Re: FYI
Books and newspaper accounts of Trump's 45 years in business were full of=his shady dealings, and the presidency had only helped to highlight them and to surfa=e even juicier ones. Real estate was the world's favorite money laundering cur=ency and Trump's B-level real estate business was quite explicitly designed =o appeal to money launderers. What's more, Trump's own financ=al woes, and desperate efforts to maintain billionaire lifestyle, cache, and market viability, forced him into constant and unsubtle schemes. Practically=speaking, you couldn't miss him, as the Mueller investigation appeared to be finding.
In November 2004, for instance, Jeffrey Epstein= the financier later caught in a scandal involving under-age prostitutes, agreed=to buy out of bankruptcy a house in Palm Beach, Florida for $30 million =94a house that had been on the market for two years. Epstein and Trump had been close frie=ds—playboys in arms, as it were—for more than a decade, with Epstein often coun=eling Trump on his chaotic financial affairs. Epstein took Trump to see the Palm Beach =ouse to advise him on construction issues involved with moving a swimming pool. =s he prepared to finalize his deal for the house, an incredulous Epstein saw a s=verely cash-constrained Trump bid $41million for the property, buying it through =n entity called Trump Properties LLC, financed by Deutsche Bank. Trump, Epste=n knew, had been renting his name, telling Epstein he ought to do the same =80 that is, for an ample fee, Trump was willing to serve as a front man to disguise the=actual ownership in a real estate transaction. (This was, in effect, just another variation of Trump's basic business model of licensing his name for=commercial properties owned by someone else.) A furious Epstein, suspecting that the real owner w=s a Russian oligarch, who Trump knew, Dmitry Rybolovlev—part of the clo=e Putin circle of government-aligned industrialists in Russia—threatened to=expose the deal, then getting extensive scrutiny in Florida papers. The fight became a=l the more bitter when, two months later, the house was put on the market for $125 million. Well known to Trump, who often saw Epstein at his current Pal= Beach house, Epstein was visited almost every day, and had been for many ye=rs, by girls who he paid for massages with happy endings—girls recruite= from local restaurants, strip clubs, and, also, Trump's Mar-a-Lago. Just as th= threats and enmity of the two friends increased over the house sale, Epstein found himself under investigation by local Palm Beach police. Epstein's l=gal problems vastly escalated as the house, with only minor improvements, was b=ught for $96 million by Dmitry Rybolovlev. That is, Trump had either miraculousl= earned $55 million, without putting up a dime, or Rybolovlev, or someone su=h as Rybolovlev, paid Trump Properties, LLC—actual owner unknown =80 $96 million, thereby providing a clean payment of $55 million to someone. Rybolovlev mig=t have, in effect, paid himself for the house, thereby cleansing the money. E=stein, on his part, would spend 12 months in jail on a prostitution charge.
After the election, when Bannon was introduced =o Epstein, Bannon told him, “You were the one person I was truly afra=d of coming forward during the campaign.”
=9CAnd rightly so,” said Epstein.
Needs edit but ... ie 36! M Rybo=oev not known in 05 , Talk later