Donald Trump unwittingly tips off that he thinks his criminal financial ties to Russia are about to surface
Donald Trump has a consistent history of tipping off that a major bombshell is about to surface in his Trump-Russia scandal. When he thinks it’s about to happen, he launches into a Twitter rant in which he either denies the scandal in oddly specific fashion, or he accuses someone else of doing whatever he’s about to be exposed as having done. In a bizarre tweet on Thursday evening, Trump just tipped off that something about his financial crimes is about to hit the newswires.
During a Twitter meltdown on Thursday, Donald Trump accused Hillary Clinton of “money laundering” without bothering to provide any coherent basis for his claim. Trump has long had a consistent habit of accusing Clinton of whatever crimes he’s committing himself. He preemptively accused her of rigging the election to try to cover for the fact that his own campaign was conspiring with Russia to rig the election. When Trump was accused of being high on cocaine during a debate, he demanded that Clinton take a drug test. This time around, we all know what this is about.
Trump’s campaign chairman Paul Manafort was arrested on Monday on a dozen criminal charges, including money laundering. On Wednesday, additional court documents were released which revealed that Manafort’s money laundering was deeply tied to Russia. Manafort and Trump have long had overlapping finances (Manafort owns an apartment in Trump’s building among other things). The investigation into Manafort’s Russia-connected money laundering is likely to end up exposing Trump’s own Russian-connected money laundering, and Trump knows it. But there may be more to this than we know.
When Donald Trump goes on these kinds of accusatory and oddly specific Twitter rants, it’s usually because a major news outlet has called his White House for advance comment on a bombshell story it’s about to publish. So it’s possible that Trump isn’t merely acting out because he fears that the criminal investigation into Manafort’s money laundering will expose his own money laundering. He may have been tipped off that the media already has the details. In any case, he thinks it’s coming soon.
