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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Russian Connection and Donald Trump
Last edited Wed Feb 22, 2017, 01:05 AM - Edit history (3)
In my opinion, this collaboration between Trump and the Russians has been in the works before Trump even began his campaign for the White House. Putin and Tillerson came into the game later. But, it is all about business deals.
Paul Manafort knows about the whole scheme, in my opinion. Trump has been using emissaries, like Carter Gray, Michael Cohen, and Roger Stone to assist him in his deal making,
Trump has coveted a hotel in Moscow for a long time. That is why he cherishes the friendship of Putin. He could be very close, now that Trump has put the former head of Exxon in as Secretary of State. As soon as the sanctions are lifted, the relationship should be much better.
Trump, in my opinion, was doing business with the Russian Mafia in the Ukraine and Manafort and Cohen were his go-betweens. Trump was mostly into making deals and money-laundering, in my opinion. Flynn came into the picture later.
When Trump and the Russians began to realize that Trump might actually have a chance to win the Presidency, then Putin got serious about helping him in any way he could. They colluded to run a propaganda campaign against Clinton. It was then that Trump could see the big money deals that he always dreamed about. The wheels began to turn.
After he became the President-elect, he wanted General Flynn, with his intelligence and his Russian connections as his National Security Adviser. He became very secretive and refused to turn over any information or to give up any of his business dealings. More or less, he told America to screw herself.
It was all about making deals and he was in the perfect place to make it happen. He did not want to be President - he wanted to be king of the world. Finally, after ten years, he got permission to build in China. But, it was after he pretended he was going to do away with the one-China policy. That was his way of "negotiating",
Then, he began his dealing with Putin to get the sanctions lifted and get the deal with Exxon signed to drill in the Arctic. They were in collaboration before Trump was ever sworn into office, which was illegal. Trump was like a kid in a candy store.
pkdu
(3,977 posts)jmg257
(11,996 posts)& Putin. Seems like Manafort likely got him elected.
Manafort and Stone pioneered a new style of firm, what K Street would come to call a double-breasted operation. One wing of the shop managed campaigns, electing a generation of Republicans, from Phil Gramm to Arlen Spector. The other wing lobbied the officials they helped to victory on behalf of its corporate clients...
Another early client was Donald J. Trump. What Trump wanted was help fending off potential rivals to his Atlantic City casino business. He especially feared the rise of Indian gaming. As the 2016 campaign has graphically illustrated, Trump doesnt treat rivals gently. Testifying before a congressional committee in 1993, he began with his rote protestations of friendship. Nobody likes Indians as much as Donald Trump.
...
Manafort has spent a career working on behalf of clients that the rest of his fellow lobbyists and strategists have deemed just below their not-so-high moral threshold. Manafort has consistently given his clients a patina of respectability that has allowed them to migrate into the mainstream of opinion, or close enough to the mainstream. He has a particular knack for taking autocrats and presenting them as defenders of democracy. If he could convince the respectable world that thugs like Savimbi and Marcos are friends of America, then why not do the same for Trump? One of his friends told me, He wanted to do his thing on home turf. He wanted one last shot at the big prize.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/04/paul_manafort_isn_t_a_gop_retread_he_s_made_a_career_of_reinventing_tyrants.html
kentuck
(111,110 posts)That's why he is laying low.
jmg257
(11,996 posts)Though investigations involving him may be kept too narrow.
Hmm.
mulsh
(2,959 posts)This is a thing of beauty in my humble opinion.
[link:http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/rep-maxine-waters-trump-advisors-with-russia-ties-are-scumbags-882069059871|
jmg257
(11,996 posts)triron
(22,020 posts)call them scumbags! That includes Tillerson, Trump, Sessions, Pence, Bannon, McConnell, Ryan, etc.
triron
(22,020 posts)mountain grammy
(26,655 posts)I think there was actual hacking and manipulating of voting machines..
And we all know, trump isn't the mastermind here because his mind is very tiny. He is the puppet!
kentuck
(111,110 posts)The propaganda campaign was fairly significant.
mountain grammy
(26,655 posts)and similar. Small anomalies added up to a 1% loss for Hillary in several states. This election was fixed, I'll believe it until the day I die.
kentuck
(111,110 posts)I would agree.
mopinko
(70,225 posts)like ronald raygun, an obvious simpleton who could be led by the nose.
he was already well acquainted w the russian mob after many years of dealing w him in nyc. they probably had their hooks so well into him that he couldnt say no. i dont know if he ever thought he could win, but maybe they promised him he would.
this whole joke is just unexplainable by the ordinary rules of how shit works.
kentuck
(111,110 posts)Bobbie Vinton
(4 posts)Trump, Russia and Money Laundering FBI is actively investigating.
