Does Donald Trump Jr. have links to a crooked bank? (And more)

Does Donald Trump Jr. have links to a Mexican drug cartel? You may get that impression from this piece by Grant Stern. Despite my problems with Stern's work, I think it deserves a reading. A critical reading. Do your own research and say yea or nay as the evidence directs.

Baltic International Bank confirmed that Donald Trump Jr. collaborated with them one time in 2012.

But they denied any transactions showing their bank laundering money in a written statement last month.

Their denial is a lie.

It’s the only item published by Baltic International Bank’s account on Medium, which you can see below.

Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project reporters examined the Baltic International Bank account records and transactions related to money laundering for the Sinaloa Mexican drug cartel led by El Chapo.

The OCCRP also found detailed transactions showing that Baltic International Bank collaborated with Prevezon Holdings, the Cyprus company linked to the infamous Magnitsky case.

From the OCCRP, last May:

Prevezon Holdings, owned by Russian businessman Denis Katsyv, and its subsidiaries were prosecuted in New York for laundering some of the US$230 million stolen by an organized crime group involving Russian government officials through a fraudulent tax refund scheme.

Some of the money was, according to the US Department of Justice, transferred to the international real estate company Prevezon, which then bought luxury New York apartments near Wall Street.

The fraud was uncovered by lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who was arrested after he exposed in 2008 the involvement of high-ranking Russian officials in the scheme. He was subsequently arrested and died a year later in a Russian jail under suspicious circumstances.

Now go to this WP piece from July 11:

Fusion GPS has said that it was working for the law firm BakerHostetler, which was representing Prevezon, a Russian holding company based in Cyprus, in its defense against Justice Department allegations that Prevezon laundered money stolen in the fraud Magnitsky uncovered. Veselnitskaya was Prevezon’s lawyer.

The OCCRP has been looking at Baltic International for a long time; this piece, for example, was published in 2011. Also from that year is this piece, which establishes that Baltic International has done business with all sorts of shady players, including Russian oligarchs, terrorists, and -- yes -- the Sinoloa Cartel.

It's the old story. Money needs laundering.

So far I've seen no evidence for the suggestion that DJT Jr. himself is linked to the Sinoloa cartel. The evidence does suggest that any would-be real estate mogul who wants to maintain a reputation for honesty would do well to avoid certain banks.

A Kos writer named Annieli is also trying to trace Junior's links to Baltic Insternational. She has come up with some interesting nuggets, although she primarily relies on Stern's piece. Again: That piece is definitely worth reading, but proceed with caution. Even by my gadfly standards, it would be irresponsible to suggest that the Trump clan has any link to Mexican drug cartels. The Trump/Baltic International/Russia connection seems to be made of far more solid stuff.

Whistling in the dark. This opinion piece by Ed Rogers in the WP is hilarious:

For all the breathless hype, the on-air furrowed brows and the not-so-veiled hopes that this could be Watergate, Jared Kushner’s statement and testimony before Congress have made Democrats and many in the media come to the realization that the collusion they were counting on just isn’t there.

As the date of the Kushner testimony approached, the media thought it was going to advance and refresh the story. But Kushner’s clear, precise and convincing account of what really occurred during the campaign and after the election has left many of President Trump’s loudest enemies trying to quietly back out of the room unnoticed.

Oh, puh-LEEZE. The email chain released by Donald Trump Jr. proves collusion beyond rational doubt; anyone who asks for further evidence is a flim-flam artist. Trump Sr. has been acting like a guilty man, firing Comey over the Russia investigation and seeking any excuse to get rid of Mueller. Trump's financial ties to Russians (including Russian/American mobsters) have been established beyond serious argument.

Jared Kushner is a demonstrated liar with ties to crooks. Not even a child would accept his excuses for the falsehoods told on his security forms. The man should lose his security clearance -- in fact, he should go to jail.

People like Rogers think that Kushner's testimony should be accepted at face value. That's the entire Republican defense: "A member of the Trump family said it, I believe it, and that settles it." One could, with as much justification, point to Julius Streicher's testimony at Nuremburg to "prove" that Streicher never advocated the extermination of the Jews. One could, with as much justification, point to Charlie Manson's testimony at his trial to "prove" that he had no connection to the murder of Sharon Tate.

