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OT: It's never good when...
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Alan Baker
Jul 20, 2017, 3:00:38 PM7/20/17
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...your lawyer is citing the statute of limitations:
'John Dowd, one of Trump’s lawyers, said on Thursday that he was unaware
of the inquiry into Trump’s businesses by the two-months-old
investigation and considered it beyond the scope of what Special Counsel
Robert Mueller should be examining.
“Those transactions are in my view well beyond the mandate of the
Special counsel; are unrelated to the election of 2016 or any alleged
collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia and most importantly,
are well beyond any Statute of Limitation imposed by the United States
Code,” he wrote in an email.'
<https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-20/mueller-is-said-to-expand-probe-to-trump-business-transactions>
This was in reference to:
'The U.S. special counsel investigating possible ties between the Donald
Trump campaign and Russia in last year’s election is examining a broad
range of transactions involving Trump’s businesses as well as those of
his associates, according to a person familiar with the probe.
FBI investigators and others are looking at Russian purchases of
apartments in Trump buildings, Trump’s involvement in a controversial
SoHo development in New York with Russian associates, the 2013 Miss
Universe pageant in Moscow and Trump’s sale of a Florida mansion to a
Russian oligarch in 2008, the person said.
The investigation also has absorbed a money-laundering probe begun by
federal prosecutors in New York into Trump’s former campaign chairman
Paul Manafort.'
And this article is a really important read:
'Trump’s Russian Laundromat
How to use Trump Tower and other luxury high-rises to clean dirty money,
run an international crime syndicate, and propel a failed real estate
developer into the White House.'
<https://newrepublic.com/article/143586/trumps-russian-laundromat-trump-tower-luxury-high-rises-dirty-money-international-crime-syndicate>
'In 1984, a Russian émigré named David Bogatin went shopping for
apartments in New York City. The 38-year-old had arrived in America
seven years before, with just $3 in his pocket. But for a former pilot
in the Soviet Army—his specialty had been shooting down Americans over
North Vietnam—he had clearly done quite well for himself. Bogatin wasn’t
hunting for a place in Brighton Beach, the Brooklyn enclave known as
“Little Odessa” for its large population of immigrants from the Soviet
Union. Instead, he was fixated on the glitziest apartment building on
Fifth Avenue, a gaudy, 58-story edifice with gold-plated fixtures and a
pink-marble atrium: Trump Tower.
A monument to celebrity and conspicuous consumption, the tower was home
to the likes of Johnny Carson, Steven Spielberg, and Sophia Loren. Its
brash, 38-year-old developer was something of a tabloid celebrity
himself. Donald Trump was just coming into his own as a serious player
in Manhattan real estate, and Trump Tower was the crown jewel of his
growing empire. From the day it opened, the building was a hit—all but a
few dozen of its 263 units had sold in the first few months. But Bogatin
wasn’t deterred by the limited availability or the sky-high prices. The
Russian plunked down $6 million to buy not one or two, but five luxury
condos. The big check apparently caught the attention of the owner.
According to Wayne Barrett, who investigated the deal for the Village
Voice, Trump personally attended the closing, along with Bogatin.
If the transaction seemed suspicious—multiple apartments for a single
buyer who appeared to have no legitimate way to put his hands on that
much money—there may have been a reason. At the time, Russian mobsters
were beginning to invest in high-end real estate, which offered an ideal
vehicle to launder money from their criminal enterprises. “During the
’80s and ’90s, we in the U.S. government repeatedly saw a pattern by
which criminals would use condos and high-rises to launder money,” says
Jonathan Winer, a deputy assistant secretary of state for international
law enforcement in the Clinton administration. “It didn’t matter that
you paid too much, because the real estate values would rise, and it was
a way of turning dirty money into clean money. It was done very
systematically, and it explained why there are so many high-rises where
the units were sold but no one is living in them.” When Trump Tower was
built, as David Cay Johnston reports in The Making of Donald Trump, it
was only the second high-rise in New York that accepted anonymous buyers.'
