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.

SOURCE

Trump's View of Others is Utterly Self-Contingent.

If someone praises him or works with him, they are a winner. If they criticize him or give him even the slightest of ego wounds, then they are failing disgraceful losers.

Everyone has a little bit of this in them. I mean we all think better of people who compliment us, and perhaps if someone criticizes us we start to think of reasons why "that loser has no right to say ____ about me...."

But Trump displays this behavior to a compulsive, uncontrollable degree.

He is unable to accept a criticism, any criticism, however valid or mild, of anyone on his "winner list."

He incontinently accepts and amplifies every criticism, however poorly founded or unsubstantiated, of anyone on his "loser" list.

He seeks revenge, domination and humiliation of those who defy him.

I don't get how some people have not spotted this pattern yet.

It is how we get Trump repeating the idea that Ted Cruz's dad shot JFK. There was no mastermind plan behind this smear. Ted Cruz opposed and defied Trump therefore everything bad anyone has ever alleged about Ted Cruz, even if the claim came from some egg on Twitter, must be true.

it is how he was continually caught retweeting White nationalists. It's way too complimentary to say that "Trump is indifferent to the source of a claim." It would be more accurate to say that "The nature of a claim, in Trump's mind, vindicates or discredits the source." That is how a poll was "respected" one day and "failing and dishonest" the next purely based on its results - the claim vindicates or discredits the source. It's exactly backwards which is why it's so hard for ordinary people, I reckon, to get to grips with the way Trump thinks.

Let's take the opposite case - Trump being given a criticism about someone who is on his "winner list." How does he react? Right now a story that's developing is Bill O'Reilly asked Trump whether he was concerned/critical about the fact that Trump was praised by Putin, a man who has journalists and political opponents murdered. And Trump replied "We've got a lot of killers too." This is actually the second time Trump has made this claim. People are outraged because Trump made a baseless claim that the USA kills journalists.

But interpreting Trump's words as factual claims is simply missing the point.

The right way is:

1) You made a criticism of someone who has praised Trump.

2) Beep boop, Trump's psyche interprets this as an attempt to inflict ego injury.

3) Trump's mouth leaps to his psyche's defense with a blurted, usually incoherent attempt to minimize, dismiss or delegitimize the criticism.

It's like people don't get the idea that showing Trump a photo, a representation of the real world, will do nothing. Because his statements aren't really claims about an external, real and objective world around us. They're more like value-creating statements that impose on reality a super-reality in which he is continually vindicated.

People have noticed that Trump lacks shame. He lies shamelessly, he insults shamelessly, he is shameless in never admitting error, he doubles down. I mean: It would have been the easiest thing in the world, in the inauguration crowd nonsense, to have Sean Spicer come out on Day 2 and say "Yes Obama got a larger crowd because his inauguration was a historic event, and in any case DC is a heavily Democratic city where half the population is Black and naturally wanted to cheer on the first Black President, but Trump's supporters are certainly excited for his Presidency and now the President is focused on his mission of making America great again, etc."

All this would have been so easy. But instead the President sends out his Press Sec to tell a shameless bold face lie that the media almost has no choice but to turn into the day's leading story, to ruinous effects.

It's because even in situations where it would be easy to make a bad situation go away by losing a small amount of face, his psyche will not allow him.

His ghostwriters have turned this into a macho businessman personality where his philosophy is "Never show weakness to the dogs of war" or some bullshit - but the reality is that his uncontrollable horror of losing face is because of deep personal insecurities.

We can tell this is objectively the case because his behavior is compulsive and reckless. It's not geared to advancing his own interests. It's self destructive. Always remember Trump is not some genius like, for instance, Dilbert Man makes him out to be.

Consider Trump's lies. All politicians lie. But most politicians don't tell lies that they will obviously be caught on in 15 minutes, like Trump's lie about receiving a letter from the NFL. Trump tells these lies because he can't help himself. Most politicians lie needfully - that is, they lie when the Truth threatens to bring about embarrassment or accountability. Trump lies compulsively because even the mildest "reality checks" are for him ego-shattering events.

I want to point out that I, nor anyone reading this comment, is qualified to actually diagnose Trump with anything. Diagnosis has to happen in a therapeutic environment with the participation of the patient.You can't diagnose someone with a mental illness via TV.But what you can do is spot a consistent pattern of behaviors.

