As show by this recently released Dutch Documentary, there are lots of links between Trump and Russian mobsters.
I’ve been on this story for some time and probably wrote the most detailed version of this in this FP Diary here, this documentary by ZEMBLA confirms everything I’ve previously written and goes a bit further by pointing out that not only has TrumpCo had a long term relationship with a documented Russian Mobster Felix Sater including hiring him and giving him his own office inside Trump Tower, that there have been Russian gangters with apartments and Offices inside Trump Tower who were arrested and prosecuted in 2013 by Preet Bharara.
The issue here is awareness. If Trump was aware that by working with Felix’s former company Bayrock he was doing business with tax evaders, money launderers and people running illegal gambling and underage sex trafficking rings then he was a knowingly involved in a racketeering conspiracy and violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, just as its been previously reported that he’s at risk for building a Tower in Azerbaijan financed by people with links to the Iranian Republican Guard who are listed as a terrorist organization.
As a result of this there are some reports, which I find shocking and in serious need of confirmation at this point, that there is already a sealed indictment against Trump and that Orrin Hatch may be receiving security briefings in preparations for being named President as he is 4th in the line of succession in the continuity of government protocols.
Let’s first consider Trump’s long history with Russian and gangsters.
Introduced to various crime figures by his good pal Roy Cohn—one of few Americans more odious than the President himself—Trump has benefited mightily from the Mafia in his various real estate ventures. The most egregious incidents involve his use of ready-pour concrete in the construction of Trump Tower and the exploitation of illegal and underpaid Polish immigrants to demolish the Bonwit Teller building, but there is much, much more (which you can read about here or here).
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Semion “The Brainy Don” Mogilevich, now 70, is the capo di tutt’i capi of the worldwide Russian mob, whom the FBI describes as the world’s most dangerous mobster. The enormous amounts of cash generated by his criminal enterprises necessitates a vast system of money laundering, unprecedented in scope and volume. Trump Org is (allegedly) one of the many organs through which Mogilevich makes legit his filthy lucre.
Back in 1992, Mogilevich dispatched Vyacheslav “Little Japanese” Ivankov, who had just completed a prison sentence in Russia, to New York, to oversee his US operation. For the next three years, Little Japanese ran amok in the United States; the FBI arrested Ivankov on June 8, 1995, and charged him with the extortion of $2.7 million from an investment advisory firm known as Summit; the following June he was convicted.
For the three years he lived in the US prior to his arrest, Ivankov resided in either Trump Tower or the Taj Mahal Casino. Both properties were owned by, mirabile dictu, Donald Trump.
Eventually going beyond just living in Trump properties as renters the Russians began buying up their properties at prices far above market value in order to make their dirty money, clean.
“His real estate deals were used to hide not just an infusion of capital from Russia and former Soviet states, but to launder hundreds of millions looted by oligarchs,” Horton says. “All Trump had to do was close his eyes to the source of the money, and suddenly empty apartments were going for top dollar…. real estate has an arbitrary value. Is that apartment worth $1 million? Two million? Why not $3 million for a buyer who really wants it? When the whole transaction is just one LLC with undisclosed ownership paying another LLC with undisclosed ownership, its even neater than hiding the money in an offshore account.”
And its quite possible that the FBI is much further along with their investigation than any of them have let on. In late March the FBI arrested ten reported Russian mobsters which are tied to Felix Sater and by extension, Trump.
The FBI and NYPD Joint Organized Crime Task Force have arrested ten men in New York City today on charges of running a racketeering conspiracy as part of an organized crime effort. What’s notable is that these men and their crime family have alleged ties to the Russian mafia and to Donald Trump – raising the question of whether this move was made as part of the FBI’s ongoing investigation into Trump and Russia.
The ten men arrested today are associates of the Bonanno organized crime family (source: NBC New York). But a bit of digging by the Democratic Coalition Against Trump has revealed that a lawsuit alleges that same crime family is partnered with Russian businessman Felix Sater (link). Sater has a long history of financial ties to both Donald Trump and the Russian mafia, and in fact has done prison time for his Russian mafia ties (source: Esquire). So its not difficult to draw a straight line from today’s arrests to Trump and Russia. But what is the FBI suddenly up to?
Sater is featured prominently in the documentary and as noted has previous flipped and become and FBI informant to get himself out of Stock Fraud charges. What if one of the ten arrestees from March has done the same? Also much of this seems to be linked to the report from inauguration day that goes into more detail about the intercepted communications between specific Trump associates and Russian intelligence assets.
