May 15, 2018: The Broad Outlines, More Brazenly Corrupt, Finger on the Truth

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.

Profits from sales of those properties flow through a trust run by Trump's sons. The president is the sole beneficiary of the trust and he can withdraw cash at any time.” (2)

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.

'an Br'er Putin, he 'jus laugh and laugh.



Impeach and Imprison.

___________

1. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/01/10/trumps-secretive-real-estate-sales-continue-unabated/1018530001/
2. Ibid.

(3). Editors. The New York Times. “Mr. Trump's Shadowy Money Trail. Thursday May 10, 2018. Page A26

March 27, 2018: Tepid Response, Inconvenient Truth, Fold Like a Deck Chair

“Whenever Caesar Disgustus confronts Vladimir Putin, our “president-for-life” folds like a deck chair on the Titanic.

                           ---- from "The Quotations of Chairman Joe

To date, the response by the Western World to the poisoning of a Russian double agent and his daughter has been tepid. Prime Minister May of Great Britain has called out Putin for this outrage but, led by May, the Western World has so far only expelled diplomats. True, a significant representation of participating countries joined in the effort, from France to Ukraine, with the U.K. Expelling 20 diplomats, but the response of the United States has been puzzling.

Disgustus' first response was 'wait and see', telling the press corps and the nation that he wanted to first talk with the Brits and see the evidence, not that anything the Rescumlickans do is evidence-based. This was a curious response, given that Prime Minister May had already stood in the House of Commons and declared unequivocally that the attack, using an agent pioneered by the Russians, was engineered by Putin and his henchmen. Nevertheless, like any other 'inconvenient truth' (like global warming), the scum are always late to the scene. So while May and the European community were organizing a response, our very own Caesar Disgustus was found wanting.

Instead, our intrepid Disgustus was seen congratulating Putin on his electoral victory, ignoring a memo written by his national security team with the words “DO NOT CONGRATULATE” in capital letters. Disgustus, famous for his illiteracy, ignored the memo and called, we learned again from Russian sources, Putin to do precisely that. Not only did he ignore his advisers, but failed to call Putin into account for the violence visited upon the former Russian spy and his daughter, nor bring any criticisms to bear concerning ongoing election tampering or the Russian hacking of our nuclear plants and the power grid. White House officials were stunned and embarrassed, as is the nation.

Disgustus has been dragged, kicking and screaming, into the collective effort by the West to mount some kind of response. But let us face facts. The effort, to date, has been lackluster. Obama, in the wake of election tampering, expelled 25 Russian diplomats. Putin responded by expelling 700 U.S. Diplomats from Russia. Disgustus, responding to the Russian reaction merely said that his friend Putin was doing him a favor by helping his administration cut costs. Now we have another round of Diplomatic tit-for-tat, which basically boils down to a slapping on the wrist, while the meddling and hacking continue.

What is amazing here is not only the tepid response of this administration—as deplorable as it is—but that of the West generally. While Britain's may take some solace in the expulsion of twenty Russian diplomats, the fact is that this isn't much of a response. Indeed London has been flooded with Russian Oligarch money, money in search of a safe haven against possible political upheaval, or the falling from grace. Russian-linked money has done its worst, for it has not only bought the oligarchs a safe haven for their funds, or their possible futures but has bought acquiescence from the governments of those countries so invested.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the United States, where Russian money-laundering and the implicit, if not explicit, participation by our very own Caesar Disgustus has frozen in place the appropriate American action. Look no further than the steadfast refusal of Disgustus to impose the sanctions voted by Congress with only 5 dissenting votes in both the House and the Senate. Clearly, Disgustus is willfully ignoring the expressed will of the people and their demand that our response is punitive. Instead, our Maximum Leader, our “president-for-life” in waiting, folds like a deck chair on the Titanic.

“An Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh”

Impeach and Imprison.

August 10, 2017: Marooned in Baku, Giant Red Flag, Little Due Diligence

 

“It’s a horrible law and it should be changed”

              ----Donald J. tRUMP on the Foreign Corruption Practices Act.

