The Beginning of The End – Of All Things Trump (#254)

The Beginning of The End – Of All Things Trump

The long impregnable floodgates of accountability have suddenly opened, and Trump, who till recently seemed impervious to all challenges and charges to his glaring ubiquitous wrongdoings, and had thus earned the moniker the ‘Teflon Don’ after the seemingly untouchable Mafioso Boss, fellow New Yorker, John Gotti of the Gambino family, is now just as vulnerable and facing an ignoble end to an increasingly, publicly documented life of lies, deception and crime.

Donald Trump’s hereunto seeming invincibility is, by and large, over.

The persons who ripped the ‘Teflon’ off Trump, this most un-Presidential ‘Don’, were his closest supporters, advisers, aides, confidantes and friends – former National Security Adviser and General, Michael Flynn; Michael Cohen, his long term, loyal, most trusted personal legal counsel and ‘Consigliere’; his Deputy Campaign Manager Rick Gates; and a multitude of other advisers and aides that worked for or with Trump, in his businesses and more recently in his seemingly foreign collaborated, possibly crime ridden, 2016 Presidential Campaign.

Just as in the Mob prosecutions, Trump is going to be taken down by the confessions of his closest insiders as they try and mitigate their own accountability and punishment of long jail sentences, by ratting out the alleged ‘Crime Boss’ - in this case Donald J. Trump, the 45th President of the United States.

If the above sentence is not surreal enough, the worst may be still to come. It is now become increasingly clear that Trump’s campaign was deeply infected by Russian influence, and his surrogates were actively trying to solicit Russian government’s assistance in helping Trump to win, over Hillary Clinton.

In so doing, some of Trump’s key supporters and players were in close contact with a number of Russian operatives, both high ranking government officials like the Russian Ambassador to the U.S., and according to U.S. Intelligence Agencies top Russian Intelligence Head and recruiter in the Country, Sergei Kislyak, and a number of influential businessmen and oligarchs, with access to Vladimir Putin.

This more serious line of inquiry, being pursued by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his federal prosecutors, if proven, would not only lead to charges of active collusion between Trump’s campaign and the Russian government (a foreign adversarial government) but, could possibly lead to charges of treason against some of the most active surrogates in Trump’s campaign, if not Trump himself. Already, the threads of ongoing investigations are following the leads in that direction with Michael Flynn’s, Michael Cohen’s, Paul Manafort’s, Rick Gates, and others’ testimonies, under oath, as cooperating witnesses in Mueller’s Russia-Trump campaign investigation.  

Giving ever increasing credence to Robert Mueller’s investigation of possible Russian influence and collusion in America’s electoral process, are not only the confessions of multiple Trump campaign insiders, but also the startling guilty plea of self confessed Russian government agent, Maria Butina. A 30 years old, and in the U.S. as a student, now cooperating with U.S. prosecutors in an admission of engaging in a conspiracy against the United States, in ongoing effort to influence the highest echelon of the NRA (National Rifle Association) and influential conservatives in the United States, under the direction of the Russian government, with the active assistance of her boyfriend, an American Republican Activist, Paul Erickson.

Maria Butina and Erickson allegedly tried to establish secret ‘back channels’ of direct communications between top conservatives and the Kremlin. (Note: Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, at the time of Trump’s inauguration, at the Trump Tower offices of the ‘Trump Transition Team’, also made attempts in that direction, in a meeting with the then Russian Ambassador, Sergei Kislyak, to open direct lines of communication with the Kremlin, which were to bypass the U.S. Intelligence Agencies.)   

With the highest ranking conservatives and the top brass of the NRA, willingly cooperating with Maria Butina, and her ‘Russian handler’ Alexander Torshin, an ex-bank official with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, both of whom were in direct contact with Russian diplomats, agents and the Russian intelligence agencies, the influence of Russian government in the Trump campaign and the Conservative Party (the Republicans), is coming increasingly into focus.

Ominously for Trump, separate investigations, now gathering steam and almost daily disclosing damning evidence proving that Trump’s surrogates were actively in contact with multiple Russian parties to help influence the outcome of the 2016 Presidential Election in Trump’s favor, give Mueller corroborating evidence that his diligent investigation into Russian interference is not a ‘witch hunt’ as Trump would like everyone to believe, but a credible investigation into the extensive covert activities of a foreign adversarial power, Russia.

The extent of this foreign threat from Russia was further legitimized by the admission of Maria Butina, the Russian agent, and her handler Alexander Torshin, both of whom had infiltrated the highest levels of the conservatives in the NRA and the Republican Party, to participate in an active conspiracy undertaken by the master strategist Vladimir Putin, to influence U.S. and Russian relationship and policy under the incoming Trump administration. 

The eventual conclusions to these investigations do not bode well for Trump and his Presidency, and possibly for the NRA and the Republican Party (no wonder some of whom have been so keen to kill the Mueller investigation, along with Trump who tries daily to legitimize it, and bring a premature end to it).

