WN: The article highlighted below does not surprise… It is also no surprise that such information rolls off supporters’ backs like water off a duck’s…1
Mother Jones published recently “The Very Strange Case of Two Russian Gun Lovers, the NRA, and Donald Trump“, that tells a very sordid tale…
My only disagreement with Ricken Patel’s article is his use of the expression “shockingly clear”. No matter what “the worst” one might think of Trump, in a few days he’ll perform accordingly or such behaviour will come to light… “Shockingly” has no cachet with reference to Trump…
excerpts:
By Ricken Patel, Avaaz
July 21, 2018 (San Diego) – It’s now shockingly clear that Donald Trump is Putin’s poodle.
But we need the world to understand why, before it’s too late…
Trump’s businesses went bankrupt so many times in the 1990s that many legitimate banks wouldn’t lend to him anymore. He turned to Russian oligarchs — Putin’s ruling clique — to bankroll his projects, and launder their dirty money for them. This was, and continues to be, a huge part of his business. He’s a Russian money launderer.
This isn’t speculation or hyperbole. There’s mountains of evidence. Trump’s former election campaign Chairman, Paul Manafort, has deep ties to Russian oligarchs, and is currently in jail awaiting trial on, among other charges, money laundering!
Here are 5 more top facts everyone should know about Trump’s long collusion with Russian organised criminals — forward this email and share it on Facebook — we all deserve to know the truth:
1. Trump’s main financial backer for the Trump Tower Toronto was a Russian-Canadian billionaire who got the money by selling a massive steel mill in Ukraine for nearly a billion dollars. $100 million of that money was paid to a Kremlin-backed fixer, likely as a bribe to VERY high Russian officials. The Chairman of the Bank who financed the deal? Vladimir Putin.
2. Trump bought his home in Palm Beach, Florida for $41 million. A few years later, with no real increase in the value — he sold it for $95 million — the most expensive home in America at the time! Why? A major Russian oligarch bought it — we don’t know yet why he effectively ‘gave’ Trump $54 million. But it’s classic money laundering practice.
3. Trump’s real estate deals were often fuelled by Russian money, typically passed through shady shell companies. 77% of Trump Soho apartments were bought with cash by such mysterious companies. At least 13 people with links to Russian oligarchs or mobsters lived in Trump properties, including one of Russia’s top mobsters. One even ran a high-stakes illegal gambling ring in the apartment right below Trump’s!
4. Trump’s financial broker and “Senior Advisor” was a Russian convicted felon named Felix Sater, widely known as a mafia figure who once stabbed someone in the face with a broken margarita glass, requiring over 100 stitches. Sater helped set up shell companies, and arranged funding for Trump’s projects, including plans for Trump Tower Moscow. He’s also part of Putin’s inner circle. Here’s one email he wrote to Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen in November, 2015:
“Michael I arranged for Ivanka to sit in Putins private chair at his desk and office in the Kremlin. I will get Putin on this program and we will get Donald elected. We both know no one else knows how to pull this off without stupidity or greed getting in the way. I know how to play it and we will get this done. Buddy our boy can become President of the USA and we can engineer it. I will get all of Putins team to buy in on this, I will.” – New York Times, August 27, 2017
5. Trump’s other main business is casinos — which are classic money laundering vehicles. One of his casinos was 100 times found in violation of federal rules protecting against money laundering, and paid the largest fine ever levied against a casino for having “willfully violated” anti-money laundering rules. Trump has a legal obligation to do “due diligence” for all his businesses to prevent laundering. His senior executive’s comment on this was “Donald doesn’t do diligence.”
…
Trump is not a devil — he’s a human being, and like all people he has positive qualities and legitimate views. But anyone who denies that he is deeply corrupt, isn’t looking at the facts. To understand Trump, and protect our world from him, we need to understand his corruption.
