The news is a bit dated now, but it’s still important. Paul Manafort, one of Donald Trump's former campaign managers, has been indicted by a federal jury for money laundering and tax evasion. What's next? There's an old proverb that says a very good prosecutor could indict a ham sandwich if he had a mind to. Robert Mueller is very good at what he does, so, we'll see.
Lest you think I’m being flippant, let me assure you that I understand the seriousness of the charges Mr. Manafort faces. In fact, If he had contacted me several years ago, I could have warned him about the dangers of money laundering.
I’m married to an eagle-eyed accounting whiz. She’s meticulous and she’s as honest as the day is 24 hours long. There are days when I may be working on something here on the second floor while she’s on the third floor reconciling our books in Quicken. Just about the time a bolt of inspiration is about to strike me, I hear the dreaded words. “Okay, Slick, what did you buy at Wal-Mart last week? It cost 97 cents.” My response is almost always “I dunno.” I think you can guess what’s next. I go upstairs and read the receipt. “FLTLS HEAVY 0017500207222...0.097” I haven’t got a clue. I then go to Wal-Mart’s customer service and discover that it’s spray starch. I’m tempted to ask why they didn’t they didn’t label the receipt “spray starch,” but realize that would be pointless. When all's said and done, my accountant gets the information she needs and I try to find that lightning bolt that was about the strike me before I was interrupted.
What does this have to do with money laundering? A lot.
Most of us have occasionally left a stray dollar in the wash. In our house, that money becomes Nancy’s property even if I’m the one who carelessly leaves it in my jeans prior to depositing them in the washer. It’s usually not a problem, but sometimes there’s more than a buck at stake.
A while ago, Nancy inadvertently left four twenty dollar bills in a pair of her jeans. They went through the fill, wash, rinse, and spin cycles, along with scads of loose change I’d been leaving in my jeans for who knows how long. When she retrieved the jeans, the twenties had been thoroughly shredded. We worked feverishly to put the money back together, piece by piece, thanks to Nancy’s eagle eye, I was able to take the pieced together money to the bank and retrieve sixty of the eighty dollars that had been laundered.
But, there’s more to the story. All the loose change I’d been laundering broke the washer. I can’t remember the exact amount of money Jim, Guion’s repairman, dug out of the washer in the process, but it was enough to buy us a couple of burgers at J’s Carry Out. I don’t know how much the repairs cost, but suffice it to say good professional help these days isn’t cheap.
I learned a couple of valuable lessons when the smoke cleared. First, a good accountant is a godsend. Second, money laundering can get quite expensive. If only Paul Manafort had spoken to me before he launched into what might become his very expensive adventure.
What a witch’s brew we have. Our political air is full of shady deals with foreign powers, money laundering, collusion, conspiracy, tax evasion, under the table sales, and dossiers. I suppose I should be discouraged, but I think I should try to look at the bright side. This whole mess is about the only thing about our politics that’s bipartisan right now. Michael Flynn is nowhere to be found. We haven’t seen hide nor hair of Trump the younger for some time. The Podesta boys, who were locked arm and arm with Mr. Manafort, are scurrying for the hills, waiting for the next shoe to drop. Hillary’s just written her best imitation of a Greek tragedy, buying dossiers, selling “smidgens” of uranium to the Russians on the sly, while the Russians are probably selling it to the North Koreans and Iranians. Bill made a half a million bucks for a speech he made in Moscow, thanks to the generosity of Vladimir Putin’s bankers.
It’s enough to make my head spin.
I’m not sure this is going to end well. I think it might look a bit the old slaughter operations at Tyson. Folks who worked there used to tell me that cows came in one end and everything after that was a bloody mess.
How can those of us on the sidelines escape what’s coming? About the only advice I can offer comes from Hamlet’s words to Ophelia - “Get thee to a nunnery!”
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