Last week I read that Trump owes Deutsche Bank $300 million; that in January Deutsche Bank paid regulators from the US and UK government a total of $588 million in fines for laundering $10 billion out Russia. And moreover, earlier this month Trumps Taj Mahal Associates LLC settled to pay the Treasury Department a $10 million civil penalty for violating anti-money-laundering program requirements.
Well, yesterday it was revealed that the FBI is probing front-companies which Trump and Russia have been allegedly using to secretly do business with each other.
In addition to the FBI probe, Democratic congressman Bill Pascrell Jr, a member of the House Ways and Means committee, said the bank was under federal investigation for aiding Russian money-laundering - a troubling potential conflict.
In looking into the issue further I have found that: Three detailed reports by the Financial Times based on title deeds, bank records and correspondence, found that Trump and the Russian mob has laundered money through the use of anonymous LLCs on both sides; the Trump side and the Russian crime bosses side.
It goes something like this: One anonymous LLC (Russian mobsters) forks over a monumentally bloated wad of millions for another anonymous LLC (Trumps) property like an apartment worth considerably less than the selling price.
Trumps organization is an ideal means of laundering Russian criminals dirty money because:
Real estate has an arbitrary value. Is that apartment worth $1 million? Two million? Why not $3 million for a buyer who really wants it? When the whole transaction is just one LLC with undisclosed ownership paying another LLC with undisclosed ownership, its even neater than hiding the money in an offshore account. And while some businesses require due diligence in looking at the source of funds, real estate is a bit more
flexible.
American laws regulating real estate deals are nearly non-existent.
Criminals from Russia, like all money launderers, pay in dirty cash; it is precisely how Trump and the Russian criminals easily avoided prying eyes of regulators.
The idea of converting the Russian mobsters stolen cash from overseas into Trumps properties in the U.S., and Russian cash deposited into an account of a Trump LLC listed as anonymous, was a dirty win for both the criminal oligarchs and the criminal Trump. The only thing Trump was required to do was just ignore deal and never pay any attention whatsoever to its particulars; something he has brought to the Oval Office for all to see.
Trump Lie Exposed With Proof He Is Indebted To Russian Mobsters
http://www.politicususa.com/2017/02/18/trump-lie-exposed-proof-indebted-russian-mobsters.html
In which the author states his opinion:
As calls for a comprehensive investigation into Trumps conspiring with Putin to award him the White House become deafening and lead to an all-inclusive independent investigation, all of this illegal money laundering for Russian criminals will become common knowledge. It is why Trump is attempting to sully the media as dishonest and that any reporting on his deep ties to the Russians is fake news in hopes the public will ignore the truth in reporting as it develops going forward; and it is going to develop going forward. The IC will see to that and a fed up at being labeled dishonest media will do its part.
Trumps terror at being exposed as a Russian collaborator is also why Trump continues to demean the intelligence community. He knows for a fact that the IC has mountains of devastatingly incriminating documentation that he does, in fact, have very deep ties to the Russians and is heavily indebted to them. The good news is that Trump has made very public claims, including on Thursday at his bizarre press conference, that in no possible way does he have now, or has ever had, any business relationships or ties to the Russians.
That latest rash of lies will be a damning piece of evidence that Trump lied on national television about something that is becoming such common knowledge that even congressional Republicans will have difficulty pretending there is no impeachable offense. They cant cover up Trumps lies any more without implicating themselves in a conspiracy involving the criminal in the White House and crime bosses and oligarchs in Russia. Those Russian mobsters saved Trumps businesses with dirty money he gladly aided them in laundering because like every common criminal on the planet, Trump will do anything for money; including jeopardize the security of the United States of America for the nation that earned his devotion and allegiance with dirty money, Russia.
This is a very conclusive report from the Financial Times.
