Thread by @AlexandraErin

I'll be honest, this is more of a smoking gun than I had ever expected to be found on paper.

That Trump's loans from Deutsche Bank were signs of as Russian buy-in isn't surprising. That it may be written down in black and white is interesting.

https://twitter.com/Lawrence/status/1166529030352510976

I was going to say it showed a high degree of confidence that they would never come to light, but then I realized that the revelation would have been seen as far more potentially damaging to Trump. The signatures are a weapon to keep him in line.

Their signatures, not his, are the kompromat.

Let's back up and talk about the trajectory of Trump's life and his business model, such as it is, for anyone who's puzzled over the significance of this beyond the mere fact that Trump entered into a partnership with sketchy people.

The thing you have to understand is that pointing out Trump's business bankruptcies is just the tip of the iceberg.

Trump, broadly speaking, has spent his whole life losing money. Other people's. He spends it as it runs out, to prop up his "billionaire" lifestyle.

Trump claims to be a self-made man "apart from a small loan of a million dollars" and that already makes him seem laughably out of touch, but we know now that even this was a lie.

He spent his father's fortune his whole life.

His first real estate venture at his father's feet lost money, though he claimed it was a success. He lied his way onto the Forbes 400 richest list. The compilers knew he was lying in the interview and assumed they could split the difference because he couldn't be lying THAT much

He spent, spent, spent to create the image of a successful tycoon. People bought into the name that his father had built and he had splashed around, and he didn't even bother trying to turn a profit because he wasn't living on the profits, he was living on the capital.

We all know he managed to bankrupt casinos, which are money-printing licenses, but it's not purely incompetence. He didn't try to make them work.

He lied to a casino company to get them to lend him *their* name (and legitimacy in the gambling world) while convincing them *his* name was the bigger asset, he lied to the NJ gaming commission that he was the lowest risk because he'd negotiate with the banks better...

...but then he financed his casino empire with high-interest junk bonds, because he had no intention of repaying them. When things went bad, the banks preferred having a solvent partner paying him back rather than forcing him to default and getting nothing.

So they refinanced him and they put him on an allowance.

His net worth was negative. His net worth was several hundred million dollars below zero. He was closed to an anti-billionaire.

And the banks he owed it to gave him an allowance.

They gave him an allowance because they wanted to prop him up as an apparently successful businessman in hopes he would turn the business around, while curtailing his spending.

He promptly bought his Marla a diamond ring, just to tell them they weren't the boss of him.

Now, just to point something out: he kind of hated her, she's the one who "trapped" him... and he FAMOUSLY hates the idea of buying jewelry because why would you give anyone who has the power to walk away from you any negotiable assets?

So he bought her jewelry with the banks' money out of spite, to be conspicuous, to tell them that they were suckers and he had them by the short hairs.

So, it may surprise you, but... eventually... banks stopped doing business with Trump.

But by that point, Trump didn't need banks! He and his followers say "He was rich enough to be his own bank!" but, no. He was spending whatever money he had, keeping up his lifestyle.

Which became his next bargaining chip.

Obviously the rich guy with his name all over the place is a successful businessman, so he got people to invest in his ventures. Outside investors. They gave him money, he spent their money on his lifestyle, ran the business venture into the ground.

It was The Producers.

While all this is going on, he's licensing his name. Meaning people are paying him to put his name on their thing, so people will associate it with his success.

He takes the money. Then points to these projects around the world as his, when he's courting investors.

A scam.

Donald Trump's lawyers argued in court at one point that due diligence is the duty of the investors, and thus, they should have looked into his business practices and track record before trusting him.

The judge agreed with that defense.

In other words, it became a matter of public record that investors should know better than to give Donald Trump money.

This may shock you, but he stopped being able to attract investors.

But while he had been doing this, he was constantly expanding his "empire". Licensing his name everywhere, becoming an aspirational figure so people would buy his merchandise, his books. Constantly starting ventures, always moving money around.

The Trump Org is called The Trump Org and not Trump, Inc. because it's... okay, you've heard of shell companies? Well, have you ever seen one of those weddings where the cake is like a tower of croquembouche? Just a bunch of puff pastry? That's Trump Org, without the cream fill.

It's a paper empire. A house of cards, and each card is a sole proprietorship or other closely held company that Trump instituted. He claims the same assets multiple times across each, he hides the liabilities, he makes them and then abandons them as needed.

There's credible reason to think he was laundering money even as far back as his casino days (him? turn down money?), but as he burned other big sources of "investment capital" to lose and spend he relied on it more and more.

Especially since during his father's lifetime, even with all the shell games he played, the main thing that kept him afloat was his father giving him money. That's the thing. He did all the fancy footwork and the razzle-dazzle... and it would have failed, should have failed.

But when his father died and he got his last big cash infusion, he was established enough to sell himself through The Apprentice and that helped, both getting him money and spreading his legendary image of success to new customers.

So this brings us to Deutsche Bank, organized crime, and Russian oligarchs.

Donald Trump ran saying that he was too rich to be bought, but in fact he has always been so broke he can't afford not to sell.

And by the early 21st century, his reputation among people with money was such that the only people who would give him money were both so shady to have few legitimate investment options and so powerful they credibly believed they could burn him back harder if he burned them.

What they aren't is suckers. They're not investing in Trump because they believe he'll make them money. But money laundering... if you've got $10 you can't spend in the US and you give it to him and he gives you back some agreed on fraction, that's the cost of doing business.

Better than money laundering is influence buying. Propping up the so-called president of these benighted states? They don't have to rely on him to "stay bought", because as long as they're funding his lifestyle he needs them, and as long as they can expose him, doubly so.

The legitimate banks couldn't have played Trump like this because he doesn't envy and admire them, which means he's incapable of fearing or respecting them.

Putin and the Russian oligarchs are Trump's aspirational figures, though.

And just as Trump's fans will put up with any indignity on the myth that they could become the next Trump, Trump will subordinate himself to others if he wants to believe it could get him to where they are.

So it's not just the idea that Trump went into partnership with these gangsters, that they went halfsies with him on some real estate ventures or they underwrote the costs.

The connection is their line of control over him.

I'm not saying that Putin or anyone else doesn't have more compromising material on Trump, but we should not underestimate how much the monetary ties themselves are "kompromat".

Even if he doesn't have to worry about embarrassment, even if he completely isolates himself from criminal liability... the power to control his purse strings gives them considerable leverage.