CRIME UNIVERSITY

As far as I know, a school for criminals does not exist. That is either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your point of view. If you are in favor of the survival of the civilized world, it can be somewhat reassuring that criminal wannabes cannot enroll in a prestigious institution, created to educate and graduate some of the worst among us.

Crooks learn by doing. This imperfect, unsystematic learning system eventually results in most of them getting caught for committing crimes that they should have gotten away with, thanks to sloppy execution.

Sure, there are elite criminals, like the gang that robbed the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, in Boston, stealing priceless masterpieces, without leaving a trace.  At Crime University, they could be professors or guest lecturers.

Remember that time you were sitting in a bar, having a great conversation and drinking way too much, and began saying things you should not have said? You blurted out a few things that you later regretted. But I doubt that you revealed any information, while “feeling no pain,” that triggered an FBI investigation into a campaign for the presidency of the United States.

But that is exactly what George Papadopoulos did, in a London pub, when he informed an Australian diplomat that he knew that Russia had dirt on Hilary Clinton.

Had he attended Crime University, he would have been required to take a class called Crime Basics. In that class, he would have learned that drinking and bragging can land you in prison or force you to become a cooperating witness.

Had Michael Cohen attended that same class, he would have learned that when juggling multiple crimes, it is absolutely fundamental to stay organized. Why is that so important? Because when you are in possession of 3.7 million files, you have to know which of those files will put you or your client in prison.

That way, when you begin shredding documents ahead of a police raid, you are not wasting precious time shredding CVS and Costco monthly fliers. You only shred documents related to hush money, money laundering, bank fraud, and of course absolutely anything related to Russian oligarchs.

And, you have to be thorough. You do not leave document shreds in the shredding machine, because there are people who will painstakingly sift through those shreds and glue them back together to restore the documents you spent all that time shredding, which is exactly what the FBI did.

At Crime University, he would have learned that shreds need to be flushed!

And imagine that you are brought before a judge and placed under house arrest, and required to wear an ankle bracelet while awaiting trial. If you are a white collar criminal, out on bail, you are being spared the ugly experience of going to jail, where some of your fellow guests will regard you as fresh meat. So you do not want to violate the conditions of that parole by committing a brand new crime, which is exactly what Paul Manafort did, while wearing not one, but two ankle bracelets.

Paul, Paul, Paul, why would you think that you could get away with witness tampering by sending encrypted messages through a Russian agent to two potential witnesses with the purpose of getting their stories straight, while Bob Mueller and the Untouchables are praying for you to screw up?

So much for Crime 101!  At Crime University, there would be an advanced course called Crimes You Should Never Attempt.

As the new National Security Advisor, Mike Flynn should have just said No! to outside income opportunities. When the Turkish despot offered him $15 million to kidnap the exiled opposition leader from his home in Pennsylvania, and give him a one-way plane ride to a Turkish prison, Mike should have said, “I’m sorry. I could sure use the $15 million, but I am pretty sure it’s illegal to commit a kidnapping on behalf of a foreign government.”

But, he didn’t say that, and he didn’t cover his tracks – not that he could have covered his tracks. From the beginning, General/Foreign Agent Flynn was no match for the federal bloodhounds who caught him in so many lies, he had to cop a deal, preventing him from kidnapping anyone.

Sad as his story is, he could someday become a respected authority on Crimes You Should Never Attempt. In the post-Trump era, you might see him doing a TED Talk.

I want to be very clear that I am not in favor of the creation of Crime University, but I think it might be valuable to establish The Museum of Political Crime. In fact, I would put it at Mar-a-Lago, once it is confiscated as criminal forfeiture.

The very thought of that makes me want to go past my two minutes.