President Trump’s unexpected firing of FBI Director James Comey came at the same time it became apparent that Bureau and Congressional investigators are focusing seriously on Trump family businesses and their financial dependence on Russian money.
Trump has constantly tweeted his opposition to investigating any links between his campaign aides and Russia, but he is most sensitive to any line of inquiry that drags in his businesses, his family members, or even possibly himself.
He showed that by how quickly he responded to an exchange at a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing held the afternoon of May 8.
Subcommittee Chairman Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) asked former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, “During your investigation of all things Russia, did you ever find a situation where a Trump business interest in Russia gave you concern?”
Clapper responded that it did not impact the intelligence community assessment that Russia had attempted to influence the U.S. presidential election.
But when Graham followed up by asking whether it had given Clapper concern “at all, any time,” the answer was “I can’t comment on that because that impacts an investigation,” an apparent reference to the FBI’s investigation.
The very next day, White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters, “The president, obviously, was aware of Senator Graham's suggestion…In fact, he has already charged a leading law firm in Washington, D.C., to send a certified letter to Senator Graham to that point that he has no connections to Russia," Spicer said.
A CNN report appears to confirm that the FBI Trump/Russia investigation is looking at financial connections, although not yet Trump entities. According to CNN, grand jury subpoenas have been sent for business records of associates of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
The issue for the Trumps is not their having projects in Russia, but rather Russian money flowing into Trump projects in the U.S. and other countries.
At Monday’s Judiciary subcommittee hearing, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), noted that Donald Trump Jr., stated at a real estate meeting in September 2008 that he'd made half a dozen trips in the preceding 18 months to Russia. Whitehouse quoted Donald Jr. saying, “we see a lot of money pouring in from Russia,” during his 2008 speech.
There is a long history of Russian money reaching Trump at key moments over the years.
For example, in the midst of Trump’s financial troubles in 2008, a Russian billionaire, Dmitri Rybolovlev, bought a Palm Beach mansion from Trump for $95 million. Interestingly, Trump had purchased it four years earlier for just $41 million – thereby turning a profit of $44 million.
At the time, one of his lenders, Deutsche Bank, was demanding Trump pay $40 million on loans he had personally guaranteed, a matter that was eventually settled.
Last Friday, James Dodson, a writer on golfing, told Boston radio station WBUR that in 2014 he was invited to visit the Trump National Golf Club-Charlotte, located in Mooresville, North Carolina. There, he said he traveled in a golf cart with Trump’s son, Eric. Asked who was funding development of golf courses such as this, Dodson quoted Eric as having said, “Well, we don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia…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."
Three days after the radio interview, Eric tweeted, “This story is completely fabricated and just another example why there is such a deep distrust of the media in our country.”
Despite Eric’s tweet, stories such as these would likely require that he and Donald Jr. be subjects for any investigators looking into Russian investments in Trump businesses.
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is going down that financial path. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), vice chairman of the committee, told CNN his panel has requested the Treasury Department’s FinCEN group provide any material about Russian financial ties to Trump or Trump-related officials as part of their current investigation.
Investigators inevitably follow the money.
