I would have thought the Bannon subpoena would be more of a bombshell, but it doesn’t seem to be causing much of a stir. Business as usual?
IMO nobody expects Bannon to say anything that would actually get Trump in trouble.
The House subpoena is meaningless, since the House investigation is a joke (and even when House committees aren’t jokes, their subpoenas lack teeth because they require a vote of the full House to enforce them.)
The Mueller subpoena isn’t a joke, but it’s not a bombshell either. According to NYT, it’s a sign that Bannon probably isn’t a target of Mueller’s investigation:
The Mueller subpoena could be a negotiating tactic. Mr. Mueller is likely to allow Mr. Bannon to forgo the grand jury appearance if he agrees to instead be questioned by investigators in the less formal setting of the special counsel’s offices about ties between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russia and about the president’s conduct in office, according to the person, who would not be named discussing the case. But it was not clear why Mr. Mueller treated Mr. Bannon differently from the dozen administration officials who were interviewed in the final months of last year and were never served with a subpoena.
The subpoena is a sign that Mr. Bannon is not personally the focus of the inquiry. Justice Department rules allow prosecutors to subpoena the targets of investigations only in rare circumstances.
One of the people at the center of the investigation, the former Russian ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak, received $120,000 ten days after the election of Donald Trump. Bankers flagged it to the US government as suspicious in part because the transaction, marked payroll, didn’t fit prior pay patterns. Five days after Trump’s inauguration, someone attempted to withdraw $150,000 cash from the embassy’s account — but the embassy’s bank blocked it. Bank employees reported the attempted transaction to the US government because it was abnormal activity for that account. From March 8 to April 7, 2014, bankers flagged nearly 30 checks for a total of about $370,000 to embassy employees, who cashed the checks as soon as they received them, making it virtually impossible to trace where the money went. Bank officials noted that the employees had not received similar payments in the past, and that the transactions surrounded the date of a critical referendum on whether parts of Crimea should secede from Ukraine and join Russia — one of Vladimir Putin’s top foreign policy concerns and a flash point with the West. Over five years, the Russian Cultural Centre — an arm of the government that sponsors classes and performances and is based in Washington, DC — sent $325,000 in checks that banking officials flagged as suspicious. The amounts were not consistent with normal payroll checks and some of the transactions fell below the $10,000 threshold that triggers a notice to the US government....…In the fall of 2015, bankers noted deposits into an account identified as “Russian Cultural Center in New York.” No such entity could be found in public filings, but the banking records show its address as 9 East 91st Street in New York, the same address where the Russian Consulate General is located. The phone number listed in banking records is disconnected. Bankers noted that the cash deposits appeared to be “structured,” which means they were separated into small amounts that seemed designed to stay under the $10,000 daily threshold that would trigger an alert to authorities. For example, in a single afternoon, someone made ATM cash deposits into the “Russian Cultural Center in New York” account of $5,000, $4,400, and $600.
I mean, I’m not sure why a Russian embassy would have an account with a US bank, but if it’s going to, of course it’s going to be doing dodgy shit. That’s what embassies of major powers are for.
Up until fairly recently, embassies would have required US bank accounts for mundane things like buying groceries and paying contractors and the embassy’s American employees. (And also for shenanigans and foreign intrigue. But the point is there are legit reasons as well.)
I guess these days you could just use paypal for everything.
I still want to know more about that server at Trump tower that was communicating exclusively with the Russian bank.
This. Very much.
I would wonder, why not bitcoin? I’m thinking a whole lot of the money plundered from Russia may already be there, given the Magnitsky act.
Because Trump doesn’t understand bitcoin?
The Russians probably want real money instead of play money?
We have met the enemy, etc.
This is the #2 Republican in the Senate.
I wonder if he realizes that not everyone got t this message from Twitter, and that the reason he got it was that he was promoting Russian propaganda.
So: Cornyn is not only stupid enough to follow a Russian bot account, he’s stupid enough to announce to the WORLD that he was stupid enough to follow a Russian bot account.
As a current resident of the State of Texas this sounds just like something a Texas Senator would do.
How does a complete moron like Cornyn get elected to the Senate?? Serious question.
$$$$$$$$$$. And religion, I assume.