Trump's Russian Connections

Trump was over a billion in debt and the Russians bailed him out. This is how he made a come back

► Trump was first compromised by the Russians back in the 80s. In 1984, the Russian Mafia began to use Trump real estate to launder money and it continued for decades. In 1987, the Soviet ambassador to the United Nations, Yuri Dubinin, arranged for Trump and his then-wife, Ivana, to enjoy an all-expense-paid trip to Moscow to consider possible business prospects. Only seven weeks after his trip, Trump ran full-page ads in the Boston Globe, the NYT and WaPO calling for, in effect, the dismantling of the postwar Western foreign policy alliance. The whole Trump/Russian connection started out as laundering money for the Russian mob through Trump's real estate, but evolved into something far bigger.

► In 1984, David Bogatin — a Russian mobster, convicted gasoline bootlegger, and close ally of Semion Mogilevich, a major Russian mob boss — met with Trump in Trump Tower right after it opened. Bogatin bought five condos from Trump at that meeting. Those condos were later seized by the government, which claimed they were used to launder money for the Russian mob. (NY Times, Apr 30, 1992)

► Felix Sater is a Russian-born former mobster, and former managing director of NY real estate conglomerate Bayrock Group LLC located on the 24th floor of Trump Tower. He is a convict who became a govt cooperator for the FBI and other agencies. He grew up with Michael Cohen--Trump's former "fixer" attorney. Cohen's family owned El Caribe, which was a mob hangout for the Russian Mafia in Brooklyn. Cohen had ties to Ukrainian oligarchs through his in-laws and his brother's in-laws. Felix Sater's father had ties to the Russian mob. This goes back more than 30 years.

► Trump was $4 billion in debt after his Atlantic City casinos went bankrupt. No U.S. bank would touch him. Then foreign money began flowing in through Bayrock (mentioned above). Bayrock was run by two investors: Tevfik Arif, a Kazakhstan-born former Soviet official who drew on bottomless sources of money from the former Soviet republic; and Felix Sater, a Russian-born businessman who had pleaded guilty in the 1990s to a huge stock-fraud scheme involving the Russian mafia. Bayrock partnered with Trump in 2005 and poured money into the Trump organization under the legal guise of licensing his name and property management.

► Semion Mogilevich was the brains behind the Russian Mafia. Mogilevich operatives have been using Trump real estate for decades to launder money. That means Russian Mafia operatives have been part of his fortune for years, that many of them have owned condos in Trump Towers and other properties, that they were running operations out of Trump's crown jewel. (Mogilevich's role today is unclear).

► One of the most important things that is often overlooked is that the Russia Mafia is part and parcel of Russian intelligence. Russia is a mafia state. that is not a metaphor. Putin is head of the Mafia. So the fact that they have been operating out of the home of the president of the United States is deeply disturbing.

► From Craig Unger's AMA: "Early on, a source told me that all this was tied to Semion Mogilevich, the powerful Russian mobster. I had never even heard of him, but I immediately went to a database that listed the owners of all properties in NY state and looked up all the Trump properties. Every time I found a Russian sounding name, I would Google, and add Mogilevich. When you do investigative reporting, you anticipate drilling a number of dry holes, but almost everyone I googled turned out to be a Russian mobster. Again and again. If you know New York you don't expect Trump Tower to be a high crime neighborhood, but there were far too many Russian mobsters in Trump properties for it to be a coincidence."

► So many Russians bought Trump apartments at his developments in Florida that the area became known as Little Moscow. The developers of two of his hotels were Russians with significant links to the Russian mob. The late leader of that mob in the United States, Vyacheslav Kirillovich Ivankov, was living at Trump Tower.

► According to a Bloomberg investigation (March 16, 2017) into Trump World Tower, “a third of units sold on floors 76 through 83 by 2004 involved people or limited liability companies connected to Russia and neighboring states.”

► In July 2008, the height of the recession, Donald Trump sold a mansion in Palm Beach for $95 million to Dmitry Rybolovlev, a Russian oligarch. Trump had purchased it four years earlier for $41.35 million. The sale price was nearly $54 million more than Trump had paid for the property. Again, this was the height of the recession when all other property had plummeted in value.

