Trump’s Russian ties boggle the mind. Since the news that all 17 of America’s intelligence agencies agree that Russia hacked into four organizations associated with Hillary Clinton or the DNC and given the information to Julian Assange and subsequently published on Wikileaks, Trump has fervently defended Russia by appealing to Putin and Julian Assange—a man he wanted executed back in 2010 for publishing leaked emails damaging to him. Why would Trump openly cast doubt on his own intelligence agencies whom all living ex-presidents agree he will depend on for all his future intelligence briefings without which he cannot govern effectively? Because the reason for the Russian hacks were to influence the 2016 presidential election in Trump’s favor and against Hillary Clinton. Trump’s adamant refusal to accept the assessments of his own intelligence services can only be accounted for because he had prior knowledge of the hacking.

Trump, of course, denies he has any ties to Putin or to Russia. “I have ZERO investments in Russia,” he tweeted, a classic businessman’s and politician’s lie. Yes, he has zero investments in Russia because he has failed to land any. He did try to establish a Trump Tower in Moscow and failed. Investigations have shown he has been, for years, entangled with Russian “businessmen” and some of them are in Putin’s financial circle. Many of his aides, advisers and cabinet picks have extensive dealings with Russia and Putin.

But Trump’s Russian dealings are deep. The idea of building a Trump Tower in major cities around the world including the Soviet bloc isn’t even Trump’s idea (although he’ll gladly take credit for it). The idea was originally that of a Russian immigrant to the U.S. named Felix Sater. Trump claims to barely remember him in sworn testimony given in 2013 but Sater remembers Trump very well as they communicated on a regular basis for six years, that Sater flew to Colorado with Trump, that he escorted Trump’s kids, Donald Jr. and Ivanka, around Moscow in 2006. Sater was unable, however, to swing a deal to have a Tower built in Moscow.

Sater founded a firm called Bayrock Group LLC. He was also a government informant against the mob. Former business associates who lost money in Trump-related projects say that Sater has threatened to kill them. In 1991, Sater, working as a stockbroker, stabbed a commodities broker in the face with a piece of broken glass severely injuring him and lost his trading license and spent a year in prison starting in 1993. After getting out of prison, Sater joined up with an old acquaintance helping Wall Street brokers at White Rock Partners working in collusion with the La Cosa Nostra crime syndicate to run a $40 million stock fraud operation. He was busted in 1998 but became an informant to avoid more prison time. In 2001, he started Bayrock and had his own office the Trump Tower. Sater stated in 2008 during testimony given in a libel suit filed by Trump against author Tim O’Brien over his book “Trump Nation” (which Trump lost) that he became friendly with Trump and also met Donald Jr. when they worked on a deal together in Phoenix.

In 2005, Trump worked with Bayrock to develop various projects in Moscow. Sater was the go-between for Trump to a group of Russian investors but nothing came of the meetings. In 2007, a 46-story hotel called Trump Soho was launched in New York with the help of Bayrock. In 2009, a lawsuit was filed against Trump by condo buyers over the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Fort Lauderdale. One of the complaints was the Trump did not disclose the criminal past of one of the members of his team, presumably Sater. Trump simply washed his hands of the project claiming he had no liability.

Sater was sentenced in 2009 for his part in the stock fraud (it had been delayed because of his informant status which was netting them a great many crooks). He was fined $25,000 and did no prison time. In 2010, Trump Organization gave Sater its business cards and an office employing him to seek out more deals for the Trump empire. When Trump began his run for president, Sater declared his enthusiastic support stating, “He will make the greatest president of our century.”

Another partner in the Trump Soho project was the Sapir Organization founded Russian immigrant Tamir Sapir (now deceased). Working as a cab driver in New York, Sapir speculated on Russian oil and New York real estate and struck it big. Bayrock was controlled by a former Soviet official named Tevfik Arif. While Trump claims he did not know of Sater’s criminal history, Tim O’Brien says this is untrue, that Trump continued doing business with Sater even after his sordid past became public knowledge. In a deposition of Trump in 2007, O’Brien’s lawyers asked Trump if he was going to sever ties with Sater because of his ties with organized crime and Trump replied that he had not yet decided. Despite Trump’s claims of barely remembering Sater, there is a photo taken September 19, 2007 in New York at the Trump Soho launch party showing Trump speaking into a microphone and standing next to him are Tevfik Arif and Felix Sater. In 2008, Donald Jr. claimed, “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets; say in Dubai, and certainly with our project in SoHo and anywhere In New York. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”

O’Brien also knows about Trump’s dealings with the mob in Atlantic City going back to the 1990s, particularly with Kenneth Shapiro whom O’Brien calls “a street-level gangster and a bag man for Philadelphia’s Scarfo crime family…” and Daniel Sullivan, a mob associate and FBI informant. Trump later told O’Brien, “…[T]hey say that Dan Sullivan was the guy that killed Jimmy Hoffa.”

