Russian Elite Invested nearly $100 Million in Trump Buildings

This could just be one reason why Team Trump is dismantling the State Department. You can't have too many nosy diplomats poking into the corners of Trump's global deals, to say nothing of Exxon's Secretary of State prospecting the globe for fossil fuels and other greasy deals.  Rot thrives in darkness.  The three-card-Monte distraction of Trump's lies and war threats keeps us, the marks, looking elsewhere. That's why it's important that Donnie use the Air-Force-One-Mar-a-Lago Shuttle every weekend so that he can put the fixes in for the cash money.  The Treasury gets hosed to the tune of millions in order to globally transport and provide protection to Team Trump on their local and global money deal junkets, while Meals-On-Wheels gets axed. Trump has not divested himself of one nickel from his empire; he never had any intention of doing so whatsoever. He must be impeached and removed from office.  

Read full Reuters report at the link.

huffingtonpost.com: Reuters: Russian Elite Invested Nearly $100 Million in Trump Buildings

http://tinyurl.com/mss6z9x

MIAMI/MOSCOW, March 17 (Reuters) - During the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald J. Trump downplayed his business ties with Russia. And since taking office as president, he has been even more emphatic.

“I can tell you, speaking for myself, I own nothing in Russia,” President Trump said at a news conference last month. “I have no loans in Russia. I don’t have any deals in Russia.”

But in the United States, members of the Russian elite have invested in Trump buildings. A Reuters review has found that at least 63 individuals with Russian passports or addresses have bought at least $98.4 million worth of property in seven Trump-branded luxury towers in southern Florida, according to public documents, interviews and corporate records.

The buyers include politically connected businessmen, such as a former executive in a Moscow-based state-run construction firm that works on military and intelligence facilities, the founder of a St. Petersburg investment bank and the co-founder of a conglomerate with interests in banking, property and electronics.

As they say, follow the money.

Wealthy Russians have been dominating the high-end real estate market for years. In 2014 they dropped to second place after the Chinese.

Russian billionaire Facebook investor Yuri Milner overpaid by 100% in his 2011 purchase of a $100 million California mansion:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/morganbrennan/2012/07/05/billionaire-yuri-milner-overpaid-on-100-million-mansion-by-100-according-to-assessor/#646a89bd79da

Russian billionaires invested more than $1 billion in US high-end real estate from 2008 to 2012. Dmitry Rybolovlev spent $188 million on a $100 million purchase from Donald Trump and and a record $88 million on a condo purchase from Citigroup pres Sandford Weill.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/04/realestate/russians-court-luxury-real-estate-with-record-breaking-sales.html

[TEXT] "The billionaire buyers are flush with cash from the privatization of
Russian state industries and from high prices on oil and other
commodities, and are eager to park much of their fortunes outside the
reach of the government of Vladimir V. Putin.

"Mr. Putin signaled his frustration in February, when he said Russia 'must
end this period,' referring to what he called the 'unfair'
privatizations in the 1990s.

"Even before Mr. Putin was elected last month to another term as president,
many wealthy Russians had been taking steps to move their families to
New York, in some cases by using EB-5 visas in exchange for making
government-approved investments, Mr. Mermelstein said." [END TEXT]

If Trump would only release his financials, as other presidents have done. Why is he keeping them from the American public?

Also, there are a lot of lucrative elite real estate investment opportunities in our country. Trump's real estate is a miniscule fraction of opportunities. But the Russians invested disproportionately largely into Trump properties.

Remember Donald Jr did say: “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets.” We should take him at his word, that Russians concentrated into Trump investments.

Trump's credit was so bad that American banks stopped lending. He had to get money from somewhere. He could borrow from the Russian's or they could help him by buying his products, like real estate. They had the money to invest. However, Russians are not allowed to divert or spend large amounts of money outside of Russia without Putin's blessing.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/sep/21/oligarch-arrest-warning-from-putin-says-bill-browder