► In 2013, Federal agents busted an “ultraexclusive, high-stakes, illegal poker ring” run by Russian gangsters out of Trump Tower. In addition to card games, they operated illegal gambling websites, ran a global sports book and laundered more than $100 million. A condo directly below one owned by Trump reportedly served as HQ for a “sophisticated money-laundering scheme” connected to Semion Mogilevich.

► Rudy Giuliani famously prosecuted the Italian mob while he was a federal prosecutor, yet the Russian mob was allowed to thrive under his tenure in the Southern District and Mayor. And now he's deeply entwined in the business of Trump and Russian oligarchs. Giuiani appointed Semyon Kislin to the NYC Economic Development Council in 1990, and the FBI described Kislin as having ties tot he Russian mob. Of course, it made good political sense for Giuliani to get headlines for smashing the Italian mob.

► A lot of Republicans in Washington are implicated. Boatloads of Russian money went to the GOP--often in legal ways. The NRA got as much as $70M from Russia, then funneled it to the GOP. The Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee lead by McConnel got millions from Leonard Blavatnik. In the 90s, the Russians began sending money to top GOP leaders, like Speaker of the House Tom Delay. Unger's book alleges that most of the GOP leadership has been compromised by RU money.

► At the Cityscape USA’s Bridging US and the Emerging Real Estate Markets Conference held in Manhattan, on September 9, 10, and 11, 2008, Trump Jr. was frank about the tide of Russian money supporting the family business, saying "...And in terms of high-end product influx into the US, Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets."

► Eric Trump told James Dodson, a golf reporter, in 2014 that the Trump Organization was able to expand during the financial crisis because “We don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.”

Outcomes that show Trump is taking orders from Putin:

► At the end of 2018, Putin and his allies started making a strong push for a resolution that would justify their country’s 1979 invasion of Afghanistan and reverse an 1989 vote backed by Mikhail Gorbachev that condemned it. The Putinists’ goal was to pass the resolution by Feb. There is no one on this side of the Atlantic who thinks the USSR was justified in invading Afghanistan. And out of nowhere, on January 2nd, Trump came out strongly supporting Russia's 1979 invasion of Afghanistan.

► Trump went against American intelligence on North Korean missiles. He told the FBI he didn't believe their intelligence because Putin told him otherwise. "I don't care, I believe Putin"

► Trump met in secret with Putin the G20 summit in November 2018, without note takers. 19 days later, he announced a withdrawal from Syria. As a note, Trump conducted FIVE completely private meetings and conferences with Putin, and has gone to great lengths to prevent literally anyone, even people in his administration, from learning what was discussed.

► Trump refused to enforce sanctions legally codified into law - and in some cases reversed standing sanctions on Russian companies.

► He has denounced his own intelligence agencies in a press conference with Putin on election meddling - and publicly endorsed Putin's version of events. .

► Trump pulled out of the INF treaty with no explanation, which allows Putin to create long-range hypersonic missiles that threaten Europe with impunity. The US already has all the weaponry that the INF would ban the development of, so this offers us literally nothing, while allowing Russia to develop powerful new weapons to challenge our allies.

► And of course, Trump continues to threaten to pull out of NATO, a move so catastrophically stupid, so inconceivably cosmically myopic, I truly can't express the profundity of the idiocy. Suffice to say, pulling out of NATO would be like the only guy in a prison yard with a shotgun just throwing it over the fence for absolutely no reason, suddenly giving the people with crude homemade shivs complete power.

► In summation: Trump was $4 billion in debt and the Russians bailed him out.

I've reached my 10k limit and URLs are the first thing to go.