Don't let the source frighten you too much, wingnuts.
'John Dowd, one of Trump’s lawyers, said on Thursday that he was unaware
of the inquiry into Trump’s businesses by the two-months-old
investigation and considered it beyond the scope of what Special Counsel
Robert Mueller should be examining.
“Those transactions are in my view well beyond the mandate of the
Special counsel; are unrelated to the election of 2016 or any alleged
collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia and most importantly,
are well beyond any Statute of Limitation imposed by the United States
Code,” he wrote in an email.'
<https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-20/mueller-is-said-to-expand-probe-to-trump-business-transactions>
This was in reference to:
'The U.S. special counsel investigating possible ties between the Donald
Trump campaign and Russia in last year’s election is examining a broad
range of transactions involving Trump’s businesses as well as those of
his associates, according to a person familiar with the probe.
FBI investigators and others are looking at Russian purchases of
apartments in Trump buildings, Trump’s involvement in a controversial
SoHo development in New York with Russian associates, the 2013 Miss
Universe pageant in Moscow and Trump’s sale of a Florida mansion to a
Russian oligarch in 2008, the person said.
The investigation also has absorbed a money-laundering probe begun by
federal prosecutors in New York into Trump’s former campaign chairman
Paul Manafort.'
And this article is a really important read:
'Trump’s Russian Laundromat
How to use Trump Tower and other luxury high-rises to clean dirty money,
run an international crime syndicate, and propel a failed real estate
developer into the White House.'
<https://newrepublic.com/article/143586/trumps-russian-laundromat-trump-tower-luxury-high-rises-dirty-money-international-crime-syndicate>
'In 1984, a Russian émigré named David Bogatin went shopping for
apartments in New York City. The 38-year-old had arrived in America
seven years before, with just $3 in his pocket. But for a former pilot
in the Soviet Army—his specialty had been shooting down Americans over
North Vietnam—he had clearly done quite well for himself. Bogatin wasn’t
hunting for a place in Brighton Beach, the Brooklyn enclave known as
“Little Odessa” for its large population of immigrants from the Soviet
Union. Instead, he was fixated on the glitziest apartment building on
Fifth Avenue, a gaudy, 58-story edifice with gold-plated fixtures and a
pink-marble atrium: Trump Tower.
A monument to celebrity and conspicuous consumption, the tower was home
to the likes of Johnny Carson, Steven Spielberg, and Sophia Loren. Its
brash, 38-year-old developer was something of a tabloid celebrity
himself. Donald Trump was just coming into his own as a serious player
in Manhattan real estate, and Trump Tower was the crown jewel of his
growing empire. From the day it opened, the building was a hit—all but a
few dozen of its 263 units had sold in the first few months. But Bogatin
wasn’t deterred by the limited availability or the sky-high prices. The
Russian plunked down $6 million to buy not one or two, but five luxury
condos. The big check apparently caught the attention of the owner.
According to Wayne Barrett, who investigated the deal for the Village
Voice, Trump personally attended the closing, along with Bogatin.
If the transaction seemed suspicious—multiple apartments for a single
buyer who appeared to have no legitimate way to put his hands on that
much money—there may have been a reason. At the time, Russian mobsters
were beginning to invest in high-end real estate, which offered an ideal
vehicle to launder money from their criminal enterprises. “During the
’80s and ’90s, we in the U.S. government repeatedly saw a pattern by
which criminals would use condos and high-rises to launder money,” says
Jonathan Winer, a deputy assistant secretary of state for international
law enforcement in the Clinton administration. “It didn’t matter that
you paid too much, because the real estate values would rise, and it was
a way of turning dirty money into clean money. It was done very
systematically, and it explained why there are so many high-rises where
the units were sold but no one is living in them.” When Trump Tower was
built, as David Cay Johnston reports in The Making of Donald Trump, it
was only the second high-rise in New York that accepted anonymous buyers.'
Don't let the source frighten you too much, wingnuts.
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