Steve Bannon understands the truth about the Mueller probe, the media still doesn’t

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Over a year ago, when the media were already obsessed about alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election, I wrote that the Trump empire’s entanglement with troubled financial giant Deutsche Bank presented the only real existential threat to Donald Trump’s presidency. The media have largely ignored this story in favor of the more sensational (and much more spurious) story about Trump’s alleged collusion with the Russian government during the 2016 election.

They are still doing it today, even in the face of mounting evidence that special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe isn’t really about collusion with Russian election tampering at all. But it’s obvious that one person understands what is really happening, and that’s former Trump adviser Steve Bannon.

How badly are the media missing this story? Bannon’s own assessment of the real danger to Trump isn’t mentioned until the 13th paragraph of the Guardian’s recounting of his interview with Wolff. Then, as an afterthought, the Guardian notes that Bannon said:

“You realise where this is going,” he is quoted as saying. “This is all about money laundering. Mueller chose [senior prosecutor Andrew] Weissmann first and he is a money-laundering guy. Their path to f***ing Trump goes right through Paul Manafort, Don Jr and Jared Kushner … It’s as plain as a hair on your face.” …

Bannon continues: “It goes through Deutsche Bank and all the Kushner s**t. The Kushner s**t is greasy. They’re going to go right through that. They’re going to roll those two guys up and say play me or trade me.”

Whatever you think about Bannon — even if you’re one of the many people who justifiably think very little of him — here is clear evidence that he “gets it,” and it’s astounding that more people in the media don’t.

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The sharks have been publicly circling Deutsche Bank for years, for good reason. They are credibly accused of a lengthy list of criminal and regulatory violations, including money laundering for organized crime in Russia — the very thing Paul Manafort was suspected of doing even at the time Trump hired him to run his campaign. As I said last year:

However, Deutsche Bank is in serious trouble, a large portion of which is directly due to criminal and regulatory investigations currently underway at the behest of multiple governments, including the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany. Deutsche is accused of, among other things, helping organized crime elements in Russia disguise suspicious trades, and is facing billions of dollars in potential fines from the U.S. Justice Department alone from these activities, as well as from unrelated regulatory issues related to mortgage securities.

The sum total of the fines faced by the bank threatens its financial solvency. And its position is so precarious that the question of whether the German government will offer a bailout is a major political issue in Germany. If Deutsche fails, the financial effects will ripple across the globe, potentially creating a liquidity crisis similar to the one that created the 2008 recession.

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