How today’s FBI raid of Trump Towers in Florida connects to Donald Trump
When the FBI raided a condominium today at the Trump Towers property in Sunny Isles, Florida, there was no immediate indication that it had any connection to Donald Trump. After all, there are numerous real estate properties that license and display the “Trump” name, each with hundreds of individually owned condominium units inside. Just because something allegedly illegal went down in one of those units, it doesn’t necessarily tie back to the person whose name is on the building.
But context matters. The FBI has already raided Donald Trump’s primary residence, Mar-a-Lago, as part of an Espionage Act criminal investigation into him. That probe has turned out to be serious enough that the courts ordered Trump’s own attorney to testify against him to a grand jury, and now it appears Trump is weeks at most away from being criminally indicted in the probe.
Once the FBI has already raided your primary residence, it’s more than fair to ask if a subsequent FBI raid at another building bearing your name might be related. On the other hand, you don’t want to just presume that today’s raid is connected to the Mar-a-Lago raid.
What we do know is that the Trump Towers condo raided by the FBI today is owned by a shell corporation controlled by Russian nationals, per the Miami Herald newspaper. That’s not surprising, given that the Trump Towers property is primarily a haven for Russian nationals and is often locally referred to as “Little Moscow.”
This raid has set off some theories on social media that Trump could have potentially given classified documents to these Russian nationals, and that the raid was about recovering them – but there is no evidence to support those theories. All we know for sure is that there had to be evidence of some kind of (allegedly) criminal activity in relation to this condo, or the Feds wouldn’t have been able to obtain the warrant to raid it.
What does stand out is the sheer number of properties bearing Donald Trump’s name over the years that have seemingly catered to international criminals – particularly Russian criminals – either as a basis of operation or as a place to invest dirty money. And that’s what once again stands out here. The reality is that, given the history, no one is surprised the Feds ended up raiding a Russian-owned condo in a Trump-named building today. Even if today’s raid ends up having no direct connection to Donald Trump, it’s yet another instance of Trump’s name being tied to international criminal activity.
