There’s just so much there there with the POTUS45* cabinet cabal, yet “currency manipulation” is a feature not a bug, and the irony of declaring the PRC a “currency manipulator” suggests an interesting projection distracting us from some of the real (estate) reasons for #TrumpRussia.
At some moment, can Christ ever cleanse the Temple … Wilbur (a Horse is a Horse) Ross, like Rex Tillerson is our Montgomery Burns and Trump Tower is the Augean Stables.
The entire affaire de Trump boils down to bucks regardless of wrangling over “leaks” and the subjugation of peoples.
The White House has been accused of withholding information from Congress about whether Donald Trump or any of his campaign affiliates have ever received loans from a bank in Cyprus that is partly owned by a close ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin.
A group of Democratic senators have been waiting for two weeks for Wilbur Ross, a billionaire investor who has served as vice-chairman of the Bank of Cyprus since 2014, to answer a series of questions about possible links between the bank, Russian officials, and current and former Trump administration and campaign officials. Ross also received a second letter on Friday from Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey with more detailed questions about possible Russia links.
Ross, a private equity investor who has said he would step down from the bank after his final confirmation, had also been asked to provide more details about his own relationship with previous and current Russian investors in the bank, including Viktor Vekselberg, a longtime ally of the Russian president, and Vladimir Strzhalkovsky, the former vice-chairman of Bank of Cyprus who is also a former KGB agent with a close relationship to Putin.
Ross recruited a high-profile banker with close ties to Russia, former Deutsche Bank chief executive Josef Ackermann, to serve as chairman of the bank. In a 2015 interview with the New York Times, Ackermann suggested his work for the Bank of Cyprus was an effort to “give something back to the people”.
In his letter, Booker asked Ross to explain why he had appointed Ackermann as chairman of the bank, noting that Deutsche Bank is the Trump Organization’s largest creditor.
Ross’s investment followed a controversial 2013 bailout of the bank at the height of the European debt crisis that was agreed by the EU, IMF and European Central Bank. At the time, the deal was scrutinised by German politicians who expressed concern that taxpayer funds were being used to bail out a money laundering haven used by Russian oligarchs.
A German intelligence report cited by Der Spiegel at the time suggested that Russian deposits in Cyprus banks were worth between €8 to €35bn ($8.5 to $37bn).