Steve Robinson

And the IRS is never going to know about it.

The relationship is protected by attorney-client privilege.

And I've just effectively managed to season my money through the attorney's trust account and then pour it back into real estate.

And that is a pattern that you can see laid out in the indictment that was filed in the District of Massachusetts, where they show each of the steps that would be necessary to season the money and then dump it back into real estate.

And it helps explain how in New England, the real estate empire necessary to facilitate the Chinese drug cartel was able to expand so rapidly.

because they were able to take the huge amounts of cash that they were generating from these activities and just dump it back into real estate.

And they were buying up properties in Maine, 20% over asking price for cash and closing in, you know, 20 days.

It was the dream for some elderly couple in Maine looking to, you know, move to Florida or something in the middle of the pandemic.

So it's part, I think, of the answer to the question, why hasn't anything been done?

But also, how did it happen?

What are they doing with the money?

What are the roles of attorneys in all of this?

And I think that if the kind of work that Leah Foley did, or at least the indictment that she was willing to file in Massachusetts, if we were able to see that happen in Maine, it would go a long ways toward dealing with the problem.

But we don't have a US attorney in Maine.

And that is in part because Trump hasn't appointed one yet, but there's also a tradition called the blue slip tradition where home state senators get what amounts to a veto of Senate confirmable nominees.

So if the president nominates a US attorney from the state of Maine, Senator Angus King, who's a dope and a dummy, and I don't like him at all,

If he objects to that individual, he can withhold his blue slip and delay it, cause hearings, controversial votes.

He can gum up the works.

But if there's a nominee put forward that Senator Angus King and Senator Susan Collins both approve of, then they're not gonna cause problems on the blue slip front.

So there's these complex negotiations happening between the senators from the state and the Trump administration.