Steve Bannon was indicted this week on wire fraud and money laundering charges for helping serial grifter, Brian Kolfage, embezzle money from his wildly successful, though grammatically awkward “We Build the Wall” GoFundMe scam. Bannon’s co-defendants include Kolfage and two other bottom-dwelling chiselers of little consequence. Co-defendant, Andrew Badalato is a mobbed-up crook who pretends to run a venture capital company under the charming name, White Knights and Vultures. As a bonus he’s been accused of multiple sexual assaults. The other defendant is Timothy Shea, a random MAGALand profiteer who markets an energy drink called “Winning Energy” with the tagline, “made from liberal tears.” His as-yet unindicted wife, Amanda, was the Treasurer of the We Build the Wall scam.
What’s wrong with this picture? The gratifying prospect of a rumpled Bannon rotting into a saggy pile inside an ill-fitting orange jumpsuit obscures the real story of this prosecution. Miles Davis once explained about jazz, “It’s not the notes you play, it’s the notes you don’t play.” The real story is who wasn’t indicted and why.
All the media attention has centered on the fate of Steve Bannon, the trailer park Svengali who came nearest to establishing an ideological core for an administration otherwise consumed by swindling. Bannon was ousted from the Trump court for mentioning in his book that Trump’s Russian involvement centered on money laundering. The family never forgave him for that treason.
The We Build the Wall scam was organized, run, and promoted by a collection of favored Trump allies and the President’s own son, but the only figures indicted are Bannon and a collection of undistinguished deplorables like Shea, bottom-feeding nobodies in the MAGASphere Griftopia. Players in this scam who’ve maintained close ties to the family appear in the charge document only as unindicted conspirators, described only in pseudonyms like “Associate-1.” Prosecutors only indicted the figures Trump doesn’t care to protect. How did that happen?
Back on June 20, Attorney General Barr fired Geoffrey Berman, the US Attorney in Manhattan who was overseeing this case. Career prosecutor and respected professional, Audrey Strauss, was next in line behind Berman. She stepped into the interim role and continued the case.
Strauss is a pro who, by all accounts takes her role seriously, but she’s not blind. After watching Barr remove as many federal prosecutors as it took to derail sentencing for loyal Trump ally Roger Stone, she knew what she had to do. Her only chance to continue the case in any form would have been to drop the charges against whoever Barr was trying to protect. One phrase in the indictment is the relic of this compromise. The opening sentence lists the defendants in the case, followed by this dangling tell, “and others.” Who are “the others” who committed these crimes and why aren’t they named? Who was the Administration shielding?
Barr’s interference may have helped Kris Kobach, Tom Tancredo, Trump-connected wall contractor Fisher Industries, Erik Prince and perhaps Don Jr. himself escape prosecution. Since the case is focused on Bannon and these low-level scammers, it will fail to explore the financial records that could tie this scam to the Trump family businesses. In jazz, it’s the notes you don’t play.
We Build the Wall was the score of a lifetime, hatched from a criminal with a brain as small as his conscience, yielding a bounty beyond his imagination. When Trump failed to force Congress to fund his border wall in 2018, serial MAGALand grifter Brian Kolfage hit on the idea of starting a GoFundMe to raise the necessary funds. Before the company shut down Kolfage’s scam, he was sitting on a $20 million mountain of cash. What he needed was a way to launder it into his pocket.
Luckily for him, money laundering is a MAGALand specialty. A consortium of deplorables, led by Bannon, descended on Kolfage to help mop up his plunder. According to the indictment, their first step was to set up shell entities through which the money would be laundered. Shea helped set up “Non-Profit-1” as a “service provider” to the imaginary wall project. Despite very public promises never to take a dime of the donors’ money, Kolfage and his wife would be handsomely paid through that shell organization for their “services.” This is the same structure of embezzlement and money laundering that got the Trump family charities shut down, and the machinery they use to embezzle campaign donations.
