Donald Trump, Ivanka, Donald Jr and a Russian mafia figure were trying to build Trump Tower Moscow during election
As the Trump-Russia scandal and investigation have grown more intense and uncovered more evidence, Donald Trump has sworn that he has no business connections to Russia. He’s also sworn in the past that he doesn’t even know who convicted Russian mafia figure Felix Sater is. But now it’s been confirmed that Trump, two of his children, and Sater were all trying to build a Trump Tower in Moscow during the election.
It’s been long documented that Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr. partnered with Felix Sater to build the Trump SoHo property in New York City, essentially disproving Donald Trump’s claim that he couldn’t pick Sater out of a lineup. But now the Washington Post has proven that the Trump Organization and Sater were trying to build Trump Tower Moscow while Donald Trump was running for President of the United States (link). This exposes so many political and legal liabilities for Trump himself, it’s difficult to know where to start.
For one thing, it proves that Donald Trump and his children were in fact trying to curry business favor with Vladimir Putin during the election. This provides motive for why Trump took so many pro-Putin positions during the campaign, and even convinced the Republican Party to alter its platform to a de facto pro-Russia stance on Ukraine. In other words, Trump is every bit as much of a Russian political puppet as even the deepest of cynics have asserted. But the involvement of Sater, and the involvement of Trump’s kids, may be even more relevant in a criminal sense.
Felix Sater has been convicted of two major crimes. One was smashing a glass into a bar patron’s face. The other was financial crime in relation to the Russian mafia. And at one point along the way, Sater was an FBI informant. So his involvement points a straight line for Robert Mueller to trace Trump’s financial ties to the Russian mafia. And since he’s flipped in the past, he’s likely to flip again. In addition, the involvement of Ivanka and Donald Jr makes Donald Sr more vulnerable in the investigation, as he’s already shown a tendency to panic while trying to cover for his kids. If Mueller didn’t already know about Trump Tower Moscow, he does now.
