From The Peter Tatchell Foundation (2018):
FIVE FACTS that expose Trump’s Russia links
Here are 5 top facts everyone should know about Trump’s long collusion with Russian organised criminals.
1.) Trump’s main financial backer for the Trump Tower Toronto was a Russian-Canadian billionaire who got the money by selling a massive steel mill in Ukraine for nearly a billion dollars. $100 million of that money was paid to a Kremlin-backed fixer, likely as a bribe to VERY high Russian officials. The Chairman of the Bank who financed the deal? Vladimir Putin.
2.) Trump bought his home in Palm Beach, Florida for $41 million. A few years later, with no real increase in the value — he sold it for $95 million — the most expensive home in America at the time! Why? A major Russian oligarch bought it — we don’t know yet why he effectively ‘gave’ Trump $54 million. But it’s classic money laundering practice.
3.) Trump’s real estate deals were often fuelled by Russian money, typically passed through shady shell companies. 77% of Trump Soho apartments were bought with cash by such mysterious companies. At least 13 people with links to Russian oligarchs or mobsters lived in Trump properties, including one of Russia’s top mobsters. One even ran a high-stakes illegal gambling ring in the apartment right below Trump’s!
“Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets” — Donald Trump JR, 2008
4.) Trump’s financial broker and “Senior Advisor” was a Russian convicted felon named Felix Sater, widely known as a mafia figure who once stabbed someone in the face with a broken margarita glass, requiring over 100 stitches. Sater helped set up shell companies, and arranged funding for Trump’s projects, including plans for Trump Tower Moscow. He’s also part of Putin’s inner circle. Here’s one email he wrote to Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen in November, 2015:
“Michael I arranged for Ivanka to sit in Putins private chair at his desk and office in the Kremlin. I will get Putin on this program and we will get Donald elected. We both know no one else knows how to pull this off without stupidity or greed getting in the way. I know how to play it and we will get this done. Buddy our boy can become President of the USA and we can engineer it. I will get all of Putins team to buy in on this, I will.” New York Times, August 27, 2017
5.) Trump’s other main business is casinos — which are classic money laundering vehicles. One of his casinos was 100 times found in violation of federal rules protecting against money laundering, and paid the largest fine ever levied against a casino for having “willfully violated” anti-money laundering rules. Trump has a legal obligation to do “due diligence” for all his businesses to prevent laundering. His senior executive’s comment on this was “Donald doesn’t do diligence”.
Source:
https://www.petertatchellfoundation.org/heres-why-trump-colludes-with-putin/
ETA: We’ve learned a lot more since then, and yet he walks free.
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