Trump's firm sought Moscow real estate deal during presidential run - Washington Post

[webfact]

Trump's firm sought Moscow real estate deal during presidential run - Washington Post

 

U.S. President Donald Trump waves as he walks on South Lawn of the White House in Washington, U.S., before his departure to Camp David, August 25, 2017. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump's company was pursuing a Moscow real estate deal while he was running for U.S. president in late 2015 and early 2016, the Washington Post reported on Sunday.

 

The Post report cited people familiar with the proposal and records viewed by Trump Organization lawyers.

 

The newspaper said investors and Trump's company had signed a letter of intent to build a Trump Tower in Moscow but the project, lacking land and permits, was abandoned at the end of January 2016, just before the U.S. presidential primaries began, according to several people familiar with the proposal.

 

The White House initially referred Reuters' queries to White House special counsel Ty Cobb and later to the Trump Organization. Neither responded immediately to a request for comment.

 

The Washington Post report comes amid investigations by an independent special counsel and congressional committees into whether Trump campaign aides colluded with Moscow to influence the 2016 U.S. election. Trump and the Russian government have denied any collusion.

 

In July 2016, Trump denied business connections with Russia and said on Twitter: "for the record, I have ZERO investments in Russia." He told a news conference the next day: "I have nothing to do with Russia."

 

Discussions about the Moscow project began in earnest in September 2015, the Washington Post said, citing people briefed on the deal. An unidentified investor planned to build the project and, under a licensing agreement, put Trump’s name on it. However, it was unclear how involved or aware Trump was of his company's negotiations, the newspaper reported.

 

Before the project was dropped, a Russian-born real estate developer had urged Trump to visit Moscow to promote the proposal and suggested he could get Russian President Vladimir Putin to say "great things" about Trump, according to the report, which cited people briefed on the correspondence.

 

Trump, who was elected in November 2016, never went to Moscow, the newspaper said.

 

Details about the proposed deal were contained in a batch of emails to be turned over to congressional investigators shortly, the report said.

 

(Reporting by Mike Stone and Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Paul Tait)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-08-28

[Dagnabbit]

Shock, horror - his multinational company still continued to make deals in other countries while he was running!

[iReason]

2 hours ago, webfact said:

Before the project was dropped, a Russian-born real estate developer had urged Trump to visit Moscow to promote the proposal and suggested he could get Russian President Vladimir Putin to say "great things" about Trump, according to the report, which cited people briefed on the correspondence.

 

"a Russian-born real estate developer"

That would be Felix Sater of Bayrock, a joint operation with The Trump Organization.

 

Trump-Russia Investigation — Felix Sater

"Special Counsel Robert Mueller is looking at whether Trump associates laundered financial payoffs from Russian officials by channeling them through offshore accounts."

 

"The investigation is likely to focus on a real-estate development firm, the Bayrock Group, which once operated just two floors beneath the president’s own office in Trump Tower."

 

"Bayrock partnered with the future president and his two eldest children, Donald Jr. and Ivanka, on a series of real-estate deals between 2002 and about 2011, the most prominent being the troubled Trump Soho hotel and condominium in Manhattan."

https://gosint.wordpress.com/2017/06/23/trump-russia-investigation-felix-sater-the-x-files/

 

 

WHY ROBERT MUELLER HAS TRUMP SOHO IN HIS SIGHTS

"Bayrock has been enmeshed in legal imbroglios since 2010, when its former finance director, Jody Kriss, and another Bayrock employee, Michael Ejekam, sued the company and its principals for $1 billion."

 

"His complaint alleged that Bayrock was “covertly mob-owned and operated,” “backed by oligarchs and money they stole from the Russian people,” and “engaged in the businesses of financial-institution fraud, tax fraud, partnership fraud, human trafficking, child prostitution, statutory rape, and, on occasion, real estate.”

 

"The suit claimed that Bayrock had defrauded Kriss and Ejekam and “never intended to honor” promised payments, instead the real purpose of the company, [it said]; in addition to marketing expensive condos bearing the Trump brand, was “to launder many millions of dollars and evade taxes.”

