mueller looking into trump finances fake bews

#MUELLER LOOKING INTO TRUMP FINANCES FAKE BEWS TRIAL#

Paying too much for properties is a classic form of laundering illegally gotten money. None of this means Trump or his family knowingly took illegally laundered money, but certain transactions have raised questions about his business relationships.Īmong them was Trump's 2008 sale of a Palm Beach mansion to Russian fertilizer king Dmitri Rybolovlev for almost $100 million, nearly twice what Trump had paid for it four years before. Real estate transactions are especially difficult to trace because of the widespread use of offshore corporations to mask the purchasers' true identities, Winer says. But real estate companies, like banks, are supposed to exercise 'due diligence' to make sure they're not receiving money gained through illegal activities such as drug sales and tax evasion. said in 2008.ĭoing business with people from the former Soviet Union is not illegal. 'In terms of high-end product influx into the U.S., 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,' Donald Trump Jr. In addition, the Trump Organization has marketed and sold numerous properties to wealthy people from the former Soviet Union.

All it has said is that it cooperates with investigators but will not comment on individual cases. White House attorneys have denied the reports of the subpoenas, but the bank has made no comment one way or the other. It has also been accused of laundering Russian money by the New York State Department of Financial Services. Deutsche Bank was the only major commercial bank willing to lend to Trump after his string of bankruptcies. Several published reports say Mueller's team has issued subpoenas to Deutsche Bank for records pertaining to Trump associates.'I don't think he (Mueller) would have brought them onto his team if that wasn't going to be an area that would be focused on,' says former federal prosecutor Kenneth McCallion, who helped investigate ties between Trump and New York Mafia figures in the 1980s. Mueller has hired several prosecutors with experience in prosecuting financial crimes such as money laundering, including Andrew Weissman, chief of the Justice Department's criminal fraud section.

Manafort's attorneys have pointed out the charges he is facing date from years before he joined the Trump campaign and don't have any bearing on any alleged collusion between the Trump team and Russians.

#MUELLER LOOKING INTO TRUMP FINANCES FAKE BEWS TRIAL#

Manafort, who has worked for pro-Kremlin officials in Ukraine, has pleaded not guilty and is expected to stand trial later this year. Among the first Trump associates to be indicted last year was campaign manager Paul Manafort, who is accused of laundering money by purchasing several properties in New York and Virginia.Or, as former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon told Michael Wolff in his bestselling book, Fire and Fury, 'You realize where this is going. As the investigation into Russian influence in the 2016 election now carries into 2018, Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller is keeping quiet on details.īut one thing does seem clear: A year after President Trump took office, the crime of foreign money laundering looks as though it has become an important focus.

Mueller looking into trump finances fake bews