Byline Times — Trump Cornered
To flee or not to flee — my latest in Byline Times
Thank you as always to those who support my work — both foreign and domestic.
I am finding that writing from a place of perpetual exhaustion is not negatively impacting the work, as is evidenced in my report today for Byline Times titled: Trump is Cornered and Could Soon Flee the Country.
Please have a read and as always, those who can afford to, please do subscribe to Byline Times — a UK newspaper born out of the dire need for fiercely independent investigative journalism. In the words of Too Short, “Get in where you fit in.” And I fit in with the Byline crew.
Here are some excerpts that I’m particularly proud of…
As I sat down to write this, I had just concluded watching the new documentary film on Roger Stone — A Storm Foretold. Danish filmmaker Christoffer Guldbrandsen revealed Donald Trump’s longtime political advisor plotting the ‘Stop the Steal’ operation about election fraud — a reboot from the same narrative he schemed in 2016, as Stone himself noted in the film.
Stone also said: “F*ck the voting, let’s get straight to the violence.”
And when the violence arrived, Stone departed.
When he learned that Trump did not pardon him for the events of January 6, he was filmed in a rage, vowing to seek revenge on Trump and his family.
I begin with Roger Stone because Trump does not exist as a politician without Stone — who worked with him for 40 years and had plotted multiple potential runs with him for the presidency. Trump also does not exist without his former personal lawyer Roy Cohn — who also represented mob bosses in all five of New York’s boroughs.
In addition, Trump does not exist in his current form without Paul Manafort, his former campaign manager. He took the job working for Trump for free after he had finished installing a Putin-friendly leader in Ukraine — Viktor Yanukovych. It was a presidency that ended with Yanukovych fleeing to Moscow with dozens of his closest associates. He was later convicted of treason against Ukraine.
As today’s mugshots began appearing online of Trump’s closest associates, I was reminded that this was always a mob story.
“All money launderers are fake rich guys,” geopolitical analyst Michael MacKay told Byline Times.
Wednesday’s Republican debate, which Trump refused to participate in, was best summed up by podcaster Jim Stewartson:
“Eight of the most embarrassing people in the world clinging to the rotting corpse of a party owned by the Kremlin and dominated by a man with 94 felony charges. The cringe is off the charts”, he wrote.
As the mugshots of Trump and his colleagues rickrolled the Western Hemisphere, it’s worth noting that in a recent post on Trump’s social media platform, he wrote: “If you go after me, I’m coming after you.”
This is akin to mob speak. A blanket threat to anyone who crosses him.
I was reminded of how Manafort’s clients run to Russia when watching Roger Stone run from the violent Insurrection back home to leafy Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in The Storm Foretold.
Ex-federal agent Martin Sheil says I’ve got the right idea but the wrong location.
“Russia does not have enough golf courses to keep Donald entertained”, he told Byline Times.
He said the better question to ask is will Trump flee to the UAE?
“Trump owns a golf course in Dubai which is also a leading global money-laundering center,” Sheil said. “So Trump can take his money and his golf clubs to a warm weather safe haven where it is not believed the UAE retains a viable extradition treaty with the US.”
You can read the full report here at Byline Times.
Onward and upward.
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