When American banks would no longer lend Trump money due to his many bankruptcies (and despite his supporters’ claims of what a brilliant businessman he is), he turned to Russian banks for loans. In 2013, he and Russian billionaire Aras Agalarov set up the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. Trump Vodka was an attempt to break open the Russian market. It didn’t work. Trump also sold a Palm Beach mansion to a Russian billionaire named Dmitry Rybolovlev for $95 million.

So we know that Trump has been dealing with Russians in business for a long time. We know that American banks stopped lending Trump money some years ago and the belief is that he going to Russian banks for loans. So how beholden is Trump to the Russians? We know the Russians helped Trump get elected but is it credible that Trump knew nothing of it? If not, then who in the U.S. was colluding with the Russians to get Trump elected and why? I mean, if people were saying the Russians helped get me elected by hacking into government computers and those of rival political parties, I would demand an investigation. The idea of calling the intelligence agencies a bunch of bullshitters and citing a man I once wanted executed as an authority to counter their claims does not inspire anyone with a functioning brain to believe I had no involvement especially when I tell everyone to just forget about it and move on to other more pressing matters. That has to set off alarm bells. One should find the fact that Trump brazenly implored the Russians to find Hillary Clinton's missing 30,000 emails on national television before the election to be reason enough not to believe any claim that Trump did not know about clandestine Russian help in the election.

The implications are far-reaching. Everything from American domestic policy and security to NATO and Middle East policy is profoundly affected if Trump is owned by the Russians. We cannot trust anything he decides on because we don't know who is actually calling the shots. When one looks at what we DO know about Russian involvement in the election, one should greatly alarmed at how deftly it was performed. DNC information hacked and given to Wikileaks, damaging fake news stories about Hillary Clinton made up by RT and spread through the media with help from Infowars and Breitbart--both outlets closely associated with Trump.

The question is when did Trump become so enamored with Russia? The answer seems to be in the late 80s when his own empire was on the verge of dying in a black pool of bankruptcy. Someone rescued him. Who? The answer likely lies in his tax returns which we will never see--unless someone leaks them. So we MUST question why Trump has surrounded himself with so many people with close ties to Russia and personal friends of Putin--Rex Tillerson, Michael Flynn, Carter Page, Paul Manafort, Boris Ephshtein (the Russian-born communications director for Trump's inaugural committee and himself an investment banker with close ties to Moscow), etc.

I am shocked how easily his minions and diehard republicans have fallen in line to either praise Russia or demand people lay off Trump's relationship to that country. Would they do that for Hillary or Obama? No. But one also has to wonder how long this can go on. Someone is going to dig up something sooner or later. Some insider fed up with the bullshit is going to leak something very damaging and the dirty laundry will come spilling out. There can be no doubt that the Russians can ruin Trump politically and financially at any moment if they choose to. I expect that someday they may elect to do just that. The question, what we will have lost by the time that happens?

Recall that back in 2009, Barack Obama traveled overseas and made a series of mild apologies for the U.S. acting at times as if it owned the world. The commentary on this back home was scorching--a U.S. president apologizing! A few days ago, Trump told Fox news that Putin's violence against his political opponents was nothing to make a big issue of. We do a lot of killing, too, Trump said, you think we're so innocent? This remark was too extreme even for Trump's many Republican apologists to condone, although they still think he's fit to occupy the office, of course.

Mainly what Trump again showed was his inability to think critically, to make important distinctions. Only Polyannas would deny that the U.S. has done unsavory things in foreign countries (perhaps some of what Obama was apologizing for). But extra-judicial killings against domestic political enemies is another category. Putin has done that, probably a lot of it. Alleging that the same has occurred here puts one in the territory of paranoid conspiracy theories. Trump is very capable of going there, though.

We do a lot of killing, too, Trump said, you think we're so innocent? This remark was too extreme even for Trump's many Republican apologists to condone, although they still think he's fit to occupy the office, of course.

Read Chomsky.
Evidently you are not familiar with US policies and military involvement that do in fact scrub away any ideas we are a morally upright nation that does not cause the suffering and death of innocents.

Trump was right - we aren't innocent.

It seems you didn't read the entire post. Are you claiming that U.S. presidents direct taking out those they consider their political enemies?

The larger point the Fox interviewer was getting at was Trump's admiration for, and absolute refusal to criticize, Vladimir Putin. That is all passing strange.

I've been thinking about Trump's recent Nordstrom tweet.



There are so many problems with this tweet, I think you could write a book about it. Beyond the inappropriateness of using his position to berate a company for making a business decision, Trump piles on a couple of non sequiturs on top of a false premise. Is this really how this guy's brain works? Apparently so. Terrible!

DWill wrote:It seems you didn't read the entire post. Are you claiming that U.S. presidents direct taking out those they consider their political enemies?

The larger point the Fox interviewer was getting at was Trump's admiration for, and absolute refusal to criticize, Vladimir Putin. That is all passing strange.

We do not know if its admiration or political kowtowing for specific future political gain, which most every president has done at one time or another.

Your feelings that it is "strange" are strictly based on perhaps an intuitive hunch and groupthink. It's essentially suspicion based on zero evidence of any conspiracy in the making.

