TRUMP & RUSSIA

 

► Trump was first compromised by the Russians back in the Eighties in the days of the Soviet Union and the Cold War. In 1984 the Russian Mafia first began to use Trump real estate to launder money and it continued for decades and may have accounted for billions of dollars flowing to Trump. In 1987, the Soviet ambassador to the United Nations, Yuri Dubinin, arranged for Trump and his then-wife, Ivana, to enjoy an all-expense-paid trip to Moscow to consider possible business prospects. Only seven weeks after his trip, Trump ran full-page ads in the Boston Globe, the NYT and WaPO calling for, in effect, the dismantling of the postwar Western foreign policy alliance.

► In 1984, David Bogatin — who is a Russian mobster, convicted gasoline bootlegger, and close ally of Semion Mogilevich, a major Russian mob boss — met with Trump in Trump Tower right after it opened. Bogatin bought five condos from Trump at that meeting. Those condos were later seized by the government, which claimed they were used to launder money for the Russian mob.

► The whole Trump/Russian connection started out as laundering money for the Russian mob through Trump's real estate, but evolved into something far bigger.

► Felix Sater is a Russian-born former mobster, real estate developer, and former managing director of Bayrock Group LLC, a real estate conglomerate based out of New York City. He is a convict who became a govt cooperator for the FBI and other agencies. He grew up with Michael Cohen--Trump's former "fixer" attorney. Sater's longtime ties to Michael Cohen are not so much a coincidence as part of the fabric of the entire scandal. Cohen's family owned El Caribe, which was a mob hangout for the Russian Mafia in Brooklyn. Cohen had ties to Ukrainian oligarchs through his in-laws and his brother's in-laws. Felix Sater's father had ties to the Russian mob. This goes back more than 30 years.

► Trump was $4 billion in debt after his Atlantic City casinos went bankrupt. No U.S. bank would touch him. Then foreign money began flowing in, through a real estate development company called Bayrock, located on the 24th floor of Trump Tower. Bayrock was run by two investors: Tevfik Arif, a Kazakhstan-born former Soviet official who drew on seemingly bottomless sources of money from the former Soviet republic; and Felix Sater, a Russian-born businessman who had pleaded guilty in the 1990s to a huge stock-fraud scheme involving the Russian mafia. Bayrock proceeded to partner with Trump in 2005 and helped him develop a new business model, which he desperately needed. So in the early 2000s, Bayrock poured money into the Trump organization, under the legal guise of licensing his name and property management.

► Felix Sater was dealing with Russian companies such as Mirax and Sistema and their principals are tied to Semion Mogilevich, the brains behind the Russian Mafia. Mogilevich operatives have been using Trump real estate for decades to launder money. That means Russian Mafia operatives have been part of his fortune for years, that many of them have owned condos in Trump Towers and other properties, that they were running operations out of Trump's crown jewel. But Mogilevich's role today is not entirely clear. Ultimately, Putin is in charge.

► One of the most important things that is often overlooked is that the Russia Mafia is part and parcel of Russian intelligence. Russia is a mafia state. that is not a metaphor. Putin is head of the Mafia. So the fact that they have been operating out of the home of the president of the United States is deeply disturbing.

► Craig Unger: "Early on, a source told me that all this was tied to Semion Mogilevich, the powerful Russian mobster. I had never even heard of him, but I immediately went to a database that listed the owners of all properties in NY state and looked up all the Trump properties. Every time I found a Russian sounding name, I would Google, and add Mogilevich. When you do investigative reporting, you anticipate drilling a number of dry holes, but almost everyone I googled turned out to be a Russian mobster. Again and again. If you know New York you don't expect Trump Tower to be a high crime neighborhood, but there were far too many Russian mobsters in Trump properties for it to be a coincidence."

► So many Russians bought Trump apartments at his developments in Florida that the area became known as Little Moscow. The developers of two of his hotels were Russians with significant links to the Russian mob. The late leader of that mob in the United States, Vyacheslav Kirillovich Ivankov, was living at the Trump Towers.

► Here is the most prominent example: In July 2008, the height of the recession, Donald Trump sold a mansion in Palm Beach for $95 million to Dmitry Rybolovlev, a Russian oligarch. Trump had purchased it four years earlier for $41.35 million. The sale price was nearly $54 million more than Trump had paid for the property. Again, this was the height of the recession when all other property had plummeted in value.

► As an example of the Russian mob was operating out of Trump Tower, in 2013, Federal agents busted an “ultraexclusive, high-stakes, illegal poker ring” run by Russian gangsters out of Trump Tower. In addition to card games, they operated illegal gambling websites, ran a global sports book and laundered more than $100 million. A condo directly below one owned by Trump reportedly served as HQ for a “sophisticated money-laundering scheme” connected to Semion Mogilevich.

► It has been widely known for decades that Russia often used videotaped "honey traps" to compromise influential visitors. General Oleg Kalugin, former head of counterintelligence for the KGB, told Craig Unger (Author, "House of Trump, House of Putin") they probably did this with Trump during his visit to Russia in 1987--long before the events in the Steele dossier. "I can't tell what is inside Trump's mind, but everyone who traveled to Russia knew this."

► Rudy Giuliani famously prosecuted the Italian mob while he was a federal prosecutor, yet the Russian mob was allowed to thrive under his tenure in the Southern District and Mayor. And now he's deeply entwined in the business of Trump and Russian oligarchs. Giuiani appointed Semyon Kislin to the NYC Economic Development Council in 1990, and the FBI described Kislin as having ties tot he Russian mob. Of course, it made good political sense for Giuliani to get headlines for smashing the Italian mob.NRA,

► A lot of Republicans in Washington are implicated. It is sometimes said that in Washington, the biggest scandal is what IS legal, and in this case you will find boatloads of Russian money going to the GOP--often in legal ways. The National Rifle Association got $70M from Russia, then funneled it to the GOP (cite: McClatchy). The Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee got big bucks. The big white shoe law firms--Jones Day, for example-- represent powerful Russian oligarchs who have billions and billions of dollars. Much of this is legal even though it appears to have compromised huge parts of the GOP. This book alleges that most of the GOP leadership has been compromised by RU money. The Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee run by Mitch McConnell got millions from Leonard Blavatnik. In the 90s, the Russians began sending money to top GOP leaders, like Speaker of the House Tom Delay, (etc).

► Ivana Trump (Trump's first wife) was under surveillance by the STB, the Czech secret police, and they reported to the KGB. Ivana got out of Communist Czechoslovakia in the 70s which was not easy to do.

► Regarding the Steele dossier, while not everything in the dossier has been corroborated, some of it has and none of it has been disproved. Steele has a terrific reputation in the intelligence world.

► Trump may be forced out sooner than some people realize, but it is an epic scandal that is going to take a few years to unravel. We have entered a new age of kleptocracy with Russia as a Mafia state, with the Saudis dismembering journalists. There is a lot of cleaning up to do.

► We don't know who may be prosecuted with Deutsche Bank, but Russian money laundering is a huge part of this and how they compromised Trump. Trump was $4 billion in debt and the Russians bailed him out. They own him.