It’s now shockingly clear that Donald Trump is Putin’s poodle.
But we need the world to understand why, before it’s too late…
Trump's businesses went bankrupt so many times in the 1990s that many legitimate banks wouldn’t lend to him anymore. He turned to Russian oligarchs -- Putin’s ruling clique -- to bankroll his projects, and launder their dirty money for them. This was, and continues to be, a huge part of his business. He’s a Russian money launderer.
This isn’t speculation or hyperbole. There's mountains of evidence. Trump’s former election campaign Chairman, Paul Manafort, has deep ties to Russian oligarchs, and is currently in jail awaiting trial on, among other charges, money laundering!
Here are 5 more top facts everyone should know about Trump's long collusion with Russian organised criminals:
Trump’s main financial backer for the Trump Tower Toronto was a Russian-Canadian billionaire who got the money by selling a massive steel mill in Ukraine for nearly a billion dollars. $100 million of that money was paid to a Kremlin-backed fixer, likely as a bribe to VERY high Russian officials. The Chairman of the Bank who financed the deal? Vladimir Putin.
Trump bought his home in Palm Beach for $41 million. A few years later, with no real increase in the value -- he sold it for almost $95 million -- the most expensive home in America at the time! Why? A major Russian oligarch bought it -- we don’t know yet why he effectively ‘gave’ trump $54 million. But it’s classic money laundering practice.
Trump's real estate deals were often fuelled by Russian money, typically passed through shady shell companies. 77% of Trump Soho apartments were bought with cash by such mysterious companies. At least 13 people with links to Russian oligarchs or mobsters lived in Trump properties, including one of Russia's top mobsters. One even ran a high-stakes illegal gambling ring in the apartment right below Trump's!
Trump’s financial broker and “Senior Advisor” was a Russian convicted felon named Felix Sater, widely known as a mafia figure who once stabbed someone in the face with a broken margarita glass, requiring over 100 stitches. Sater helped set up shell companies, and arranged funding for Trump’s projects, including plans for Trump Tower Moscow. He’s also part of Putin’s inner circle. Here’s one email he wrote to Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen in November 2015:
Trump’s other main business is casinos -- which are classic money laundering vehicles. One of his casinos was 100 times found in violation of federal rules protecting against money laundering, and paid the largest fine ever levied against a casino for having “willfully violated” anti-money laundering rules. Trump has a legal obligation to do “due diligence” for all his businesses to prevent laundering. His senior executive’s comment on this was “Donald doesn’t do diligence”.
Putin is a former KGB officer who has used chemical weapons, assassinated people in other countries, invaded the Ukraine, occupied Crimea, shot down the MH17 airliner with almost 300 passengers on board, aided a murderous regime in Syria, condoned the beating and torture of gays, stolen up to $200 billion from his own people, hacked foreign elections and launched what NATO calls the largest hybrid warfare campaign in history to undermine western liberal democracies. He is also widely believed to have ordered the murder of Russian journalists and critics, and bombed hundreds of Russian civilians to fake a terrorist attack and justify a war in Chechnya.
Yet when asked at their press conference if Trump had any criticism of Putin, he had none, and ridiculed US law enforcement for investigating Russian attacks on US democracy!
Why? Trump has been working for Putin's corrupt inner circle for almost 20 years. And it's that corrupt circle that promises to make him rich for the next 20 (he's refused, in violation of all ethics, to divest from his businesses as President).
Trump *may* be a Russian intelligence asset, he *may* have colluded with Putin to sabotage the US election. But what is clear is that he is a corrupt Russian money launderer, in the pocket of a KGB dictator. The whole world needs to know this, and rally together to prevent the damage this corrupt alliance threatens. Share this page with everyone.
Scroll down for a TON of credible, trustworthy, fact-checked sources for everything in this alert. Avaaz isn't one of those absurd troll publications that slings lies for profit -- we're a nonprofit, and every time we make an error anywhere, we publish the correction on our accuracy page, linked from the front of our website.
And if Trump the 'organized criminal money launderer' sounds like a stretch to you, consider it just the tip of the iceberg of Trump's known corruption:
Trump is not a devil -- he's a human being, and like all people he has positive qualities and legitimate views. But anyone who denies that he is deeply corrupt, isn't looking at the facts. To understand Trump, and protect our world from him, we need to understand his corruption.
MORE INFORMATION
Trump’s Russian Laundromat (The New Republic)
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