Geo wrote:

here are so many problems with this tweet,

Agreed.

ant wrote:

DWill wrote:It seems you didn't read the entire post. Are you claiming that U.S. presidents direct taking out those they consider their political enemies?

The larger point the Fox interviewer was getting at was Trump's admiration for, and absolute refusal to criticize, Vladimir Putin. That is all passing strange.

We do not know if its admiration or political kowtowing for specific future political gain, which most every president has done at one time or another.

Your feelings that it is "strange" are strictly based on perhaps an intuitive hunch and groupthink. It's essentially suspicion based on zero evidence of any conspiracy in the making.

I didn't mention conspiracy and wasn't thinking of that. For purposes of comparison, take Republican icon Ronald Reagan's labeling the Soviet Union the evil empire. Donald Trump, quick to denigrate other nations, won't besmirch Russia and on the contrary has praised it and its leader. There's enough strangeness in that scenario without ever going into possible conflicts of interest. Trumps's motivation may be political, but that is no justification of his actions since the politics are misguided.

and remember this is Trump. He bashes everything he can manage to spew bullshit about, but somehow Putin's Russia is full of nothing but sunshine and rainbows?

The only people Trump doesn't bash are the people that have said nice things about him, or are on his team.

He loved Meryl Streep until she mentioned his actions in reality and now she's over rated. To list all the things he has talked about in both stark positive and negative terms raining praise and raging disdain would be to just give you a link to his twitter stream.

Trump doesn't bash Russia because he is deep in their pocket. It's about the only thing about which he's been consistent.

DWill,

What "other nations" is he denigrating?

Is Trump denigrating Mexico for wanting to secure the border? A right that every single autonomous nation on the planet has?

Most people that scream racism when discussing a wall are those most removed from the situation. Illegal aliens and their children cost California tax payers an estimated 25 billion dollars a year. Their newborn children cost an addition 1 million dollars. Californian budgets its infrastructure costs horribly, but continues to tax native born citizens to support social programs that illegal immigrants benefit from. I'm a grandchild of legal immigrants. Why should exemptions be granted to immigrants who are here illegally while I have to obey every single law that's codified? California's middle class is bearing the brunt of taxation across the board. The real costs of supporting illegal immigrants is death by a thousand cuts for people like me.
(you can argue illegal aliens pay taxes too. I'll argue remittances add to the loss of costs stated above)

No one talks about the flow of drugs (like heroin) from the south that are destroying people's lives.
Here's a link to the Justice Department's 2011 report. It includes maps of the flow of drug traffic into the US. Without question, the most dominant routes are all south of us, beginning at porous border locations. Heroin has become a serious problem again. The Left NEVER addersses this issue.
https://www.justice.gov/archive/ndic/pu ... 44849p.pdf

Are we denigrating Mexico for wanting to curtail the economic and human costs to the US? You're really moralizing far too much if you think a country wanting to secure its borders is equivalent to denigrating them.


Did the US denigrate Muslim dominated countries by suspending immigration for 7 of them?
Here's a list of Muslim dominated countries where immigration was not suspended for 90 days:

Indonesia
Bangladesh
India
Pakistan
Algeria
Morocco
Turkey
Tunisia
Chad
Nigeria
Uzbekistan
Niger
Tanzania
Kenya
Senegal
Kazakhstan
Malaysia

It's a difficult argument to accept that a particular class of people were being discriminated against when approximately 88% of the entire world population of that group were unburdened by the suspension.

I agreed with the 9th Circuit's ruling regarding procedural violations related to the suspension. It was horribly executed.
The latest ruling that lifted Trump's suspension is particularly interesting (religious protection grounds). Ironically that ruling, however indirect, supports future protection of religious groups here in the States (ie Little Sisters of the Poor/Hobby Lobby, etc)

What other nations are you claiming Trump denigrated? China? North/South Korea? Japan? How so?

I'm an Independent that didn't vote for Trump. He's not the statesman we need and is too unfiltered and unorthodox. Clinton wasn't the answer either. She was just a vote for business as usual. CNN colluding with her by sharing the questions in advance prior to the debate is something I didn't forget. That and the email scandal. I don't exactly consider her to be a moral upgrade.

I'm certainly not jumping on the Left's bandwagon. This version of the Left is NOT classical liberalism which I have great respect for.
The Left still doesn't get it: it lost because of its water-downed identity politics, which really is nothing more than the politics of narcissism.


As a side note, I really get ticked off when white people (not you) tell me as a latino man I should loathe and fear Trump, and that his Wall is just a racist monument.
I have never heard one single thing out of Trump's loud mouth that I considered to be overt racism against latinos. And Mexico has never done anything for me, or its citizens for that matter.
It's corrupted to the core by politicians who are owned by drug cartels. Let's hope one day the people of Mexico decide to ban together to clean up their own backyard. That would be wonderful.
Demanding your rights be protected in an entirely different country you don't hold legal citizenship in is blatantly hypocritical and cowardly. Stand in line, like my family did.