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odinsblog · 1 year ago

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DONALD TRUMP: MOBBED UP AF - A RETROSPECTIVE

(by @saradannerdukic)

1970s & 1980s: wave of Russian criminals arrive in New York and begin interfacing with established American organized crime networks (La Cosa Nostra/The Five Families aka Bonanno, Genovese, Colombo, Lucchese, Gambino) (source)

1977: KGB reportedly opens file on Donald Trump (source).

1979: Construction begins on Trump Tower. Trump purchases overpriced concrete from mafia bosses Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno and Paul Castellano of the Genovese and Gambino crime families (respectively). (source)

1980: Trump's mentor, Roy Cohn, introduces Donald to Roger Stone. (source)

1982: New York City Housing Commissioner Anthony Gliedman received what he described as an “abusive and profane” call from someone angry that Gliedman had opposed Trump’s request for a $20 million tax abatement. Gliedman reported the call to the FBI, saying the caller was “threatening his life.” (source)

June 3, 1983: Rudy Giuliani becomes US attorney for SDNY

January, 1984: Vladimir Alexandrovich Kryuchkov, First Chief Directorate of the KGB arm responsible for gathering foreign intelligence, urges his officers to be more creative with agent recruitment - and to use money and flattery vs. alignment with Soviet ideology. Additionally, he gives the directive to find "U.S. targets to cultivate or, at the very least, official contacts...The main effort must be concentrated on acquiring valuable agents." (source)

1984: Russian émigré David Bogatin pays cash for five apartments in Trump Tower. (source). Bogatin's brother ran a $150 million stock scam with Russian mafia boss Semion Mogilevich (source)

1985: Trump reportedly “apoplectic” when he loses bid to re-develop the Coliseum at Columbus Circle to Salomon Brothers-backed Mort Zuckerman. (source) More on Trump’s proposal here.

October 1985: Trump's helicopter pilot indicted on drug trafficking charges. Trump doesn't fire him. Instead, he leases his personally-owned unit in Trump Plaza Apartments to him with an agreement of half the rent is to be paid in cash, the other half in unspecified helicopter services. Trump also writes a letter on behalf of his pilot (Weichselbaum), calling him "a credit to the community.” Who does the case end up with? Federal judge Maryanne Trump, Donald's sister. (source)

Autumn, 1986: Trump meets Soviet ambassador Yuri Dubinin. And per Trump's own account in Art of the Deal, “One thing led to another, and now I’m talking about building a large luxury hotel, across the street from the Kremlin, in partnership with the Soviet government.” (source)

1986: Trump makes the rounds in the news offering to negotiate with the Russians (source), and also angles for a Soviet posting in the Reagan administration (source)

March 16, 1987: Bogatin (who had purchased multiple apartments in Trump Tower for cash) pleads guilty to taking part in a massive gasoline-bootlegging scheme with Russian mobsters. The government seized his five condos at Trump Tower, because he'd used them to “launder money, to shelter and hide assets.” A Senate investigation into organized crime later revealed that Bogatin was a leading figure in the Russian mob in New York. (from New Republic)

April 3, 1987: Trump excluded from bidding on Australian casino deal because of mafia connections (per Australian police) (source)

July 4, 1987: Trump flies to the USSR for the first time after being personally invited - the trip is arranged by the Soviet government (source).

1987: Trump talks extensively in an interview about nuclear bombs, and states that his pilot used to work for Qaddafi. In the same interview, Trump describes the type of bomb he thinks will be possible in the future: "Carry it in your briefcase, right. I’m not even talking about airplanes and missiles. You’ll walk in with your damn tape recorder,” he says, pointing to my innocent Sony, “and you’ll say it’s a tape recorder and nobody will be able to tell the difference. I mean, that’s where it’s going to be in 20 years.” (source)

1988: Trump starts talking about running for president on Oprah (source).

1988: Trump purchases a yacht from Adnan Khashoggi, the uncle of Jamal Khashoggi (source) (source)

1988: American Media Inc. (AMI) comes into being after Enquirer owner Generoso Pope dies. (source) Among the interested parties are Robert Maxwell (source), the father of Ghislaine Maxwell - Jeffrey Epstein's partner. (source). Among the trustees of the Pope estate are Peter G. Peterson, a partner in the Blackstone Group (source) - a private equity firm founded by Steven Schwarzman (source). (More on Schwarzman and his relation to Trump here). According to Pope's son, Paul, The Enquirer was started with a $75,000 loan from the mafia (source).

October 11, 1989: helicopter crashes with 3 Trump casino execs aboard (source). Trump claimed he was supposed to be on it, but then changed his mind at the last minute. (source) After their deaths, he blamed them for the failure of his Atlantic City casino (source) The helicopter's pilot was identified by the state police as Robert Kent of Ronkonkoma, L.I., and its co-pilot as Lawrence Diener of Westbury, L.I. b/b

1990: Wall Street bond house Salomon Brothers advises institutional clients to sell bonds issue from Trump's Castle Casino in Atlantic City, due to debt and performance concerns. (source)

1991: Trump declares bankruptcy (source)

1991: Trump sells his yacht to Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal (source) (source)

December 17, 1991: Fred Trump gives Donald an interest-free loan by purchasing $3.5 million worth of casino chips at Trump Castle casino, circumventing bankruptcy rules and enabling Donald to make the interest payment due on his bonds. (source)

1992: Trump declares bankruptcy an additional 3 times stemming from various properties he's over-leveraged. (source)

1994: Trump allegedly rapes and beats a 13-year-old girl at a party with Jeffrey Epstein, multiple times. In the filed complaint, the 13-year-old was threatened to be "disappeared" like another young girl had been if she told anyone. (source)

October 20, 1994: Christine Seymour, Roy Cohn's secretary (Cohn was Trump's mentor), who was set to publish a tell-all book, dies in head-on collision with tractor trailer (source)

1995: Trump reportedly in Moscow to discuss matters related to Okhotny Ryad underground mall on Manezh Square. (source)

The trip is also reference in this article: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1997/05/19/trump-solo

1995: Trump sells Plaza Hotel to Alwaleed bin Talal (source) Barbara Corcoran brokers the deal (source)

June 8, 1995: Vyacheslav Ivankov arrested (source). Ivankov was known to be a notoriously brutal gangster in the upper echelon of the Russian mafia. (source) After having difficulty finding him, the FBI picked up his trail at Trump Taj Mahal, and then discovered that Ivankov had a luxury condo in Trump Tower. (source) According to Robert Friedman in his book, Red Mafiya, Friedman viewed Ivankov's personal phone book containing "a working number for the Trump Organization’s Trump Tower Residence, and a Trump Organization office fax machine." (this is listed as a citation at the end of the book). Ivankov is also mentioned in this 2003 DOJ paper on organized crime, with a forward by Bruce Ohr (pp 49).