The New York Times has named Trump campaign advisors Paul Manafort, Carter Page and Roger Stone as the subjects of a multiagency investigation into alleged Kremlin efforts to install the Republican candidate in the White House.
“The F.B.I. is leading the investigations, aided by the National Security Agency, the C.I.A. and the Treasury Department’s financial crimes unit,” the Times reported. “The investigators have accelerated their efforts in recent weeks but have found no conclusive evidence of wrongdoing, the officials said. One official said intelligence reports based on some of the wiretapped communications had been provided to the White House.”
Investigators believe the Kremlin may have paid off hackers who stole data from the Democratic National Committee using a system for routinely paying thousands of Russian-American pensioners, the newspaper reported.
We already know that there were subpoena’s out this week for financial information related to Michael Flynn from a Federal Grand Jury, so things are actually quite far along. And then there’s a report today via Raw Story that there may already be a sealed indictment targeting Trump for his connections to these mobsters, as well as Pence for obstruction in his role of firing Comey and even Paul Ryan on RICO charges for being complicit in Sergei Kislyak washing money through the GOP.
“Separate sources with links to the intelligence and justice communities have stated that a sealed indictment has been granted against Donald Trump,” wrote Mensch and Taylor at the Patribotics blog.
They continued, “While it is understood that the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution means that, until Mr. Trump is impeached, he cannot be prosecuted, sources say that the indictment is intended by the FBI and prosecutors in the Justice Department to form the basis of Mr. Trump’s impeachment. The indictment is, perhaps uniquely, not intended or expected to be used for prosecution, sources say, because of the constitutional position of the President.”
Now there are a lot of reasons, I mean a lot, to not jump up and down over a story coming from Louise Mensch, but in this particular case her sourcing prior track record of getting some unexpected things spot on seems to be back up and vouched for by Rick Wilson and Keith Olbermann, even if they don’t, yet, back the specifics on this particular story.
Caution is required because what Mensch and Taylor allege is pretty wild.
Sources with links to the intelligence community described a sense of both inevitability and urgency over the unraveling of the Trump-Pence administration over their attempts to obstruct justice. “Trump’s presdidency ended May 9th,” said one source, referring to the overtly politicized dismissal of FBI Director James Comey.
Donald Trump and Mike Pence have both violated their oaths of office in plain sight over the unconstitutional dismissal of Director Comey, these sources say, and elements of the Judicial Branch are asserting the separation of powers described in the Constitution. This matter is separate from, and additional to, the substantive charges of collusion with the Russian state, and of money-laundering, sedition, violation of the Logan Act, and other crimes with which both Trump and Pence may be charged. As I exclusively reported earlier this week, Speaker Paul Ryan, normally third in the line of succession, will be excluded as the intelligence community has an intercept in which Ryan openly admits that he knew Sergei Kislyak was washing Russian money into the GOP. This will convict Ryan on RICO charges; as I have also exclusively reported this week, a RICO case exists against the GOP as a body. The raids earlier this week on a data and consulting firm close to Paul Manafort formed part of evidence gathering in this RICO case.
Mind. Blown!
My initial feeling was skepticism when the report mentioned Orrin Hatch, but as it turns out he is the current President pro tempore of the Senate, which makes him forth in line of succession behind Ryan and before Secretary of State Tillerson.
I swear to God I hope this isn’t a hoax, or trolling, but I will say it all tracks with other reports that Comey’s firing has a fire lit under their butts so the sudden speed of it does make sense.
“Its complete bananas,” one FBI source told The Daily Beast. “Management in counterintelligence are insanely concerned, worried about the overreaching obstruction and political influence from the White House.”
“They could slow down the investigations to a crawl, prevent charges from moving forward to DOJ for prosecution, or any other number of ways the White House could subvert these investigations,” said one former FBI official who worked on the Russia probe.
Another former high-ranking FBI official said the threat of getting fired could be enough to keep agents from digging into Trump’s ties to Russia.
“You have to remember, these agents have families they need to support,” the former official said. “The threat of being fired for doing their job is real here.”
They may have decided that if they’re going to do this, they have to act now before Trump can put his own minions in place to gum up the works. Hit him with the facts that will inevitably be leaked to Congress in order to decapitate his Administration then let the courts, and presumably the jails, have at him.
If this last bit is even half true we won’t be referring to government scandals as “-gate(s)” anymore, we’ll be referring them at “-Trump(s)”
