Forget Treason, Bannon Opens a Window on the Serious Possibility of Money Laundering

Trump watchers have been treated to a world-class cage match over the last couple of days between President Donald Trump and one of his political Svengalis, Steve Bannon.Lots of attention has been lavished on Bannon's charge, leveled in a new book by the journalist Michael Wolff, that Trump's son, Donald Jr., engaged in "treasonous" behavior by meeting with a Russian lawyer in Trump Tower during the 2016 presidential campaign. There are also requisite antics involving others in the Trump clan and the White House.All of that is entertaining, as is Trump's furious counterattack. He posits that Bannon has "lost his mind" and on Wednesday night unleashed one of his lawyers to warn his former chief strategist that if he kept yapping about life with the Trumps he'd get taken to court and suffer other miseries. (Wolff apparently has recordings of his Bannon interviews and Trump granted Wolff access to the White House, so legal remedies for the president may be elusive.)But one of the more substantive issues Bannon has surfaced shouldn't get lost in the cacophony. Bannon, in his interviews with Wolff, has invited us to consider the families of Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as possible targets of a significant federal money-laundering investigation.  Continue reading...