1996: Trump goes to Russia with Howard Lorber (source). Lorber later donated to the Trump inaugural fund (source).

1998: Trump Taj Mahal fined for currency transaction reporting violations (source)

February 1999: Evercore Capital Partners L.L.C., headed by former Deputy Treasury Secretary Roger C. Altman, acquires American Media, Inc. and places David Pecker at the helm. (source)

1999: Trump's first run for president (source)

2000/2001: Mark Burnett in negotiations with Putin for a show called "Destination Mir." (source)

October 2001: AMI offices in Boca Raton are attacked with anthrax (source). Later, in 2004, a cleaning company owned by Rudy Giuliani is contracted to clean up the anthrax, with his company, Bio-One, slated to rent/occupy the building after cleanup. (source) The contract later ended in a feud. (source)

2002: Mark Burnett begins talks with Trump regarding The Apprentice. (source)

2002 - 2011: The Bayrock Group partners with the Trump Organization on developments including the Trump SoHo hotel (source). Principals in the group include Felix Sater - believed to be connected with Semion Mogilevich (source) - and Tevfik Arif (source).

2004: Trump declares bankruptcy again. (source)

Spring 2004: The Apprentice debuts (source)

May 2004: Diamond dealer and former Trump Tower tenant (1 year prior he'd lived right below Kellyanne Conway) Eduard Nektalov is shot on 6th Avenue (source). He was reportedly cooperating with federal authorities on a money laundering investigation (source) More on money laundering and Trump properties here.

2005: at the same time Trump is unable to get a 25 million pound loan from Bank of Scotland due to being a credit risk (source), Deutsche Bank (who later is hit with massive fines for money laundering) loans Trump nearly one billion dollars. Trump's banker at Deutsche Bank is Justice Kennedy's son. (source).

2006: Felix Sater escorts the Trump children during their trip to Russia (according to Sater) (source). Later, in emails to Michael Cohen, Sater says that he'd arranged for Ivanka to sit in Putin's chair. (source).

2006: Paul Manafort buys unit in Trump Tower (source).

2006 - 2009: Trump makes multiple attempts (and fails) to get a loan from the Bank of Scotland to purchase Hamilton Hall. The bank executive "expressed concern that Trump would hold the bank to 'future ransom'” (source)

2007 - 2016: Buyers tied to Russia make 86 cash purchases at Trump properties. (source)

2008: Soviet-born (Moldovia) Orly Taitz helps bring suit regarding Obama's citizenship/birth certificate. (source)

2008: Junior brags that they're getting a lot of money from Russia. (source)

2008: Russian oligarch buys a Palm Beach mansion from Trump, paying twice the value (source).

August 27, 2008: a small-time scam artist transfers a Beverly Hills, California, mansion to Donald Trump for $0. (source)

November 2008: Unable to meet his obligations for the nearly 1 billion dollar loan they gave him, Trump sues Deutsche Bank saying he shouldn't have to make good on his promise because of the economic crash. (source)

2009: Trump declares bankruptcy again. (source)

2009: a lawyer representing Trump Atlantic City casino creditors says he got threatening phone calls. The FBI traced one of them to a payphone outside the “Late Show With David Letterman,” where Trump was appearing.

“My name is Carmine,” the caller told the lawyer, Kristopher Hansen. “I don’t know why you’re fucking with Mr. Trump but if you keep fucking with Mr. Trump, we know where you live and we’re going to your house for your wife and kids.” (source)

July 23, 2009: Stormy Daniels' political advisor's car explodes (source). This was approximately 3 years after her affair with Trump (source).

August 2009: After multiple tries dating back to 2006, Trump denied a final time for loan for 25 million pounds from Bank of Scotland because the bank considered it "too risky." (source)

2010: Tevfik Arif, a principal of the Bayrock Group - which at this time is partnering with the Trump organization on a variety of projects - is arrested in a Turkish prostitution sting. (source). Charges were later dropped by Turkish authorities.

July 25, 2011: President Obama issues executive order declaring organized crime a national security emergency. (source)

2011 - 2015: Deutsche Bank, who 5 years previous had given Donald Trump nearly 1 billion dollars when Bank of Scotland wouldn't loan him 25 million pounds, is laundering billions of dollars with the help of Russians. (source)

2011: Eric Trump brags that they have access to millions of dollars from Russians. (source)

2011 - 2015: Donald Trump begins paying for his properties with hundreds of millions of dollars in cash. (source)

January 1, 2012: former Trump bodyguard dies from apparent overdose (source).

2013: Trump walks out of a BBC Panorama interview when asked about his connections with Felix Sater. (source)

April 16, 2013: Preet Bharara, then US attorney for SDNY, announces charges against massive Russian organized crime ring operating out of Trump Tower. (source)

June 16, 2013: Trump announces Miss Universe pageant will be in Moscow. (source)

November 9, 2013: Miss Universe pageant (source). One of the fugitives indicted in the Trump Tower organized crime ring in April, ALIMZHAN TOKHTAKHOUNOV, is a guest of honor there. (source)

2014: Steve Bannon, while at Cambridge Analytica, orders testing on Putin messaging with Americans. (source)

February 10, 2014: Trump praises Putin on Fox & Friends. (source)

March 6, 2015: Trump Taj Mahal fined for money laundering. (source)

2015: Michael Cohen threatens a reporter covering Trump's divorce with Ivana. “I’m warning you, tread very fucking lightly, because what I’m going to do to you is going to be fucking disgusting,” the Daily Beast’s Tim Mak, recalled Cohen telling him. “You write a story that has Mr. Trump’s name in it, with the word ‘rape,’ and I’m going to mess your life up … for as long as you’re on this frickin’ planet.” (source) (source)

April 18, 2015: Trump's former pilot dies in head-on collision (source).