The conspirators arranged to pay Kolfage and his wife an initial lump sum, followed by $20,000 a month. Kolfage, now bumped up to a different league, had moved from grifter to mark. As an example of how Kolfage was being used, an unnamed “Associate-1” laundered $50,000 of funds embezzled from the charity to pay Kolfage’s $20,000 monthly stipend, while pocketing the rest. It’s hard to find good money laundering help these days.
From the indictment, “Kolfage wrote to Defendent, Badolato in a text message: as far as [the public] know[s] no one is getting paid” and “salaries will never be disclosed.”” Nice guy.
Kolfage used portions of the money embezzled from his charity to pay for this boat, which he sailed in a Trump boat parade. Portions were also used to purchase plastic surgery.
He would pocket at least $350K that’s documented so far, but that’s a fraction of the million+ that Bannon would steal for himself alone. Who else got a cut? Failed Republican Senate candidate and noisy racist Kris Kobach served as the group’s general counsel and board member. He pocketed more from this scam than Kolfage, almost half a million in “fees.” In fact, everybody seems to have played this grift better than Kolfage. Most of them will keep their winnings and escape prosecution.
Nobody seems to have made out better than Trump’s favorite wall contractor, a tiny company in a tiny North Dakota town called Fisher Industries. Fisher is an insignificant private construction company which, before America was Made Great Again, had barely over 100m in reported annual revenue. It’s first CEO, David Fisher, went to prison for child porn. Fisher’s next CEO, Michael Fisher, went to prison for embezzlement. Fisher’s current CEO, Tom Fisher, was an unindicted participant in the scam that sent his brother to prison. Fisher has been nosing its way into the border wall racket. The company took in at least $1.5 from the wall scam, but the real amount is likely much higher.
Fisher has no particular expertise or experience relevant to the wall project and their bids were summarily rejected by the Army Corps of Engineers. Yet the President personally lobbied to force the government to steer money to these crooks. Put in a pin in that fact, because it becomes important. Sections of wall constructed by Fisher are already failing. One particularly shoddy section Fisher built by damaging a butterfly preserve in Texas is in danger of falling into the Rio Grande and obstructing navigation.
How does some insignificant, corrupt, provincial building contractor a thousand miles from the Southern border earn the attention of a President who works less than half a day and has spent a quarter of his time in office golfing? The Fisher family have been prodigious Republican donors in recent years, but their largesse, still less than $100,000, is not enough to land them contracts that could potentially increase their annual revenues by 4000%. There’s only one way to earn the help of the Don – you have to offer him a cut. We won’t know the truth about the Trump family’s relationship to Fisher Industries until Trump’s tax returns are made public, or a prosecutor investigates the company’s activities. This could explain why Barr started firing prosecutors in Manhattan.
When the We Build the Wall grifters decided they needed to construct a Potemkin wall to appear legitimate, which vendor did they seek out for the project? Naturally, they wanted Fisher, the wall contractor closest to the President. According to Kris Kobach, the President himself was aware of the scam and offered the conspirators his explicit support on numerous occasions.
The scammers found a sympathetic landowner who would let them set up a small section of wall near the border, built by Fisher. It isn’t yet clear how much We Build the Wall money was funneled through Fisher for their little demonstration wall, but it was enough to earn the attention and approval of the Trump family. The family sent Don Jr. to promote the project at a gonzo symposium of right wing nutjobs in June 2019. Don Jr. praised the grifters and offered his enthusiastic support for the project without referencing any family relationship to the contractors.
Also involved in this scam were professional racist Tom Tancredo and mercenary Erik Prince, of the DeVos family. There was that nutty former Milwaukee County Sheriff, David Clarke and former pitcher Curt Schilling who became a rightwing star after racist and bigoted comments cost him his broadcast career. All were board members not mentioned in the indictment. What role did they play in the money laundering? What did they know and what did they ignore? Thanks to Bill Barr, we won’t know because those lines of inquiry are cut off.
