How to Bribe a Gangster President
If you were going to offer a $10 million bribe to a sitting president, how would you imagine it playing out?
In shows like The Night Manager, it would be done via high-tech e-transfers to offshore accounts. But consider the U.S. intelligence report documenting four men leaving a Bank of Egypt branch near Cairo International Airport on January 17, 2017.
They were carrying two very large and heavy duffel bags. And the bags contained $9,998,000 in American one-hundred-dollar bills.
There was nothing subtle about these bags. The weight of the bags was estimated at over 220 pounds, representing a significant run on American dollars in Egypt. Maybe the guy receiving the money liked getting cash the old school way.
The surveillance of what went down at the bank that day was part of a much broader U.S. security investigation into Donald Trump’s relationship with Egyptian strongman Abdel El-Sisi.
In the final weeks of the campaign, U.S. intelligence picked up credible information that a kickback scheme had been cooked up between Trump and El Si-Si. What they gathered was, according to one official, “astounding.”
The intel appeared to be confirmed by the surveillance of the money being moved in the duffel bags. Two of the four-man team carrying the lucre were identified as being part of the Egyptian intelligence network.
The case is covered in the incredible new book Injustice: How Politics and Fear Vanquished America’s Justice Department by Carol Leonnig and Aaron C. Davis. Much of what I have put together here comes from their excellent reportage.
So what happened to the money once it was taken to the airport?
We may never know.
El Sisi had seized power in 2013 following the collapse of the Arab Spring. He was an international pariah. President Obama had frozen out El Sisi over the lack of action on human rights violations. El Sisi showed up at the United Nations General Assembly in New York on September 19, 2016, seeking American support.
Part of that friendship mission was meeting with candidate Donald Trump.
It was the final month and a half of the election campaign, and Trump was under increasing pressure. His election campaign was running on fumes because he hadn’t bothered to focus on fundraising. Trump had bragged that he didn’t need donors because he could pay $100 million out of his own money to ensure his election victory.
Trump was more blowhard than strategist. And he was a cheapskate. Now that the campaign needed him, he was refusing to part with his money. His team was begging him to make a contribution - $50 million, $25 million – anything.
Otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to pay for ads in the final weeks. Then they suggested that, at the bare minimum, he come up with $10 million. On October 28th, he agreed to write a $10 million check.
Following the election, U.S. intelligence officials flagged the $10 million as linked to a deal with El Sisi.
Soon afterward, Trump dramatically reversed American policy toward Egypt. El Sisi was among the first foreign leaders to be welcomed into the White House. Trump boasted:
“I just want everyone to know, in case there was any doubt, that we are very much behind President El-Sisi. He’d done a fantastic job in a difficult situation. We are very much behind Egypt. The United States has, believe me, backing, and we have strong backing.”
The Department of Justice team tasked with investigating the intel on the $10 million bribe was put under special investigator Robert Mueller. Unlike the Russian investigation, everything about the Egypt probe was conducted in secrecy. The only way to prove a connection between the intel and the $10 million carried out in those duffel bags was to get access to Trump’s banking records.
It would be likely that the funds were laundered through one of Trump’s many offshore real estate holdings. But there was huge reluctance to put the spotlight on the president. Mueller was wary of taking on the president. He was allowed to do a very limited search of a few accounts for a few days. It didn’t yield much.
Trump’s handpicked Attorney General William Barr didn’t trust the FBI, which was gathering evidence. His team believed that the DC branch was pro-Hillary. This seemed like a ridiculous charge to make, given the fact that the FBI under James Comey had been accused of destroying Hillary Clinton’s election campaign by going public with a claim they were investigating her for improper use of an email server.
Nonetheless, Barr’s people claimed the DC branch was the “DNC of the FBI.”
Jessie Liu, the lead investigator on the file, was ready to issue subpoenas to obtain access to Trump’s bank accounts, but according to a statement from the House Democrats, she “made a 180-degree turn” after a meeting with Barr. In January 2020, Barr pushed Liu out of the investigation, which was then quickly shut down.
No answers were provided on the allegations of bribery, as Robert Mueller had refused to call in the president to interview him over the allegations of Russian interference or the Egypt bribe. Mueller was operating under Barr’s rule that a sitting president cannot be indicted for crimes and that it would be unfair to accuse him of one, since he wouldn’t be getting a court hearing to prove his innocence.
On July 1, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court extended the blanket legal protection for life:
“The nature of Presidential power entitles a former President to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority. And he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts.”
So can a dictator or anyone else, for that matter, funnel money to the president to get their way? In a world where the president can’t be charged, and the Department of Justice will not investigate charges of foreign interference and bribery, why not?
I have written in the past about Trump’s longstanding connections to Russian mob money, which was laundered through his real estate empire.
The United States Department of Justice failed to investigate time and time again.
They allowed a gangster fascist to walk into the White House and the world is paying the price.
It is said that Trump plans to grift $20 billion before (if) he leaves office in 2028. So far, he has accumulated $5 billion through kickbacks, fraud, pay-to-play deals, bitcoin scams and just generally looting the American treasury.
If anyone in the Benighted States had the guts to actually "follow the money" to the Orange Pig's greedy, slimy claws, it would be glaringly obvious that the goal of every single thing he is doing as president is to enrich himself. But no one ever will, and he will never be held accountable.
Greatest country in the world, you say? I say to all you Amuricans who actually believe that, give your head a shake and then, maybe, go fuck yourselves!
I’ve been reading quite a few posts over the last few days, and I’m starting to think that the Epstein files may involve more than the already‑horrific crimes of child exploitation. Nothing should ever distract from the fact that Epstein was a predator and that justice for the victims is essential. At the same time, it seems like there may also be fear about exposing potential bribery, corruption, and money laundering connected to the case. Some investigative journalists on Substack are doing impressive work digging into these angles. I’m not usually someone who buys into conspiracy theories, but once they start connecting the dots, it becomes hard to believe everything is just a coincidence.