Former White House adviser says financial investigations will take down president in sequel to Fire and Fury. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...iminal-enterprise-comments-michael-wolff-book The former White House adviser Steve Bannon has described the Trump Organization as a criminal entity and predicted that investigations into the president’s finances will lead to his political downfall, when he is revealed to be “not the billionaire he said he was, just another scumbag”. The startling remarks are contained in Siege: Trump Under Fire, the author Michael Wolff’s forthcoming account of the second year of the Trump administration. The book, published on 4 June, is a sequel to Fire and Fury: Trump in the White House, which was a bestseller in 2018. The Guardian obtained a copy. In a key passage, Bannon is reported as saying he believes investigations of Donald Trump’s financial history will provide proof of the underlying criminality of his eponymous company. Assessing the president’s exposure to various investigations, many seeded by the special counsel Robert Mueller during his investigation of Russian election interference, Wolff writes: “Trump was vulnerable because for 40 years he had run what increasingly seemed to resemble a semi-criminal enterprise.” He then quotes Bannon as saying: “I think we can drop the ‘semi’ part.” Bannon, a leading promoter of far-right populism, was a White House adviser until August 2017, when he was removed. He was a major source for Fire and Fury, also first reported by the Guardian. Among other claims in that book, he labelled as “treasonous” an infamous Trump Tower meeting between Donald Trump Jr, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, campaign manager Paul Manafort and a Russian lawyer. Amid publicity surrounding Fire and Fury, Bannon was ejected from circles close to Trump and his position at Breitbart News. In Siege, Wolff pays close attention to Trump’s financial affairs. Investigations into Trump’s business dealings, spearheaded by the southern district of New York, have shuttered the president’s charity and seen the Trump Organization chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, receive immunity for testimony in investigations of Michael Cohen, the former Trump attorney and fixer who is now in jail in New York. This month, the New York Times obtained tax information that showed Trump’s businesses lost more than $1bn from 1985 to 1994. The newspaper subsequently reported that in 2016 and 2017, Deutsche Bank employees flagged concerns over possible money laundering through transactions involving legal entities controlled by the president and Kushner. Some of the transactions involved individuals in Russia. The bank did not act but Congress and New York state are now investigating its relationship with Trump and his family. Deutsche Bank has lent billions to Trump and Kushner companies. Trump has attempted to block House subpoenas for his financial records sent to Deutsche Bank. In Siege, Wolff quotes Bannon saying investigations into Trump’s finances will cut adrift even his most ardent supporters: “This is where it isn’t a witch hunt – even for the hard core, this is where he turns into just a crooked business guy, and one worth $50m instead of $10bn. “Not the billionaire he said he was, just another scumbag.” Wolff also details a 2004 Palm Beach property deal involving the now disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein and the Putin-friendly oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev that, the author writes, earned Trump “$55m without putting up a dime”. Epstein, he writes, invited Trump to see a $36m Palm Beach mansion he planned to buy. According to Wolff, Trump went behind Epstein’s back to buy the foreclosed property for around $40m, a sum Epstein had reason to believe Trump couldn’t raise in his own right, through an entity called Trump Properties LLC, which was entirely financed by Deutsche Bank. Epstein, Wolff writes, knew Trump had been loaning out his name in real estate deals for a fee and suspected that in his case Trump was fronting for the property’s real owners. Epstein threatened to expose the deal. As the dispute increased, he found himself under investigation by the Palm Beach police. According to Wolff, Trump made only minor improvements and put the house on the market for $125m. It was purchased for $96m by Rybolovlev, part of a circle of government-aligned industrialists in Russia, thereby earning Trump $55m without risking any of his own money. Wolff presents two theories as to how the deal worked: first, perhaps “Trump merely earned a fee for hiding the real owner – a shadow owner quite possibly being funneled cash by Rybolovlev for other reasons beyond the value of the house”. Second, he suggests the real owner of the house and the real buyer were one and the same. “Rybolovlev might have, in effect, paid himself for the house, thereby cleansing the additional $55m for the second purchase of the house.” “This,” Wolff writes, “was Donald Trump’s world of real estate.”
Are Mueller and his team the dumbest prosecutors on the face of the planet? It is apparently blatantly obvious that Trump is a criminal to many people except to the prosecutors/investigators. It has already been proven that Wolff lied in his book.