All the figures involved in this scam who were both important and loyal to the Trump family coincidentally avoided mention in the indictment. Only the apostate Steve Bannon and a rattling collection of MAGALand bottom-feeders were sacrificed. As for the racist rubes who were fleeced by this scam, they are proudly standing by their grifter. Take a look at the comments on Kolfage’s Facebook page to watch the cult slurp down their Kool Aid.
It’s hard not to feel bad for Kolfage. His life was nearly destroyed in Iraq, in a campaign that was itself built on a scam. Returning to the US he found the motivation to keep striving as a petty fake news entrepreneur. Yes, he’s a seedy chiseler, but what was he supposed to do? Having sacrificed two legs and a hand to a country which would promptly forget him, his career choice was the most honest representation of what our culture demands – and rewards. Undaunted by serial failures he persevered until he became the dog who caught the car; a low rent grifter feeding on the seedy social-media margins of Griftopia who one day hooked a whale he couldn’t land. Crooks higher on the food chain descended, abusing his ignorance and poor connections to carve out the choicest morsels for themselves, leaving him exposed to dozens of years of prison while they skate with the President’s protection.
It’s the notes you don’t play.
Also, I am reading Brian Stelter’s new book “Hoax” about the relationship of Fox News and Trump. It’s both fascinating and extremely disheartening. Trump’s actual team of advisors consists of Sean Hannity, Fox & Friends, Tucker Carlson and Jeanine Pirro. These are the people who are, in reality, dictating American policies now! It’s mind-boggling.
Politico had an interesting article yesterday on the threat of right-wing domestic terrorism and how the Trump Administration has flat-out refused to acknowledge its existence.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/26/trump-domestic-extemism-homeland-security-401926
Elizabeth Neumann, a former DHS official featured in the piece, has since cut a video for “Republican Voters Against Trump “
https://youtu.be/EF4KcunfvCg
It disgusts me that so much has been made of “left-wing terrorists” by the Administration and their sycophants at Fox. As far as I know, antifa activists have killed no one. Not a single person. And yet we’re being told to fear BLM, fear antifa because they’re coming for us and only Trump can keep us safe.
The lies and propaganda right now being pushed by Fox & Trump are worthy of Stalinist Russia. Maybe that seems extreme, but I really do fear that it’s so.
On a happier note, there are BLM signs everywhere in my affluent suburban town. A low-cost way to be an ally to be sure, but it’s a step in the right direction.
I still see some of the pro-life crowd clinging to Trump because of that issue. What is the maximum return you people get from that Devil’s bargain? Some more RW judges on SCOTUS and the overturn of Roe vs Wade, which results in poor women in Red states being denied legal abortions. That’s it. Think you’re going to get an antiabortion law through Congress? Fat chance unless the GOP controls both chambers, which isn’t likely any time soon. A pro-life Constitutional Amendment?? Far less likely. Think that you can persuade the pro-choice crowd and people in between the two camps to support any of that? The problem for you is, the means that you choose to achieve your ends matter. You chose to put a dangerously unfit fool into the most powerful office on the planet, which had endangered all of us in multiple ways (ignore and/or lie about the pandemic, deny climate change, destroy beneficial alliances, shred checks and balances, etc.). No cause, not abortion, not ANYTHING, justifies that. You will not reach us with your claims of being pro-woman when we see you falling in line behind a horrid misogynist. We call BS on your claims to love babies when we see your lack of outrage over deliberate family separation. We question how much you truly care about life when you are silent about the inadequate pandemic response and the issue of police using excessive force. Your credibility is shot and we don’t trust you.
This comment from a pastor, IMHO, is a brilliant summation of the moral problem I have with most pro-lifers:
https://www.facebook.com/dave.barnhart/posts/10156549406811031
A little background on him and his church:
https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/05/20/a-methodist-pastor-is-brilliantly-calling-out-the-pro-life-crowds-hypocrisy/
tl;dr: loving the unborn is the easiest, least challenging form of love there is, because they’re pure, they don’t demand anything of you, they don’t challenge any of your comforts and views. Meanwhile, loving actual people, with all their flaws and needs and moral failings, is far more difficult. It’s the equivalent of sending thoughts and prayers to some distant disaster victims while stepping over the starving, homeless man in front of your sidewalk.
