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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMoney Laundering as the crime to bring down Donald Trump ....
despite the technically legal way in which it is done, he might be in the big business of laundering corrupt monies from other countries, particularly Russia.
from today's WaPo
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-the-trump-organization-could-be-trumps-undoing/2017/08/08/82de9980-7c4c-11e7-a669-b400c5c7e1cc_story.html?utm_term=.43fc540dc3bc
When you think of something as mundane as laundry, you dont think of the gold-plated Trump Organization. Yet the business of selling multimillion-dollar condominiums a sector where the Trump name looms large is deeply entangled with a certain kind of washing. Money laundering.
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But few laundries can match the efficiency of an eight-figure luxury condominium in New York or San Francisco or South Florida. It works like this: The holder of a great deal of tainted money sets up a shell company, funds it through the shadow banking system, then uses the shell to purchase exclusive property. Voila! No one knows where the money came from or who the buyer might be. But when the condo is eventually resold, the proceeds emerge from the spin cycle as clean as Eliot Ness.
Given the scrutiny special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is likely to bring to Trump Tower in coming months, the good news for the president is that this unsavory customer service is completely legal in most cases. Thanks to the lobbying power of the real estate industry, efforts by national and international law enforcement to crack down on corrupt money flows have scarcely touched the condo trade. Unlike bankers, who are required by law to be diligent about the sources of incoming money, condo developers and real estate agents dont have to ask where the cabbage comes from for their all-cash sales to hidden buyers.
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At the Trump International, on the southwest corner of Central Park, the Times noted that more than half of all condo sales were to hidden buyers. A more recent study by USA Today found that the number of veiled transactions involving the Trump Organization took a big jump as the boss mans political fortunes rose. Since Trump captured the Republican nomination last summer, the share of hidden buyers of his branded properties has climbed to 70 percent, the newspaper found.
PoliticAverse
(26,366 posts)global1
(25,294 posts)will Mueller also catch the other parties in the transactions to launder money after he nabs Trump? Will they go to jail as well?
renate
(13,776 posts)How does that bring him down? It's not as though his base cares.
kwassa
(23,340 posts)Just the publicity would kill him.
Hassin Bin Sober
(26,352 posts)One crime, off the top of my head, is "structuring" - the act of structuring transactions to avoid reporting.
MiddleClass
(888 posts)Money laundering, "fraud" is highly illegal, conspiracy to commit fraud also highly illegal
Caliman73
(11,760 posts)"When you think of something as mundane as laundry, you dont think of the gold-plated Trump Organization. Yet the business of selling multimillion-dollar condominiums a sector where the Trump name looms large is deeply entangled with a certain kind of washing. Money laundering."
The two sentences above are quite interesting. I know they are set up sentences. I do that when I write papers for school. The funny thing is when I think of Trump and his history, I totally think of Money Laundering, racketeering, and any number of other crimes involved in the construction business. The reason the Mafia was so wrapped into the construction, concrete, sanitation, and other businesses is because it is so easy to funnel money through for nefarious purposes.
Jim__
(14,092 posts)Craig Unger's article is mostly about money laundering.
dalton99a
(81,680 posts)Last edited Wed Aug 9, 2017, 06:15 PM - Edit history (1)
Trump seems unable to recall any of this. Felix Sater, boy, I have to even think about it, he told the Associated Press in 2015. Two years earlier, testifying in a video deposition, Trump took the same line. If Sater were sitting in the room right now, he swore under oath, I really wouldnt know what he looked like.
Kathy M
(1,242 posts)pnwmom
(109,021 posts)Or do you think DT wasn't involved in money-laundering?
Kathy M
(1,242 posts)it happens .
Your second question ... we do not know ...... just because something is in the paper or on twitter does not make it so
pnwmom
(109,021 posts)or that Schneiderman wouldn't or couldn't build a case against him.
Kathy M
(1,242 posts)following crowds that have the likes of Louise Mench and Claud .... where this stuff started
would rather work with reality
pnwmom
(109,021 posts)in Politico, and many other MSM sources have also talked about Trump and money-laundering.
This has nothing to do with Mensch and Taylor -- except for you giving them the credit for being the first to discuss it. (Though they weren't. MSM articles from last summer talked about Trump and money-laundering.)
Kathy M
(1,242 posts)different investigations going on ... right ? Why accuse someone of being guilty of something till investigations are done ...... When did our country change .......... if it did thanks for the heads up
good night
pnwmom
(109,021 posts)You were the one deciding in advance that he would NOT be charged with/convicted of money-laundering.
