It's incredibly hard to believe that the Trump "Organization" didn't run afoul of the FCPA on its foreign projects. I was involved in FCPA training for some of BP's international divisions. The big fear wasn't that someone negotiating a big deal would pay an out-and-out bribe as part of securing the project, but rather that an obvious, but minor, technical violation might attract scrutiny from the DOJ, and once they got a good look under the hood, they'd find more significant shortcomings.
Now, as you might guess, BP has a lot of lawyers and other folks monitoring compliance. Employees are trained to spot red flags and suspicious requests, and seek legal advice when they see something fishy. BP, for some reason, didn't want to be on the front page of the Times of London for bribing some corrupt dictator to secure a profitable contract to steal Lower Slobovia's patrimony while Slobovian children starve.
I'm pretty sure that if I was a lawyer for Trump, (a) I'd be broke or in jail, and (b) if they thought about the FCPA at all, they'd be trying to skirt the law, or hide wrongdoing. Of all the rules in the world that don't apply to him, it would be pretty strange if the one nicety he tried to observe was avoiding the kind of corruption that was a backbone of father Fred's and his businesses.
I appreciate the reminder that we have a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. We are bombarded by the endless outrages of this Administration's domestic corrupt practices. We have only so much bandwidth to process all the corruption. I was thinking we needed something called the Domestic Corrupt Practices Act. Then it occurred to me that we already have one. It's called The Constitution of the United States.
Say I run a casino with multiple FinCEN fines for decades of violating money laundering regulations. I introduce my lovely children to some Russian Mafia guys and nearly get them indicted for real estate fraud in NYC. Our family activity includes paying for fraud claims in our "Charitable Foundation", a fake university, and settling with the victims of our failed ventures - like the one in Baja. From Panama to Florida. I expect you to expect me to be cozy with crime. Endorse crime, even. Facilitate crime, if I'm honest. As long as I'm not on the losing end. I'm an old guy with lots of contacts, a young son who can assume the mantle. Say I was held liable for sexual assault and I won a presidential election. (It'll take a giant, stage 4 tumor to make this guy feel vulnerable to outside forces. Root for the tumor.)
Politics wise, you would not want this to be a publicized strategy to the American public. It would be so easy to spin it as witch hunts, anti-business practices, and government overreach
Damn!!!! I wish all these long think pieces that I love to read, had some effects on the shitshow we are in. I am the Choir they are preaching too. The show is in the multiple law suits in action now and the coming ones. They don't come free off the tree of laws.
I generally agree with this, but I think the Democrats have a brand problem around corruption.
One of my takeaways on the 2016 election was the difference between Clinton and Trump was corruption with and without plausible deniability.
Corruption is the obvious attack angle, but it’s hard to use that as an attack angle when Democrats are also corrupt, just in a more polite way.
I also think the Democratic Party is reluctant to do anything about it because it would lead to a party purge among senior officials.
There also appears to be an elite consensus around corruption in DC that is wildly out of touch with what the general public wants.
So I agree with you, and I think it’s good politics, but would require a lot of internal political battles within the party that they don’t really want to deal with.
It's incredibly hard to believe that the Trump "Organization" didn't run afoul of the FCPA on its foreign projects. I was involved in FCPA training for some of BP's international divisions. The big fear wasn't that someone negotiating a big deal would pay an out-and-out bribe as part of securing the project, but rather that an obvious, but minor, technical violation might attract scrutiny from the DOJ, and once they got a good look under the hood, they'd find more significant shortcomings.
Now, as you might guess, BP has a lot of lawyers and other folks monitoring compliance. Employees are trained to spot red flags and suspicious requests, and seek legal advice when they see something fishy. BP, for some reason, didn't want to be on the front page of the Times of London for bribing some corrupt dictator to secure a profitable contract to steal Lower Slobovia's patrimony while Slobovian children starve.
I'm pretty sure that if I was a lawyer for Trump, (a) I'd be broke or in jail, and (b) if they thought about the FCPA at all, they'd be trying to skirt the law, or hide wrongdoing. Of all the rules in the world that don't apply to him, it would be pretty strange if the one nicety he tried to observe was avoiding the kind of corruption that was a backbone of father Fred's and his businesses.
'Springtime for Scammers' is absolute 🔥
I appreciate the reminder that we have a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. We are bombarded by the endless outrages of this Administration's domestic corrupt practices. We have only so much bandwidth to process all the corruption. I was thinking we needed something called the Domestic Corrupt Practices Act. Then it occurred to me that we already have one. It's called The Constitution of the United States.
Trumpf digging his own grave, let's hope he doesn't take everyone with him, Germany survived Hitler & Russia Stalin. Barely.
Yeah, it won't be pretty in the end. Draining a festering infection never is.
Say I run a casino with multiple FinCEN fines for decades of violating money laundering regulations. I introduce my lovely children to some Russian Mafia guys and nearly get them indicted for real estate fraud in NYC. Our family activity includes paying for fraud claims in our "Charitable Foundation", a fake university, and settling with the victims of our failed ventures - like the one in Baja. From Panama to Florida. I expect you to expect me to be cozy with crime. Endorse crime, even. Facilitate crime, if I'm honest. As long as I'm not on the losing end. I'm an old guy with lots of contacts, a young son who can assume the mantle. Say I was held liable for sexual assault and I won a presidential election. (It'll take a giant, stage 4 tumor to make this guy feel vulnerable to outside forces. Root for the tumor.)
Go malignancy go!
Politics wise, you would not want this to be a publicized strategy to the American public. It would be so easy to spin it as witch hunts, anti-business practices, and government overreach
Damn!!!! I wish all these long think pieces that I love to read, had some effects on the shitshow we are in. I am the Choir they are preaching too. The show is in the multiple law suits in action now and the coming ones. They don't come free off the tree of laws.
I generally agree with this, but I think the Democrats have a brand problem around corruption.
One of my takeaways on the 2016 election was the difference between Clinton and Trump was corruption with and without plausible deniability.
Corruption is the obvious attack angle, but it’s hard to use that as an attack angle when Democrats are also corrupt, just in a more polite way.
I also think the Democratic Party is reluctant to do anything about it because it would lead to a party purge among senior officials.
There also appears to be an elite consensus around corruption in DC that is wildly out of touch with what the general public wants.
So I agree with you, and I think it’s good politics, but would require a lot of internal political battles within the party that they don’t really want to deal with.
The Trump cartel is acting fast to get away with as much as they possibly can before the curtain comes down.