November 3, 2015: Felix Sater, who is believed to work for Semion Mogilevich (source) writes Michael Cohen stating that he'll get buy-in from Putin and that they'll engineer Trump's presidency. (source)

November 5, 2015: former head of RT Mikhail Lesin found dead in DC hotel room with blunt force trauma to head, neck and torso. He had a meeting with DOJ scheduled for following day. (source)

January 23, 2016: Trump tells the crowd at a rally that he could shoot someone in the middle of 5th Avenue and not lose voters. (source)

February 23, 2016: Trump tells the crowd at a rally that he'd like to punch a protestor in the face, and "I love the old days. You know what they used to do to guys like that when they were in a place like this? They’d be carried out on a stretcher, folks.” (source)

March 29, 2016: Paul Manafort joins Trump campaign. (source)

April - May 2016: George Papadopoulos in communication with “high ranking Russian official” in an attempt to set up meetings between Trump team and Russian reps, w/the promise “that the Kremlin had 'dirt' on Hillary Clinton in the form of “thousands of emails…” (source)

May 2016: Stephen Schwarzman flies to Riyadh to meet with Mohammed bin Salman - then the deputy crown prince of Saudi Arabia - about infrastructure, and presumably the $20 billion fund that's announced a year later. (source) More on Schwarzman's relationship with Trump, and Saudi Arabia here. More on Schwarzman's links to Russia and Rosneft here.

Summer 2016: Stefan Halper, an FBI informant, approaches Trump campaign officials. (source)

June 9, 2016: Trump Tower meeting with Russians, Manafort, Kushner, Don Jr.. (source). Present at the meeting was Nataliya Veselnitskaya, who at the time was representing Prevezon (source), a company implicated in a money-laundering case at SDNY (source)

June 14, 2016: News breaks that the DNC has been hacked by Russians. (source)

June 14, 2016: Michael Cohen cancels his planned trip to Moscow to discuss Trump Tower Moscow (source)

Sometime after July 19, 2016: Trump warned by FBI that Russians will try to infiltrate campaign. (source)

July 2016: FBI opens counter intelligence investigation into Trump campaign. (source) (source)

September, 2016: Trump and Cohen discuss hush money and contingency for if guy gets hit by a truck. (source)

October 31, 2016: Mother Jones reports "A Veteran Spy Has Given the FBI Information Alleging a Russian Operation to Cultivate Donald Trump"

November 7, 2016 (one day before election day): Connie Watton, maid of Stephen Schwarzman - a Trump AND Kremlin friend - is pushed in front of a subway. (source) The woman who pushed her is assigned defense attorney Mathew Mari, known for his legal work for the Bonanno crime family. More on Schwarzman's relationship with Trump, and Saudi Arabia here. More on Schwarzman's links to Russia and Rosneft here. Schwarzman had also financed Kushner projects and gave Jared Kushner a loan (source).

November 8, 2016 (election day): Russian diplomat Sergei Krivov found unconscious at the Russian Consulate in New York and died on the scene. (source)

December 2016: FSB officers arrested in Russia. (source)

December 2016: Jared Kushner instructs Michael Flynn to sabotage US foreign policy. (source)

December 1 or 2, 2016: Kushner tries to set up secret back channel with Russians using Russians' secure facilities. (source)

December 1, 2016: Jared Kushner and Michael Flynn meet with Sergei Kislyak at Trump Tower (source)

December 13-14, 2016 (date not confirmed): Jared Kushner meets with Sergey Gorkov, "a graduate of the academy of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, the domestic intelligence arm of the former Soviet KGB, who was appointed by Putin to the post less than a year before his encounter with Kushner." (source)

December 19, 2016: Russia's ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov, is killed. (source)

December 19, 2016: Russian diplomat to Latin America, Peter Polshikov, is killed. (source)

December 20, 2016: Methbot white paper published. (source)

December 26, 2016: Ex-KGB chief Oleg Erovinkin, who was suspected of helping draft the Trump dossier, found dead in the back of his car. (source)

December 29, 2016: Obama expels 35 Russian diplomats. (source)

December 29, 2016: KT McFarland sends email stating that "If there is a tit-for-tat escalation Trump will have difficulty improving relations with Russia, which has just thrown U.S.A. election to him," (source)

December 29, 2016: Flynn calls Kislyak to discuss the expelling of the diplomates and asks that the Russians not retaliate. (source)

January 6, 2017: Trump, McFarland, Pence, Flynn, Priebus, Pompeo and Bossert briefed with classified intelligence report by Brennan, Clapper, Comey. (source) That same day, DNI releases this report.

January 9, 2017: Russian Consul in Athens, Greece, Andrei Malanin, found dead in his apartment (source)

January 10, 2017: Buzzfeed publishes Steele Dossier. (source)

January 24, 2017: Peter Strzok interviews Michael Flynn. (source)

January 27, 2017: Russia's Ambassador to India, Alexander Kadakin, dies. (source)

January 30, 2017: New York State Department of Financial Services fines Deutsche Bank $425 million for massive Russian mirror trading scheme. (source)

February 2017: Trump's bodyguard, a Trump Organization lawyer and a third man raid Harold Bornstein's office, taking Trump's medical records. (source)

February 20, 2017: Vitaly Churkin, Russia's ambassador to the UN, dies suddenly in New York (source)

March 2, 2017: Ukrainian businessman with links to Trump found dead from undetermined causes. Oronov was Michael Cohen's brother's father-in-law, and Cohen did business with him. (source)

March 11, 2017: Trump fires Preet Bharara, who as US Attorney of SDNY had led the breakup of a massive Russian organized crime ring operating out of Trump Tower. (source)

March 16, 2017: laptop stolen from Secret Service agent's car while parked in her driveway. The laptop contained highly sensitive information including floor plans and evacuation protocol for Trump Tower. (source)

