Crazy times, crazy conspiracies

Yes, it sounds crazy, this conspiracy theory does. But remember, crazy is today’s sane. Hey, Trump got elected, did he not?

It’s what you might call the Mother of All Conspiracies. Don your tinfoil cap. Here it is: Trump canoodled with Putin to steal the election from sweet, beloved Hillary!

Somehow, those diabolical Rooskies managed to tilt the electoral votes of just four, far-flung states — Florida, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin — away from Hillary and to Trump. Quite a trick!

Now at last — after much hoo-ha — Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller’s team of Washington insiders is on the verge of laying out the conspiracy case in court.

Uh, wait. Last minute change of plans, it looks like. With the first let’s-nail-Trump trial scheduled next month in the Washington, D.C., suburbs of Northern Virginia, Mueller has filed a court document, one of those fancy Latin terms lawyers like to use, an “in limine motion.”

In that document, Mueller reveals that he — these are his own words now — that he “does not intend to present at trial evidence or any argument concerning collusion with the Russian government.”

So much for Rooskies lurking under every bed, crouching behind every bush. This would seem to be an occasion for a coast-to-coast celebration. Or at least a sigh of relief. Why are things so quiet — seemingly even glum — over at CNN and MSNBC?

The upcoming trial puts the Special Prosecutor’s trophy catch — Paul Manafort — in the dock. He faces charges of tax evasion and bank fraud, charges having nothing to do with Russia collusion. Manafort was one of those sleazy Washington swamp creatures, widely regarded as such, when Trump took him on briefly, for about six months, as his campaign chairman, after which Trump spoke those famous words, “You’re fired!”

The charges that were later lodged against Manafort in the midst of the “Russia collusion” dustup actually date as far back as 2006. That’s way before Trump’s presidential candidacy. Actually, many of the charges were taken down off a dusty Justice Department shelf. They were charges never acted on in all the years Robert Mueller himself was FBI chief. Hmmm.

The case Manafort is about to go on trial for involves two loans totaling $16 million that Manafort allegedly finagled from a banker who was seeking a spot in a Trump administration. The unidentified banker was given the overblown title of Trump campaign “advisor.” But he never got the White House position he allegedly was angling for. The banker is alleged to have approved the loans despite irregularities in Manafort’s loan application — understated debt, overstated income, the usual exaggerations attending such transactions.

The Special Prosecutor is not alleging — repeat, not alleging — that Trump was in any way a party to the loan transactions or was aware of any of the dodgy details involved.

One of the charges pending against Manafort is the seldomif-ever prosecuted charge that — long before any association with Trump — Manafort failed to register as a lobbyist for foreign interests, to wit, for Ukrainian interests.

As the Manafort indictment itself notes, Manafort’s lobbying activities were extensive, involving “multiple” contacts with members of Congress and their staffs over the years. These included the years when, ahem, Robert Mueller was FBI chief. Yet Manafort was never charged for these alleged lobbying violations, not until the “Russia collusion” political furor hit the media fan. Hmmm a second time.

According to the indictment, Manafort had a business partner in those dubious foreign lobbying activities of his, a subcontractor. The indictment identifies this subcontractor only as “Company B.” Company B has since been widely identified in media accounts as The Podesta Group. Hmmm a third time.

The Podesta Group’s cofounder and co-owner happens to be none other than John Podesta, chairman of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. The never-named Podesta firm, according to the indictment, worked at Manafort’s directions and was paid out of his allegedly fraudulent “foreign accounts.” Yet the Podesta firm has never been indicted. Nor even cited as an unindicted co-conspirator. It was not even charged, as Manafort has been, for not registering as a foreign lobbyist. In fact, the Justice Department gave the Podesta firm the old wink and nod allowing it to register retroactively. Hmmm once more.

As chairman of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, Podesta had a key role in the financing of an unverified, gossipy “dossier” alleging the Mother of All Conspiracies — i.e., collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin to deny Hillary Clinton the presidency.

A Clinton campaign/Democratic National Committee operative, Fusion GPS, paid a British firm, Orbis Business Intelligence, $168,000 for the sketchy, 35-page hearsay document, the “dossier” — $4,800 per page. That overpriced, uncorroborated, anonymously sourced document — campaign dirt, to call it by its real name — was described by then FBI Director James Comey as “unverified and salacious.” Yet, the FBI presented the document to a Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act court. With that document the FBI obtained approval for its agents to snoop — KGB style — on Trump campaign figures. And through them on Trump himself.

How many hmmm’s are we up to now? Four? Five? Six?

John Podesta, meanwhile, lies low. He quietly exited the public stage after shuttering his prosperous, Democrat-linked lobbying firm. He could scarcely have pulled off a slicker vanishing act had be been admitted to the government’s witness protection program.

It’s said the government can indict a ham sandwich. Actually, it can do better than that. It can indict you for misremembering the details of how you disposed of the wrapper on that ham sandwich years ago.

The government virtually always wins these cases, nine times out of 10 or better. The hapless Manafort likely will be no exception. Corruption trials tend to be smoke-blowing contests, and the government has the upper hand, or the more capacious lungs. The trials tend not to make jurors’ jaws drop, as billed, but rather to make their eyes glaze over with tedious, confusing detail.

The perhaps too-cynical view of such matters is that guilty verdicts are the fastest way for jurors to escape the misery of the courthouse. Besides, if the accused is maybe not guilty of the specific charges against him, he’s likely guilty of something else just as bad, no? And anyway, would the government lie to you? Or even stretch the truth a little? Why, heaven forbid!

Even though the Special Prosecutor has revealed he’ll be presenting no evidence or arguments of a Trump-Russia election conspiracy, don’t throw away that tinfoil hat just yet.

Despite the record low unemployment for African Americans and Latinos, despite the hundreds of billions of dollars in repatriated assets American corporations had moved overseas, despite a humming stock market, there’s rumbling up there on Mount Olympus.

Bull-in-the-china-shop Trump has spooked establishment gods, from left to right, from George Soros to the Koch Bros., with his unsettling heresies on such topics as cheap-labor immigration, jobs-exporting foreign manufacturing and trade deals that fatten corporate bottom lines but are of little benefit to American communities, if not at their expense.