Industry, anticorruption groups support creating a Treasury-run database of corporations and their owners
Efforts to overhaul U.S. anti-money-laundering laws are gathering steam, as large banks, anticorruption groups and law-enforcement authorities coalesce around the idea of creating a national database of corporations and their true owners.
.. The financial industry’s support for the plan, which would require new and existing corporations to register with the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, could be pivotal.
.. Treasury in 2016 issued a long-awaited rule mandating banks to identify the true owners of companies they take on as clients. It also urged Congress to create a national database of those owners, a step that proponents said would stymie the creation of shell companies by bad actors.
.. Instead of just applying to suspected money-laundering or terrorism-financing activity, the measure would include a long list of criminal activities, including food-stamp fraud, the smuggling of counterfeit goods and environmental crimes.
.. “What you don’t want is a situation where the [government] is able to get private and sensitive information without having to go through that normal process,” she added, citing requests for a warrant or court order.
The Twilight Of Bannonism
According to Mr. Wolff, Mr. Bannon also predicted that a special counsel investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and any coordination with Trump aides would ultimately center on money laundering, an assessment that could lend credibility to an investigation the president has repeatedly called a witch hunt. “They’re going to crack Don Junior like an egg on national TV,” Mr. Bannon was quoted as saying.
.. The only thing I know is true about the Wolff excerpt is that Steve Bannon had a chance to be a genuinely significant figure in American politics and he blew it.
.. Now that Bannon has trashed his old boss without first having established himself as a political force, he is GOP kryptonite. Neither anti-Trump nor pro-Trump Republicans will trust him. Who, exactly, does he speak for now?
Trump Lawyer Demands Bannon ‘Cease and Desist’
Former strategist calls 2016 meeting with Russian ‘treasonous’; president says Bannon ‘lost his mind’
Mr. Trump has had public fallouts with various people, including lawmakers, in the past, some of which he has later patched up. A permanent rift between the president and Mr. Bannon could have political implications leading up to November’s midterm elections and into 2020. A battle for the president’s political base could divide the conservative movement, especially if Mr. Trump begins to align himself more with the GOP establishment
.. Donald Trump Jr. tweeted Wednesday: “Steve had the honor of working in the White House & serving the country. Unfortunately, he squandered that privilege & turned that opportunity into a nightmare of backstabbing, harassing, leaking, lying & undermining the President.”
.. In the book, Mr. Bannon sharply criticized Mr. Kushner and former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, for taking part in the Russia meeting along with Donald Trump Jr.
“Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic…and I happen to think it’s all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately,” Mr. Bannon is quoted in the book as saying... Further, Mr. Bannon predicted that the investigation by Mr. Mueller will focus on money laundering.
“This is all about money laundering,” Mr. Bannon told Mr. Wolff. The path to “Trump goes right through Paul Manafort, Don Jr. and Jared Kushner,” he said. “It’s as plain as a hair on your face.”
Top Russian Official Tried to Broker ‘Backdoor’ Meeting Between Trump and Putin
.. A senior Russian official who claimed to be acting at the behest of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia tried in May 2016 to arrange a meeting between Mr. Putin and Donald J. Trump
.. An advocate for Christian causes emailed campaign aides saying that Alexander Torshin, the deputy governor of the Russian central bank who has been linked both to Russia’s security services and organized crime, had proposed a meeting between Mr. Putin and Mr. Trump. The subject line of the email, turned over to Senate investigators, read, “Russian backdoor overture and dinner invite,” according to one person who has seen the message.
Mr. Torshin has established ties to Russia’s security establishment. He served in the upper house of the Russian Parliament and also sat on the country’s National Anti-Terrorism Committee, a separate government council that includes the director of the Federal Security Service, known as F.S.B., and the ministers of defense, interior and foreign affairs.
.. Spanish investigators claim Mr. Torshin laundered money for the Russian mob through Spanish banks and properties while he was in Parliament.