For months, the Trump administration has justified its dramatic midnight raid on a Chicago apartment complex by saying that it had intelligence that the violent Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua had taken over the building. But officials have provided no evidence to back up the claim.
Now, new documents confirm in the government’s own words that what prompted the raid was more pedestrian: allegations that immigrants were squatting in the complex. And the landlord had given federal officials, who were already targeting immigrants in Chicago, the blessing to search the building.
So, SOP for Chicago?
In all seriousness, I remember Adam Davidson saying that he was looking into the Trump real estate shenanigans with the Russian oligarchs. When he talked to a prosecutor about why the obvious corruption wasn’t being pursued the response was that basically all major construction in every American city was at least partially a vehicle for money laundering. I would be truly stunned if that criminality didn’t flow into the landlord business.