In the hottest of hot seats right now
Nader is a
Lebanese-American who has acted as a mediator and back-channel diplomat in ME affairs for
decades. He has reportedly agreed to cooperate with Mueller’s probe into the
Trump campaign’s ties to Russia in exchange for immunity.
It’s
possible that Nader has valuable information on the Trump transition team’s
meetings with foreign officials that have puzzled investigators for months. And
Mueller’s investigators are looking into how he may have funneled Emirati money to a
top Trump fundraiser to influence the White House’s Middle East policy.
As the AP reports, the Mueller probe is especially interested in two meetings in
particular that occurred while Nader was serving as an adviser to the UAE.
The first meeting Nadar attended was in Trump Tower in
New York in December 2016 with Jared Kushner along with Steve Bannon, who was
then Trump’s chief strategist at the time, with Mohammed bin Zayed, the UAE’s
de facto ruler.
The second meeting was in January 2017 in Seychelles,
a collection of islands in the Indian Ocean. That meeting included Nader; bin
Zayed; Kirill Dmitriev, a Russian fund manager with close ties to Putin; and
Erik Prince, the founder of the private security firm Blackwater and an
informal adviser to the Trump transition team (and also brother of billionaire
Edu Secy Betsy DeVos).
The Mueller
probe is also investigating how Nader might have helped the UAE buy political influence in the
Trump White House by striking huge business deals with a top Trump fundraiser.
That raises the question of whether Mueller’s probe is casting a wider net to
track the possible influence of countries other than Russia on “Trumpworld.”
What follows
is a brief guide to Nader’s shady past and why it seems like Mueller has taken
an interest in him (from the story link).
My 2 cents: All that
reminded me of the 1974 Johnny Cash song: “How high is the water Momma?
Five-feet high and rising.” Around Trump Empire, Inc., it looks more like 20-feet
high and constantly rising – almost 24/7.
Stay tuned for the
biggie: When the Mueller report comes out. That will be a damn buster without
any doubt. How the all GOP-run Congress reacts is the $64,000 dollar question and
the future of our constitutionally-based democracy and rock-solid legal premise
that “No one is above the law” (c. 1776).
With that in mind, keep this article handy on that subject.
Finally, consider
this very rational view re: Mueller’s final report:
It may be wisest for Mueller to present his findings to
Congress — and to the people — and let them act first, rather than trying to
settle a constitutional debate that’s been percolating since the 18th century.
That’s one major reason why the question of whether the president can be
indicted or prosecuted may not be answered anytime soon.
Another is that the special
counsel is technically bound by a Department of Justice legal opinion that states that the president
cannot be indicted or prosecuted. There’s debate about
whether this opinion would really preclude Mueller from indicting Trump, but
its existence provides an additional incentive for the special counsel to
proceed cautiously, since a violation of DOJ rules would be grounds for ending his investigation.
Mueller would be free of these limitations, if Congress
passed a statute giving him more protections — similar to a previous law that placed the special counsel
under the authority of a three-judge panel, rather than DOJ — but that seems
unlikely to occur.
All of this indicates that, even if we don’t know for
sure whether Trump can be criminally prosecuted, he probably doesn’t have much
to worry about for now — at least unless Mueller decides to take a big risk by
indicting him.
Uncertainty and unchartered waters are ahead. How we
navigate them speaks to who we are from now on.
Finally, “Art of the Deal” or “Art of the Con” are clearly the
only two choices now in play.
Stay tuned and thanks for stopping by.
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