The five Donald Trump – Russia scandal plotlines playing out behind closed doors
Every few days yet another leak, revelation, or accusation surfaces in public in relation to the scandal between Donald Trump and Russia. Some of these leaks, despite being reliable and important nuggets of information, seem to fade right back into the ether. But that’s only because we don’t know how they’re being pursued behind closed doors. Here are the top five Trump-Russia plotlines that are still surely playing out in private, despite having only made a brief blip in the public eye.
5. Michael Flynn lied to the FBI: Lying to your boss might get you fired. But lying to FBI agents is a different matter. It’s a felony, and it’s one that’s always either prosecuted or used as leverage to get the guilty party to cooperate. We know that Flynn lied to the FBI. We just don’t know how that’s being used to advance the investigation. And we won’t know until it delivers something concrete.
2. Putin, Sater, Cohen, Artemenko, and Ukrainian blackmail: It’s a story so secretive and far fetched, and so far out of any understandable context, that it reads like a random page ripped from a bad spy novel. And yet the New York Times is reporting that these men were all involved in a plot two weeks ago to try to convince Donald Trump to overthrow the president of the Ukraine. Everyone involved is now surely under FBI investigation in an attempt to connect the dots from Putin to Trump.
3. Michael Flynn’s Russian payoff: It’s long been known that Flynn sat next to Vladimir Putin at a Moscow dinner, shortly before Flynn went to work for the Trump campaign. But only this week did the New York Daily News confirm that Putin paid Flynn $40,000 to be there. That’s illegal, and it’s another piece of legal leverage the FBI and others can use (and surely are using) to try to get Flynn to crack.
2. James Comey and the Senate basement: The Senate Intelligence Committee held an urgent secret meeting with the FBI Director on Friday afternoon in a secure room in the Senate basement. Since that meeting, the Democrats on the committee have ceased publicly complaining about the slowness of the investigation, and one Republican on the committee has now switched sides in the name of going squarely after Trump over Russia. But we still don’t know what specific revelation about Trump-Russia caused the committee to suddenly change course on Friday.
1. Trump’s Russian front companies: On Sunday it was revealed by Reuters that the FBI field office in Washington DC is investigating front companies and middlemen allegedly used by Donald Trump and Russia to secretly conduct financial business with each other. We haven’t heard a peep about it since – but that ongoing investigation may be the one that blows the whole thing open. Contribute to Palmer Report
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