So CNN has a couple still shots and of the white supremacist shooting the black guy. Of course, the previous still shot shows the same back guy kicking the white supremacist while the nazi was on his back, assault rifle in hand.
I don’t understand the protestors in this case. This is either an act of enormous courage, attacking an armed nazi while barehanded, or one of equal stupidity.
One thing is certain. The protestors should have armed themselves long ago. Their enemy has done so.
The more I read your comments, the more I am convinced that you are not who you say you are. Nobody here agrees with your approach as has been stated on multiple occasions. It reads more of an attempt to entrap, are you FBI, CIA, fishing for trouble when there is none?
Seriously? Wow. Just wow.
There is video footage of the nazi, after shooting 3 people, walking right through the police lines, with his assault weapon still in his hands. The leader of the other thugs aka the police chief said this : “As for how the gunman managed to leave the scene, Sheriff David Beth portrayed a chaotic, high-stress scene, with screaming, chanting, nonstop radio traffic and people running all over — conditions he said can cause “tunnel vision” among law officers.”
Tell me, precisely, what are the odds of the ALL the police present developing “tunnel vision” if an unarmed black man had started walking towards them, let alone one with a assault rifle. The civil war has arrived. One side knows it. The other side says “That kind of anarchy does not happen in the greatest democracy in the greatest country that God’s universe has ever seen, well at least in the past 155 years. The last 4 years are just a hiccup, and we will vote these people out. Sure, they have wiped out any pretext of a fair election, but we will prevail anyway. And these people getting killed, well, it is just a blip being done by a tiny percentage of the population.”
May be this is why a white guy carrying a rifle can walk away through the police even though the crowd is telling the cops he’s a shooter.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/27/white-supremacists-militias-infiltrate-us-police-report
The actual report is at the Brennan Center website:
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/hidden-plain-sight-racism-white-supremacy-and-far-right-militancy-law
Bobo, that is no revelation. Chris has discussed that many times on this website the situation.
CNN was showing video last night of the nazi’s in the police APC’s tossing water bottles to the nazi’s on the ground who drove into town to kill people. Then, CNN showed the head nazi with the police being asked about that very video. His response was “We have pallets and pallets of water. We give water to everyone. If the protestors had asked for water, we would give it to them.” I watched as those words came out of his mouth.
This is simply a precursor to what will happen once the tyrant is re-anointed as leader. On Nov 4th, or 12 months from now, or 2 years from now, this regime WILL initiate these attacks again against his enemy, on a much larger scale, which is anywhere between 53% and 57% of the population. What happened at Lafayette Square is harmless fun compared to what is coming. Look to Belarus for a more accurate depiction of what the authorities and their compatriots in the militias will do with protestors.
Oh, and I am still waiting for Texan to give the precise percentage chance the police would have let a black man, unarmed, walk through their lines, let alone one armed with an AR-15.
Warms my heart knowing that there’s 20 million fewer dollars around that might have gone to Trump’s re-election campaign. And you’re right. I feel more pity than anger for a guy like Kolfage who, in the Vietnam era might have used his first-hand knowledge of the futility of fighting a war under false pretenses to become an anti-war protester, but in today’s world, learns that it’s better to use it as a marketing tool for personal enrichment. But I have to wonder, is the parasite finally killing the host?
This and the post office scandal is actually starting to arouse ire from Trump’s own base. I’ve started to see exactly the type of posts you mentioned would occur about the post office: rural Americans who depend on heavily subsidized mail service (it’s not dense urban cities that cost money to deliver letters to) as a lifeline for their medications, deliveries, communication, etc. are up in arms about Trump’s changes. How else are these rugged individualists supposed to get their govt social security and/or disability checks, and/or their medicaid- and pension-funded prescriptions?