We already see states and leaders formulating their actions in light of modeling Trump's behavioral patterns. For example Theresa May's visit was a big cuddlefest, not because May actually likes Trump, but because the apolitical apparatus of the British state behind May has made the calculation that deliberate flattery of USA's leader is now a necessity in US-UK relations and may position UK advantageously vs the other European states.

This is disgusting and concerning. And this extends beyond our allies, obviously. Other state actors, like our adversaries Russia and China, are also surely operating with a consciousness of the President's mental weakness and the idea that Trump's psyche is a mechanism or opportunity to "short circuit" the American state acting in its own actual national interest.

Bottom line, this is dangerous for our country and if I may say so, SAD.

SOURCE

Trump and Putin Conspiracy

Trump is being bribed by Putin.

• July 8, 2016 - Trump associate Carter Page visits Moscow and receives an offer of equity from Russia in a massive Russian oil deal if Trump will lift US/EU sanctions. These sanctions have crippled the Russian economy and hamstrung their oligarchy.
• July 18, 2016 - Trump's team makes one tweak to the RNC platform: a pro-Russia softening of our stance on their invasion of Ukraine/Crimea.
• July 22, 2016 - Wikileaks dumps the DNC emails on the eve of the Democratic National Convention, helping hold down Clinton's favorability among an incensed left and boosting Trump's RNC bump while holding Clinton to her lowest polling of the cycle.
• July 27, 2016 - Trump tells the press that he would consider lifting sanctions on Russia and "jokingly"instructs Russia to continue to hack Clinton "if they're listening." It would be his last press conference of the election.

Now, of course, we know that:

• The hacking was directed by Russia to help Trump win the election.
• Wikileaks timed their dumps to hurt Clinton's campaign.

What has the Trump team been up to since then?

• Trump advisor Carter Page is under investigation for his ties to Russia. He's continued to visit Moscow in spite of that investigation.
• The man who most likely offered Page the deal to offer to Trump was found dead from gun shot wounds in the back of his car in Moscow in December. The Russian state press has called his death a heart attack since the initial report (...in the back of his car, in an alley).
• Trump advisor Paul Manafort, who left his official role as campaign chair last summer, is under investigation for his ties to Russia. Manaffort reemerged after the election to advise Trump on cabinet positions...
• Rex Tillerson, former Exxon CEO, emerged as a dark horse candidate for Secretary of State shortly thereafter. Tillerson has extensive business ties to Russian oil and lobbied for a reduction in sanctions while at Exxon. He has deep ties to the company that offered Carter Page the equity deal, along with his own $200M stock in Exxon that would benefit significantly from the lifting of sanctions, and has been awarded the Friend of Russia honor by Putin.
• Former military intelligence officer, and Trump's National Security Advisor, Gen. Michael Flynn is under investigation for his communications with Russia following a December increase in sanctions by Pres. Obama. The Trump team have defended those calls with various conflicting explanations. After getting kicked out of the Obama DIA for his insubordination and islamaphobia, Flynn - the veteran intelligence office, cozied up to Putin.
• Finally there is Trump advisor Roger Stone - a former business partner to Paul Manafort who cut his teeth in politics as one of Nixon's dirty trixsters. Stone outed himself as a back-channel communicator between Wikileaks's Assagne and the Trump campaign back in November. In his spare time before the election, Stone led the charge to cement the election as rigged in case of a Clinton victory. He is also under investigation by US intelligence.

During the campaign many described Trump as a useful idiot of Russia. His actions since then may determine that an underestimation.

• Trump is speaking with Putin soon regarding the lifting of sanctions.
• Leaks, unsubstantiated though given the above hardly far fetched, have identified Trump as a Russian asset cultivated over at least the last five years.
• Allegations have emerged that Russia has both the carrot of the oil money and the stick of kompromat - incriminating evidence used as blackmail - to encourage Trump's pro-Putin action.
• Russia has arrested two high ranking Russian cyber intelligence officials for treason - potentially because of their role as US spies.
• A third Russian hacker is currently in a US-Russian tug of war while in jail in Prague, with a potential connection to the Huma Abedin emails that were discovered in October and which may have tipped the election to Trump.
• Russian officials are celebrating the election of Trump and are joyous over their efforts to elect him.
• John McCain laments that we have no unified response to Russian cyber-intrusion, which he likened to an act of war.