March 20, 2017: It's learned that the FBI had launched a counter intelligence investigation into the Trump campaign and Russian links in July of 2016. (source) (source)

March 21, 2017: A lawyer for a Putin-foe, Nikolai Gorokhov, reportedly thrown from a window in Moscow. Gorokhov was set to testify as a U.S. government witness in a money laundering case initiated by SDNY (led by Preet Bahrara). (source) "The alleged vehicle by which these dirty assets were washed clean was a Cyprus-registered company called Prevezon Holdings Ltd." (source) Prevezon is represented by Nataliya Veselnitskaya at the time that she attends the Trump Tower meeting in June of 2016. (source)

March 23, 2017: former Russian MP, Denis Voronenkov, shot dead in Kiev. (source)

March 30, 2017: FBI raids Trump-linked casino in Saipan. (source)

March 30, 2017: Mike Flynn asks for immunity. (source)

May 1, 2017: Scott Christianson, investigative reporter for McClatchy, publishes this:

May 9, 2017: Trump fires FBI director James Comey. (source)

May 2017 (date unclear): FBI opens counter intelligence investigation into Trump. (source)

May 10: 2017: Subpoenas issued to Michael Flynn by Senate Intelligence Committee. (source)

May 10, 2017: closed-door meeting in Oval Office with Russians. (source)

May 10, 2017: Roger Ailes falls in his home at Palm Beach Country. (source)

May 11, 2017: FBI raids GOP consulting firm in Maryland. (source)

May 14, 2017: Scott Christianson dies after falling down the stairs at his home (source)

May 14 2017: Republic operative Peter Smith found dead in Minnesota 10 days after speaking with WSJ (source)

Smith had said he'd been working with Michael Flynn (source).

May 17, 2017: Robert Mueller appointed special counsel (source).

May 18, 2017: Roger Ailes dies from head injury he'd sustained 8 days earlier (source).

May 20-21, 2017: Trump takes his first overseas trip as president to Saudi Arabia. During this trip, it's announced that Blackstone, led by Stephen Schwarzman, will manage Saudi Arabia's $20 billion investment fund. (source) Most of the investment will be in US infrastructure (source) During that trip, Trump also meets with Kirill Dmitriev of VEB bank (source)

July 4, 2017: body washes up on shore of Trump golf course in California. (source) (source)

July 26, 2017: Paul Manafort's home raided (source)

July 27, 2017: George Papadopoulos arrested. (source)

August 3, 2017: Secret Service kicked out of Trump Tower (source).

August 23, 2017: Russian ambassador to Sudan, Mirgayas Shirinsky, found dead. (source)

September 1, 2017: fire at Russian consulate in San Francisco (source).

September 14, 2017: Junior ditches Secret Service to go to Canada (source).

September 25, 2017: Richard Beckler, Trump's appointee as General Counsel of GSA dies (source). Beckler is the GSA staff member who'd assured Trump that requests for materials/emails from special counsel would not be honored (source).

September 27, 2017: Paul Horner, fake news writer who took credit for Trump’s win, dies of apparent overdose (source)

October 2017: Trump muses that he'll likely get to place 4 justices on the Supreme Court because of future health issues they may have (source).

October 16, 2017: Panama Papers journalist killed with a car bomb. (source)

October 25, 2017: Jared Kushner leaves on unannounced visit to Saudi Arabia.

October 26, 2017: Investigator (Catherine Hunt, a former FBI agent) working on behalf of 9/11 families suing Saudi Arabia interviews Jamal Khashoggi. Khashoggi texted Saudi officials that same day.

(as claimed by the lawyer working on behalf of the families)

October 28, 2018: Jared Kushner returns from unannounced visit to Saudi Arabia.

October 30, 2017: Papadopoulos guilty plea revealed (source)

November 3, 2017: Alex van der Zwaan is interviewed by the FBI. (source)

November 4, 2017: Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman consolidates power and arrests several princes, including Prince Alwaleed bin-Talal. (source) Trump had previously sold his yacht (1991) and the Plaza Hotel to Alwaleed bin-Talal (source).

November 2017: Trump picks fights with North Korea. (source)

November 17, 2017: Brett Kavanaugh added to short list of SCOTUS nominees. (source)

December 1, 2017: Michael Flynn pleads guilty to lying to the FBI. (source)

December 5, 2017: It's reported that Deutsche Bank received subpoena from Robert Mueller (source) In-depth Rachel Maddow segment on Deutsche Bank and the subpoena here.

December 16, 2017: Trump learns that Mueller has in his possession all of their transition emails on the .gov domain, obtained via the GSA. (source)

December 22, 2017: House Intelligence Committee interviews Rhona Graff

December 30, 2017: Fire at home linked to Ivanka's diamond business (source).

January 8, 2018: Fire at Trump Tower (source)

January 20, 2018: Former spokesman for Rick Gates, Glenn Selig, dies in Afghanistan hotel attack. Selig was a well-known Tampa Bay Area TV anchor. (source)

January 25, 2018: It's learned that Dutch intelligence had infiltrated Russian hacker group Cozy Bear and witnessed in real time as they attacked the State Department as well as the DNC. (source)

January 27, 2018: Steve Wynn resigns as RNC finance chair amid sexual assault allegations (source).

January 31, 2018: chartered train carrying GOP lawmakers to retreat crashes into truck (source).

February 16, 2018: Indictment of 12 Russians, outlining their methods of election interference (indictment sealed). (source)

February 20, 2018: Alex van der Zwaan pleads guilty to making false statements to FBI. (source)

February 22, 2018: Paul Manafort and Richard Gates indicted. (source)

February 23 - 27, 2018: Trump Tower Panama standoff with physical altercations and armed guards (source).

Week of March 4 - 10, 2018 (date unclear): FBI raids Trump-linked casino in Saipan a second time. (source)

March 4, 2018: Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, found poisoned on a park bench in Salisbury. (source)

March 16, 2018: FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe fired. (source)

April 7, 2018: ANOTHER Trump Tower Fire - art dealer Todd Brassner dies (source); Michael Cohen texts Dennis Shields with a warning to "get out ASAP" (source).

