Robert Mueller Is All Over Trump’s Dubious Business Practices

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Unsurprisingly, Bloomberg reports today that Robert Mueller’s investigation into Donald Trump has widened considerably from Russian campaign collusion:

FBI investigators and others are looking at Russian purchases of apartments in Trump buildings … SoHo development with Russian associates … 2013 Miss Universe pageant … sale of a Florida mansion to a Russian oligarch … dealings with the Bank of Cyprus … efforts of Jared Kushner, the President’s son-in-law and White House aide, to secure financing for some of his family’s real estate properties.

….The roots of Mueller’s follow-the-money investigation lie in a wide-ranging money laundering probe launched by then-Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara last year, according to the person.

I’ll confess to some mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, this stuff is all semi-related to Russia, and might therefore be relevant to the campaign issue. On the other hand, we’ve all seen what happens when special prosecutors get out of control and start investigating everything under the sun. So far this looks like it’s still legitimately tied to Mueller’s original brief, but it’s a close call.

Donald Trump sure knows how to screw up, doesn’t he? He fired James Comey because the FBI was investigating Russia and he fired Preet Bharara because he was leading an investigation of money laundering. The end result was to bring more attention to both of these issues and put them in the hands of a guy with a big budget and nothing else to distract him. Nice work, Donald. Anybody else you want to fire?

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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