But now, the bad news for Trump isn’t stopping there.

The confessions of Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer, friend, confidante, adviser, and ‘fixer’, have opened up a real Pandora’s Box, which directly threatens Trump, his business and family interests.

The raids by law enforcement authorities on Cohen’s offices, apartment, and hotel rooms, delivered to the investigators a treasure trove of direct evidence in the form of documents, e-mails, twitter accounts, and audio tapes that Cohen had recorded secretly of his conversations with his then boss Trump. Some of these tapes have Trump ‘on tape’ discussing transactions with Cohen which are probably fraudulent and illegal, such as the infamous ‘hush money’ payments.

Evidence given by Michael Cohen in his plea deal with the prosecutors in the various investigations, along with the seized materials from the raids, also implicated another of Trump’s long-term and trusted friend, David Pecker, Chairman & CEO of American Media Inc. (AMI), publisher of the notorious rag ‘The National Enquirer’, among many other publications.

David Pecker is now named as co-conspirator in the hushing-up of potentially damaging stories regarding Trump, by the method known as ‘catch and kill’, whereby women, or others, who had embarrassing stories to tell of Donald’s bad behaviour, would be offered money for selling their story to AMI, where the stories were ‘caught and killed’ and never saw the light of day. The potential story teller was given money and made to sign ‘Non-Disclosure Agreements’, thus ensuring their silence and protecting Trump’s public persona ahead of elections.  

Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal was one of those story tellers. The story of her alleged extramarital affair with Donald Trump was captured by David Pecker and AMI, and silenced through payment of monies (and other promises made to further her career) prior to the election voting day in 2016, making it potentially  illegal under ‘Campaign Finance Laws’, for which Trump is now in legal jeopardy.

David Pecker, finding himself ‘caught’ in the ever expanding net of the investigators, and from direct evidence from Cohen, has agreed to cooperate with the investigations in a ‘ no prosecution’ plea deal, and is now fully cooperating in giving evidence which is crucially corroborating Michael Cohen’s testimony against Trump as true, and Trump’s daily denials of it, as lies.

Most damningly, David Pecker has testified that ‘Individual-1’, largely considered to be Donald J. Trump, was in the room when the plan to ‘catch and kill’ McDougal’s story was hatched, thus making him a direct party to the conspiracy. 

David Pecker’s sell-out of his less than savoury friend the ‘Donald’ is a major blow to Trump, and his diminishing core group of supporters, who in an alarmingly growing number of cases are turning out to be ‘partners in crime’. The ‘true confessions’ of David Pecker are going beyond just the ‘Karen McDougal Affair’ and are a real threat to Trump as he is giving vital credence to Cohen’s own devastating confessions, who Trump and the White House have been labelling as untrustworthy testimony of a convicted felon, and a ‘habitual liar’ (oh the irony).

David Pecker’s confessions are now countering Trump, his attorneys, and the White House’s lies, while corroborating Michael Cohen’s growing mountain of incriminating evidence, as corroborated truth.

These ‘flips’ that the investigators have now secured are opening the doors to Trump’s inner most sanctums, which hitherto have been firmly closed, by Trump and his minions, his trusted hired help (‘partners in crime’), quid-pro-quo allies, and some of his deeply involved family members.

But perhaps one of the most important ‘flips’ for the prosecutors, and potentially the most damaging to Trump, is Trump organization’s long term Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Allen Weisselberg, who has agreed to fully cooperate with the investigators for the promise of immunity from prosecution.

This one person, Allen Weisselberg, CFO of the Trump organization, potentially throws open all the doors to Trump’s innermost financial dealings and secrets, both on his personal and family side, as well as all his business transactions, in the U.S. and abroad. 

That spells potential disaster for Trump, politically, but more crucially to his personal and family’s future financial stability and well-being, and his carefully cultivated (even through his Presidency), American and foreign business dealings and networks. No powerful network of political and business contacts are going to want to be associated with Trump and his family businesses, as Trump’s assets become ever more embroiled in legal jeopardy, and potentially toxic, politically and commercially, from the now rapidly spreading multiple investigations. 

With all the investigations now heading in an ever more straight line for all things Trump - his Russia assisted Presidency, his influential conservative Republican hierarchy, some of whom are now implicated with a confessed Russian government agent in federal custody, the growing number of confessions from his growing number of former ‘associates and partners in crime’ - who are now frequently pleading guilty to criminal offenses, and are indicted, and in their efforts to mitigate their own liabilities and punishment, are increasingly implicating Trump directly in their confessed crimes, thus opening more doors to all things Trump, and thereby threatening an unmitigated professional and personal disaster. The systematic unravelling of all things Trump, his Presidency, his organization, his foundation, his family members and their potential criminal involvement, his foreign dealings, his carefully cultivated public persona (a lot of it based on falsehoods which are being increasingly exposed), even his beloved name, are all heading for a systematic legal and public dismantling, which seems now to be largely a foregone conclusion.