We're getting fucked, royally, by a Trump-Putin alliance that is out for oil money and the destruction of western democracies. That's potentially why John Lewis and other Democratic law makers who left a recent intel briefing on the Russian interference called Trump "illegitimate"and part of a Russian conspiracy.

Republican Newspapers Endorsing a Democrat for the First Time

Dallas Morning News Endorses: Clinton *First Democrat in 76 years

We don't come to this decision easily.

Trump's values are hostile to conservatism. He plays on fear — exploiting base instincts of xenophobia, racism and misogyny — to bring out the worst in all of us, rather than the best. His serial shifts on fundamental issues reveal an astounding absence of preparedness. And his improvisational insults and midnight tweets exhibit a dangerous lack of judgment and impulse control.

Hillary Clinton has spent years in the trenches doing the hard work needed to prepare herself to lead our nation. In this race, at this time, she deserves your vote.

The Cincinnati Enquirer Endorses: Clinton *First Democrat in 100+ years

We have been traditionally considered a conservative newspaper, having endorsed Republicans for the last hundred years. While Clinton has been relentlessly challenged about her honesty, Trump was the primary propagator of arguably the biggest lie of the past eight years: that Obama wasn't born in the United States. Trump has played fast and loose with the support of white supremacist groups. He has praised some of our country's most dangerous enemies – see Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un and Saddam Hussein – while insulting a sitting president, our military generals, a Gold Star family and prisoners of war like Sen. John McCain.

Our country needs calm, thoughtful leadership to deal with the challenges we face at home and abroad. We need a leader who will bring out the best in all Americans, not the worst.

That’s why there is only one choice when we elect a president in November: Hillary Clinton.

The San Diego Union-Tribune Endorses: Clinton *First Democrat in 148 years

Trump is "vengeful, dishonest and impulsive". Terrible leaders can knock nations off course. Venezuela is falling apart because of the obstinance and delusions of Hugo Chávez and his successor. Argentina is finally coming out of the chaos created by Cristina Kirchner and several of her predecessors.

Trump could be our Chávez, our Kirchner. We cannot take that risk.

This paper has not endorsed a Democrat for president in its 148-year history. But we endorse Clinton.

The Arizona Republic Endorses: Clinton *First Democrat in 126 years

Trump’s inability to control himself or be controlled by others represents a real threat to our national security. The president commands our nuclear arsenal. Trump can’t command his own rhetoric.

Were he to become president, his casual remarks — such as saying he wouldn’t defend NATO partners from invasion — could have devastating consequences. In a global economy, he offers protectionism and a false promise to bring back jobs that no longer exist.

Trump’s long history of objectifying women and his demeaning comments about women during the campaign are not just good-old-boy gaffes. They are evidence of deep character flaws. They are part of a pattern.

Trump mocked a reporter’s physical handicap. Picked a fight with a Gold Star family. Insulted POWs. Suggested a Latino judge can’t be fair because of his heritage. Proposed banning Muslim immigration.

Each of those comments show a stunning lack of human decency, empathy and respect. Taken together they reveal a candidate who doesn’t grasp our national ideals.

The Arizona Republic endorses Hillary Clinton for president.

USA Today Endorses: Voting against Trump *First endorsement in 34 years

In the 34-year history of USA TODAY, the Editorial Board has never taken sides in the presidential race. Instead, we’ve expressed opinions about the major issues and haven’t presumed to tell our readers, who have a variety of priorities and values, which choice is best for them. Because every presidential race is different, we revisit our no-endorsement policy every four years. We’ve never seen reason to alter our approach. Until now.

This year, the choice isn’t between two capable major party nominees who happen to have significant ideological differences.

This year, one of the candidates — Republican nominee Donald Trump — is, by unanimous consensus of the Editorial Board, unfit for the presidency.

The Desert Sun Endorses: Clinton *First Democrat in 90 years

Trump has struggled to demonstrate a “presidential” temperament despite efforts by various campaign chiefs to add polish to the erratic, boorish, belittling candidate who blustered his way through the GOP primaries.