Trump has hurt his supporters plenty of times before, most notably his trade war with China which hit farmers’ exports far more than it did Hollywood or Silicon Valley. But back then, farmers still supported Trump even as he was decimating their livelihood. But take away their postal service, and it seems to be triggering something visceral in them. Am I being too hopeful?
SS administration requires all benefits to be transmitted electronically now (direct deposit). Mucking with the mail will cause other problems for rural, white, and elderly – but not to the degree that holding up SS checks would have had.
America is weird
You have huge numbers of people in prison for relatively minor crimes
and then you have your “Statutes of Limitations” effectively cancelling out major crimes after only a few years
As far as I can see most countries only have “Statutes of Limitations” for very minor crimes – and even then after much longer periods
NY is stirring the pot:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/new-york-ag-trump-organization-lawsuit/2020/08/24/882c03a8-e60e-11ea-bc79-834454439a44_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-high_trumporg-145pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans
Another notorious grifter has suffered a setback:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/08/24/jerry-falwell-jr-agrees-resign-liberty-university/?hpid=hp_hp-banner-main_falwell-515pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans
The ironic thing is that the indiscreet pic that started Jerry jr.’s downfall arc is probably the least of his various sins.
Chris, “This will go away” are the most unpleasant words to me. Without accountability in our government, we are going to go thru this rinse and repeat cycle ad nauseam. Until we are no longer the United State of America.
Not an uplifting message. But as our fearful leader says: It is what it is.
I found this article intensely frustrating:
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/08/24/republicanmeltdown-trump-convention-400039
Especially this part:
‘I decided to call Frank Luntz. Perhaps no person alive has spent more time polling Republican voters and counseling Republican politicians than Luntz, the 58-year-old focus group guru. His research on policy and messaging has informed a generation of GOP lawmakers. His ability to translate between D.C. and the provinces—connecting the concerns of everyday people to their representatives in power—has been unsurpassed. If anyone had an answer, it would be Luntz.
“You know, I don’t have a history of dodging questions. But I don’t know how to answer that. There is no consistent philosophy,” Luntz responded. “You can’t say it’s about making America great again at a time of Covid and economic distress and social unrest. It’s just not credible.”
Luntz thought for a moment. “I think it’s about promoting—” he stopped suddenly. “But I can’t, I don’t—” he took a pause. “That’s the best I can do.”
When I pressed, Luntz sounded as exasperated as the student whose question I was relaying. “Look, I’m the one guy who’s going to give you a straight answer. I don’t give a shit—I had a stroke in January, so there’s nothing anyone can do to me to make my life suck,” he said. “I’ve tried to give you an answer and I can’t do it. You can ask it any different way. But I don’t know the answer. For the first time in my life, I don’t know the answer.”’
He does know the answer. All he has to say is two words, ‘white’ and ‘supremacy’ and the pieces fit into place and everything works. But this so called ‘straight answerer’ with his fingers on the pulse of decades of Republican polling and leadership has so filed down his brain from admitting just what the party gets blamed for that it causes the literal physical and emotional distress described here.
What a fuckin’ loser.
I saw that. I’d also add being the biggest, trolliest asshole bully possible. These are people willing to risk exposure to a deadly virus because it “triggers the libs”.
“These are people willing to risk exposure to a deadly virus because it “triggers the libs”.”
‘Libs’ equals non-white people and race traitors. It’s still just white supremacy.
Thanks for the link, Aaron. It was a fun read, more to see the depths of denial even so-called sane, or moderate Republicans seem to be in. I can’t help but wonder whether the 17-year old student the author mentions, was white. Ask any non-white what the Republican party stands for and they’ll sum it up pretty well. Indeed, no less than Kanye West did a great job summarizing the Republican party when, after Hurricane Katrina, he said simply, “Bush doesn’t care about black people”. The author should play this clip to answer that winsome 17 year old:
https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/101/video/flashback-kanye-west-attacks-george-w-bush-over-katrina-response-514568771962
Chris, I am really, really hoping that you will give us your take on the RNC convention. I know it will be a most unpleasant duty for you, seeing as how the RNC has jettisoned everything that once defined their party (see recent one page platform), but it would be most interesting since you could provide a different view than what mainstream news media will focus on: comparison of DNC vs RNC style and Trump gaffes.
