There are other Russian business ties to the Trump organization as well. Trump’s first real estate venture in Toronto, Canada, was a partnership with two Russian-Canadian entrepreneurs, Toronto Life reported in 2013.
“The hotel’s developer, Talon International, is run by Val Levitan and Alex Shnaider, two Russian-Canadian entrepreneurs. Levitan made his fortune manufacturing slot machines and creating bank note validation technology, and Shnaider earned his in the post-glasnost steel trade,” it reported.
Finally, for all of his denials of Russian ties lately, Trump has boasted in the past of his many meetings with Russian oligarchs. During one trip to Moscow, Trump bragged that they all showed up to meet him to discuss projects around the globe. “Almost all of the oligarchs were in the room” just to meet with him, Trump said at the time.
And when Trump built a tower in Panama, his clients were wealthy Russians, the Washington Post reported. “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia,” Trump’s son, Donald Jr., said at a real estate conference in 2008, according to a trade publication, eTurboNews.
I get that bringing up Clinton was a red herring to begin with... but you decided to engage in that convo, and when you didn't like how it was going, you only THEN bring up that it was a red herring and just go right back to trump.
I looked into it, TSA has a fairly valid point. I admitted she was probably wrong. Do I need to do anything else?
That Property in Georgia (the Country)
Trump’s election has had the effect of speeding up development on a number of his branded properties, even when the president appears not to be pulling any strings himself. As occurred with Trump Tower Buenos Aires, the completion of an embattled Trump-branded building in the former Soviet republic of Georgia is no longer on hold now that Trump has won. The project, which has been in the works in the seaside resort city of Batumi since 2010, was initially scheduled to break ground in 2013, but has been in stasis for several reasons, possibly including the 2013 electoral defeat of President Mikheil Saakashvili, a friend of Trump’s and a supporter of the deal.
According to a report in The Washington Post, the green-lighting of the Trump property in Batumi has not been linked to a specific conversation with Georgian leaders, and a U.S.-based partner on the project has suggested that it has moved forward without any nudging from the government. However, numerous public statements in the days since suggest that Trump’s election was a major factor, including an interview with a real-estate entrepreneur who said, “Cutting the ribbon on a new Trump Tower in Georgia will be a symbol of victory for all of the free world.”
You and I are all squared up. You admitted Clinton was wrong and I said earlier Trump should be investigated.
What about Trumps conflicts of interest, potential money-laundering, and other possible felonies, including the emouluments clause?
We aren't squared up by a long shot.
hat Property in Azerbaijan
When it comes to President Donald Trump’s constellation of foreign investments, properties, and companies, much of the attention so far has been on his business’s apparent violation of the Cons ution’s Emoluments Clause, which bars officeholders from taking gifts from foreign leaders. According to numerous ethics experts, the clause takes an expansive definition of gifts, encompassing everything from a direct bribe to a foreign official’s approval of construction of a new Trump property. But some of the Trump Organization’s properties raise additional red flags due to the specific partners involved. That’s true in Indonesia, for example, where Trump’s affiliates have been involved in bribery scandals and radical Islamic nationalist parties, and Brazil, where the company pulled out of a branding agreement amid a criminal investigation of a local business partner.
Such is the case in Azerbaijan, which Transparency International ranks as among the most corrupt countries in the world, where the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Baku remains unopened. Though the long-stalled development has generated a steady drip of news and rumors for years, an overview by Adam Davidson in The New Yorker, en led “Donald Trump’s Worst Deal,” puts into perspective just how convoluted the situation is, and just how much the project has led Trump and his company into a partnership with numerous corrupt officials in the Middle East. The details suggest that, on top of the continual underlying breach of the Emoluments Clause, the Trump Organization’s involvement may also violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, or FCPA, which forbids American companies from participating, even unknowingly, in bribery schemes in other countries, with a penalty of up to $2 million and up to five years in jail.
Investigate away.
You're right though we aren't squared up by a long shot
I brought up conflicts of interest with Clinton and Azerbaijan that were ignored by you long before you brought up Trump and Azerbaijan.
http://www.eurasianet.org/node/81186
A lobbyist connection between Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and Azerbaijan could create the appearance of a conflict of interest, if the democratic nominee wins the US general election on November 8.
For the past seven years, the Podesta Group, a high-powered Washington lobbying firm, has handled networking and image-building for Azerbaijan’s embassy in the United States. Azerbaijan ranks alongside Tajikistan as the third worst rights abuser in the former Soviet Union, behind Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, according to the watchdog group Freedom House.
The Podesta Group’s chief executive officer is 73-year-old Tony Podesta, who has acted as a major fundraiser for the Clinton campaign. In addition, Podesta’s 67-year-old brother, John, serves as Clinton’s campaign chairman, and previously served as former president Bill Clinton’s chief of staff.
John Podesta co-founded the firm, but has not been directly involved in the Podesta Group since 1993. As Clinton’s campaign chairman and, potentially, a future official or adviser in a Clinton administration, he could potentially be of help in enabling Azerbaijani officials, via the Podesta Group, to gain access to White House officials, some human rights activists worry.
The end result, activists say, could be that Washington de-emphasizes democratization in its dealings with Azerbaijan. “The connection to Hillary Clinton’s campaign is worrisome,” said Rebecca Vincent, a former American diplomat who has been active in Azerbaijan human rights causes.
The Azerbaijani embassy’s current contract with the Podesta Group runs until the end of the year, according to do ents obtained from the Department of Justice’s Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) registry. The embassy pays Podesta a monthly fee of $45,000.
Aside from encounters with senators and congressional representatives, media and non-governmental organizations, the Podesta Group has agreed to arrange meetings with “executive branch officials,” at the embassy’s request.
How much leverage it would have to take matters further with a Clinton White House is unclear.
