(THREAD) In this third excerpt from Proof of Corruption—link below—we find a conspiracy between Trump, Barr, Flynn, Giuliani and Mnuchin to interfere with federal investigations that could threaten Trump's Turkish business interests. I hope you'll retweet! read.macmillan.com/lp/proof-of-co…
1/ This excerpt comes from Chapter 36 of Proof of Corruption, one of the longest chapters in the 576-page book (an additional 430+ pages will be published online, containing the book's 5,000 endnotes). The chapter is one of the most harrowing in the book because of how it ends.
2/ The excerpt from Proof of Corruption you find atop this thread comes in the early-middle of the chapter, after a long section establishing not just that Trump has conflicts of interest in Turkey, but that he's admitted—publicly—he cannot deal with Turkey objectively as POTUS.
3/ Trump's confession that his lucrative business interests in Turkey—and his deep, longstanding business and personal relationship with Turkey's autocratic president and his inner circle—rule his judgment is among the most stunning admissions ever made by an American politician.
4/ What makes Trump's confession all the more shocking is the recent revelation—in the Roger Stone case—that the Turks and Israelis sought to illegally collude with Trump to help him win the 2016 presidential election. So Trump sees enormous value in his relationships in Turkey.
5/ It's for this reason that Trump and his inner circle—his AG, his attorney, his top national security adviser, and others—seek to interfere in not just one or two but three federal investigations that Turkey's president, Recep Erdogan, would punish Trump for not fixing for him.
6/ In the Zarrab, Gulen, and Halkbank cases, Trump directly intervened contrary to our national interest—aiding a Turkish scheme to evade US sanctions in Iran and illegally extradite a US resident, and hindering our ability to pursue a case that could incriminate Erdogan himself.
7/ Though any of these actions would be impeachable—and, inasmuch as they are part of a bribery scheme to protect Trump's Turkish business interests, criminal as well—there are still some Americans who'd dismiss the issue altogether. But then the *other* shoe drops in Chapter 36.
8/ By the end of Chapter 36, US troops are being fired upon by Erdogan's forces; our Kurdish allies in Syria—including women and children—are being raped, murdered, and beheaded; US airfields in Syria are being overrun by Russians. It all happens because Erdogan is bribing Trump.
9/ There's a growing consensus that Trump's actions in Syria—in a large area near the Turkish border that Trump green-lights Erdogan invading—constitute war crimes. There can be no doubt children were massacred to protect Trump's business interests in Turkey. That's indisputable.
10/ The attempted genocide in Syria—in which Trump played an active role—is one of the reasons Bolton chastised Democrats for running (in his determination) a botched impeachment. And indeed Trump's actions in Turkey and Syria are worse by far than almost anything else he's done.
11/ What's remarkable—and Proof of Corruption catalogues this in exhaustive detail—is that Trump's war crimes in Turkey also stand as the single act of his presidency most passionately, angrily, and even disgustedly opposed...by Republicans. No one in D.C. defended Trump on this.
12/ To this day, I have no idea why the Trump-Turkey bribery scandal—which blossomed into a war-crime scandal—has never been investigated by Congress. It revealed Trump as a monster who would kill children for profit—and saw him with no allies or defenders anywhere in Washington.
13/ As with everything else in Proof of Corruption—in many cases (as the book is a report, not a novel) with every *sentence* in the book—we find implications that require unpacking. The chapter reveals that Bolton had chances to tell the press what Trump was doing and refused.
14/ We learn that AG William Barr is Trump's criminal co-conspirator in Turkey—which has harrowing implications for Barr's involvement in Trump's Ukraine bribery scheme and its clandestine attempts to secure Trump's 2020 reelection through the illegal solicitation of foreign aid.
15/ We learn that Flynn is also a Trump co-conspirator—which is why Trump must pardon him to keep him out of federal prison. We learn that what Giuliani did in Ukraine he also did—again, criminally—in Turkey, which makes pending criminal investigations of him even more fraught.
CONCLUSION/ Trump's bribery and subversion of the national interest—criminal, impeachable, sometimes even a war crime—is like nothing we've ever seen before. Proof of Corruption reveals that this pattern touches every corner of Trump's foreign policy—and even his domestic policy.
FIRST EXCERPT/ If you missed the first excerpt from Proof of Corruption, which reveals Trump's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic—as you probably could guess by now—as a bribery scandal that's both criminal and impeachable, you can see it at the link below: read.macmillan.com/lp/proof-of-co…
SECOND EXCERPT/ If you missed the second excerpt from Proof of Corruption, it's below—and connects with the first inasmuch as it details how Trump's dealings with China have been intended to benefit him personally, with disastrous consequences for America. read.macmillan.com/lp/proof-of-co…
WEBSITE/ All pre-publication excerpts from Proof of Corruption will be linked to on my website (see under the book's title). Be aware that Proof of Corruption is so large and dense that even these excerpts—when all published—constitute only 5% of the book. sethabramson.net