Dirty money: Trump and the Kazakh connection
https://www.ft.com/content/33285dfa-9231-11e6-8df8-d3778b55a923
A Financial Times investigation has found evidence that one Trump venture has multiple ties to an alleged international money-laundering network. Title deeds, bank records and correspondence show that a Kazakh family accused of laundering hundreds of millions of stolen dollars bought luxury apartments in a Manhattan tower part-owned by Mr. Trump and embarked on major business ventures with one of the tycoons partners
The revelations raise questions about what steps his business takes to ensure that the funds that pour through it are clean.
Jennifer Shasky Calvery, then director of the US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, warned in January corrupt foreign officials, or transnational criminals, may be using premium US real estate to secretly invest millions in dirty money.
FBI probes Trump-Russia front companies, after Trumps bank caught laundering Russian money.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-cyber-idUSKBN15X0OE
Two parallel investigations on two different continents into illegal financial activities by Russia, both connected to Donald Trump, may turn out to be the same investigation. Three weeks ago Deutsche Bank in Germany, which has been almost single handedly keeping Trump afloat with loans in recent years, was caught in a massive Russian money-laundering scheme. And yesterday it was revealed that the FBI is probing front-companies which Trump and Russia have been allegedly using do secretly to business with each other.
So heres the billion dollar question: is this FBI investigation into Trumps clandestine Russian financial connections based on what was exposed in the Russian money laundering probe into Deutsche Bank? More will inevitably leak out from the intel community one way or the other.
https://www.palmerreport.com/politics/fbi-probes-trump-russia-laundering-bank/1599/
U.S. inquiries into Russian election hacking include three FBI probes
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-cyber-idUSKBN15X0OE
in which the reporter states: [The] counterintelligence inquiry includes but is not limited to examination of financial transactions by Russian individuals and companies who are believed to have links to Trump associates. The transactions under scrutiny involve investments by Russians in overseas entities that appear to have been undertaken through middlemen and front companies, two people briefed on the probe said.
And last here are the posts that I put on Facebook last Wednesday when I stumbled upon the article in the Wall Street Journal that reported on the Taj Mahals settlement.
https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=Robert%20Veltkamp%20money%20laundering
I can only imagine what it means if the FBI comes to the same conclusions as the Financial Times. Trump will be indicted for money laundering and obviously impeached.
kentuck
(111,110 posts)oasis
(49,408 posts)2naSalit
(86,794 posts)I love the way you sing.
kentuck
(111,110 posts)This is how Trump has been laundering money?
========================
http://money.cnn.com/2016/07/27/news/donald-trump-russian-deal-mansion/
<snip>
Trump was asked about Russia during his news conference Wednesday because of speculation that Russia was behind the hack of the Democratic National Committee's emails in an effort to help his campaign. The FBI is still investigating and has not identified the hackers.
"No, I have nothing to do with Russia," Trump told a reporter in Doral, Florida. "How many times do I have say that? Are you a smart man? I have nothing to with Russia, I have nothing to do with Russia."
Trump then acknowledged: There was that one time.
"What do I have to do with Russia? You know the closest I came to Russia, I bought a house a number of years ago in Palm Beach, Florida... for $40 million and I sold it to a Russian for $100 million including brokerage commissions."
==================
And this story after the mansion was demolished by the Russian:
http://www.builderonline.com/land/local-markets/russian-billionaire-sells-former-trump-property-for-34-million-in-palm-beach_c
<snip>
County Road Property, a trust linked to Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev, has sold one of the three Palm Beach oceanfront lots created from a 6.26-acre property previously owned and sold by President-elect Donald Trump. The 515 North County Road Trust, whose owner is not immediately clear according to the South Florida Business Journal, purchased the 2.72-acre property from County Road Property for $34.34 million, or $12.6 million per acre.
Trump acquired the full property, then 6.26 acres, at auction for $41.35 million in 2004. He performed some renovations on the propertys 60,000 square-foot mansion before he sold the lot to Rybolovlev for $95 million, or $15.2 million per acre, in 2008.
Rybolovlev demolished the mansion and listed the divided lots this year.
triron
(22,020 posts)kentuck
(111,110 posts)I felt a similar way about Richard Nixon in 1971. Republicans scoffed and laughed it off.
m-lekktor
(3,675 posts)There are articles, books , documentaries about all of it.
dem4decades
(11,304 posts)Is it too big to out? Just at a down period, sorry.
lagomorph777
(30,613 posts)Trump wants to be the permanent dictator of the US and he believes Putin will allow him to do so, as a puppet.