I won’t be watching it. Didn’t watch the DNC either.
Wise call. Again I offer my condolences on the self-destruction of something that you had hoped to make better.
For the DNC, I watched the speeches by both Obamas, Harris, and Biden. I probably will not watch the Presidential debates because I cannot stand seeing Trump for extended periods of time, and there will be plenty of post-debate analysis.
I’m with Chris here. The rest of America may be okay with the reality televizication of politics but I’m not fond of reality television as a genre, so I choose not to watch it.
I vote people based off of the policies they list on their websites. This year I don’t think there are any policies listed on the higher end of the tickets. Best to just tune their campaigns out, you already know what you’re voting. Spend the time reading up on what the down ballot campaigners are doing instead.
That’s surprising. I thought I was the only political junkie without the least bit of interest in watching either convention…
Some elections are about a clash of ideas, some are merely bare knuckle brawls to see who’s left standing come November. This election is one of the latter ones. Ideas don’t matter. Anyone who cares the least bit about ideas has already picked sides and aren’t going to budge. Anyone who, after 4 years, doesn’t yet know what side he/she is on is [a dimwit, and] not going to suddenly carry out a reasoned, somber analysis about policies before casting their vote (FWIW, I’ll grant that people did that in the Dem primaries, picking between Sanders / Warren / Biden / etc largely on policy).
For that matter, I have no idea what Biden stands for: does he support Medicare-for-all? The Green New Deal? Wall St. reform? Free trade? All that he’s willing to tell me is that he isn’t Trump. In 2020, that’s enough to earn my vote. It is what it is, but I don’t have to feel happy that that’s my choice, and I certainly don’t have to waste precious hours of my life listening to politicians try to convince me (or themselves) that my vote amounts to something more than a referendum on the current guy in office.
Biden’s platform.
https://joebiden.com/joes-vision/
Any federal offenses by these criminals will be pardoned away before noon on January 20th 2021…IF Trump loses.
If he wins, the pardons/commutations will be very, very slow, as Trump will test his criminal associates’ loyalties.
In Griftopia, being found guilty of Federal Crimes is meaningless.
Anyone remember Iran Contra? How about Elliot Abrams?
Pardoned by George H.W. Bush
Served as Deputy National Security Advisor to George W. Bush
Served as Special Representative to Venezuela under Trump.
Well, he’s come full circle.
He’s the Current Special Representative to Iran.
Anyhow.
I still think it’s a toss-up, with it being Trump’s election to lose.
I have said it time and time again.
It is not a toss-up. It is over. Nov 1, Biden could have a 12 point lead in the polls (and he won’t, historically races tighten), and it would be irrelevant. The damage to holding a fair election is already done.
Just do the bloody math for the Electoral College.
In Belarus, they had 250,000 people march on the street in Minsk. Their tyrant got so worried he was whisked away by helicopter. For those that don’t follow international news, 250,000 people is about 2.6% of the entire population of the country.
Imagine if half that percentage of the american population actually moved on Congress and the White House in the same manner. Now, the situation in Belarus is going to end in tears and blood (and there already has been a lot), as their tyrant has called on putin to invade with his little green men. The same thing would happen in the u.s. if the masses did what is happening there.
But that is the ONLY way this regime will be toppled.
isn’t it risky to sacrifice Bannon 3 months before the election? I mean he was part of the Trump campaign and the White House for a long time. Don’t you think he could know things that he could trade for a plea bargain within the next months that might totally sink Trump’s reelection chances?
Isn’t it possible that Bill Barr tried to intervene to protect Bannon to avoid that and failed?
(Maybe I just want to believe that for once Barr didn’t succeed)
Bannon already cooperated with the feds in the Mueller investigation and wrote a pretty damning book to cash in on his time in the Death Star. They hate him and he’s already spilled his guts.
