More dirty money filterd through the life-long Criminal in Chief. From an AU article today:
‘Mob links’ killed off Trump’s Sydney casino bid
Donald Trump’s plan to build and operate Sydney’s first casino was killed off in 1987 by the NSW government on the back of a high-level police report that warned against the now-US President’s bid because of his “mafia connections’’.
…
“The board is firmly of the view that on tests of sound repute, probity and integrity, none of the three consortia discussed above (HKMS, Kern/Trump, Federal/Resort/Sabemo) can be considered acceptable; indeed each would be dangerous,” the Police Board found.
So glad that the Sulzbergers and Dean Baquet directed the staff at the New York Times to focus so much of their valuable time and resources on the “clouds and shadows” hovering over the Clinton Foundation instead of what was going right under their fucking noses at TrumpCo. Considering that Trump has spent his entire goddamn career based in Manhattan, the NYT should have established an entire department tasked with researching, investigating, and reporting on the entirety of Trump’s career in a way that was valuable and informative to the electorate as soon as it became clear he was a legit threat to capture the GOP nomination. They should have been the go-to source for all things Trump.
It’s ironic that it was the WaPo, not the NYT, that ended up getting a Pulitzer for its Trump coverage.
Just in case you were wondering, “Say, this is about Russian oligarchs with their dirty dirty billions—where’s Ukie and his blandly offered hyperprovocative baseless assertions that this all proves nothing except what he decides it does?” Well, alas, he was banned again. For trolling, believe it or not. He grossly misrepresented someone else’s position and then said it was fascist. So the mods gave him a month off to think about his choices in life. I know that’s twice now—it might be more, but twice for sure. Enjoy your time off, Ukie! Take some long walks like people do in the movies when they’re really thinking about something. Because you ought to.
That firetruck thing—deep down I may never stop cringing. JFC.
Another reason - investigators tend not to look into things that lose money, because they’re focused mainly on fraud where someone (if not the entire project) makes money. Also, the loss is a cost of doing business with dirty money - it’s better to get 70% of your money out clean than be stuck with a lot of dirty money you can’t use, especially when you can make it up with a markup in the source.
This article doesn’t really state what the legal issue is here: It’s that Putin, who sat on the board of the Russian state owned Vneshconombank (VEB) and can be fairly assumed to have veto/approval authority on all major transactions, was laundering dirty/sanctioned Russian money through TT Toronto.
Alexander Schnaider put money into TT Toronto that he received from selling his ownership interest in a Ukrainian steel company to a Russian gov’t backed entity. VEB, Putin’s Bank, financed the transaction, which means the funds to pay Schnaider came from VEB and were specifically approved by Putin. The source of that money is from VNB held deposits. A lot of those deposits come from Russian Oligarchs and Putin himself. That money is dirty. It is money that is subject to US and global sanctions, and also has dubious sources - drugs, prostitution, illegal arms/commodities trading, human trafficking and terrorism.
Trump lent his brand to this hotel by way of a licensing arrangement in order to create an attractive money laundering vehicle. That helped to build relations with the Russian government and the Russian underworld. It also created incentives for Russian interests to invest in Trump properties and provide his businesses with much needed capital to finance his massive debt burden.
Keep in mind that Jared Kushner met with the head of VEB, Sergey Gorkov, in December 2016, likely because he needed massive inflows of loans to finance his $1 billion + debt load for 666 5th avenue and other interests. He was expecting sanctions to be removed so that he could get that money. That goodwill with the Russians was built up through transactions like Trump Tower Toronto. That’s why (at least I hope that’s why) Mueller is looking at this transaction.
Well, it’s harder to create a successful business. Trump seems to find himself associated with a lot of business that don’t have much of a half-life but do coincidentally exist long enough to pay him millions in licensing fees.