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/08/why-robert-mueller-has-trump-soho-in-his-sights

 

The occupier of the White House, Tevfik Arif (Bayrock founder) and Felix Sater:

Edited August 28, 2017 by iReason

[Emster23]

"for the record, I have ZERO investments in Russia." He told a news conference the next day:

But they have investments in YOU, as US banks wouldn't loan you money, having been burned too many times

[honu]

he's as crooked as a dog's hind leg

[iReason]

[funandsuninbangkok]

1 hour ago, RobFord said:

 

Sent from my iPhone using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

 

Oh, so real estate investment is corruption. Thanks. Did not know. 

[dutchisaan]

7 minutes ago, funandsuninbangkok said:

Oh, so real estate investment is corruption. Thanks. Did not know. 

What part of corruption didn't you understand?

[funandsuninbangkok]

8 minutes ago, dutchisaan said:

What part of corruption didn't you understand?

Well, this news is that the Trump organization was in process of trying to build a building and you are accusing him of being corrupt.

 

The Trump organization is an international real estate business that invests money in an attempt to make a profit resulting, hopefully, in goods and services that people enjoy for a fee. 

 

I dont understand what is corrupt about that. Do you live in a building ?

 

did it grow out of the ground like a mushroom?

Edited August 28, 2017 by funandsuninbangkok

[craigt3365]

1 hour ago, funandsuninbangkok said:

Oh, so real estate investment is corruption. Thanks. Did not know. 

Don't know much about real estate investing do you?  LOL

[Scott]

Off-topic posts and replies removed.  

[boomerangutang]

10 hours ago, Dagnabbit said:

Shock, horror - his multinational company still continued to make deals in other countries while he was running!

Was there 'quid pro quo' wrapped into those deals?  Were deals made with sanctioned companies, as has already been proven to have happened with Jared - working closely with a sanctioned Russian bank.  And then there's Trump Sr's, Jr's, Ivanka's, and everyone else in the WH vehemently denying for months, that Trump Sr had any involvement of any kind with Russia.  Maybe his fans like being lied to, but I and hundreds of millions of other Americans, don't like being lied to.

 

4 hours ago, funandsuninbangkok said:

Oh, so real estate investment is corruption. Thanks. Did not know. 

See my missive, above.  Also:  the more a person knows about Felix Sater, Trump's bosom buddy for many years on many big-ticket projects, .....the more a person sees what a mafia-like underworld character Sater is.   He's the type of person Trump loves to hang around and aspires to be like.  Corrupt to the core.  Mueller's team has heaps of stuff to sift through, and none of it paints a pretty picture for Trump and his criminal buddies.

[Langsuan Man]

Drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, eventually a flood of information is going to come out about this continuing criminal enterprise also known as The Trump Organization

[iReason]

53 minutes ago, Langsuan Man said:

Drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, eventually a flood of information is going to come out about this continuing criminal enterprise also known as The Trump Organization

 

We only get the crumbs. (But alot of info out there to look up if you know the names of the players.)

 

Meanwhile, there is serious business going on behind closed doors.

 

I've said it before; this is going to make Nixon look like a choir boy...

[iReason]

Trump Associate Boasted That Moscow Business Deal ‘Will Get Donald Elected’

 

"WASHINGTON — A business associate of President Trump promised in 2015 to engineer a real estate deal with the aid of the president of Russia, Vladimir V. Putin, that he said would help Mr. Trump win the presidency."

 

"The business associate, Felix Sater, wrote a series of emails to Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, in which he boasted about his ties to Mr. Putin and predicted that building a Trump Tower in Moscow would be a political boon to Mr. Trump’s candidacy."

 

“Our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it,” Mr. Sater wrote in an email; “I will get all of Putins team to buy in on this, I will manage this process.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/28/us/politics/trump-tower-putin-felix-sater.html?mcubz=0

[selftaopath]

18 hours ago, iReason said:

 

"a Russian-born real estate developer"

That would be Felix Sater of Bayrock, a joint operation with The Trump Organization.