April 9, 2018: FBI raids Michael Cohen's home, hotel room, and office (source).

April 13, 2018: RNC Finance Chair Elliot Broidy resigns in midst hush money payoff scandal (source).

April 15 or 16, 2018: Matthew Mellon (finance chair, NY RNC, and who made his fortune in cryptocurrency) dies of apparent overdose (source). Note - original link/story is now gone; here are alternate sources for that story: https://twitter.com/business/status/986135482013769728

April 24, 2018: Devin Nunes sends classified letter to Jeff Sessions regarding FBI informant (source) who is later revealed to be Stefan Halper. (source)

April 28, 2018: Fire at Trump Tower Azerbaijan (source).

Week of April 29, 2018: Devin Nunes issues subpoena to DOJ seeking information about FBI informant (later revealed to be Stefan Halper). (source)

June 20, 2018: New York State Department of Financial Services fines Deutsche Bank $205 million for "unlawful, unsafe and unsound conduct in its foreign exchange trading business." (source)

June 22, 2018: Trump-backed Katie Arrington seriously injured in head-in collision (source).

June 27, 2018: Justice Kennedy, whose son was Donald Trump's banker, unexpectedly announces retirement. (source) Trump and Kennedy reportedly had a special relationship (source).

July 4, 2018: delegation of Republicans go to Moscow. (source)

July 9, 2018: Brett Kavanaugh nominated to SCOTUS. (source)

July 14, 2018: Indictment of 12 Russians/internet research agency unsealed (source).

July 16, 2018: Maria Butina criminal complaint unsealed. (source)

July 16, 2018: Trump meets with Putin in Helsinki. (source)

July 17, 2018: Secret Service agent dies in Scotland. After falling ill at Trump's golf course in Turnberry, he died the day after the Helsinki meeting (source) (source). (obituary)

July 25, 2018: dead body found in waters off Trump NYC golf course (source).

August 6, 2018: Rand Paul goes to Russia. (source)

August 10, 2018: Dennis Shields - the same guy Cohen texted back in April - found dead in Trump Tower (source)

August 15, 2018: Trump revokes John Brennan's security clearance. (source)

August 16, 2018: mystery case before grand jury initiated. (source)

October 2, 2018: Jamal Khashoggi murdered on orders from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. (source) Trump later disputes the findings of the CIA and stands with MBS, stating that too much money is at stake. (source)

October 3, 2018: Nikki Hailey resigns, but resignation is not yet publicly announced. (source)

October 3, 2018: The Russian deputy attorney general (Saak Karapetyan) who reportedly directed Natalya Veselnitskaya (the lawyer who met with the Trump campaign in Trump Tower) dies in a helicopter crash (source). It was later reported that the pilot of the helicopter had been shot. (source)

October 9, 2018: Internet Research Agency (aka the troll farm) named in DOJ indictment (unsealed July 14, 2018) set on fire. (source)

October 9, 2018: Nikki Haley announces resignation.

October 9, 2018: New York Times reports that Saudi Arabia had ordered Khashoggi's murder.

October 17, 2018: Don McGahn resigns. (source)

October 19, 2018: "Project Lahkta" (Russian election interference) criminal complaint unsealed (source)

October 21, 2018: John Bolton goes to Russia to meet with Putin. (source)

October 22 - 27, 2018: week of terror begins with bombs at the home of George Soros. (source). It was followed by bombs sent to Bill and Hillary Clinton (Oct. 23); Barack Obama, CNN, John Brennan, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Eric Holder and Maxine Waters (October 24); Robert de Niro and Joe Biden (October 25); and Cory Booker, James Clapper, Kamala Harris, and Tom Steyer (October 26). It ends with mass shooting at Tree of Life synagogue on October 27 (source).

October 30, 2018: Whitey Bulger killed. (source)

November 21, 2018: head of GRU agency accused of DNC hacks and Skripal poisoning dies, reportedly after a long illness. (source)

November 27, 2018: Methbot indictment unsealed at EDNY. (source)

November 28, 2018: Miami Herald publishes Perversion of Justice investigative report.

November 29, 2018: Michael Cohen pleads guilty. (source)

November 29, 2018: Massive raid at Deutsche Bank. (source)

November 29, 2018: FBI raids offices of Trump's former tax attorney, Chicago Alderman Ed Burke. (source)

December 4, 2018: Epstein trial set to begin. It is settled at the last minute, avoiding testimony from witnesses. (source)

December 13, 2018: FBI allegedly raids Chicago Alderman and former Trump tax attorney Ed Burke's office a second time (FBI neither confirms nor denies whether raid took place) (source).

December 22, 2018: Government shuts down. (source)

January 8, 2019: it's learned that Manafort passed polling data to Kilimnik in the summer of 2016. (source)

January 11, 2019: it's learned/reported that the FBI had opened a counter intelligence investigation into Trump in May of 2017. (source)

January 23, 2019: Michael Cohen postpones testimony before Congress, saying it's because Trump has been threatening him. (source)

January 25, 2019: Roger Stone arrested and indicted. (source) (source)

February 21, 2019: Judge rules that federal prosecutors (including Trump labor secretary Alex Acosta) broke the law in Epstein case. (source)

February 27, 2019: Michael Cohen testifies before Congress that Trump had directed him to threaten people as many as 500 times when he worked for him. (source) He also testifies that Felix Sater's office had been located on the 26th floor of Trump Tower - the same floor as Trump's office - and, in the location that would eventually become Cohen's office. (source)

And let's not forget the acid in Steve Bannon's bathroom: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/bannons-vacated-florida-home-had-a-bathroom-destroyed-by-acid-washington-post-report-985356

Or how Michael Cohen threatened this reporter: https://twitter.com/cherijacobus/status/974831949285031936

Or the threats Stormy Daniels received: https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/25/politics/stormy-daniels-threat-60-minutes/index.html

A short history of Donald Trump's threats: https://www.propublica.org/article/a-short-history-of-threats-received-by-donald-trumps-opponents

#politics #donald trump #republicans #russia #money laundering #mobbed up #maria butina #ron paul #treason #traitors #tre45on #russian mafia #russian mob

389 notes · View notes

comeonamericawakeup · 7 months ago

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"Have you heard about the president who received money from China and other foreign countries?" asked David Graham.