Bullshit. Prove it. Are you saying that Mueller and his team are so fucking stupid that they didn't look in the most obvious place to find a crime? Mueller simply should have spoken to you or @piezoe. Did Mueller assemble an all-star team of retards? You don't understand how the NSA database works. I forgot to add perhaps the most important stat. Electronic surveillance that went out 2 hops including emails, phone calls, text, bank records, and everything electronic you can think of. 2,800 subpoenas 500 search warrants 40 FBI agents 2 years of investigation 19 lawyers Intelligence analysts Forensic accountants Over 500 witnesses interviewed Raided Trump's personal attorney
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/03/01/politics/chris-christie-trump-sdny-trump-cnntv/index.html Chris Christie says Southern District of New York should concern Trump more than Mueller probe Washington (CNN) Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie argued that the Southern District of New York -- and not the special counsel's Russia investigation -- presents more of a "problem and a threat" to President Donald Trump. "I always said that (special counsel) Bob Mueller is not what should concern the President or the White House. That's the Southern District of New York," Christie, who led Trump's transition team, told CNN's Chris Cuomo Thursday night. Christie, a former federal prosecutor, argued that the SDNY has no limit on the scope of their investigation, unlike Mueller's investigation. He also told CNN that Trump's former personal attorney Michael Cohen and Trump's deputy campaign chairman Rick Gates, who pleaded guilty to two criminal charges in Mueller's investigation, could serve as "two tour guides that can take them through the Trump business and personal life." Christie pointed to Cohen's testimony before the House Oversight Committee Wednesday in which Cohen said he was in "constant contact" with the SDNY "regarding ongoing investigations." Christie said he's confident that the SDNY is building a case to go after those around Trump who may have committed crimes and against Trump himself for when he leaves office
Well, that didn't prove anything. Mueller had a team of forensic accountants. Are they the dumbest forensic accountants on the face of the planet? Are the walls closing in?
It was outside their mandate,thats why Congress,The New York AG and SDNY are investigating Trumps businesses and finances now.Mueller also referred investigations to other prosecutors,possibly criminal evidence about Trumps businesses and finances that was outside of his ability to pursue.
Stay tuned https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/co...lready-given-trump-related-financial-n1007181 Wells Fargo, TD Bank have already given Trump-related financial documents to Congress The disclosures come as a federal judge ruled Wednesday that two other banks —Deutsche Bank and Capital One — can give financial documents to Congress. WASHINGTON — A key congressional committee has already gained access toPresident Donald Trump’s dealings with two major financial institutions, two sources familiar with the House probe tell NBC News, as a court ruling Wednesday promised to open the door for even more records to be handed over. Wells Fargo and TD Bank are the two of nine institutions that have so far complied with subpoenas issued by the House Financial Services Committee demanding information about their dealings with the Trump Organization, according to the sources. The disclosures by these two banks haven’t been previously reported. Both TD Bank and Wells Fargo declined to comment for this story. Wells Fargo provided the committee with a few thousand documents and TD Bank handed the committee a handful of documents, according to a source who has seen them. The committee, led by Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., is especially interested in the president’s business relationship with Russia and other foreign entities. Appearing on MSNBC's "Hardball" Wednesday, Waters said "we don't have information to share with you at this time about what we've learned from the documents." A federal judge ruled Wednesday that two other banks — Deutsche Bank and Capital One — can hand over financial documentsrelated to their dealings Trump and his businesses to Congress. The Trump family had sued to prevent those two banks from complying with the congressional subpoena and the ruling paves the way for the committee to now have access to years of financial records from at least four financial institutions. The documents that have been provided so far are a fraction of those requested by Waters, whose committee has also sent subpoenas to Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Royal Bank of Canada and Toronto-Dominion Bank and JP Morgan Chase. The Royal Bank of Canada is in the process of complying with the subpoena, according to a source. The other banks have missed the subpoena deadline of May 6. The development comes as House Democrats are internally debating whether to move forward with launching an impeachment inquiry of the president or not. Deutsche Bank has been the Trump Organization’s biggest lender, financing more than $2 billion in loans to the president during his business career, and he still owes the bank at least $130 million, according to Trump’s latest financial disclosures. The subpoenas, details of which have not been released to the public, are predicated on the notion that Congress has access to the information under the Bank Secrecy Act, which allows Congress access to financial information to search for money laundering, according to a person who has seen them. “The potential use of the U.S. financial system for illicit purposes is a very serious concern,” Waters said in April when she issued the subpoenas. “The Financial Services Committee is exploring these matters, including as they may involve the President and his associates, as thoroughly as possible pursuant to its oversight authority, and willfollow the facts wherever they may lead us