 

Trump-Russia Investigation — Felix Sater

"Special Counsel Robert Mueller is looking at whether Trump associates laundered financial payoffs from Russian officials by channeling them through offshore accounts."

 

"The investigation is likely to focus on a real-estate development firm, the Bayrock Group, which once operated just two floors beneath the president’s own office in Trump Tower."

 

"Bayrock partnered with the future president and his two eldest children, Donald Jr. and Ivanka, on a series of real-estate deals between 2002 and about 2011, the most prominent being the troubled Trump Soho hotel and condominium in Manhattan."

https://gosint.wordpress.com/2017/06/23/trump-russia-investigation-felix-sater-the-x-files/

 

 

WHY ROBERT MUELLER HAS TRUMP SOHO IN HIS SIGHTS

"Bayrock has been enmeshed in legal imbroglios since 2010, when its former finance director, Jody Kriss, and another Bayrock employee, Michael Ejekam, sued the company and its principals for $1 billion."

 

"His complaint alleged that Bayrock was “covertly mob-owned and operated,” “backed by oligarchs and money they stole from the Russian people,” and “engaged in the businesses of financial-institution fraud, tax fraud, partnership fraud, human trafficking, child prostitution, statutory rape, and, on occasion, real estate.”

 

"The suit claimed that Bayrock had defrauded Kriss and Ejekam and “never intended to honor” promised payments, instead the real purpose of the company, [it said]; in addition to marketing expensive condos bearing the Trump brand, was “to launder many millions of dollars and evade taxes.”

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/08/why-robert-mueller-has-trump-soho-in-his-sights

 

The occupier of the White House, Tevfik Arif (Bayrock founder) and Felix Sater:

And now R's are suggesting de-funding Mueller's investigation. They want "their man" as despicable, un American, and corrupt as he is to remain in power. They will allow for this mental cripple to destroy rule of law and democracy. 

[RobFord]

"While President Donald Trump’s handful of trips to Russia have been meticulously scrutinized, a review of his son’s public statements spanning several years, as well as social media posts and interviews with Russia experts, shows that Donald Jr. spent far more time in the country than his father did and developed personal ties there that continued beyond the November election."

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/07/12/trump-junior-russia-connection-240436





Sent from my iPhone using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[boomerangutang]

Have you ever tried to corner a grown cat - in order to put it in a box to take to the animal shelter?

 

I have.  It ain't easy.  You should have leather gloves.

[CaptHaddock]

The article says that the hotel in question was never built, but Trump was never going to build any hotel in Russia, he was only going to collect a payoff that would nominally be for licensing his name.  The question is not whether the hotel got built, but whether Trump got paid.

 

An earlier payoff to Trump by the Russians was the sale by Trump the oligarch Rybolovlev for $95 million of a white elephant Trump had purchased for $41.5 million.  Rybolovlev has never lived in the house and plans to tear it down.  We'll wait for Mueller's report, but it certainly has every appearance of a payoff from Putin to Trump.

[boomerangutang]

1 minute ago, CaptHaddock said:

The article says that the hotel in question was never built, but Trump was never going to build any hotel in Russia, he was only going to collect a payoff that would nominally be for licensing his name.  The question is not whether the hotel got built, but whether Trump got paid.

 

An earlier payoff to Trump by the Russians was the sale by Trump the oligarch Rybolovlev for $95 million of a white elephant Trump had purchased for $41.5 million.  Rybolovlev has never lived in the house and plans to tear it down.  We'll wait for Mueller's report, but it certainly has every appearance of a payoff from Putin to Trump.

In your 2nd paragraph is on the mark.

However, your opening paragraph mentions; "The question is not whether the hotel got built, but whether Trump got paid."

 

I don't agree.  The question is; whether there was a 'quid pro quo' agreement between Trump operatives and Russian manipulators - relating to the 2016 election.  It's not important whether Trump made biz deals and/or whether he got payments for those.  The important issues, as they relate to the investigation and Trump's presidency, are; to what extent Russia was aiding Trump get elected, and whether there were trades (money, properties, promises, sexcapades) involved.