No, not Joe Biden- his predecessor, Donald Trump. Republicans have launched an impeachment inquiry based on their suspicion that Biden shared in the payments his son, Hunter, got from Ukrainian and Chinese companies, even though they can't find any evidence. But the GOP couldn't care less about the proof Democrats released last week that while president, Trump received at least $7.8 million from China, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and 17 other countries. While in office, Trump created blatant conflicts of interest by taking millions from foreign governments seeking to influence him by spending lavishly at his hotels, golf courses, and condos. The Constitution's emoluments clause prohibits public officials from taking such foreign payments- but Trump simply ignored it. This would be a huge scandal for any other officeholder, but GOP "patsies" like House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer rationalize the corruption away by saying Trump "has legitimate businesses," unlike Hunter Biden. If Trump is re-elected, the GOP has given him carte blanche to fill his pockets with more foreign money.

THE WEEK January 19, 2024

#vote blue #us politics #lock him up!

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news24news · 8 years ago

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A Trump Tower Goes Bust in Canada

The failure this week of Trump Toronto showcased a familiar scenario: big promises, glitzy image, a Russian-born financier, aggrieved smaller investors – but few losses for the mogul himself.

The 65-story Trump International Hotel & Tower Toronto has all the glitz and ambition of the luxury-brand businessman with his name in giant letters near its spire. It’s the tallest residential skyscraper in Canada, and probably the fanciest. The hotel’s sleek cream-and-black interiors were inspired by Champagne and caviar. Every room features Italian Bellino linens and Nespresso coffeemakers. Guests can book a Trump Experience outing through the Trump Attache concierge service. Their furry friends are eligible for the Trump Pets program, which “will fill your best Fido’s tummy with gourmet treats, and see them off to sleep on a plush dog bed.”

This Trump-branded and Trump-managed jewel is also, as a business venture, a bust.

On Tuesday, a Canadian bankruptcy judge placed the glass-and-granite building into receivership, just four years after Trump and his children cut the ribbon at its grand opening. Once it’s auctioned off, whether or not Trump is the leader of the free world by then, his name may well vanish from its marquee. Trump is not the project’s developer or even an investor; one of his partners, a Russian-born billionaire who got rich in Ukraine’s steel industry, controls the firm that’s in default. The Trump Toronto is still a posh hotel, and even though nearly two thirds of the tower’s condo units remain unsold, they’re still upscale residences. Still, the saga of the property’s glittering rise and rapid fall is classic Trump, featuring a tsunami of litigation and bitterness, money with a Russian accent, and a financial wreck that probably won’t hit its namesake particularly hard.

Trump has vowed to run the country the way he runs his businesses, and Trump Toronto is yet another reminder that his businesses do not always run smoothly. Even before the bankruptcy, the Trump Organization was already mired in litigation over management issues with the project’s owner, Talon International—led by Alex Shnaider, the steel magnate who is perhaps better known for buying a Formula One racing team and hiring Justin Bieber to sing at his daughter’s Sweet Sixteen. The project also faced lawsuits filed by middle-class investors who claim they were suckered into buying time-share-style units in the hotel with wildly overstated projections of Trump Toronto’s performance. Now it’s in receivership, which will produce new ownership and, quite possibly, a new brand.

Trump Organization spokeswoman Amanda Miller noted that the company still has a long-term deal to manage the Toronto property, no matter who controls it after the auction. “This has been a record year for the hotel, and we look forward to its continued success,” Miller said. “Guests can expect to receive the same superior level of service and quality that is synonymous with our brand around the world.”

But it’s not clear that Trump Toronto will keep its name, much less its management team. Toronto is one of the world’s most multicultural cities, and Trump’s run for the presidency, especially his provocations against immigrants and Muslims, have made his hotel a target for protests. And one insider familiar with the bankruptcy proceedings said that local rivals in the luxury condo and hotel market, notably the Four Seasons and the Ritz Carlton, have dramatically outcompeted the Trump property. Court documents show that even though investors in the hotel units were told the “worst case scenario” for occupancy rates would be 55%, they’ve ranged between 15% and 45%. The average room rate, despite the snazzy crystal sconces and in-mirror bathroom TVs and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Lake Ontario, has been nearly $100 below the initial projections.

“The whole business model has been overpromise and underdeliver, and it’s Trump’s name on the thing,” the insider said. “You can’t put all the blame on him and his people. But if they did a terrific job, do you think it would be in bankruptcy?”

Trump first got involved in the project 15 years ago, when he held a press conference with Toronto’s mayor to announce his plan to build a new Ritz Carlton downtown. That plan fell apart when it came out that his development partner was a fugitive who had been convicted of bankruptcy fraud and embezzlement in the U.S. Trump then forged a licensing and management deal with Shnaider and another Russian-Canadian named Val Levitan, whose name comes up a lot in the documents because he had no development experience. Talon pre-sold 85 percent of the units at near-Manhattan prices before the groundbreaking in 2007, but most of the buyers backed out after the global financial crisis ravaged the real estate market, and Levitan was eventually forced out.

It is clear from affidavits in the fraud cases and the bankruptcy case that the buyers have taken a financial beating. A warehouse supervisor named Sarbjit Singh, who was earning about $55,000 a year, testified that he borrowed money from his father, a retired welder, for the deposit on his hotel unit; he never closed on the deal, but he says he still lost $248,000. Se Na Lee, a homemaker who was married to a mortgage underwriter, borrowed money for her deposit from her parents; she did close, and ended up losing $990,000 through December 2014, she says.

A judge later described Talon’s prospectus and other “deceptive documents” as “a trap to these unsurprisingly unwary purchasers,” and ruled that they could sue Trump as well as Talon. The surnames in the court filings reflect the global diversity of the people who put their trust in the Trump brand and the Talon sales representatives: Ayeni, Surani, Yuen, Rhee, Okwuosa, Gupta, Radhakrishman, Varadarasa, Akinkuotu. Some said they were assured that Trump’s involvement would make it easy for them to get mortgages, but banks have shied away, even as the local real estate market has become one of the hottest on the planet.