History will not forget that Trump avoided deep policy debate through deflection, demeaning rivals in childish fashion: “Little Marco” Rubio, “Lyin’ Ted” Cruz, “Low Energy” Jeb Bush, “Crooked” Hillary Clinton.

Name-calling demeans the office he seeks, yet it’s just one unsettling aspect of the xenophobic, nativist campaign Trump has waged. He has pricked the worst impulses of a frustrated American electorate.

While Trump’s misogyny and demonization of Hispanics and Muslims has ushered him to the threshold of the White House, a coalition built on “us vs. them” bodes ill for the nation’s future. The world will be a much more dangerous place if our next president is motivated by personal vendettas conveyed through vile, monosyllabic utterances

Great leaders tap our better angels.

By these measures, there is no other choice for president this year than Hillary Clinton.

The Houston Chronicle Endorses: Clinton *Third Democrat in 70 years

The Chronicle editorial page does not typically endorse early in an election cycle. We make an exception in the 2016 presidential race, because the choice between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump is not merely political. It is something much more basic than party preference.

Any one of Trump's less-than-sterling qualities - his erratic temperament, his dodgy business practices, his racism, his Putin-like strongman inclinations and faux-populist demagoguery, his contempt for the rule of law, his ignorance - is enough to be disqualifying. His convention-speech comment, "I alone can fix it," should make every American shudder.

He is, we believe, a danger to the Republic.

The Detroit News Endorses: Johnson *First Non-Republican in 143 years

We abandon that long and estimable tradition this year for one reason: Donald J. Trump.

Trump is not a conservative. Except, of course, of those who wrongly e­quate conservatism with racism, sexism and xenophobia. Trump has attracted support from too many of those who represent the worst of human nature.

We have seen no hint that Trump has a guiding set of principles. He changes positions hour to hour.

But the most worrisome thing about Trump is that he is willing to stir the populace by stoking their fears of sinister forces at work from within and without to tear down their traditions, values and families. He has found profit in dividing Americans from each other, and from the rest of the world.

His sort of populism has led to some of history’s great tragedies. Donald Trump is unprincipled, unstable and quite possibly dangerous. He can not be president.

The Harvard Republican Club No endorsement *First Non-endorsement in 128 years

Donald Trump holds views that are antithetical to our values not only as Republicans, but as Americans. The rhetoric he espouses –from racist slander to misogynistic taunts– is not consistent with our conservative principles, and his repeated mocking of the disabled and belittling of the sacrifices made by prisoners of war, Gold Star families, and Purple Heart recipients is not only bad politics, but absurdly cruel.

If enacted, Donald Trump’s platform would endanger our security both at home and abroad.

Perhaps most importantly, however, Donald Trump simply does not possess the temperament and character necessary to lead the United States through an increasingly perilous world.

We call on our party’s elected leaders to renounce their support of Donald Trump, and urge our fellow College Republicans to join us in condemning and withholding their endorsement from this dangerous man.

WIRED Magazine Endorses: Clinton *First endorsement in 25 years

Perhaps you feel like this is a low bar: Support a candidate because she believes in science? Get behind a politician because she approaches policymaking like a professional?

The country can go one of two ways, right now: toward a future where working together in good faith has a chance, or toward nihilism.

Trump’s campaign started out like something from The Onion. Now it has moved into George Orwell.

Ultimately, it’s impossible to judge Trump’s claims as actual statements of belief or intention. We don’t know if President Trump would totally renege on that Paris commitment or actually pursue his policy of Muslim exclusion; but we have to assume he’ll try. We have no way of knowing if he actually believes that vaccines cause autism, as he claimed in a debate, but they don’t. Does he really think that wind power kills “all your birds”? Who knows. But it doesn’t; cats kill all your birds.

Here’s the thing about Donald Trump: In his 14 months as a political candidate, he has demonstrated an utter indifference to the truth and to reality itself. He appears to seek only his own validation from the most revanchist, xenophobic crowds in America. He is trolling, hard.

Through five election cycles ...we’ve avoided telling you, our readers, who WIRED viewed as the best choice.

Today we will. WIRED sees only one person running for president who can do the job: Hillary Clinton.

Wall Street Journal Editorial Board member Dorothy Rabinowitz Endorses: Clinton

Trump would be the most unstable, profoundly uninformed, psychologically unfit president ever to enter the White House.

SOURCE