Revealed: Russian billionaire set up US company before Trump Tower meeting

[Mrs. Overall]

Source: The Guardian

A Russian billionaire who orchestrated the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting formed a new American shell company a month beforehand with an accountant who has had clients accused of money laundering and embezzlement. The billionaire, Aras Agalarov, created the US company anonymously while preparing to move almost $20m into the country during the time of the presidential election campaign, according to interviews and corporate filings.

The company was set up for him in May 2016 by his Russian-born accountant, who has also managed the US finances of compatriots accused of mishandling millions of dollars. One of those clients has its own connection to the Trump Tower meeting.

In June 2016, Agalarov allegedly offered Trump’s team damaging information from the Kremlin about Hillary Clinton, their Democratic opponent. The offer led Trump’s eldest son to hold a meeting at their Manhattan offices that is now a focus of the inquiry into Moscow’s election interference by Robert Mueller, the special counsel.

Agalarov’s previously unreported shell company is another example of intriguing financial activity around the time of the Trump Tower meeting. Mueller is looking into such activity and whether any of the money involved could have been used to fund Russian meddling in the US election, which Agalarov denies. Scott Balber, Agalarov’s attorney, said the company was formed for “real estate transactions” and did not elaborate. Ilya Bykov, the accountant, said it was created to “handle certain investment projects which never materialised”.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/18/russian-billionaire-aras-agalarov-company-trump-tower-meeting?CMP=twt_gu

[hedda_foil]

1. Agalarov transfers 19.5 million to US account and Trump puts Manafort in charge.

BuzzFeed News reported last month that Agalarov moved $19.5m from an offshore investment vehicle to a US bank account 11 days after the meeting. The transfer was reportedly flagged to US Treasury officials as suspicious. The Delaware company used the same name, Silver Valley Consulting, as the offshore vehicle.

On the day of the money transfer, Trump fired his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, leaving his campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, in charge. Manafort, who has extensive business links to the former Soviet Union, is now cooperating with Mueller after having been convicted of financial crimes.

[ffr]

2. "now a focus of the inquiry into Moscow's election interference by Robert Mueller"

That's all I need to know.

Beautiful!

[Botany]

3. D. Trump, "No collusion."

[BlueJac]

4. k&R

[certainot]

5. someone's going to find out the russians are paying the talk radio gods

[FakeNoose]

6. For a long time it was Richard Mellon Scaife

... but he died about 5 years ago. Scaife blew $500 million of his Mellon Bank trust fund on ultra-right-wing media companies including newspapers, radio networks and a few indie TV stations. He's the one who launched Rush Limbaugh up our backsides, in case anybody was wondering. Right-wing hate radio was of no interest to the Russians for a long time, but that may have changed recently. They would rather infiltrate our internet, where they feel they're more in control.

[certainot]

7. i think their influence goes back at least to getting mccain to pick palin 2008, climategate 2009

manafort was cochair of mccain campaign. palin as ak gov was getting romanced by russians re gas and oil

limbaugh would not support mccain until the friday before the gop convention when mccain picked palin - minutes before the limbaugh show started so he announced it and had the excuse to support mccain and save the convention

'climategate' started from a russian hack and limbaugh created it with a week of global warming denial saying the e,mails were proof global warming was a hoax. it derailed obama at copenhagen the next week and set us back, with putin's bunch saving billions in derailed fossils fuels reductions

then there's limbaugh in 2011 trying to get the teabag reps to default on the debt (would scaife and the kochs want that?)and getting sequestration as a consolation

all that before social media ops

then trump team studied talk radio in 2014 (sam nunberg told gabriel sherman for new york mag 4/3/16) so russians could piggyback it all

[NewJeffCT]

8. I remember that Climategate email issue

that was Russia's dream come true at the time

[certainot]

9. i read the hack happened on a thursday and by monday limabaugh had the version

with everything taken out of context ready to go. someone, mother jones writers maybe, recently wrote the DNC hacking ops looked similar - something like that

one of the early climategate proponents had ties to russia and and breitbart i thnk i remember