UPDATED: Very interesting Mueller-related FB post by Heather Cox Richardson [View all]
Last edited Mon Dec 31, 2018, 07:54 PM - Edit history (3)
A public post by political historian/author Heather Cox Richardson:
(feel free to share)
Over the holiday, someone asked me to explain what is happening with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into the Russian government's attempt to interfere in the 2016 election. Perfect timing, because I stumbled across something a few weeks ago that frames the whole investigation nicely.
In 2011, when Mueller was FBI Director, he gave a speech in New York. He explained that globalization and modern technology had changed the nature of organized crime. Rather than being regional networks with a clear structure, he said, organized crime had become international, fluid, sophisticated, and had stakes in the multi-billion dollar range. Its operators were cross-pollinating across countries, religions, and political affiliations, sharing only their greed. They did not care about ideology; they cared about money. They would do anything for a price.
These criminal enterprises, he noted, were working to corner the market on oil, gas, and precious metals. And to do so, Mueller explained, they "may infiltrate our businesses. They may provide logistical support to hostile foreign powers. They may try to manipulate those at the highest levels of government. Indeed, these so-called 'iron triangles' of organized criminals, corrupt government officials, and business leaders pose a significant national security threat."
To combat that threat, Mueller said, the FBI had shifted focus "from a law-enforcement agency to a national security service that is threat-driven and intelligence-led."
It appears that various members of the 2016 GOP campaign were part of such an iron triangle.
Donald Trump had sought Russian business since 1996, but his financial connections with Russians really took off in 2008, when wealthy Russians poured money into Trump's US properties at a time when few others were interested in working with Trump. In September 2008, Don Jr. told a reporter: "Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets.... We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia." Trump pursued the idea of a Trump Tower in Moscow, and in 2013, took the Miss Universe pageant there.
Then, in 2014, in response to Russian efforts to destabilize and absorb Ukraine, the US put sanctions on a number of Russian oligarchs close to Vladimir Putin, freezing their assets and denying them visas. (Interestingly, at the time, GOP congresspeople complained that President Obama did not hit Putin more harshly.)
Now, it appears that Russia offered to help Trump get elected in 2016 in exchange for-- among other things-- an end to sanctions. And a Russian spy, Maria Butina, has recently admitted to infiltrating the NRA, which poured more than $400 million-- an unprecedented sum-- behind GOP candidates in the 2016 election.
It is this iron triangle of business, government, and criminals that Mueller is chasing down. It is taking a huge amount of time as he and his staff look at money laundering, cyber-hacking, blackmail, and what is popularly (but not legally) known as treason. It seems to me that he is aiming not at any one person, but rather at a criminal organization that is attempting to destroy NATO and turn the world over to an international cabal of oligarchs.
Mueller is spreading his evidence out in the court records he is filing, making it almost impossible for the president to stifle his discoveries, and he is spreading out cases amongst different agencies for similar reasons. And he is getting results. As of November, Mueller had indicted 33 people or entities, and 7 of them have pled guilty (5 were aides to Trump). There are also more than 3 dozen sealed indictments at the DC federal court, and it is likely that many, or most, or all, of them are related the Mueller investigation.
Mueller is the man who took down the Gambino crime family when no one else could make anything stick. He is thorough and he is tough. Sadly, I expect his final conclusions are going to be shocking: it seems to me that we will discover that not simply administration officials, but also a number of congresspeople and prominent business leaders are part of that iron triangle of international criminality Mueller warned about back in 2011, when the rest of us were still naive.
https://www.facebook.com/heathercoxrichardson/posts/over-the-holiday-someone-asked-me-to-explain-what-is-happening-with-special-coun/1725414477602611/
Heather Cox Richardson is a political historian who uses facts and history to make observations about contemporary American politics. She is the author, most recently, of To Make Men Free: A History of the Republican Party.
Biography
I'm from rural Maine, was educated at Exeter and Harvard, and am now a professor of history at Boston College. I write books about the American past, and write articles about modern politics. The past informs my work on the present, not the other way around.
ON UPDATE:
***From the FBI archives: Robert Mueller's speech on Jan. 27, 2011***
But the playing field has changed. We have seen a shift from regional families with a clear structure, to flat, fluid networks with global reach. These international enterprises are more anonymous and more sophisticated. Rather than running discrete operations, on their own turf, they are running multi-national, multi-billion dollar schemes from start to finish.
We are investigating groups in Asia, Eastern Europe, West Africa, and the Middle East. And we are seeing cross-pollination between groups that historically have not worked together. Criminals who may never meet, but who share one thing in common: greed.
They may be former members of nation-state governments, security services, or the military. These individuals know who and what to target, and how best to do it. They are capitalists and entrepreneurs. But they are also master criminals who move easily between the licit and illicit worlds. And in some cases, these organizations are as forward-leaning as Fortune 500 companies.
This is not “The Sopranos,” with six guys sitting in a diner, shaking down a local business owner for $50 dollars a week. These criminal enterprises are making billions of dollars from human trafficking, health care fraud, computer intrusions, and copyright infringement. They are cornering the market on natural gas, oil, and precious metals, and selling to the highest bidder.
More at link:
https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/speeches/the-evolving-organized-crime-threat
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