Reading through the charges, there are references to 2006 (or earlier) as the start date of Manafort’s and Gates’ fraudulent scheme. However, in the list of suspected fraudulent money transfers, there is nothing for 2006.
The real estate purchases that are referred to in the charges do not include any in 2006.
However, in the list of entities Manafort used for perpetrating his fraudulent activities, the entity John Hannah LLC is listed, which was formed in 2006.
This is curious because according to wide-spread reports, in 2006 Manafort bought his Trump Tower condo through the John Hannah LLC entity. He is said to have transferred ownership into his and his wife’s names in January of 2015, and to have taken out a mortgage against the property a few months later in the spring of 2015.
Manafort is accused in the charges of taking out fraudulent mortgages, but that particular mortgage is not referenced. Certain Manafort-funded properties are required to be forfeited — but not the Trump Tower condo.
I’m assuming that Mueller’s team is on the ball, and the lack of any specific statements in the charges relating to the Trump Tower condo purchase and mortgage are not accidental. From there, it’s pure speculation on my part about why they left this out.
Did he sell the condo? Did the bank foreclose on it already? Is the 2006 purchase outside the statute of limitations?
Or, is there something much larger going on?
Something else happened in 2006 — Trump SoHo launched.
Could the gap be pointing to a getting-hotter investigation in New York against tRump and his kids for their role in the global laundromat, particularly Russian money laundering in the US? An investigation that would include purchases using dirty money (primarily of Russian origin) in Trump Tower, Trump SoHo, etc.?
In other words, are these charges the tip of the proverbial iceberg … with tRump et al. strapped to the mast of their own Titanic heading straight toward it?