wilwheaton:

“Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s alleged collusion with Russia has been opaque, but from the indictments issued so far, as well as the recent subpoena of the Trump Organization’s records, it is clear that a central issue is money laundering. Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort and his deputy Rick Gates are accused of violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) by effectively working as unlicensed lobbyists, laundering millions of dollars, tax evasion, and bank fraud. What many in Washington have portrayed as a new Cold War looks a lot like something else: large-scale white-collar crime. It should not have taken an international political scandal to hold the perpetrators accountable. Unfortunately, much of what Manafort and Gates were allegedly engaged in is common in Washington and New York, where foreign governments, both allies and adversaries, routinely funnel money in order to promote their interests. Consider the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who is under scrutiny from Mueller not only for his contacts with Russia but also because officials in the United Arab Emirates, China, Israel, and Mexico sought to influence him. This is the context in which Russian interference should be understood: not as an unprecedented attack on US institutions, but as an especially dramatic example of how US institutions have been made vulnerable to manipulation by foreign governments and financial interests.”

— TAKE ON RUSSIA’S OLIGARCHS, BY TAKING ON AMERICA’S