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Money Laundering as the crime to bring down Donald Trump ....
despite the technically legal way in which it is done, he might be in the big business of laundering corrupt monies from other countries, particularly Russia.
from today's WaPo
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-the-trump-organization-could-be-trumps-undoing/2017/08/08/82de9980-7c4c-11e7-a669-b400c5c7e1cc_story.html?utm_term=.43fc540dc3bc
When you think of something as mundane as laundry, you don’t think of the gold-plated Trump Organization. Yet the business of selling multimillion-dollar condominiums — a sector where the Trump name looms large — is deeply entangled with a certain kind of washing. Money laundering.
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But few laundries can match the efficiency of an eight-figure luxury condominium in New York or San Francisco or South Florida. It works like this: The holder of a great deal of tainted money sets up a shell company, funds it through the shadow banking system, then uses the shell to purchase exclusive property. Voila! No one knows where the money came from or who the buyer might be. But when the condo is eventually resold, the proceeds emerge from the spin cycle as clean as Eliot Ness.
Given the scrutiny special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is likely to bring to Trump Tower in coming months, the good news for the president is that this unsavory customer service is completely legal in most cases. Thanks to the lobbying power of the real estate industry, efforts by national and international law enforcement to crack down on corrupt money flows have scarcely touched the condo trade. Unlike bankers, who are required by law to be diligent about the sources of incoming money, condo developers and real estate agents don’t have to ask where the cabbage comes from for their all-cash sales to hidden buyers.
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At the Trump International, on the southwest corner of Central Park, the Times noted that more than half of all condo sales were to hidden buyers. A more recent study by USA Today found that the number of veiled transactions involving the Trump Organization took a big jump as the boss man’s political fortunes rose. Since Trump captured the Republican nomination last summer, the share of hidden buyers of his branded properties has climbed to 70 percent, the newspaper found.
34 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
How does that bring him down? It's not as though his base cares. 
?w=700&q=60
Craig Unger's article is mostly about money laundering.
Last edited Wed Aug 9, 2017, 06:15 PM - Edit history (1)
By Sater’s account, in sworn testimony, he was very tight with Trump. He flew to Colorado with him, accompanied Donald Jr. and Ivanka on a trip to Moscow at Trump’s invitation, and met with Trump’s inner circle “constantly.” In Trump Tower, he often dropped by Trump’s office to pitch business ideas—“just me and him.”
Trump seems unable to recall any of this. “Felix Sater, boy, I have to even think about it,” he told the Associated Press in 2015. Two years earlier, testifying in a video deposition, Trump took the same line. If Sater “were sitting in the room right now,” he swore under oath, “I really wouldn’t know what he looked like.”
Trump seems unable to recall any of this. “Felix Sater, boy, I have to even think about it,” he told the Associated Press in 2015. Two years earlier, testifying in a video deposition, Trump took the same line. If Sater “were sitting in the room right now,” he swore under oath, “I really wouldn’t know what he looked like.”
