James Comey may have been moving in on Donald Trump’s tax returns when he was fired

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If you’ve been looking to determine the specific reason as to why Donald Trump chose yesterday to fire FBI Director James Comey, there are a number of points of reference from which to form a hypothesis. One of the most notable was the news earlier today that Comey had just asked days ago for additional funds to expand the investigation. But now comes word of just what Comey was moving in on and why he wanted the additional resources.

Comey was seeking to expand the FBI probe this week because he was moving in on the business dealings of people in Donald Trump’s inner circle, including Paul Manafort, according to a new report from McClatchy (link). Notably, the report says that Comey was seeking to dig into Manafort’s financial dealings in a manner which went beyond merely the money he’d been taking from a pro-Kremlin intermediary in the Ukraine. And I think this only points to one thing.

Paul Manafort and Donald Trump have had poorly understood but fairly evident intermingling business dealings for years. In fact Manafort has an apartment in Trump Tower. Any attempt at investigating Manafort’s overall business interests feels like code for tacitly investigating Donald Trump’s business and financial interests. Thus I’m left to conclude that James Comey was likely about to go after Trump’s tax returns in an attempt at trying to figure out what all Trump has been hiding in them.

If that’s indeed the case, then no wonder Trump fired Comey when he did. It’s one thing for the Trump-Russia investigation to move forward, much as it seems to aggravate Trump, because he appears to believe he’s somehow insulated from being taken down by it. But when it comes to Trump’s taxes and wherever he’s hiding in them, he’s shown that he’s willing to do just about anything to keep that secret. No wonder he fired Comey when he did. Help fund Palmer Report

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