Emails allegedly hacked from John Podesta’s account and published by WikiLeaks show that the Clinton campaign debated the propriety of accepting donations raised by lobbyists, like the Podesta Group, which do work for foreign countries. The campaign ultimately decided to accept the donations.
The Washington Post reported in July that Podesta had raised $268,000 for the Clinton campaign this year. In addition, Podesta has raised over $152,300 for the Hillary Victory Fund, which supports the Clinton campaign, the Democratic National Committee and 32 Democratic state parties.
Emin Huseynov – the director of the Ins ute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety, who spent nearly a year living in the Swiss embassy in Baku to avoid arrest – described Baku’s image-crafting efforts as highly effective. “Lobbyists like the Podesta Group are helping the Aliyev ... regime to distract international attention from the unprecedented repression taking place in the country,” he said.
Clinton is not the only presidential candidate with a link to Azerbaijan. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump earlier partnered with the controversial Azerbaijani businessman Anar Mammadov, son of Transportation Minister Ziya Mammadov, on a project to erect Trump Towers in Baku. That project appears to have stalled, however.
Trump has not addressed Azerbaijan’s rights record. Clinton’s last public remark appears to have been in 2012, when, on a visit to the country as secretary of state, she called on the Azerbaijani government to show greater respect for freedom of expression and to release those imprisoned for expressing their opinions.
Caucasus observer Lincoln Mitc believes that the Podesta Group would not go out on a limb to promote Azerbaijan’s interests with the new presidential administration.
“It is critical to understand that for the Podestas, their relationship with Clinton is worth much, much more than their monthly retainer from Baku. They would not jeopardize the former to help the latter,” said Mitc , a New York-based political-development specialist. “This is not due to any moral courage, but to the reality of the dollars and cents calculations. If the Podestas lead Clinton to make a mistake with regards to Azerbaijan, they could damage their relationships and their livelihood in Washington.”
Maran Turner, executive director of Freedom Now, a Washington-based organization working to free prisoners of conscience, and other rights activists want the US government to limit contact with Baku until all political prisoners are released and Azerbaijani officials introduce meaningful democratic reforms.
Mitc believes such an approach to be unrealistic, given that US-Azerbaijan relations are first and foremost defined by realpolitik.
“The US will speak out against the Aliyev government’s rights abuses if the government in Baku gets much closer to Russia or begins to disagree with the US on issues that are important to Washington,” he said. “Short of that, I do not expect a Clinton administration to freeze out the Aliyev government.”
TSA demand hypothetical investigation now!Investigate away.
You're right though we aren't squared up by a long shot
I brought up conflicts of interest with Clinton and Azerbaijan that were ignored by you long before you brought up Trump and Azerbaijan.
http://www.eurasianet.org/node/81186
A lobbyist connection between Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and Azerbaijan could create the appearance of a conflict of interest, if the democratic nominee wins the US general election on November 8.
Trump president, not Clinton.Investigate away.
You're right though we aren't squared up by a long shot
I brought up conflicts of interest with Clinton and Azerbaijan that were ignored by you long before you brought up Trump and Azerbaijan.
http://www.eurasianet.org/node/81186
A lobbyist connection between Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and Azerbaijan could create the appearance of a conflict of interest, if the democratic nominee wins the US general election on November 8.
[Hillary Clinton bad]
Trump president, not Clinton.
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Give it a ing break, because it looks more and more like you are trying to deflect with some bull false equivalence.
The false equivalence here is that what you have there is pay for access.
Personally, I think Manafort is the most compromised, due to some rather sketchy transactions over shares in Russian oil/gas.
I think Trump Organization is directly guilty of more than one violation of the foreign corrupt practices act, and that more than a few of the companies that Trump is in bed with internationally were funded by Russian organized crime.
I think there is some RICO and money laundering hidden in his overseas businesses, and this is the prime reason his tax returns will never, ever, see the light of day.
This is the most likely explanation for his fondness of Vladimir Putin. Putin knows he can easily list details of Trumps involvement financially, and has communicated this through these informal channels.
Putin knows that he didn't have nearly as much on Clinton, and how bad Trump would be for liberal democracy, which he is actively trying to undermine.
So what you're saying is you got nothing. As per usual.
(shrugs)
That is so poorly reasoned/stated, I am not sure it is worth bothering with.
There is likely enough evidence of law breaking that it won't take much kicking over of rocks for this stuff to come scurrying out from under.
You will have to find a new schtick after the "there is no evidence now" thing becomes thin even for someone as bad as you are at critical thinking to ignore.
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You might want to practice your "critical thinking".
Or alternately:
I am accountant/auditor with 10+ years worth of financial and forensic auditing and financial analysis experience.
I am literally paid to think critically, and paid well.
This opinion is guided by my reading and experience.
Feel free to dismiss that because you think people in your party can't do any wrong, that demonstrates great critical thinking.
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I design financial systems. I deal with accountants and auditors all the time.
By far the most important matter to be taken care of is the clear attempts the Russians have made in creating chaos in our elections; Not in attempts to put anyone candidate in office, the general attempts at disruption. They have stuck this in our face and Republicans poo-poo this, Democrats try to make it into some overly ornate plan.
I hope the Trump administration is actively pursuing not so subtle retribution. Including further sanctions. The Europeans are more than ready for more sanctions. There are growing street protests in Russia. Putin's major political thorn in side was just jailed again. The Russians people DO react to economic pressure.
A good dose of Western news in Russia would also help. The general populace will quickly tire of the same old political RT lines as Putin tightens the reins on reporting.
But enough about me. I am not belittling you or anyone else. Accountants and auditors are generally very bright. I have a BS in Accounting/Auditing myself actually.
Damn my first sentence paired with my last sentence made zero sense.
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