MORE INFORMATION
Trump’s Russian Laundromat (The New Republic)
Everything We Know About Russia and President Trump (Committee to Investigate Russia)
https://investigaterussia.org/timelines/everything-we-know-about-russia-and-president-trump
Secret Money: How Trump Made Millions Selling Condos To Unknown Buyers (Buzzfeed News)
Trump’s Russian connections (Financial Times)
https://ig.ft.com/sites/trumps-russian-connections/
Dirty money: Trump and the Kazakh connection (Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/33285dfa-9231-11e6-8df8-d3778b55a923
Trump’s oldest son said a decade ago that a lot of the family’s assets came from Russia (Business Insider)
http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-jr-said-money-pouring-in-from-russia-2018-2
Sales of Trump properties suggestive of money-laundering – researcher (Reuters)
Tower of secrets: the Russian money behind a Donald Trump skyscraper (Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/trumptoronto
Trump Tower Toronto Was ‘Investment Scheme And Conspiracy’: Lawsuit (Huffington Post)
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/11/07/trump-tower-toronto-lawsuit_n_12849150.html?guccounter=1
If Trump Is Laundering Russian Money, Here’s How It Works (Wired)
https://www.wired.com/story/if-trump-is-laundering-russian-money-heres-how-it-works/
Trump’s casino was a money laundering concern shortly after it opened (CNN)
https://edition.cnn.com/2017/05/22/politics/trump-taj-mahal/index.html
Donald Trump and the mansion that no one wanted. Then came a Russian fertilizer king (Miami Herald)
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/article135187364.html
Everything you want to know about Donald Trump’s bankruptcies (CNN)
https://money.cnn.com/2015/08/31/news/companies/donald-trump-bankruptcy/
Canada’s highest court upholds ruling that Donald Trump did mislead investors (The Independent)
Russian elite invested nearly $100 million in Trump buildings (Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-trump-property/
Why did a Russian pay $95M to buy Trump’s Palm Beach mansion? (The Seattle Times)
The Russia investigation and Donald Trump: a timeline from on-the-record sources (updated) (Politifact)
Here are 10 critics of Vladimir Putin who died violently or in suspicious ways (Washington Post)
A Brief History of Attempted Russian Assassinations by Poison (Foreign Policy)
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/09/a-brief-history-of-attempted-russian-assassinations-by-poison/
International Criminal Court: Russia’s Invasion Of Ukraine Is A ‘Crime,’ Not A Civil War (Forbes)
Donald Trump’s Worst Deal: The President helped build a hotel in Azerbaijan that appears to be a corrupt operation engineered by oligarchs tied to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (The New Yorker)
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/13/donald-trumps-worst-deal
Trump’s Business of Corruption (The New Yorker)
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/08/21/trumps-business-of-corruption
Trump lawyer ‘paid by Ukraine’ to arrange White House talks (BBC)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-44215656
After becoming President, Trump has sold millions in real estate in secret deals (Newsweek)
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-real-estate-secret-buyers-777276
Just What Were Donald Trump’s Ties to the Mob? (Politico)
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/donald-trump-2016-mob-organized-crime-213910
Russian lawyer from infamous Trump Tower meeting admits to being an informant for the Kremlin: Report (CNBC)
Please click on: Trump and Putin
- From the article highlighted just now, even such revelations as the following are not likely to change the “true believers”. We read:
Investigators have seized as many as 100 audio files from Cohen, the Washington Post reported, including one released by Cohen’s own lawyer this week in which Trump can be heard discussing a cash payment apparently connected with a Playboy model’s story about an affair with Trump, which he denies.
Cohen is reportedly prepared to tell prosecutors about other stunning scenes. According to Cohen, Trump personally approved a June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower between campaign officials and Russian operatives, multiple TV networks reported Thursday night. Trump previously said he first found out about the meeting a year after it happened.
If Cohen can reach a deal with prosecutors to provide more fly-on-the-wall testimony of moments like that, special counsel Robert Mueller’s team of investigators could gain a valuable new map of the hidden connections criss-crossing Trumpworld.
That prospect has clearly rattled Trump, who attacked his former aide on Friday. “Sounds to me like someone is trying to make up stories in order to get himself out of an unrelated jam,” the president wrote on Twitter.
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