There is an obvious quid pro quo going on here: Trump's help in getting the sanctions lifted in return for help in winning the election, which is a requirement if Trump is to be of help with sanctions. (Congress has not helped with Trump's intended easing of Sanctions. But Congress must depend on the administrative branch for enforcement. Trump has tried to appease his Russian backers by going slow on enforcement, i.e., failure to implement Congress's directives.)
Trump's help in laundering Russian oligarch money and protecting Russian financial interests in the U.S. is in return for help in securing Russian financing for Trumps business deals, via Deutsche Bank's Moscow branch, and Russian controlled banks elsewhere. What's legal, illegal, or merely unethical will be sorted out by Mueller's team. But suffice it to say that regular communication between Trump's operation and Russian banks would be the expected order of the day, regardless of any "collusion" between Russians and the Trump political campaign, because Russian controlled banks comprise the main source of Trump's credit. His credit with U.S. controlled Banks has been negligible ever since his massive bankruptcy. Regardless, there is abundant prima facie evidence for "collusion" on the campaign itself, and it would come as a great surprise to all if Mueller's team has not turned up direct, irrefutable evidence of such.
It's a safe bet that if any of Trump's miraculously profitable business transactions with Russians on shore in the U.S. have involved the Trump organization in illegal money laundering, then Trump's tax returns very likely do not reflect the entirety of these transactions. Not only may federal law present him with liability, but New York Law may as well. The Statute of limitation may not offer equal protection in these two different venues. He would be well advised to seek competent legal advice. He is going to need it!
What I personally find fascinating is that a person with Trump's business history would not naturally shun the limelight. Why call attention to one's self and invite close scrutiny of your business dealings and tax returns? It makes no sense at all unless one is pure as the driven snow, which we all know is not the case here. I can only surmise that he is a victim of his extreme narcissism. To put it simply, he couldn't help himself.
_________________________
There is yet another aspect to this story that makes it even more compelling. And that is the long history of animosity between Russia and the Western alliance, led by Great Britain and the United States; a spat in which both parties acted like juveniles from time to time. Generally the U.S. and its allies retained the upper hand, resulting in, until now, largely unrequited resentment in Putin's mind and also among Russian citizenry. It's no wonder that Vladimir Putin is no friend of the United States. He must see Donald Trump as a fortuitous and useful tool. If he has seized an opportunity to use this tool to weaken U.S. hegemony, broaden discord among the U.S. and its NATO allies, so seeds of mistrust among U.S. citizenry and weaken Western democratic institutions, should we be surprised?
