On what might be speculation at best or fake news at worst?

I'm sorry, as much as I would like to believe the FBI has been tracking Trump's ties to the Russian mob for 30 years, I have not seen anything to convince me it is true.

Maybe Trump served the FBI's purposes in the past, knowingly and/or unknowingly?

The creep should have had a criminal record way before he even toyed with the idea of running for president.

so it's not like they've been clamped on everything, trying not to let any information escape.

http://fortune.com/2015/02/11/trump-taj-mahal-casino-settles-u-s-money-laundering-claims/

It seems he's doing the same thing offshore with other people fronting the same business practices.

He's as dirty as they come, we all know that.

Trump is as corrupt as the day is long! He probably should have been in Attica, or some Federal prison, long, long ago.

is that sending him off to prison will destabilize all his holdings and that can have a ripple effect that goes through banks and insurance companies and other financial institutions.

"Too big to f(j)ail" really is a thing.

But yes, he should have been frogmarched off to prison years ago for his business plan of hiring small contractors and then stiffing them, daring them to sue him with his phalanx of lawyers on retainer just laying for them.

tRump was only one among a bunch of crooks they were tracking. In fact, I don't think it was even a question of netting a bigger fish or a whole lot of fish. I think it was about following all connections with Russian mafia/Russian government/American individuals. This would make sense because the FBI couldn't actually DO anything about it except keep our government informed. Plus, they couldn't say anything about tRump without risking exposing their operation.

Now some may argue that it was stupid of them not to make the tRump connections public before the election. I think they were counting on HRC winning (as was everyone else, even though intelligence had a better appreciation of the risk). Obama knew, and he kept quiet. I think he was made aware of what was at stake as well. However, at this point, there is no point in denying that there was an ongoing intelligence gathering operation. If there were some way for intelligence to indict tRump without exposing the length and depth of their operation, they would certainly do it. That is impossible now. The truth is out there, and there is no putting the genie back in the bottle. I'm positive there are some old intelligence agents shaking their heads because their lives' work is now all over the front page news.

Trump probably ran with some shady characters after the collapse of the Soviet Union. (1990) Being involved with bad guys often occurs gradually. A little bit here, a little bit there. I don't think there has been an active investigation into his Russian connections for 27+ years. They may have been investigating Russian mobsters and Trump's name may have shown up here and there. However, they would have to have some type of probable cause to directly investigate him further.

Edit to add: Trump was also known to have connections to the Mafia prior to the 1990s. But many real estate developers in NYC had ties to the Mafia. It wouldn't have been worth the effort to go after everyone.

that have taken place throughout his business lifetime.....
Always linked to the targets in some way or another.... but never actually being the primary target.... since he has never been a big fish....

He has been deposed many times... but somehow successfully denies having any significant degree of interaction with the respective targets &/or any personal involvement with the operations/ activities under investigation......

some people are committing or have committed a crime and proving it can be very different things.