This could explain a lot about the sudden, recent reversal of corrupt malignancy Donald "Rump" Trump's position on sanctions on Chinese tech giant ZTE:
The Chinese government is directing $500 million to the Trump Organization, and even the White House press office has been unable to say why this massive payoff is not simply an enormous bribe. Jimmy Carter may have been forced to sell his peanut farm, but Donald Trump did not rid himself of the Trump Organization. It’s not in a blind trust. It’s not in any sort of trust. It is still setting there, under the direction of the same staff selected by Trump, and nominally under the charge of Donald Trump’s children. It is still owned—100 percent—by Donald J. Trump. And, despite promises made at Trump’s inauguration, it has not ceased forming new business partnerships abroad.
Among its new dealings is an enormous project in Indonesia, a project that includes hotels, a theme park, apartments and, of course, a golf course. The financing of that project had been up in the air, but that has all changed. Because the Chinese government is pouring in $500 million to Trump’s Indonesian project. And because the Trump Organization is nothing but a shell company for Donald Trump, that half-billion might as well go right into the pocket of his baggy suit.
News of the deal immediately follows Donald Trump’s extraordinary action over the weekend in which he demonstrated a willingness to ignore sanctions against dealing with North Korea and Iran. Instead, Trump jumped to the defense of a China-based technology company [ZTE] under penalty for not just selling US-made surveillance gear to both sanctioned governments, but repeatedly lying to US investigators. But even as National Security Advisor John Bolton was threatening America’s European allies about dealing with Iran, Trump was acting to save a company that had broken those sanctions deliberately and repeatedly. (our emphasis)Rump's sewer of corruption, which engulfs all who support and enable him, is getting beyond overwhelming. And, of course, bribery is not a bug with Rump and his business dealings over the decades; it's a feature. It even found some mentions in the Steele Dossier:
"Suggestion from source close to TRUMP and MANAFORT that Republican campaign team happy to have Russia as media bogeyman to mask more extensive corrupt business ties to China and other emerging countries." pic.twitter.com/HqugeMGqOZ— Scott Stedman (@ScottMStedman) May 13, 2018
And,
Just a reminder that the bribery law (18 U.S.C. § 201) is still one of the few ethics laws that applies to the president, and ordering a cabinet agency to take action is one of the few things that would still qualify as an “official act” after the Supreme Court gutted the law. https://t.co/UolmT0yeYw— Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) May 15, 2018
We expect Special Counsel Mueller's team is about 6 months into this history of Rump's corrupt business practices in China and elsewhere, with the apparent ZTE quid pro quo just adding to the case. Most importantly, it's not only the pay- to- play bribery and the violation of the emoluments clause in the Constitution, but the leverage/ kompromat the Chinese (as the Russians) have over our dim, useful idiot "president," the upshot being our foreign policy is now run out of Beijing and Moscow.
