The real reason Donald Trump’s secret Chinese bank account is such a nightmare for him

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On Tuesday evening the New York Times revealed that one of Donald Trump’s companies has a secret bank account in China, and that in 2017 someone deposited $17 million into that account, of which Trump then took $15 million for himself. The fact that Trump kept this from the public serves to underscore the notion that this money was in fact a foreign bribe. But there’s an even uglier aspect to this.

Chinese banks are under the control of the Chinese government. Considering how much the government of China has at stake when it comes to dealing with the United States, it’s difficult to imagine that it didn’t know Donald Trump’s Chinese bank account existed. If so, there’s no doubt that the government of China knows where that $17 million came from, and knows that Trump took $15 million of it for himself.

In fact China has likely known about this compromising information for the past three years – nearly the entire time it’s been negotiating with “President” Donald Trump on trade and other international matters. Do we really think China didn’t use this dirt as leverage against Trump when it came to negotiating with the United States?

What about all that praise that Trump publicly heaped on the Chinese government while it was dishonestly mishandling the early stages of the coronavirus? What about Trump’s subsequent decision to change course and begin using racial slurs like “China virus” every other day? Did Trump’s secret Chinese bank account, and the leverage available to anyone who know about it, play a role in Trump’s shifts in behavior? Did Americans die because of Trump’s personal financial relationship with China?

We don’t know the answers to these questions. But we know that the answers are going to keep coming out. And if Donald Trump loses the election, he’s going to end up in prison for all of this. All we have to do is turn out and vote in record numbers, and Trump is about to be in a world of hurt.

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