Any Dem who did what Kushner did would be behind bars now. Alas, our culture has declared Republicans sacred. They may do that which Dems may not do.

This double standard is intolerable.

On a related note: Writing in the NYT, former CIA station chief Daniel Hoffman tries to resurrect the myth that the Russians were not intent on installing Trump; rather, the purpose was to create general chaos. Hoffman thinks he can sell this claim even though everything the Russians did helped Trump and hurt Hillary.

Hoffman's analysis does not pass the laugh test.

Let's look at his article through squinted eyes, shall we? I've been saying for a year now that a faction of the intelligence community is pro-Trump. Moreover, I've always suspected that Breitbart -- the far right propaganda operation linked to Steve Bannon and, through him, to Cambridge Analytica -- was spooked up. (No-one has ever properly explained where the massive initial funding came from.) I first voiced that suspicion when Andy himself was still inconveniently ambulatory and thus impeding Bannon's rise to power.

Are there any Infowarriors or Breitbarters or Alt Rightists or Fox Newsers out there who want to point to the previous paragraph as proof that I'm one of those awful, awful conspiracy theorists whom decent people must always shun? I would love to hear such an accusation -- especially if it comes from someone who supports Donald Fucking Trump, the God Emperor of the fear-peddlers. Given the many inane fantasies they have inflicted upon the body politic, I demand a little elbow room.

"Powdered, flowered, and confettied/Bangled, tangled, spangled, and spaghettied!" Could it be? Is it possible? Does Trump's mental decay have a link to his vanity?

Remember, mental confusion, poor decision making, impotence are all side effects of the hair loss pills Trump takes

The hell of it is, Trump would look a thousand times better if he rocked a Jim Carrey beard and a Yul Brynner dome.

Peggy Noonan, a Reaganite turned never-Trumper, has written a piece titled "Trump Is Woody Allen Without the Humor." No. Bob Hope was Woody Allen without the humor. Allen took some aspects of Hope's usual character -- cowardice, letchery, cynicism -- and added funnier lines, Jewishness, and intellectualism. Since Trump is the exact opposite of an intellectual, any comparison to Woody Allen falls apart.

That said, Noonan does raise some good points about our society's changing views of masculinity. Trump portrays himself as the quintessence of manliness, but he displays none of the traditional male virtues as defined by the popular culture of fifty or 75 years ago.

Consider, for example, the three great western stars of the 1940s and 50s -- John Wayne, Randolph Scott and (my favorite) Joel McCrae. They usually played characters who were quietly competent and self-effacing. In those days, a self-effacing attitude was not considered neurotic: It was knightly. Randolph Scott never bragged and rarely got angry; he simply took care of business and let others come to their own conclusions. In Cattle Drive, McCrae takes a young Donald Trump-type (played by Dean Stockwell) under his wing. McCrae wrings all of the vanity and arrogance out of the little brat and teaches him the Cowboy Way: Work hard, deal square, and never pretend to be better than everyone else.

Manliness has been redefined in recent times. This generation believes that the art of manliness requires temper tantrums, vanity, braggadocio, cheap threats, whining, name-calling, sneakiness, sadism, predatory sexuality, underhanded dealings, and unbridled narcissism. An Alt Rightist is a man who shrieks loudly and overestimates the size of his stick. There's a world of difference between Scott/McCrea/Wayne masculinity and Alt Right masculinity, just as there's a world of difference between riding the high country and playing video games in Mom's basement.

(That said, Wayne was kind of Alt Righteous in McClintock!, the worst movie he made during his Bircher Asshole Period.)

Is there anything masculine about the decor of that gold-encrusted suite atop Trump Tower? If Randolph Scott got a look at that place, he'd call it...well, let's just say that his assessment would now be considered politically incorrect. He might even have compared the owner of that suite to Tinkerbelle, or to that which Donald Trump likes to grab.