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Criminal Trump the Russian Tratior

Republican Hypocrisy

Trump isn't the problem, voters are. Some examples of Republican hypocrisy:

• If we win the presidency, our Supreme Court nominees should be confirmed. When you win the presidency, we will block you at every turn.
• If Trump wins, the election is legitimate and the people have SPOKEN. If Hillary wins, it must be RIGGED.
• Donald Trump is accused of forcing himself on over ten women. STICK TO THE ISSUES. Bill Clinton accused of misconduct by four women. His wife should be disqualified from office and imprisoned.
• Hillary Clinton has not directly mentioned any of Trump's accusers. She needs to stop distracting from real issues. Trump has a press conference with four of Bill Clinton's accusers, gives them front row seats to the debate, and mentions them during debate. Great job taking the gloves off, president Trump.
• Bill Clinton cheats on his wife. Impeach him. Trump proudly brags about sexual assault (has 5 kids with 3 wives and has cheated on his wives). Elect him.
• Hillary oversaw the Department of State while four people died in an embassy attack. JAIL HER. Two Republicans were in office while over 200 people died in embassy attacks. No problem.
• Immigrants don't pay taxes. Round them up and kick them out. Trump doesn't pay taxes. He's a business genius.
• Independent fact checkers found Trump is likely the least truthful candidate in the history of modern politics. He tells it like it is. Hillary is statistically more truthful than most politicians according to fact checkers. She is the most untrustworthy, lying liar who has ever run for political office.
• The Clinton Foundation only spent 87% of their donations helping people (average amount is 75%). CROOKED. Trump's foundation paid off his debts, bought paintings of him, and made political donations to avoid investigations for a fake university while giving less than 5% of funds to charity (and he got shut down by NY State). So savvy...put him in the White House.
• Trump made 4 billion dollars in 40 years, when an index fund started at the same time with the same "small loans" he received would be worth $12 billion today... without a trail of bankruptcies, thousands of lawsuits and burned small business owners. He's a real business whiz. Hillary took a loss of $700k. She's a criminal.
• Trump is the first candidate in the modern era to not release his tax returns, and he took a almost billion-dollar loss in one year. Genius. Hillary releases 40 years of taxes. Corrupt. Trump denies saying things (on the record) he actually said (on the record). He's just telling it like it is.

Their arguments are nonsensical and their willful ignorance of facts is disturbing. The double standards and eagerness to blindly support and recycle misleading rhetoric is frightening. Opinion and memes are not fact. Hypocrisy does not make for responsible governance. Eisenhower is rolling over in his grave over what they have done to the once-great Republican party.

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Clinton versus Trump

net neutrality

Clinton's for it, Trump's against it.

nationalizing the healthcare industry

Hillary Clinton's official position on health care isn't nationalization, but includes a public option and promoting Medicaid expansion. Donald Trump parrots Republican talking points, focusing on a repeal of Obamacare with some free-market-based suggestions. So I don't think "their stated opinions are the same".

Even if you disregard Trump's written position in favor of the various contradictory opinions he's expressed over the campaign, and somehow draw out of them an equal or preferable position to Clinton's - in practice, Trump will be working with Republicans in Congress and Clinton will be working with Democrats. Though he would have some influence of his own as president, he's hardly a complete renegade; aside from the above link, among other things, his official tax plan is based on the House GOP's, and his list of potential Supreme Court justices includes your typical conservatives. Needless to say, the Democratic and Republican parties as a whole have rather different opinions on healthcare nationalization.

re-nationalizing the prison industry

Trump has voiced support for private prisons; Clinton wants to end them (search for "privatization").

expanding education funding

Clinton's wants to fund K-12 (by expanding 'Build America Bonds'), debt-free college, and preschool and assistance for student parents; Trump has a plan involving block grants, which would probably replace (and reduce) existing funding, and he has previously repeatedly suggested cutting the Department of Education.

and establishing modern educational techniques and certificates of attainment

Not enough detail here to determine whose education plan (aside from funding) you'd prefer, but they're certainly different.

using our existing anti-trust laws like a ban-hammer

Clinton has suggested "beefing up the antitrust enforcement arms of the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission". Trump... who knows. Apparently he wants to use antitrust to go after the Washington Post because they "treat him unfairly".

extending employee protections

Clinton supports it. Trump doesn't seem to have much of a position, but his party certainly opposes it.

reducing the length and severity of patents

Neither candidate supports this itself, but Clinton's plan includes measures against patent trolls and ensuring the PTO is properly funded to, among other things, "ensure that only valid patents are issued".

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