do is find out what his weaknesses are.  This surely has already occurred to them, and they no doubt are nosing around in Zuckerberg's past as much as they can.  They'll try to tally every beer he drank before turning 21, and everything he may have smoked or snorted.  They no doubt will be pro-active, which is an integral part of Russian spycraft.  Pro-activity in this regard could mean things like ensuring that Zuckerberg has the opportunity to meet very attractive, friendly and easy-going women wherever he is, and only later might he find out that they had tiny cameras.  If Putin succeeds in getting a pee tape or its equivalent featuring Zuckerberg, Mark will be in a bad place.

U.S. antitrust law doesn't provide that a company can be broken up because its CEO is subject to blackmail by a foreign nation.  But there seem to be good arguments for contending that Facebook satisfies the legal requirements for splitting it up.  And the distinct possibility that a hostile foreign nation would want to blackmail Zuckerberg provides additional reason to be concerned about allowing today's monolithic Facebook to keep lumbering along. 

There may be some who would suggest that Putin already controls the U.S. government, and would through his proxy (you know who) stop the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission from taking action to break up Facebook.  Whether or not this is true, Putin would want to blackmail Zuckerberg if he can.  The government--at least those parts of the government that still adhere to their oaths to support and defend the Constitution--should do whatever is possible to stop this from happening.  The rest of us may want to consider taking a break from Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

The Most Chilling Thing Michael Cohen Said About Donald Trump

Today, President Trump's former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, testified before Congress about his decade or more of dealing with Trump.  Cohen's testimony indicated Trump may have suborned perjury, violated campaign finance laws, conspired with Russians to undermine the Presidential election of 2016 and even possibly violated the draft laws of the 1960s in order to avoid service in the Vietnam War (which would have been a crime).  All of these could be serious offenses, although the draft violation, if there were one, would no longer be prosecuted today. 

But the most chilling thing that Cohen said was, "Given my experience working for President Trump, I fear that if he loses the election in 2020 that there will never be a peaceful transition of power."  See https://www.thedailybeast.com/cohen-if-trump-loses-in-2020-i-fear-there-will-never-be-a-peaceful-transition-of-power?ref=home.  It's one thing to have a criminal in the White House.  That, although very, very bad, has by all accounts happened before and America survived the experience.  But a felonious dictator is far worse.  America established the tradition for modern democracies, with the key element that elected officials step down when their terms are over.  Indeed, this is what most distinguishes America from the monarchies that preceded it.  The first President, George Washington, could easily have been crowned monarch of the United States had he wanted it.  But he did America perhaps his greatest service by stepping down at the end of his second term and retiring quietly to Mount Vernon.  That, more than anything, is the bedrock of democracy that makes America great.

Would Trump attempt a coup d'etat if he lost the 2020 election?  Michael Cohen, as Trump's personal attorney for about a decade, knows Trump better than almost anyone.  Having already pled guilty to perjury before Congress in 2017, he has little reason now to lie, as he knows the cost of perjury.  And Trump's well-publicized affinity for despots (think Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, Xi Jinping, and the rulers of Saudi Arabia) ominously buttresses Cohen's assertion.  There is no procedure written into the Constitution for fending off a tyrant (who by definition would refuse to honor an impeachment proceeding).  Neither Congress nor the federal courts have the means to remove an autocrat who might flaunt the law in order to stay in power.  But Americans have dealt with tyrants before.  These were ordinary Americans, many of whom assembled quietly in the early hours of April 19, 1775 in Lexington and Concord to await the tyrant's redcoated soldiers.  And these farmers, tradesmen and other civilians were victorious.  In America, right makes might.  While we can hope that if Donald Trump tries unlawfully to seize power we don't need to take up musket, powder and shot, we must remember that the greatest defense against oppression and subjugation is the righteousness of a democratic citizenry. 

Donald Trump's Great Weakness

Under pressure from President Trump, Attorney General Jeff Sessions just fired former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.  On the heels of this announcement, Trump's attorney, John Dowd, called on the Justice Department's Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein, to close Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Donald Trump's potential collusion with Russia during and after the 2016 Presidential campaign.  (See https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/17/politics/john-dowd-mueller-russia-investigation/index.html.)  This seemingly heavy-handed announcement could be read to imply that if Rosenstein doesn't close the investigation, he'll be fired. 

But so what?  What if Trump fires Rosenstein, and later engineers the firing of Mueller?  Rosenstein and Mueller could easily become martyrs in the eyes of large numbers of people, and end up making big money at prestigious law firms.  They might also get lucrative book deals and become featured commentators on network television.  Look at what happened when Trump fired FBI Director James Comey:  Comey got a multi-million dollar book deal and a position teaching law (which probably would give him time to write the book). 

But what would happen to Trump if he fired Rosenstein and Mueller?  He would look like a demagogue trying to undermine the rule of law.  He could easily trigger a constitutional crisis, in which there would be considerable pressure on members of his own party to impeach him.  If the Republicans in Congress failed to impeach Trump, they would look weak and ineffectual--just as they usually appear.  Thus weakened, their ability to deliver further on the Republican agenda would diminish.  Trump and his Republican cohorts in Congress would end up flailing around futilely even more than they do now.

Donald Trump's great weakness is he doesn't understand people like Rosenstein and Mueller.  They proceed on the basis of law, truth, principle and integrity.  These concepts are utterly foreign to Trump, who seems to believe that he can use money to solve any problem he has (although the Stormy Daniels contract doesn't seem to be working out so well).  Trump can't effectively deal with Mueller's investigation because he doesn't even begin to understand the rules--in this case, the rule of law.  He threatens, like a fascist dictator, to fire anyone who gets in his way.  But in a nation of law, as America is, Trump can't win because he doesn't want to comply with the law.   He's like a player in a basketball game who wants to move the ball without dribbling and tackle opposing players without being called for a foul.  That's not the way to win the game, and Trump won't win, either.