 

“Why would someone put a luxury hotel there?  Nobody who can afford to stay there would want to be in that neighborhood.” Said a former top official in Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Tourism (1).  Originally intended as a high-end apartment building the Trump Organization, after signing multiple contracts with Azerbaijani developers quickly began transforming the “tower into an ‘ultra-luxury’ property…with ‘spectacular views of the city and the Caspian Sea’”.  It was a strange location for such a grandiose undertaking for “the Trump Tower Baku is in an oddly unglamorous location; the underdeveloped eastern end of downtown, which is dominated by train tracks and is miles from the main business district…Across the street from the hotel is a discount shopping center; the area is filled with narrow dingy shops and hookah bars.  Other hotels nearby are low-budget options…there are no upscale restaurants or shops. Any guests of the Trump Tower Baku would likely feel marooned.” (2) 

 

Indeed, the building is virtually encircled by highways, on and off ramps the tangle of which presented “New Yorker” magazine’s reporter-at-large Adam Davidson with a “comical exchange with a taxi-driver who had no idea which combination of turns would lead to the building’s entrance”.  Given the difficulty in reaching the building as well as its placement within the matrix of the city, Davidson said that “the more time I spent in the neighborhood, the more I wondered how the hotel could have been imagined as a viable business” (3).  Why and how indeed.

 

Davidson further elaborates that by the time the Trump Organization entered the picture the construction boom in Baku had ended “and the occupancy rate for luxury hotels in the city hovered around thirty-five percent.  Jan deRoos, of Cornell University, who is an expert in hotel finance, told me (Davidson) that the developer of a five-star hotel typically must demonstrate that the project will maintain an average occupancy rate of at least sixty percent for ten years.  There is a long-term master plan to develop the area around Trump Tower Baku, but if it is implemented the hotel will be surrounded for years by noisy construction projects, making it even less appealing to travelers desiring a luxurious experience—especially considering that there are many established hotels on the city’s seaside promenade.” (4)

 

As with launching his home mortgage adventure on the cusp of the real estate collapse of 2007-8, tRUMP, once again demonstrating his flawless business acumen and with consummate timing jumped into the middle of a construction project that made little sense.  The question is: why?

 

“According to the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index”, writes Davidson, “Azerbaijan is among the most corrupt nations in the world” and “(t)he Azerbaijanis behind the project were close relatives of Ziya Mammadov, the Transportation Minister and one of the country’s wealthiest and most powerful oligarchs…at the time of the hotel deal Mammadov, a career government official, had a salary of about twelve thousand dollars, but he was a billionaire” (5).  In reports by major news organizations (6) citing “a series of cables sent from the U.S. Embassy in Azerbaijan in 2009-2010, which were made public by WiKiLeaks” …Ziya Mammadov is described “as notoriously corrupt even for Azerbaijan”.

 

According to Alan Garten, then legal advisor to the Trump Organization, tRUMP played a ‘passive role’, merely “allowing his famous name to be used by a company headed by Ziya Mammadov son Anar (net worth estimated at over a billion dollars)” for which he received, according to limited public filings at least 2.8 million dollars plus an additional 2.5 million in 2012. “The Washington Post published Garten’s description of the deal and reported that Donald Trump had ‘invested virtually no money in the project, while selling the rights to use his name and holding the contract to manage the property”’. (7)

 

But the tRUMPs were, as usual, less than completely forthcoming.  Not only have they failed to fully disclose everything they were paid in the transactions, the deal tRUMP made with Anar also included Ziya’s brother Elton, then an “influential member of the Azerbaijan parliament. Elton signed the contracts, and in an interview…confirmed that he founded Baku XXI Century, the company that owns Trump Tower Baku.”  He would not confirm who owns Baku XXI Century, citing a ‘commercial secret’, but “added that he ‘controlled all its operations’ until 2015, when he cut ties to the company” (8) about a year and a half before Donald J. tRUMP, upon being elected to the presidency, likewise did the same.

 

While there is presently no evidence of bribery, kick-backs, money-laundering or racketeering the Baku project nevertheless raises eyebrows.  Real estate ventures, especially large real estate ventures, and very especially large real estate ventures that make little sense both in terms of location and immediate and mid-term viability, draw special attention of prosecutors and those familiar with the ancient arts of corruption.  Large real estate projects involve thousands of contracts with suppliers, contractors, sub-contractors, and investors.  Projects of this magnitude may have financial dealings that span the globe.  These projects are perfect if one is looking to set up a shell company through which to launder money or bribe officials.  Indeed, in this particular example “Alan Garten, the Trump Organization lawyer, did not deny that there was corruption involved in the project”. In fact, many of the contractors were paid in cash. Davidson was told that bribes were paid and that graft was routine. ‘I’m not going to sit here and defend the Mammadovs’ Garten said.  But from a legal standpoint, he argued, the Trump Organization was blameless.  In his opinion, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act doesn’t apply to the Baku deal, even if corruption occurred. ‘We didn’t own it,’ he said of the hotel. ‘We had no equity, we didn’t control the project…” (9), therefore there could have been no violation of the law.

