Russian financial involvement with Donald Trump, aka #ComradeKrasnov, is well documented, but rarely mentioned by corporate media due to exhaustive Trump sanewashing efforts.
After facing financial challenges and bankruptcies in the 1990s, Trump had difficulty securing loans from major U.S. banks.
Deutsche Bank, seeking to expand its U.S. presence, became a primary lender, providing approximately $2 billion to Trump over the years. Notably, Deutsche Bank has faced penalties for facilitating Russian money laundering schemes, raising questions about the origins of some funds.
Deutsche Bank is no stranger to money laundering and other corruption globally.
The bank was fined $425 million by the New York State Department of Financial Services and £163 million by the UK Financial Conduct Authority for laundering $10 billion out of Russia through a “mirror trading” scheme involving its Moscow, London, and New York branches.
Deutsche Bank was fined $150 million by the New York Department of Financial Services for its dealings with Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender. The bank continued its relationship with Epstein despite his known criminal history, processing transactions that should have prompted further scrutiny.
The Trump Organization collaborated with Bayrock Group on the Trump SoHo project. Bayrock, founded by Tevfik Arif, employed Felix Sater, a Russian-born businessman with a criminal past. Sater’s connections to Russian financiers and organized crime figures have been documented, suggesting potential Russian financial involvement in the project.
The Trump Organization has sold numerous properties to Russian nationals. In 2008, Donald Trump Jr. stated, “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets.” These transactions have raised concerns about potential money laundering, especially given the use of anonymous shell companies in some purchases.
In 2006, Paul Manafort, who later became Donald Trump’s campaign chairman, purchased an apartment on the 43rd floor of Trump Tower for approximately $3.6 million. Reports suggest that Ukrainian oligarch Rinat Akhmetov financed this purchase as compensation for Manafort’s political consulting services in Ukraine. Semyon “Sam” Kislin, a Ukrainian-born businessman with alleged ties to Russian organized crime, issued numerous mortgages to investors, predominantly from former Soviet Union countries, in the Trump World Tower, another property owned by Trump.
Felix Sater, a Russian-American businessman with past criminal affiliations, served as a senior advisor to The Trump Organization. While not an oligarch, his involvement underscores the complex web of associations between Trump properties and individuals linked to Russia.
A 2017 investigation revealed that Trump properties, including Trump Tower, had sold units to anonymous shell companies, a practice that can obscure the identities of the actual owners.
]Seeing how Trump is complicit with doing the war criminal bidding of Putin leads to clear, corrupt evidence about potential money laundering and the influx of foreign and Russian capital from dubious sources.