Please. Change your metaphor.
Jazz makes me happy, even in the worst of times.
Like now.
The best thing the Dems could do is simply investigate EVERYBODY – launch an investigation into Bill Clinton and Hunter Biden
Get it all out into the open – if the investigation ends in prosecution then so be it
No hostages!
Or more accurately, kill the hostages. I’m fine with it frankly, but Joe Biden might have some reservations with this plan.
That assumes that there is some fire behind the smoke – with all of the investigations already done I’m much much less convinced that there is ANYTHING
I mean how many “crimes” of that nature have you committed??
In some ways I would almost rather that they investigate and DO find some Dem criminals – it would make the investigations more “believable”
But after the sheer amount of money spent investigating the Clintons………
Seems to me there could be a ton of indictments coming down late January if/when Biden wins!
Maybe, but not likely. Chances are everyone in charge will prefer to look toward the future rather than digging through this muck. Most of the people responsible for Griftopia will escape with their loot.
IIRC Biden has said that he wouldn’t stand in the way of any investigations. Not as good as promising them, but not as bad as declining (I know he still could, and I hope he doesn’t, but first things first, we have to actually vote out as many GOPers as possible). But I wonder, if the Trump crime family ever does get busted, it will happen instead at the state level, so that the Dems at the federal level never have to stick their necks out?
This deserves a full post. Need to get to it. But you can get your life savings these prosecutions will evaporate after November, regardless who wins.
Two factors to consider here.
1) Nothing is free. You can’t direct the same time and energy in two directions at once. Americans have the memory of a goldfish and will insist leaders push toward new goals rather than hovering over an era they want to forget.
2) Republicans have hostages. Their biggest hostage is Hunter Biden. Second-biggest is Bill “Epstein Airlines Frequent Flyer” Clinton. And there are others all down the stack. No one in power wants the public to suddenly discover an enthusiasm for accountability.
This will go away.
I’m with Chris on this one. Congress could investigate this *now*. The Dems control the House, and they could easily call hearings, profess faux concern about all those innocent people who got duped into donating, and the violation of various non-profit regulations, etc. and move up the chain until you have Eric deer-in-headlights Trump forced to speak on record without his handlers spoon-feeding him responses. He has no official govt role, and this is a purely private enterprise, so there’s nothing Daddy can do to protect him from a subpoena.
Democrats lack the killer instinct to go for the jugular. While Republicans still chant “Lock Her Up!” Dems are afraid to call Trump a Russian agent and 2-bit money launderer. Republicans made political hay out of Hunter Biden but the Dems are afraid to go after Don Jr. or Ivanka pumping a money laundering real estate scam in Azerbaijan. If you can’t nail Trump and his family members, you should hang up your JD and give up your Bar credentials.
Some days I want to be a Republican just to feel what it’s like to not be in a party full of gelded “leaders”. If Obama could “move on” from hanging the traitors who instigated the Iraq War, not to mention the fraudsters on Wall St. who bankrupted the world, then Biden will easily find it in his heart to forgive a harmless grifter who wants nothing more than to slink back to Papa Putin and maybe run a cable channel to preach to (and scam) his deluded cult.
FWIW, I’m not impressed by Kamala Harris either. For all her Sturm und Drang during the Senate hearings, just look at her record: despite being Atty General of CA, the epicenter of mortgage fraud in the 2007/2008 financial crisis, she never prosecuted a single individual. Angelo Mozilo, CEO of Countrywide Financial, who became the orange face of the seedy subprime mortgage business at that time, was prosecuted by the SEC. Harris did nothing despite Countrywide being headquartered in CA and doing most of its business in the state. You think she really cares about another orange skinned hustler preying on the little people?
How long have I been calling the Dem’s the loser party. You are absolutely correct. The dem’s lack ANY killer instinct. And that is why they keep losing. They think they are playing a game that has rules, while their enemy knows better.