 

Note: in order for someone to break the law, they don't have to pay or receive money.  Just proof of PLANNING to do an illegal act, is grounds for prosecution.

 

Example: if my house is raided, and cops find detailed plans/intentions for robbing a bank, ..... I don't have to have engaged in the bank robbery to be found guilty of breaking the law.

[CaptHaddock]

12 minutes ago, boomerangutang said:

In your 2nd paragraph is on the mark.

However, your opening paragraph mentions; "The question is not whether the hotel got built, but whether Trump got paid."

 

I don't agree.  The question is; whether there was a 'quid pro quo' agreement between Trump operatives and Russian manipulators - relating to the 2016 election.  It's not important whether Trump made biz deals and/or whether he got payments for those.  The important issues, as they relate to the investigation and Trump's presidency, are; to what extent Russia was aiding Trump get elected, and whether there were trades (money, properties, promises, sexcapades) involved.

 

Note: in order for someone to break the law, they don't have to pay or receive money.  Just proof of PLANNING to do an illegal act, is grounds for prosecution.

 

Example: if my house is raided, and cops find detailed plans/intentions for robbing a bank, ..... I don't have to have engaged in the bank robbery to be found guilty of breaking the law.

Of course, you're right that legally whether there was an actual payment is immaterial.  But I was thinking of the political significance.  It makes a big difference whether Trump can be shown to be in the pay of Putin or whether he has merely commit what may seem to many as a technical violation of the law.  In order to get any Republican support in the Congress for action against Trump, he must be shown to have done something that is undeniably wrong, like Nixon's obstruction of justice.

[selftaopath]

5 hours ago, CaptHaddock said:

The article says that the hotel in question was never built, but Trump was never going to build any hotel in Russia, he was only going to collect a payoff that would nominally be for licensing his name.  The question is not whether the hotel got built, but whether Trump got paid.

 

An earlier payoff to Trump by the Russians was the sale by Trump the oligarch Rybolovlev for $95 million of a white elephant Trump had purchased for $41.5 million.  Rybolovlev has never lived in the house and plans to tear it down.  We'll wait for Mueller's report, but it certainly has every appearance of a payoff from Putin to Trump.

If 45 doesn't finalize his coup before then. Look at the "key positions" that he has garnered. Hell now the head of the CIA has politicized this position along with others necessary to stop him. I'll say one thing fol 45. He is a criminal mastermind, but not one redeeming quality.

[CaptHaddock]

7 hours ago, selftaopath said:

If 45 doesn't finalize his coup before then. Look at the "key positions" that he has garnered. Hell now the head of the CIA has politicized this position along with others necessary to stop him. I'll say one thing fol 45. He is a criminal mastermind, but not one redeeming quality.

Yes, Pompeo is a Trump stooge, but it can be inferred from the statements of "former" CIA officials that substantial portions of the organization oppose Trump, which is true of the FBI and probably of much of the rest of the spook community.  So, while Pompeo is kowtowing daily to Trump, other parts of the CIA could well be supplying Mueller with information against Trump. 

 

Something like that is alleged to have happened to both Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon, both of whom fired a lot of CIA people and subsequently did not have a second term.  With Nixon the means to remove him was Watergate while with Carter the claim is that the CIA had a hand in instigating the second oil crisis.

[boomerangutang]

Cohen is Trump's longtime buddy and lawyer - also doubling as business decider on this latest drip (of many 'drip drips') about Russia-Trump connections.  He's vile.  He's the one who, when interviewed last year and asked a tough q about Trump, kept saying "says who?" "says who?" "says who?".  Something you'd expect a 7 yr old Mafia-wannabe punk in the Bronx to say.   

 

He, like all other of Trump's shielders, is falling on his sword multiple times.  He claims he made 100% of the decisions about the proposed Trump building to be built in Moscow.  ....that Trump Sr didn't know anything about it, and Cohen says he nixed the project without mentioning anything to Trump.   Cohen only admitted his own involvement because (as always with Trumpsters), there was tangible proof of it, and he couldn't deny it or say; "says who?" over and over.

