Special Counsel Robert Mueller recently subpoenaed the Trump Organization for documents relating to the Russia investigation, the first time (that we know of) that Mueller has asked for records involving President Donald Trump’s businesses.
Unfortunately, that’s about all we know. The New York Times reports:
The breadth of the subpoena was not clear, nor was it clear why Mr. Mueller issued it instead of simply asking for the documents from the company, an umbrella organization that oversees Mr. Trump’s business ventures. In the subpoena, delivered in recent weeks, Mr. Mueller ordered the Trump Organization to hand over all records related to Russia and other topics he is investigating, the people said.
There is this, however:
The Trump Organization has said that it never had real estate holdings in Russia, but witnesses recently interviewed by Mr. Mueller have been asked about a possible real estate deal in Moscow. In 2015, a longtime business associate of Mr. Trump’s emailed Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, at his Trump Organization account claiming he had ties to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and said that building a Trump Tower in Moscow would help Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign.
No one has class solidarity like the ultra-wealthy.
Trump Organization lawyer Alan Futerfas said they’re “fully cooperative with all investigations” and have been since July 2017. But as the Times points out, Trump publicly hinted he might fire Mueller if he went after records beyond the scope of the Russia investigation (or at least what Trump thinks the scope of the Russia investigation is), and very nearly did back in June 2017:
Mr. Mueller could run afoul of a line the president has warned him not to cross. Though it is not clear how much of the subpoena is related to Mr. Trump’s business beyond ties to Russia, Mr. Trump said in an interview with The New York Times in July that the special counsel would be crossing a “red line” if he looked into his family’s finances beyond any relationship with Russia. The president declined to say how he would respond if he concluded that the special counsel had crossed that line.
A month before Mr. Trump spoke of his red line, the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, threatened to quit after Mr. Trump asked him to have Mr. Mueller fired because the president believed he had conflict-of-interest issues that precluded him from running the special counsel investigation.
All of this is impeccable timing, as Republicans on the House Committee on Intelligence announced just three days ago that they were ending their probe.
Regardless of whether or not the Russian collusion theory is real, it’s always good to have more transparency regarding the President of the United States’ money and where he’s getting it from — particularly when it’s a family as corrupt as this one, and when that President happens to be a billionaire who built an empire on the backs of the people he screwed over.