Trump association to Russian mobsters goes back to 1979

[Amica Nostra 4,803]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/03/28/trump-business-past-ties-russian-mobsters-organized-crime/98321252/

 

To expand his real estate developments over the years, Donald Trump, his company and partners repeatedly turned to wealthy Russians and oligarchs from former Soviet republics — several allegedly connected to organized crime, according to a USA TODAY review of court cases, government and legal documents and an interview with a former federal prosecutor.
The president and his companies have been linked to at least 10 wealthy former Soviet businessmen with alleged ties to criminal organizations or money laundering.

President Trump reacts after delivering his first address to a joint session of Congress from the ...more
Jim Lo Scalzo, POOL, EPA
Among them:
• A member of the firm that developed the Trump SoHo Hotel in New York is a twice-convicted felon who spent a year in prison for stabbing a man and later scouted for Trump investments in Russia.
•  An investor in the SoHo project was accused by Belgian authorities in 2011 in a $55 million money-laundering scheme.
• Three owners of Trump condos in Florida and Manhattan were accused in federal indictments of belonging to a Russian-American organized crime group and working for a major international crime boss based in Russia.
•  A former mayor from Kazakhstan was accused in a federal lawsuit filed in Los Angeles in 2014 of hiding millions of dollars looted from his city, some of which was spent on three Trump SoHo units.
•  A Ukrainian owner of two Trump condos in Florida was indicted in a money-laundering scheme involving a former prime minister of Ukraine.
Trump's Russian connections are of heightened interest because of an FBI investigation into possible collusion between Trump's presidential campaign and Russian operatives to interfere in last fall's election. What’s more, Trump and his companies have had business dealings with Russians that go back decades, raising questions about whether his policies would be influenced by business considerations.
Trump told reporters in February: "I have no dealings with Russia. I have no deals that could happen in Russia, because we’ve stayed away. And I have no loans with Russia. I have no loans with Russia at all."
Yet in 2013, after Trump addressed potential investors in Moscow, he bragged to Real Estate Weekly about his access to Russia's rich and powerful. “I have a great relationship with many Russians, and almost all of the oligarchs were in the room,” Trump said, referring to Russians who made fortunes when former Soviet state enterprises were sold to private investors.
Five years earlier, Trump's son Donald Trump Jr. told Russian media while in Moscow  that “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross section of a lot of our assets" in places like Dubai and Trump SoHo and elsewhere in New York.
New York City real estate broker Dolly Lenz told USA TODAY she sold about 65 condos in Trump World at 845 U.N. Plaza in Manhattan to Russian investors, many of whom sought personal meetings with Trump for his business expertise.

[Ebunoluwa 6,136]

Interesting to see where it will all lead. Slow going but eventually the truth will come out with the evidence of what the

current connection is all about. The saga continues....the plot thickens. I want to now what Nunes did in the WH and what

the secrecy is all about. That whole thing is about to blow wide open.

[CaliCat 3,957]

I see that supporters of the so-called president are twisting themselves into tiny little pretzels trying to bury evidence. Sooner or later someone inside the WH will blow a loud whistle.

[Ebunoluwa 6,136]

The pretzels have been on my mind, they are doing the twist for sure. You just said it before I was going to lol.

[Amica Nostra 4,803]

6 hours ago, CaliCat said:

I see that supporters of the so-called president are twisting themselves into tiny little pretzels trying to bury evidence. Sooner or later someone inside the WH will blow a loud whistle.

for weeks we have been hearing that all of these leaks are Obama hangovers.  It is now apparent that the leaks are with Trumps peeps.