These problems were already simmering when Trump—along with his children Eric, Donald Jr. and Ivanka, who oversees his worldwide hotel operations—stepped out of a Cadillac Escalade for the hotel’s ribbon-cutting in April 2012. There are snippets of the event on YouTube, where you can see Trump smiling dutifully as he congratulates hotel staffers, accepting a Maple Leafs jersey with his name on the back, and watching a speech by Toronto’s late mayor, Rob Ford, who would later become a household name after a crack-smoking scandal.

By 2015, Trump and Talon were suing each other, with the Trump team alleging a Talon scheme to take over the management, Talon alleging a Trump scheme to devalue the property in order to buy it at a discount, and both sides accusing each other of shoddy financial record-keeping. Talon also disparaged Trump’s performance running the hotel, but the dispute is now in mediation. It probably won’t matter, because Talon is about to lose the property, most likely to JCF Capital, a U.S. investment firm that purchased its $225 million construction loan.

Talon’s attorney, Steven Rukavina, would only say that the company is cooperating with the restructuring, and views the court’s appointment of a receiver as “a positive step forward toward achieving that objective.” JCF declined comment, though it has said in its filings that it intends to honor Trump’s contract if it assumes control of the property.

But Trump’s campaign, with its hostility towards foreigners, progressives, and others, has not played well in Toronto. A city councilor has called for the property to change its name. Hollywood types reportedly blackballed the hotel—along with its 31st-floor restaurant, which is actually called America—during this summer’s Toronto Film Festival. There have been protests outside the building by union workers, women’s groups, and Muslim groups. The Trump brand is under siege, which has delayed the opening of a similar Trump-licensed hotel and condo project in Vancouver until after the election. The colorful mosaic celebrating multiculturalism at the entrance to Trump Toronto, titled A Small Part of Something Larger, now seems to clash with the nominee’s white-backlash message.

Trump has presided over four corporate bankruptcies, and the flurry of lawsuits and countersuits over Trump Toronto’s broken promises is rather typical for a Trump property. But this is Talon’s bankruptcy, not his. The project was built with other people's money; he just got paid for the use of his name and his hotel management team. It’s not clear how much he ever knew about Talon’s high-pressure sales tactics. It’s also not clear how much he ever knew about his Russian-Canadian partner's business activities in Eastern Europe.

“We heard fantastic things about [Shnaider],” Trump told a Forbes reporter by phone from his 2005 honeymoon. “But sometimes people say wonderful things whether they mean them or not.”

Then again, Trump did license his name and his brand to Talon. This isn’t his main concern this week, but he can’t deny all responsibility for the failure of a Trump project, especially when the Trump Organization is running the Trump hotel. The project's partners, investors, and lenders all got a Trump Experience, one that isn't available from the concierge.

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chilenthailandtravel · 4 months ago

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The Trump International Hotel Las Vegas is a hotel and Condo in Nevada, US

#youtube #RomeItalyColosseumThe ColosseumGoogle Earth StudioGoogle Earth10 man made wonders10 man made wonders of the worldwonders of the world10 weir

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arpov-blog-blog · 6 months ago

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Former President Donald Trump used a dubious accounting maneuver to claim improper tax breaks from his troubled Chicago tower, according to an IRS inquiry uncovered by ProPublica and The New York Times. Losing a yearslong audit battle over the claim could mean a tax bill of more than $100 million.https://audm.herokuapp.com/player-embed/?pub=nyt-core&articleID=trump-audit-buettner-kiel

The 92-story, glass-sheathed skyscraper along the Chicago River is the tallest and, at least for now, the last major construction project by Trump. Through a combination of cost overruns and the bad luck of opening in the teeth of the Great Recession, it was also a vast money loser.

But when Trump sought to reap tax benefits from his losses, the IRS has argued, he went too far and in effect wrote off the same losses twice.

The first write-off came on Trump’s tax return for 2008. With sales lagging far behind projections, he claimed that his investment in the condo-hotel tower met the tax code definition of “worthless,” because his debt on the project meant he would never see a profit. That move resulted in Trump reporting losses as high as $651 million for the year, ProPublica and the Times found.

There is no indication the IRS challenged that initial claim, though that lack of scrutiny surprised tax experts consulted for this article. But in 2010, Trump and his tax advisers sought to extract further benefits from the Chicago project, executing a maneuver that would draw years of inquiry from the IRS. First, he shifted the company that owned the tower into a new partnership. Because he controlled both companies, it was like moving coins from one pocket to another. Then he used the shift as justification to declare $168 million in additional losses over the next decade.

The issues around Trump’s case were novel enough that, during his presidency, the IRS undertook a high-level legal review before pursuing it. ProPublica and the Times, in consultation with tax experts, calculated that the revision sought by the IRS would create a new tax bill of more than $100 million, plus interest and potential penalties.

Trump’s tax records have been a matter of intense speculation since the 2016 presidential campaign, when he defied decades of precedent and refused to release his returns, citing a long-running audit. A first, partial revelation of the substance of the audit came in 2020, when the Times reported that the IRS was disputing a $72.9 million tax refund that Trump had claimed starting in 2010. That refund, which appeared to be based on Trump’s reporting of vast losses from his long-failing casinos, equaled every dollar of federal income tax he had paid during his first flush of television riches, from 2005 through 2008, plus interest.

The reporting by ProPublica and the Times about the Chicago tower reveals a second component of Trump’s quarrel with the IRS. This account was pieced together from a collection of public documents, including filings from the New York attorney general’s suit against Trump in 2022, a passing reference to the audit in a congressional report that same year and an obscure 2019 IRS memorandum that explored the legitimacy of the accounting maneuver. The memorandum did not identify Trump, but the documents, along with tax records previously obtained by the Times and additional reporting, indicated that the former president was the focus of the inquiry.

