If the knuckle dragging troglodytes who voted for Donald Trump ever decide to hold a convention, Donald Trump, Jr. can be their poster child. Here’s his latest tasteless buffoonery, and he seems to think it’s cool.
Spotted: Jim Acosta playing golf earlier today. pic.twitter.com/fi0nubIS2I
— Arthur Schwartz (@ArthurSchwartz) January 11, 2019
You probably remember Trump in 2017 and before, endorsing the image of a wrestling match where a suited man with a CNN logo for a head gets brutally smacked down outside the ring. And apparently that wasn’t enough, there was the same suited-man image getting run over by a train on Twitter. Trump retweeted both of those. Junior comes by his lack of character and taste honestly, considering who his father is. So, what is Junior’s point? Is he attacking the First Amendment and “the enemy of the people” with his image of violence to Acosta? Partly. What he’s really doing is giving the rest of us a new shiny object to obsess on, while his real transgressions go unnoticed. Because you see, when Junior isn’t involved in this level of adolescent buffoonery, he’s up to his neck in a lot of very real and substantial mischief.
Besides the infamous Trump Tower meeting in 2016, Junior was recorded by law enforcement officials in Spain having conversations with Alexander Torshin, the Russian banker who was suspected of money laundering. Torshin was attempting to use the NRA convention that year to set up a back door meeting between Trump and Putin. Law enforcement in Spain turned over tapes of these conversations to the FBI. A Spanish prosecutor specializing in organized crime investigations said at that time, “Mr. Trump’s son should be concerned.”
Then there’s Junior’s relationship with Baltic International Bank. In 2012 he spoke at the bank’s conference on the topic, “Inheriting a Family Business and Raising the New Generation.” That seems innocent enough, except for the fact that Baltic International has also been implicated in organized crime and money laundering. The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project found detailed transactions depicting a relationship between Baltic International and Prevezon Holdings. Prevezon is a Cyprus company that is linked to the Magnitsy case, and that takes us right back to Junior and Trump Tower.
Interesting how all these dots connect, isn’t it? There’s a recurrent theme of organized crime, money laundering, and Russian interference with the 2016 election.
Trump may be deflecting wildly with his wall and the government shutdown, but those are side show diversions fabricated for the purpose of dominating the news cycle. While Trump is raving about “unbelievable vehicles” coming over the Mexican border ala Mad Max, troops are being withdrawn from Syria and nobody’s talking about it. Likewise, the departure of Mattis and Kelly are blessedly, for Trump, not on everybody’s TV screens, along with the sentencing of Michael Cohen and other equally unwelcome stories. Trump’s meltdown on Twitter yesterday indicates that he’s terrified, because the truth about his activities in Russia is that much closer to being exposed. And not his alone — Junior’s as well. Junior’s name might be in a sealed indictment. In any event, Junior is up the crick and it’s only a matter of time before we find out how far and for what.