 

But, according to “Jessica Tillipman, an assistant dean at George Washington University Law School, who specializes in the F.C.P.A,…” you can’t go into business deals in Azerbaijan assuming that you are immune from the F.C.P.A…nor can you escape liability by looking the other way.  The entire Baku deal is a giant red flag—the direct involvement of foreign government officials and their relatives in Azerbaijan with ties to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Corruption warning signs are rarely more obvious.”

 

“As the Mammadovs were preparing to build the tower, the family patriarch, Ziya, was cementing his financial relationship with the Darvishis, the Iranian family with ties to the country’s Revolutionary Guard.”  “At least three Darvishis—the brothers Habil, Kamal, and Keyumars—appear to be associates of the Guard.”  “A cable sent on March 6, 2009, from the U.S. Embassy in Baku described Kamal as having formerly run ‘an alleged Revolutionary Guard-controlled business in Iran.’ The company, called Nasr, developed and acquired instruments, guidance systems, and specialty metals need to build ballistic missiles.  In 2007, Nasr was sanctioned by the U.S. for its role in Iran’s effort to develop nuclear missiles.”  The cable also said that “Kamal had recently established ‘a close business relationship/friendship’ with Ziya Mammadov” leading to “at least eight major road construction and rehabilitation contracts, including contracts for construction of the Baku-Iranian Astara highway” (10).

 

The Revolutionary Guard has been identified by the United States as a “major supporter of Hezbollah and other international terrorist groups.

 

The question presents itself: what were the Darvishis seeking to gain through their dealings with the Mammadov’s?   “Mounting international sanctions made it far more difficult for Iran to sell oil abroad, receive foreign funds, and import products.  International banks became increasingly reluctant to accept funds from businesses owned by the Revolutionary Guard, severely limiting its ability to support allies such as Hezbollah and the Syrian government.  At a moment when Iran was struggling to find ways to send money outside the country Keyumars Darvishi joined Azarpassillo (an Iranian Front Company) and began making one deal after another in Azerbaijan…It might also have caught the attention (of the Darvishis) that the Mammadovs had their own private bank—one that had unfettered access to the global financial system. 

 

 

The trail is long and tortured.  Ziya has been removed from his post, his son has lost his seat in parliament, and tRUMP has since backed out of the deal.  But for several years tRUMP has prospered from deals that involved a business relationship with what the publication “Foreign Policy” called “The Corleones of the Caspian” (11) and, by extension, their associates with ties to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and terrorist groups. 

 

“American companies”, writes Davidson, “must insure that they are not receiving funds that originated with any sanctioned entity.  Ignorance is not a defense, especially if there is ample warning that a foreign partner could have a link to such an entity.  Most firms, upon hearing of even a slight chance of Iranian involvement, conduct due diligence that is much more extensive that what is typical for F.C.P.A compliance.  Erich Ferrari, an attorney who specializes in sanctions-related legal cases, said that before the Trump Organization cashed any checks it should have been certain of the ‘source of the funds’— ‘not only the bank it was remitted from but how the Mammadovs actually earned the money they paid.’  He said of the Baku deal, ‘It takes a lot to shock a lawyer, but I’ve had very few clients do so little due diligence.’”  (12)

 

tRUMP is seen here evidencing the same lack of ‘due diligence’ that he applied to vetting his first National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.  He is also demonstrating his contempt for the law as well as his firm belief that the rules simply do not apply to him.  In seeking his fortune snorkeling in the financial cesspools of the world, tRUMP may have, perhaps inadvertently, played an important albeit secondary role in supporting terrorism.  For by lending his name he at a minimum helped legitimize what, by all accounts, was a very corrupt enterprise.

 

It is time for a full investigation.

 

Impeach and Imprison.

 

-----

1. Davidson, Adam.  “Donald Trump’s Worst Deal” “The New Yorker” March 13, 2017

p. 48

 

2. Ibid.
3. Ibid
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid. p. 50
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid. p. 53
10. Ibid. p. 54
11. Ibid. p. 52
12. Ibid. p. 55