Preet Bharara’s New York replacement Joon Kim is also going hard after Russian money laundering
Donald Trump keeps firing people to try to make the investigation into his Russia scandal go away, and it just keeps finding a way to backfire. First it was Sally Yates, who came back to testify against him. Now it’s James Comey. Somewhere in there Trump fired Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney for Trump’s home district in New York. But now Bharara’s replacement, acting U.S. Attorney Joon Kim, is going hard after Russian money laundering as well.
The official Twitter account for the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York posted the following this evening: “Acting USAtty Kim: We will not allow the US financial system to be used to launder proceeds of crimes committed anywhere-here or in Russia” (link). Kim inherited the position on an acting basis by default when Donald Trump summarily fired Bhahara and dozens of other U.S. Attorneys.
It’s long been suspected that all of the firings were an attempt at cover for getting rid of Bharara, who was pursuing a number of cases in New York which were antithetical to Trump’s interests. But now that Trump has failed to bother installing anyone in Bharara’s place, it turns out one of his underlings is stepping up and going after Russian money laundering in his place. It’s suspected, though not substantiated, that the money Deutsche Bank has loaned to Trump is the same money that Deutsche Bank has admitted to have laundered from Russia into New York.
This comes nearly simultaneous to this evening’s news that New York State and New York City are going after Paul Manafort’s finances in an attempt at getting to Donald Trump (link), and today’s news that the Treasury Department’s financial crimes unit is turning over evidence of Trump’s past money laundering at Taj Mahal to the Senate Intel Committee (link). It’s not yet clear how closely related these various actions are, but it is clear that they’re all following the Russian money. Help fund Palmer Report