I do think it is likely he has been involved in money-laundering, and that Mueller will get to the bottom of it. We already know that at least one of his casinos accepted a $10million fine for violating regulations pertaining to money-laundering. The fine was paid after he sold the casino, but covered a period of time in which he still was a part owner.
procon
(15,805 posts)Mueller would be the equivalent of Eliot Ness who went after Capone on alcohol related offences during the Prohibition era. Like Trump, Capone was a popular public celebrity and there wasn't much support for imprisoning the guy who provided booze to thirsty customers. Ness decided it would be easier to convict Capone of tax evasion, and he did.
Maybe Mueller will focus on trying Trump for money laundering if he thinks the Russian collusion is going to be more difficult to prosecute.
Lars39
(26,117 posts)kwassa
(23,340 posts)Eric, Don Jr. The Family.
Lars39
(26,117 posts)kwassa
(23,340 posts)I am grateful that GOP moderates and the Freedom Caucus can't agree on anything, so major GOP legislation on anything big is impossible. If they can't do health care, they can't do anything like tax reform. Right now, they have gridlocked themselves.
The debt ceiling fight will be the next big battle, and will reveal much.
pnwmom
(109,021 posts)Paul Ryan was recorded on tape laughing about Russian money funding Republicans, and saying that talk about it was to remain "in the family."
And there's this:
https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2017/08/03/tangled-web-connects-russian-oligarch-money-gop-campaigns
Party loyalty is often cited as the reason that GOP leaders have not been more outspoken in their criticism of President Donald Trump and his refusal to condemn Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election. Yet there may be another reason that top Republicans have not been more vocal in their condemnation. Perhaps it's because they have their own links to the Russian oligarchy that they would prefer go unnoticed.
Donald Trump and the political action committees for Mitch McConnell, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, Lindsey Graham, John Kasich and John McCain accepted $7.35 million in contributions from a Ukrainian-born oligarch who is the business partner of two of Russian president Vladimir Putin's favorite oligarchs and a Russian government bank.
During the 2015-2016 election season, Ukrainian-born billionaire Leonard "Len" Blavatnik contributed $6.35 million to leading Republican candidates and incumbent senators. Mitch McConnell was the top recipient of Blavatnik's donations, collecting $2.5 million for his GOP Senate Leadership Fund under the names of two of Blavatnik's holding companies, Access Industries and AI Altep Holdings, according to Federal Election Commission documents and OpenSecrets.org.
MiddleClass
(888 posts)In the election, before the election.
Beware video automatically starts
[link:https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/national/inside-obamas-secret-struggle-to-punish-russia-for-putins-attack-on-american-democracy/2017/06/23/1a333f16-57f4-11e7-840b-512026319da7_video.html?utm_term=.cca23047e09c|
pnwmom
(109,021 posts)he was an unregistered foreign agent.
Lars39
(26,117 posts)Gothmog
(145,805 posts)randr
(12,418 posts)His enterprises have paid more in fines for laundering than most of his minions will ever make in their lives.
TxVietVet
(1,905 posts)I remember someone saying that tRump had been laundering Russian illegal funds because of his bankruptcies and his treatment of contractors and creditors. He screwed all of them.
Johnny2X2X
(19,253 posts)People don't realize how terrible they are. Child sex trafficking. Slavery. Drug trafficking. Murder.
These people are monsters and anyone who helps them is guilty too. Trump helps them launder money they get from kidnapoing little girls and selling them into slavery.
argyl
(3,064 posts)Blue_true
(31,261 posts)You are talking about a guy that allegedly raped 13 year old girls.
eleny
(46,166 posts)Say nothing but enjoy the largess.
He got so used to standing on is father's shoulders or getting bailouts from dad Trump and then the U.S. lenders that he couldn't pass up the Russian money when he ran out of options. My husband asserted that Trump would curl up and die if he had to live like the rest of us. Life without golden toilets was unthinkable.
MiddleClass
(888 posts)Corrupt Russian oligarch money is used to secure a multimillion dollar mortgage that Manafort uses to buy, wait for it, luxury condos. Paul Manafort worked for Russian backed Ukraine dictator for decades, and the only record is Manafort owes tens of millions to Vladimir's bank for mortgages.
Obviously, the quid pro quo payoff, is the ownership of multimillion dollar (Donald Trump Enterprises?) Condos.
Getting around the law cannot be that simple. As sale of said condos is a windfall for Manafort and Trump
Mueller as a whole, has a mess to untangle