An Oregon Democrat apparently revealed that Senate investigators are examining possible money laundering by President Donald Trump and his associates as part of their probe of his campaign ties to Russia.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) asked FBI acting director Andrew McCabe about the possibility of illicit Russian money being laundered through overseas banks in connection with Trump associates, and the law enforcement official agreed federal investigators were also concerned about that.
Federal prosecutors have reportedly issued grand jury subpoenas for business records from associates of former national security adviser Mike Flynn, reported CNN.
It's not fully clear what federal authorities are looking for, and there's no real way of knowing what they've found, but an investigative reporter who's been probing the links between Trump and Russia offered some possibilities.
"There’s one camp that says there’s nothing to this, which I think is garbage," James Henry, a lawyer-turned-journalist who writes for DC Report. "There’s another camp that Trump was a mole, is a puppet, it’s all about collusion with respect to last year’s election. And I say the jury is out on that."
Henry said he would need more information about the FBI investigation and details from FISA warrants to see what was happening -- but he has already been exploring Trump's ties to organized crime.
“There’s a third camp, which is stuff I have been working on, is the organized crime," Henry said. "This guy’s a mobster. He has all these dodgy business partners. He knew or should have known that they were involved in organized crime, money-laundering, racketeering. That’s pretty hard to deny. We see the people he’s been in business with. We see the deals over and over again. It’s in plain sight. That’s the theory I’ve been working on."
"You could make a case on good old-fashioned criminal law -- if you had a prosecutor," he added.