Will I watch the debate between Trump and Biden tonight or not? I am torn. Part of me wants to watch it but every time Trump starts to speak, I just get an adverse visceral reaction in my stomach. I do have a large supply of Tums so perhaps I’ll risk it!
The airwaves and print news yesterday were alive with stories of Trump’s tax returns. A lot of the focus has been on the many years he paid no tax and the first two years of his presidency when he paid $750 in Federal income tax. While that is certainly disturbing, I don’t think that is the biggest issue. The fact that he has loans coming due within the next four years in the neighborhood of $400 million is a much more troubling issue.
That could very well be a huge national security risk. It has been reported and I’ve certainly seen in the books I’ve read that Trump has had trouble getting loans from American banks because, after his six bankruptcies, he was viewed as too big a risk. So, if these loans are not held by American banks and they are held by foreign entities, the big question is who?
One of Trump’s ‘go to’ banks after he had trouble with American banks was Deutsche Bank, based in Germany. Deutsche Bank has had it’s share of troubles and has been accused of some nefarious actions like being involved in Russian money laundering. Does Deutsche Bank hold these notes? Do they have leverage over Trump?
In the past, when some were questioning the Trump’s access to money, Eric Trump discussed their access to Russian money. “So, when I got in the cart with Eric,” Dodson says, “as we were setting off, I said, ‘Eric, who’s funding? I know no banks—because of the recession, the Great Recession—have touched a golf course. You know, no one’s funding any kind of golf construction. It’s dead in the water the last four or five years.’ And this is what he said. He said, ‘Well, we don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.’ I said, ‘Really?’ And he said, ‘Oh, yeah. We’ve got some guys that really, really love golf, and they’re really invested in our programs. We just go there all the time.’ Now that was three years ago, so it was pretty interesting.”1 Do some Russians hold these notes? (That’s a really scary thought but could explain a lot about Trump’s actions with regard to Russia.)
It really doesn’t matter who holds the notes. One of the first things looked at when deciding whether or not to grant security clearances to people is their finances. If someone is in a precarious financial situation, it would be a huge red flag to the authorities processing a security clearance. As I have stated in these posts before, the counter espionage folks use the acronym, MICE: Money, Ideology, Compromise, Ego as a way to describe people who might be motivated to commit crimes against the US. Money is always a big one. I would venture a guess that if Trump were to go through the normal security clearance process, given this information, he would never receive a Top Secret clearance, let along the additional accesses he has to the most sensitive intelligence information this country has.
If Trump owes a huge amount of money to one or more foreign entities, he is subject to being compromised or leveraged. Further, it is hard to imagine that he would be able to divorce his personal interests from the interests of the United States with that much debt hanging over his head. This is a very dangerous position for any government person who is granted a security clearance and has access to very sensitive information to be in, let alone the President of the United States.
Trump’s desire to avoid paying taxes is right out of Fred Trump’s (Donald Trump’s father) playbook. “Though Fred’s business was built on the back of government financing, he loathed paying taxes and would do anything to avoid doing so.”2 Like they say, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Additionally, the fact that Trump wrote off $26 million in ‘consulting fees’ over a period of years including $750,000 to his own daughter, Ivanka, while she was simultaneously employed by the same company that was paying the consulting fees is hysterical in light of all of the grief Trump has given Joe Biden about his son, Hunter. And the only reason the NYT was able to piece together that the consulting fee went to Ivanka is because it matched up with the disclosure statement that she needed to file because she is working (albeit unpaid) for the government.
Donald Jr. and Eric are not working for the government so they wouldn’t have to file disclosure statements. Anyone want to bet that some of the $26 million written off in consulting fees went to them as well? It wouldn’t surprise me in the least. This is also a play right out of Fred Trump’s playbook. He did similar things with his kids for the sole purpose of reducing his taxes. If I were Ivanka, Eric or Donald Jr. I’d be quaking in my shoes. I think the entire Trump clan is skating on really thin ice right now. President Trump may be able to pardon his kids for Federal crimes but he can’t do a damned thing about state crimes. I predict the Manhattan DA is going to have a heyday! And first up to bat is Eric Trump. He is being compelled by the court to give a deposition to the New York State AG within the next two weeks. That should be amusing. I wonder if he understands the penalties for perjury? Or perhaps, pathological lying is just a genetic trait. We’ll see how this all works out. I’m sure it will just be another sordid moment in this ongoing Trump ‘spectacle de merde.’ (It sounds so much nicer in French!)
The thing that scares the hell out of me now is that Trump is really under the gun. He knows that the only thing standing between him and an indictment is his ability to get reelected. I felt like he was desperate before but with the disclosure of this financial info in the NYT, he has to be feeling really cornered. You know what they say about cornered animals. I would not put anything past him to try to win or steal this election regardless of the consequences or the collateral damage done along the way.
It will be interesting (and probably depressing) to see what kind of pretzels his Republican Congressional supporters will twist themselves into to try to support and defend Trump in light of all of this info. When the infamous ‘smoking gun’ tape was released in the Watergate saga, enough Republicans finally saw that defending Nixon was a losing proposition and withdrew their support, leading to Nixon’s resignation. I wonder, in the current situation, how far Trump has to go before enough Republicans will similarly find their spines, finally put their country before Trump, and hold this man accountable. [Given the Republican track record over the last four years, I am not hopeful.]
We’re all familiar with the tale of Rumpelstiltskin who spun straw into gold. We, unfortunately, have President Trumpelstiltskin who spins gold into straw, turns truth into lies, and makes America the laughing stock of the world – a ‘Grimm’ fairytale that we have all had to live with far too long. It’s time for a new story.
- https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/05/eric-trump-russia-investment-golf-course
- Too Much and Never Enough, Mary L. Trump, Ph.D., Simon and Schuster, 2020
Trump should have been removed from office at the very beginning of his Presidency. I believe he never had a real background check. William Bell, a Hughes employee, who had financial difficulties, was charged with espionage and is facing a life sentence. In our security briefings it was mentioned that delinquent debt is a big factor of having your security clearance removed. Trump with his 300 billion dollars in debt and some of that debt comes from foreign loans puts him in a serious compromising position and is probably the biggest security risk our country ever had.