 

[pegman]

3 hours ago, CaptHaddock said:

Yes, Pompeo is a Trump stooge, but it can be inferred from the statements of "former" CIA officials that substantial portions of the organization oppose Trump, which is true of the FBI and probably of much of the rest of the spook community.  So, while Pompeo is kowtowing daily to Trump, other parts of the CIA could well be supplying Mueller with information against Trump. 

 

Something like that is alleged to have happened to both Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon, both of whom fired a lot of CIA people and subsequently did not have a second term.  With Nixon the means to remove him was Watergate while with Carter the claim is that the CIA had a hand in instigating the second oil crisis.

A few months ago a commentator stated that he had seen a text exchange between a current and a retired spook. Retired asked what will become of Trump?  Current replied "he will die in jail". It wouldn't surprise me that JFK were added to your one term list. 

[iReason]

Trump's Business Dealings Come Back to Haunt Him

"A failed attempt to start a development in Moscow—which the president has denied—

shows the dangers of intertwining business and politics so closely."

 

In December 2015, one month after Sater’s note to Cohen about working with Putin, Trump told the Associated Press,

“Felix Sater, boy, I have to even think about it."

 

"I'm not that familiar with him,” even though Sater had been employed at the Trump Organization, a small team,

and had been Trump’s partner on Trump Soho, one of his largest projects of the 2000s."

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/trumps-business-gets-him-in-trouble/538341/

 

 

A definitive report on Felix Sater :

 

The Original Russia Connection

“How did I get to Donald?” Sater asked."

 

“I walked in his door and told him, ‘I’m gonna be the biggest developer in New York, and you want to be my partner.’ ”

 

"In a 2008 deposition taken in connection with Trump’s unsuccessful libel lawsuit against his biographer O’Brien,

Sater testified that the companies interacted “on a constant basis” and that he frequently popped in to visit Trump himself for “real-estate conversations.”

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/08/felix-sater-donald-trump-russia-investigation.html

https://www.ft.com/content/33285dfa-9231-11e6-8df8-d3778b55a923

Edited August 30, 2017 by iReason

[Opl]

This is what you get by electing a businessman at the head of a country to get rid of the politicians: he continues to do business as usual
Trump was very clear on the fact that he did not mix, never mix and never will mix politics and business, and believe him, because he is 100% devoted to his business interests

Edited August 30, 2017 by Opl

[iReason]

Felix Sater: the enigmatic businessman at the heart of the Trump-Russia inquiry

 

"His father, Mikhail Sheferovsky (who changed the family name after arriving in New York) became a local crime boss in Brighton Beach and Sater grew up on that side of Brooklyn, where he got to know another teenager in the neighbourhood, Michael Cohen, a Long Island boy who would go on to become Trump’s personal lawyer and vice-president of the Trump Organization."

 

"Three decades later, it was Cohen whom Sater contacted when he thought he could win Putin’s backing for a Moscow real estate deal and Trump’s presidential run."

 

"The Financial Times has reported he is cooperating with an international investigation into Kazakh money-laundering, but he has not said whether he is talking to Robert Mueller, the special counsel looking into possible Trump-Kremlin collusion."

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/31/felix-sater-trump-russia-investigation

 

 

Cohen is going down.

 

 

Edited August 31, 2017 by iReason

[Opl]

Trump’s Real Campaign : The latest Trump Tower Moscow revelations put Trump’s flattery of Putin in a disturbing new light.

"If there’s money to be made, and if what you lack is a relationship with the host government—illustrated in this case by Cohen’s use of a public email address to contact Peskov—then the next logical step is to cultivate a relationship. And that’s exactly what Trump proceeded to do."

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/08/trump_s_long_campaign_to_make_trump_tower_moscow_happen.html

 

In this photo provided by the German Government Press Office, President Donald Trump meets Russian President Vladimir Putin, during G-20 on July 7 in Hamburg, Germany.

 

 

Edited September 1, 2017 by Opl