OPINION: Ivanka Trump: Born to legitimize corruption and make bad look cute
On July 27, 2017, near the end of one of the most compelling hearings yet on the Trump-Russia affair, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (DR.I.) provided an extraordinary insight into the situation and spoke in the proceedings as if it were a comet.
"Corrupt kleptocrats and international criminals get rich from crime and corruption," he said. "But at some point, they need the legitimate world to protect the profits they have stolen."
Whitehouse outlined a new bipolar world order, in which the so-called legitimate world, which includes the United States, is not at war, but deeply entangled in the world of corruption, where governments rely on bribery, kleptocracy and electoral fraud, with funds for bribery, legal looting and nepotism.
Whitehouse then turned to William F. Browder, the hedge financier turned global financial reformer, who was testifying about foreign agent registration violations. "How good is the legitimate world's job to ease the world of corruption?"
Browder didn't understand the words. "The legitimate world, and the United States in particular, are absolutely failing," he said. The corrupt "steal money, commit their crimes and kill people, and then they come here in the legitimate world with the rule of law, with property rights, and with all the protections and keeping their money."
Thieves seeking legitimacy are not outside the US The country is teeming with enablers who go out of their way to help wealthy thugs: lawyers, lobbyists, bankers, security firms, consultants, and public relations people.
If it's the cover-up and not the crime that will bring Trump down, Ivanka could become the key person in his disappearance.
The enabling industry now has several household names. They include lobbyist and former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, who has been charged with financial crimes; and Trump's favorite daughter, Ivanka, who occupies an indeterminate public position in the White House, or in real estate, or perhaps in fashion.
Oh, Ivanka. His livelihood is as opaque as his full coverage base, but he plays a critical role in his father's administration, and in the broader macabre circle of corruption and legitimacy.
The so-called First Daughter shows that "laundering" applies to more than money. She washes and turns almost everything she touches golden. Ivanka Trump, always does a good deal, if not on Rodeo Drive, in Kuwait or Saudi Arabia.
She has the same magic touch with the hordes of flesh-and-blood rascals who flock to her seeking redemption. It was Ivanka who first brought General Michael Flynn into administration, according to the New Yorker. She praised him for his "incredible loyalty" and offered to choose his position at a transition team meeting. One person present said: "It was as if Princess Ivanka had put the sword on Flynn's shoulders and said, 'Get up and go.'
The imposition of that princess's sword seems to be Ivanka's favorite pastime. In 2006, when he was 25 years old, he toured Moscow with Felix Sater, who in 1998 pleaded guilty to a $ 40 million stock fraud run by the Russian mob. He also collaborated with Tamir Sapir, a Soviet-born businessman, whose top aide in 2004 pleaded guilty to an organized crime conspiracy with the Gambino family.
It's impossible to keep track of all the mobsters Ivanka has had. But what is truly damning are the shady real estate projects that she has raised and moved forward.
In 2006, she oversaw the development of the Trump Ocean Club International Hotel and Tower in Panama City. The project was connected to a Brazilian money launderer who was later arrested for fraud and counterfeiting, as well as to a Russian investor who had been jailed in Israel for kidnapping.
On Wednesday, a dispute between Trump's company and the building's owner turned violent. Journalist Marcy Wheeler has suggested the fight has to do with records that may show Ivanka knew the property was laundering money. Riot police stormed the hotel that Ivanka once touted as "exemplary of the greatness of the markets we like to enter."
Ivanka was also a high-ranking official in Trump SoHo, which has since gone by the Trump name. In 2010, as ProPublica and WNYC reported, the Manhattan District Attorney's Office began building a criminal case against Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr. for using inflated sales figures to defraud potential buyers. After receiving a visit from the Trump family's attorney and campaign donor Marc Kasowitz, then-District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. backed off.
Just Thursday, CNN reported that FBI counterintelligence officers are investigating another Trump real estate deal, the 63-story Trump International Hotel and Tower in Vancouver, which opened after Trump became president.
Ivanka has been described as a "key person" in the development of that tower, which features an Ivanka Trump-branded spa. No one knows yet why he got the FBI's attention.
When an organization exists not to construct buildings but to mark them, its business is optics. And Ivanka has long dressed the Trump Organization's offers. She was born to make bad looks cute, to legitimize corruption.
And if it is the cover-up and not the crime that will end up bringing down the Trump union, Ivanka could become the right person to go missing.
