The best way to get rid of Donald Trump is also the simplest: Vote him out in November of 2020. In an ideal world, Trump will lose by such a margin that pundits will exhaust themselves looking for new synonyms for “shellacking” and guards will stand by to make sure he doesn’t try to steal things from the White House on his way out—because you know he will. But if this was an ideal world, the question of how to get Trump out of office would never come up, because the idea of him ever being in office would be laughable. But since he is there, he’s a quick reminder that …
The New York attorney general has issued subpoenas to banks that worked with Trump on four projects. That includes Deutsche Bank which continued to loan Trump money even after they caught him lying to them about his net worth and he failed to pay back one of his first large loans. The lies that Trump told in applying for loans appear to be exactly of the same sort that got Paul Manafort indicted, and convicted, of bank fraud.
Those Deutsche Bank ties are also being investigated in Germany, specifically for their possible connection to money laundering. That’s another area where the deals that Trump has structured for Russian oligarchs, allowing them to slip funds around sanctions and taxes by purchasing overpriced condos, seems to exactly match the kind of deal on which Manafort was convicted.
Following the testimony of Michael Cohen, Democrats had plenty of ammunition in terms of additional witnesses to call and documents to seek related to Trump’s business. They’ve begun to follow up on those leads and others, sending out 81 subpoenas which have already turned up thousands of documents.
Prosecutors in the Southern District of New York have subpoenaed documents related to Trump’s inauguration, and in particular the unprecedented contributions to his inaugural committee. Federal prosecutors are reported to be looking at the possibility that these funds were used to funnel millions from foreign sources, including from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.
And when it comes to the Russia investigation — things are far from over. The instructions to Robert Mueller set limits over areas where he could look, especially when it came to things like Trump’s business. US attorneys in the SDNY are taking a more expansive look. The House investigation is reopened and reinvigorated, not just because the Intelligence Committee is actually functioning under Democratic Representative Adam Schiff, but thanks the leadership of Elijah Cummings and the other Democrats on the Oversight Committee. And the Senate investigation, whose theme song has practically been “let’s wait for Mueller” won’t be able to play that tune much longer, but will be able to talk about evidence they’ve seen without worrying about precious Justice Department regulations.
Robert Mueller may be putting forward no new indictments — which is disappointing because it certainly suggests there is never going to be an all inclusive indictment connecting Russian hacking, the social media campaign, Trump’s digital campaign, and the actions of those like Donald Trump Jr and Jared Kushner who worked to maintain channels to Moscow. But even that is not certain.
Donald Trump might leave the White House at the end of 2020 to find that a fat stack of sealed indictments is still waiting for him. First, let’s just make sure he leaves.