Liaisons dangereuses

Donald Trump is beginning to look, walk and quack like a lame duck barely eight months into his presidency.

First both houses of Congress imposed new sanctions on Russia, which Trump had no option but to endorse. Much as he might have wanted to veto the bill, he couldn’t do so for two reasons.

First, the bill passed both houses almost unanimously, rendering any subsequent veto an exercise in futility. Second, given the on-going investigation into his campaign’s alleged collusion with Putin’s junta, Trump couldn’t have vetoed the bill even had it passed by only a slender margin. Doing so would have played into the hand of his accusers, and they already seem to hold enough aces.

Even more critical was another congressional action: depriving Trump of the authority to repeal the sanctions in the future. The decision fires a constitutional shot at Trump’s presidency: Congress – including Trump’s own party – showed in no uncertain terms that it doesn’t trust the president to handle the most critical aspect of US foreign relations.

As part of the sanctions package, the bill calls for the US assets of the 180 sanctioned Russians, all Putin’s acolytes, to be made public within 180 days. The intention is clearly to impound those assets, which really got Putin’s junta to squirm.

Its whole raison d’être is to plunder Russia’s natural resources at home but to invest the loot in the West. For one thing, this gives them access to luxuries unavailable in Russia: those 300-foot yachts are intended for cruising in the Mediterranean, not in the Caspian Sea.

More important, assets sitting in Western banks are seen as a security blanket: members of the junta know that sooner or later they’ll have to run for their lives. Offshore assets are their way of turning a panicked flight into organised retreat.

In this they tread the path signposted by their typological ancestors, the first Bolshevik leaders. That gang too suspected that their days at the helm were numbered, and they too transferred vast amounts into Western banks.

In April, 1921, The New York Times reported that in 1920 alone 75 million Swiss francs were transferred into Lenin’s account in a Swiss bank. According to the newspaper, Trotsky had 11 million dollars and 90 million francs in his accounts; Zinoviev, 80 million francs; Dzerzhinsky, 80 million francs; Ganetsky-Fuerstenberg (Lenin’s financial agent), 60 million francs and 10 million dollars – and so forth, ad infinitum.

It’s likely that, when push comes to shove, the ousted junta won’t be allowed to enjoy their lucre (the Bolsheviks certainly weren’t), at least not all of it. But that moment still hasn’t come, whereas the US Justice Department may well impound their assets within six months.

Putin’s name doesn’t appear on any offshore accounts because the KGB colonel prudently operates through proxies, such as Gennady Timchenko, affectionately nicknamed ‘Gangrene’, or the cellist Sergei Roldugin who was found to have $2 billion in a Panama bank (take my word for it, orchestra musicians aren’t that well-paid).

All in all, Vlad is reported to have accumulated personal wealth variously estimated in the $40-200 billion range, most of it in offshore investments. So he too is squirming.

All in all, this swathe of sanctions strike at the very heart of Putin’s junta, and this is a blow Trump is powerless to soften. Hence he responded to the congressional bill with much gnashing of teeth. “I could,” said the president, “get a much better deal than Congress”.

That’s probably true: unlike most congressmen, Trump has spent a lifetime making deals. In property development a deal is the non plus ultra, and Trump is evidently good at wheeling and dealing.

But he should stop thinking of his current remit in terms of deals: they’re among many tools of a wise foreign policy, but certainly not its aim. The aim is to protect the country’s interests, and not all deals serve this purpose. Some are downright detrimental to it – just think of all those SALT deals that the Russians violated with monotonous regularity.

Immediately following that downturn in Trump’s fortunes comes the news that the Justice Department’s special counsel Robert Mueller has empanelled a grand jury to investigate Russia’s interference with the US elections, and Trump’s possible complicity in it.

This is bad news for the Trump retinue. For the grand jury has already issued a raft of summonses, and it can allow Mueller to depose witnesses under oath.

Thus, for example, if Donald Trump Jr. repeats the same lies he told journalists about his meeting with Putin’s agents, he may be charged with perjury. And since his original statement was dictated by his loving father, he too could find himself under criminal indictment.

Mueller and his people have emphasised that Trump personally isn’t under investigation, but that reassurance hasn’t fooled many people. If Trump’s entire team get in trouble, some of it is bound to rub off on the president one way or another.

He defended himself by suggesting that Mueller would be better off investigating Hillary Clinton and her missing e-mails. The president has a point: Hillary’s links with the Russians are as suspicious as Trump’s, possibly more so.

It’s likely that Russia’s junta, 85 per cent of which are professionally trained in KGB tradecraft, hedged their bets by cultivating both candidates in the presidential election and I for one would love to see Hillary on the rack.

However, that Hillary might be guilty doesn’t exculpate Trump. He might well find himself on the rack next to Hillary, provided he promises to keep his hands to himself.

Innocent until proven guilty and all that, but the situation is fraught in any case. Even if Trump is as pristine as Mother Teresa, the investigation has already jeopardised his ability to govern. In due course, it may render his job impossible to do.

This may have dire consequences not only for the US but for what’s left of the free world, such as it is. Since Western governments have finally identified Putin’s Russia as a serious threat, the US president shouldn’t be hamstrung to counteract it.

I’ll be surprised if Trump serves out his term – and even more so if he manages to pass through Congress any serious legislation, especially concerning foreign policy.

Supping with the devil is dangerous even for someone who remembers to bring a long spoon. I’m afraid that Trump may soon find this out the hard way.