Donald Trump may have been in New Jersey this weekend with Paul Manafort’s Russian benefactor
Late on Saturday night, Palmer Report pointed out that Donald Trump had briefly stopped by his Bedminster golf resort in New Jersey on his way to the United Nations summit in New York City, and no one knew why (link). The Trump team curiously put an early lid on pool reporting, and kept reporters in the dark the entire time. Now we have a hint about what Trump may have been doing there – and it isn’t pretty.
On Sunday, one day after Donald Trump flew into Newark to briefly stay at his Bedminster resort, another plane also arrived in Newark. According to internet sleuthing based on private plane flight tracking, it appears that a plane belonging to Oleg Deripaska arrived in Newark (link). Deripaska is the Russian oligarch who paid millions of dollars to former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort. It was reported today that Manafort offered to give Deripaska private briefings about the Trump campaign during the election.
To be clear, the arrival of Deripaska’s private plane in Newark is not proof that Deripaska himself was on it. In addition, we don’t know where the passengers on that private plane went after disembarking. But considering the timing, this sets off alarms across the board. Consider the sequence of events. Trump spends a day in New Jersey for no apparent reason, while his team keeps the media at bay. While he’s there, the plane belonging to Manafort’s Russian benefactor arrives in the same city. One day later, the media reveals that Manafort has been under FISA surveillance and that he’s about to be indicted.
This all serves to raise very serious questions about whether Donald Trump and Oleg Deripaska may have met in New Jersey to discuss how to handle the Paul Manafort bombshell. Trump likely would have known about the bombshell a few days before it hit the newswires, as news outlets tend to ask the White House for advance comment on these kinds of stories shortly before publishing them. Six weeks ago Trump and a different Russian oligarch, Roman Abramovich, appeared to arrive in Newark simultaneously (link).
