Sunday, July 16, 2017

SAVING TRUMP'S BACON

Why didn't the FBI investigate Trump's money laundering? Kenneth McCallion did.

...But even without an investigation by Congress or a special prosecutor, there is much we already know about the president’s debt to Russia. A review of the public record reveals a clear and disturbing pattern: Trump owes much of his business success, and by extension his presidency, to a flow of highly suspicious money from Russia. Over the past three decades, at least 13 people with known or alleged links to Russian mobsters or oligarchs have owned, lived in, and even run criminal activities out of Trump Tower and other Trump properties. Many used his apartments and casinos to launder untold millions in dirty money. Some ran a worldwide high-stakes gambling ring out of Trump Tower—in a unit directly below one owned by Trump. Others provided Trump with lucrative branding deals that required no investment on his part. Taken together, the flow of money from Russia provided Trump with a crucial infusion of financing that helped rescue his empire from ruin, burnish his image, and launch his career in television and politics. “They saved his bacon,” says Kenneth McCallion, a former assistant U.S. attorney in the Reagan administration who investigated ties between organized crime and Trump’s developments in the 1980s.

[source : Trump’s Russian Laundromat, New Republic, https://newrepublic.com/article/143586/trumps-russian-laundromat-trump-tower-luxury-high-rises-dirty-money-international-crime-syndicate, 13th July 2017]

And here's McCallion writing on Trump's money laundering and servitude to Russian money:
In the event that Trump were to actually occupy the White House as our next President, how could he “get tough” with the Russians, or consider signing stronger money-laundering legislation focused on the real estate industry, knowing that to do so could deal a heavy blow to his real estate business empire, proudly built on debt and substantially beholden to foreign investors?

To do so would mean financial suicide. He would be forced to smile and follow Putin’s lead, no matter where it took this country.

How did it come about that Trump Organization projects came to be financed with dirty money originating with international financial criminals from Russian, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, the former Soviet Republic of Georgia and other Eastern European and Central Asian sources?

The answer is simple: It had no choice, if it wanted to survive. After four business bankruptcies, nearly all the legitimate U.S. banks realized that any further loans to Trump would be reckless. The Trump business empire was on the verge of collapse. Salvation was found in Russian money of questionable origin.

...Trump promises to deport Mexican criminals and other foreign undesirables back to where they came from, but says nothing of the wealthy foreign criminals who have invested millions into his real estate projects.

[source : Kenneth McCallion, A real estate empire built on corruption: The trouble with Trump's foreign-cash connection,New York Daily News, http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/kenneth-f-mccallion-trump-real-estate-built-corruption-article-1.2856797, 3rd November 2016]

And why did Sessions reach a sweetheart deal with Veselnitskaya who was defending an alleged Russian money launderer?
Remember back in May, that sudden settlement by the Justice Department in a Russian money laundering case? I sure do, because I remember thinking, “that’s fishy — sounds like something Trump might be involved in. Well, turns out it’s fishy AF. The defendant’s attorney was Kremlin-connected Natalia Veselnitskaya — who met with Don Jr., Kushner and Manafort in Trump Tower last June.

[source : Sessions gave sweetheart settlement to Russian money launderer, client of Veselnitskaya, Daily Kos, https://m.dailykos.com/stories/1680113, 12th July 2017]


Questions! Questions! Questions!

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