Nick
Penzenstadler, reporting last January in USA
Today,(1) highlights yet another aspect of
the seediness now ensconced in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. In an
article summarizing the paper's investigations tRUMP's business
entitled “Trump sold 35M in Real Estate,
Mostly to Secretive Buyers”, Penzenstadler
lays out the broad outlines:
“President
Trump's companies sold more than $35 million in real estate in 2017,
mostly to secretive shell companies that obscure buyer's identities,
continuing a dramatic shift in his customers' behavior that began
during the election, a USA Today review found.
In
Las Vegas alone, Trump sold 41 luxury condo units in 2017, a majority
of which used limited liability companies—corporate entities that
allow people to purchase property without revealing all of the owners
names.
The
trend toward Trump's real estate buyers obscuring their identities
began around the time he won the Republican nomination, midway
through 2016, according to USA TODAY's analysis of every domestic
real estate sale by one of his companies.
In
the two years before the nomination, 4% of Trump buyers utilized the
tactic. In the year after, the rate skyrocketed to about 70%. USA
TODAY's tracking of sales shows the trend held firm through Trump's
first year in office.
In the presidential debates of 2016 it became clear, especially in the second debate, that the country was presented with two presidential nominees who could not be shamed from the national stage. In the wake of the election the behavior of our very own Caesar Disgustus has, if anything, become even more brazenly corrupt.
It was reported last week on MSNBC, The New York Times, and several other outlets that “beginning in 2006, the Trump Organization spent $400 million in cash on various projects. The president's son Eric said they were able to do that with cash generated by other Trump businesses, even at the height of the Great Recession. That explanation has raised eyebrows of business experts.
It also contradicts what Eric and his older brother, Donald Trump Jr said in the years before the word “Russia” became radioactive for them.
'Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross section of a lot of our assets,' Donald Jr. said in 2008. 'We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia”'. (3)
These
explanations are problematic on several fronts. First, the purpose
of real estate investment—as any student of Real Estate 101 will
tell you—is to “Leverage
Debt”. That
is, the purpose of founding a real estate management company is to
purchase property for the purpose of making the tenants create the
equity. One does this by borrowing as much as you can and then
transferring that debt to the tenants who, over time, pay off your
debt for you leaving you with ownership of the property. It is a
clever way to fleece your neighbor while working up minimal
sweat—made all the more attractive since the underwriting of said
debt is backed by government guarantees. This is the model “The
Donald”
took to the outer limits when, calling himself “the
King of Debt” ran
several of his enterprises unto the rocks costing the New York banks
upwards of a billion dollars.
The
tRUMPs would have us believe that the Great Recession, coming as it
did after several bankruptcies, had chastened them into fiduciary
responsibility. That, on the face of it, appears laughable. Nothing
in the history of the family would lend credence to any such
epiphany. Indeed the reported loans of Deutchebank as well as
state-run Chinese banks in the amounts of hundreds of millions of
dollars lay waste such a feeble explanation.
Where
then did the money come from; and where then did it go? Perhaps the
answer lies, in part, in the shell companies renting and buying tRUMP
properties not only in this country but abroad as well. Perhaps
Steve Bannon had, for once, his finger on the truth. Money
Laundering.
How
much of this 400 million was being laundered by the tRUMP
organization? How much of it stuck to “The
Donald”
for services rendered? That is, as we used to say, the sixty four
thousand dollar question. For answers we will have to follow the
money.
As
Caesar Disgustus shits himself, defiling the very office he occupies,
the stench emanating therefrom grows ever more unbearable. And,
being the only one in the room who cannot smell it, prances about
unabashed, totally oblivious.
Impeach and Imprison.
___________
- Ibid.
(3).
Editors. The New York Times. “Mr. Trump's Shadowy Money
Trail. Thursday May 10, 2018.
Page A26
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