Why is Donald Trump Acting Like A Russian Oligarch?

It’s becoming clear why Presidential Candidate Trump and Russian President Putin have been so chummy with each other. Trump has become dependent on Russian oligarchs to fund his real estate ventures, since U.S. banks no longer will because of his various bankruptcies and history of failure to pay his debts.

One of his sons even admitted so. “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets,” Trump’s son, Donald Jr., told a real estate conference in 2008, according to an account posted on the website of eTurboNews, a trade publication. “We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”

And the FBI has nothing to say about the fact that Donald Trump has become so dependent on Russian oligarchs. Yet what looks like blatant collusion in illegal activity between Trump and Russian oligarchs has been documented in lawsuits, and much more since the Donald has been unable to borrow from U.S. banks.

He has had to depend on Russian oligarch monies, many of them either Russian Mafia figures or close associates of Vladimir Putin, to fund his real estate empire. And he has repaid them by adopting their playbook—discredit NATO and U.S. alliances, call for hacking of Hillary’s emails, and lauding Putin as a stronger leader than President Obama..

That is why the latest FBI fiasco—Director Comey’s refusal to discuss their ongoing investigation into Donald Trump’s Russian connections—is so damaging to our national security, even though he had no problem discussing their investigation into Hillary Clinton’s “extremely careless” use of a private email server. It means the FBI has lost credibility as a transparent and impartial institution.

Trump’s Russian connections have been well documented. Let’s ignore the possible link to Vladimir Putin, which he claims to never have met, though he did invite him to a meeting when Trump brought his 2013 Miss Universe pageant to Moscow.

The real connections are with those Russian oligarchs surrounding Putin, which number some 120 billionaires that own most of Russia’s assets, according to a former Russian hedge fund manager. Many have invested in Trump properties. The fact that Trump won’t disclose his taxes is almost proof in itself that he doesn’t want those connections revealed.

Why wouldn’t Trump want to reveal the extent of those connections, if legal? Because much of it could be laundered money that Russia’s plutocrats have stolen from Russians, and their own government.

A Times Magazine article detailed this. As major banks in America stopped lending him money, the Trump organization was forced to seek financing from non-traditional institutions. Several had direct ties to Russian financial interests in ways that have raised eyebrows. What’s more, several of Trump’s senior advisors have business ties to Russia or its satellite politicians, such as former campaign manager Paul Manafort..
It also explains why Russia has been hacking DNC email accounts, including that of Clinton Campaign Chief of Staff John Podesta.

“The Trump-Russia links beneath the surface are even more extensive,” Max Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in the Los Angeles Times. “The Russians have every reason to sabotage the Democratic candidate. Her opponent, Donald Trump, is more pro-Russia than any previous presidential candidate.  As far back as 2007, Trump was telling CNN that Russian President Vladimir Putin was doing a “great job.” In 2013, Trump tweeted: “Do you think Putin will be going to The Miss Universe Pageant in November in Moscow - if so, will he become my new best friend?”

“In 2015, Trump told MSNBC that Putin was a real leader, said Boot, “unlike what we have in this country,” and that reports of Putin killing political opponents didn’t bother him — “Well, I think our country does plenty of killing also,” he said..”

Trump has become so popular with Russian oligarchs because he is willing to aid and abet the laundering of their money, in other words, mostly obtained by criminal activity.

Bill Browder, CEO of Hermitage Capital Management, has written and testified extensively how President Putin and his cronies have milked the Russian economy in his best-seller, Red Notice, A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice.

In Browder’s case, Putin, et. al. were able to obtain a refund of Hermitage Capital’s last $230 million tax payment to the Russian Government in 2005 by simply raiding their Moscow offices and changing corporate ownership documents, then altering the corporate tax returns for that year so they would show a loss of $230 million, which was then refunded to the new ‘owners’, who were revealed to be members of the FSB, Russia’s FBI and Secret Service, and government officials that aided in the tax fraud.

This was all revealed in testimony before the U.S. Congress and European Parliament, and has resulted in the seizure of foreign assets and travel bans for 38 of those implicated in the scheme.

We therefore have to ask why the FBI won’t reveal details of their ongoing investigation of Donald Trump’s Russian connections that have already been so damaging to our election process, and could cause even more damage to our national security in the future?

Harlan Green © 2016

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen

IRS Data Theft and Russia’s Red Notice

Financial FAQs

It has to be more than a coincidence that the recent cyber theft of IRS tax data has been traced to Russian criminals. IRS investigators believe the identity thieves who stole the personal tax information of more than 100,000 taxpayers from an IRS website are part of a sophisticated criminal operation based in Russia, two officials told the Associated Press.

In fact, the connection between fraudulent tax refunds and actual officials of the Russian government has been well-documented by former Russian Hedge Fund Manager Bill Browder in his new book, Red Notice, which provides evidence of how Russian government officials were able to steal back $280,000,000 in taxes paid by his hedge fund, Hermitage Capital, which managed $4.5 billion in assets at the time.

“The information was stolen as part of an elaborate scheme to claim fraudulent tax refunds, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told reporters. Koskinen declined to say where the crime originated,” said the AP report.

But this has happened in Russia. Russian officials have even stolen from their own government. It was Russia’s FSB Secret Police, successor to their KGB, that did the dirty deed in 1993, according to Browder. They had raided his Russian offices, and literally stole the corporate seals and legal documents of the corporations he managed that had paid $280 million in taxes the year before President Putin kicked him out of Russian.

When Russian officials found they couldn’t confiscate his assets—he had been able to sell all his Russian assets—they literally changed the ownership of his corporations and re-filed fraudulent tax returns. The refiled returns then reported sufficient losses that they could claim a refund for all of the $280 million in taxes his companies had paid to the Russian government.

This was so blatant a financial fraud that we can be sure our IRS must be aware of Russian government complicity. How? Because Browder was able to document the fraud, which resulted in a new U.S. law, the Sergei Magnitsky Act, which named the actual perpetrators of the tax theft —some 35 Russian government officials at last count—from ever entering the U.S. and freezing their assets.

Yet it seems even the IRS can be fooled. “In 2012, the IRS sent a total of 655 tax refunds to a single address in Lithuania, and 343 refunds went to a lone address in Shanghai, according to a report by the agency's inspector general. The IRS has since added safeguards to prevent similar schemes, but the criminals are innovating as well,” said the AP report.

The amount of rampant criminal fraud in Russia cannot have happened without Putin’s knowledge or assent. We know this because the very same perpetrators of the Browder-Hermitage Capital tax fraud were awarded medals by Putin for their ‘heroism’ in the scheme, believe it or not.

The Russian government then charged Bill Browder with the theft, which resulted in a call for his arrest by Interpol, and the resulting Red Notice—a notice the Russian government put out to Interpol for his arrest. They have put out a Red Notice 3 times to date, and 3 times Interpol has rejected their request because of the overwhelming evidence that the Russian government was behind the theft.

This shows the lengths corrupt officials have gone to cover up their thefts. That’s why we should have no illusion about the IRS tax return thefts. It’s a new cold war, of sorts. They want to continue stealing tax refunds from US taxpayers as they have done in Russia.

We also know this because Sergei Magnitsky, Bill Browder’s Russian attorney, was imprisoned and beaten to death by the same perpetrators for his refusal to recant the evidence of theft that defrauded the very same Russian people.

Harlan Green © 2015

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen