Robert Mueller investigating Donald Trump’s financial dealings with Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev
For the past several months Palmer Report and other news outlets have been attempting to parse the relationship between Donald Trump and Dmitry Rybolovlev. Trump sold his Florida mansion to the Russian oligarch for about twice what it was worth. And whether by design or coincidence, Rybolovlev’s private plane kept showing up in the same cities as Trump during and after the campaign. Now it turns out Special Counsel Robert Mueller is on the case as well.
According to a new report from Bloomberg, Mueller is now pursuing several of Donald Trump’s financial dealings. Among them: the suspiciously priced sale of Trump’s mansion to Rybolovlev (link), which Rybolovlev never did occupy, and he ended up bulldozing. It’s not yet clear whether Mueller is also investigating why Rybolovlev flew into a tiny town in North Carolina while Trump was holding a campaign event there, or why Rybolovlev flew into Miami while Trump was vacationing at Mar-a-Lago after the election.
Rybolovlev has denied having met with Trump in any of those instances, and he since went on to reveal that he owns a technology company in that North Carolina town. But the flights may be less relevant than the fact that Robert Mueller is digging into Donald Trump’s mansion sale to Rybolovlev. It’s been widely suspected, though never demonstrated, that the transaction was an attempt on the part of the Russian government to funnel money into Trump’s hands.
In addition, the Bloomberg piece reveals that the Special Counsel is investigating the Trump Organization’s business dealings with Felix Sater and Bayrock in relation to the Trump SoHo property. As Palmer Report pointed out earlier (link), this means that Robert Mueller is going directly after Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump for alleged financial crimes. It may help explain why Trump is now inquiring as to whether he can legally pardon himself and his kids.