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the-firebird69 · 7 months ago

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There are a few more things and we're getting there

-we have a lot of work to do but we're getting there. This is a painstaking effort but it's worth it. I have more to report

-we need to go and get it done there are several companies we are acquiring this week one of them is United airlines and we have like 20% and we're going to acquire 20% more and it's it's finally Trump selling the guy said he was selling the whole time and he was selling to bja and others and saying he was losing all that stuff and it worked to a degree and he didn't sell but he didn't sell to the pseudo empire and they figured it out. United airlines is pretty big it's one of the biggest and American airlines it's another 20% and he's putting it up on the stock market he wants to try and catch us he's also trying to run his 401k plan to catch regular people who might be honest and what we said is what's the trigger there and he says I go ahead and take his stocks and we said that's not going to happen and he said I will make it work and we're saying now you won't and Olympus and every time he tries it he says he's trying to take it from others and he's getting a beat down and tons of people are saying it you don't know how it works and you're a pig and you're going to get everybody killed and you don't care cuz that's what you are Charles Manson and we don't care for your comments the point is we're going to buy up all his stocks and take from him and he's a loser and evil person and he's a mean person and he deserves it when we take the companies over we clear his people out and they all die for the most part they come back and they die it's a huge job and we do need personal

-along with the stock of United airlines all the other airlines for the most part ranging from 10 to 30% of the companies and he's putting it all out there he said and he might retain 5%, so he has a seat and that's what he wants to do he wants to be the silent Big shot and we are going to have to take this money yes he does it cuz he uses it for terrorism and to pay people that do dumb things and a lot of people caught on to it

-along with the airlines are hotels and motels this is a big item because he thinks he's displacing people all the time and he does do it and he's a rotten landlord and people hate him and he gets beat up a lot and his people get killed and he's going to start trying it up again and they're going to go fast right now everybody's gearing up to take them out and to take over apartment complexes and condo associations and all sorts of things like that all over the world and management companies and he is getting pushed out of the one here and he will not have any involvement in a few days and they're going to push Stan out and once they do that they're going to start working on other idiots who are a pain in the ass you can't go anywhere without them harassing you it is just a nightmare they're a little b****** and his systems backwards and people are proving it you going to fight the day your productivity goes down you're thinking is unclear are you doing trying to remillard does and you yell and scream you don't get anything done soon he's going to be out and doing a desperate plan that never works for people who are professionals and he's also a very nasty person. These are big hotels and motel chains it Hilton is one and he took it from Paris Hilton who is a Mac and she's pissed off and wants him dead and they're going to try and buy it back and she was playing the daughter of his and he took it over doing that and she didn't have her man anymore and he is suspect in murdering him and she didn't do much because of that and she's been trying to take his stuff and can't seem to hold on to any of it so she's moving online and you think she'd find someone if you like the capitalists in the Romulus but really doesn't seem to be happening and people lose people but so she tried to make him alliance and it didn't work anyways they're too selfish and she's going around asking people to stop this idiot and a lot of people are and it's necessary but we have to buy up a lot of it and there's more to it the hotel chain is very big and they have some situaries and Paris has a share it's not really huge hey my husband says she should be in it later she's smaller and we know the effects and not having an alliances or right answer she's already feeling that stupid crap. Hell yeah it's not that but really it's a good idea and she's asking for help no,she wants to buy it back. And it is funny cuz a lot of people are dumb now not her but it's a good idea a certain Sharon slowly she can go in her areas and to advertise it and he says he might have a hamburger with her at lunch what's stupid is then I would imitator and have him facing her and like you wouldn't notice cuz he's oblivious he likes staying at the Hilton and she was smiling at him when he's not looking is this big hamburger have the hamburger and it'll be a like a joke on the that hamburger shop she did the commercial on top of the car the soap inside and stuff that's another way she can do with him in the background the suds beer company. It's kind of awkward she says but it's kind of a dream but I can help set it up cuz you get me motivated to take the whole company over and she says you're on and he says watch out I've been watching Ken you only got several seconds. She smiles and says Don't blink. So it's a lot of fun it's a good idea for me the hamburger thing is fun that's him using his brain and this is why I get in trouble with it but it is an idea to promote the place and to not be very very mean on purpose and she helped out and he she got pushed around by this a****** and there might be a bunch of Max who might help her in the same just saying they need to know what he's like he's extremely abusive

So we're going to print and Carl's Jr and that's the company that got you food up there and Michael too was working with her on some things and says it's really not bad and she needs the help and they start getting clobbered and start a fight with Trump and it was worth it

Hera

Everywhere you look this guy is messed up and it's Trump and he is an animal the guy is a pig you can see it in court he was an a****** I'll tell you what people are pointing out in the news all over the world is saying he's a freaking huge pig and he's not even paying attention and then they're going to go to town on him poor guy is going to die not even knowing

Michael tew

It's a horrible day I paid enough attention but really I got me head over the clouds and will change even if I lose the robots I can hit things and he says no but okay it's disabled in like 10 minutes and you're going to sit on top of the nozzle not use it I also see something else if I knew about it I'd use it and it sounds stupid because it's real hard to hit but I'm going to sit on top of if they get killed yay that's why it's stupid

Trump

Olympus he doesn't believe it'll happen that way you can so absurd we know he's a mental retard

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mongowheelie · 7 months ago

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Feds Want to Seize This $7 Million Condo in a Luxe Trump Building

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luisauthornews · 8 years ago

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A Trump Tower Goes Bust in Canada

The failure this week of Trump Toronto showcased a familiar scenario: big promises, glitzy image, a Russian-born financier, aggrieved smaller investors – but few losses for the mogul himself.

November 02, 2016

This Trump-branded and Trump-managed jewel is also, as a business venture, a bust.

Trump is not the project’s developer or even an investor; one of his partners, a Russian-born billionaire who got rich in Ukraine’s steel industry, controls the firm that’s in default. The Trump Toronto is still a posh hotel, and even though nearly two thirds of the tower’s condo units remain unsold, they’re still upscale residences. Still, the saga of the property’s glittering rise and rapid fall is classic Trump, featuring a tsunami of litigation and bitterness, money with a Russian accent, and a financial wreck that probably won’t hit its namesake particularly hard.

“We heard fantastic things about [Shnaider],” Trump told a Forbes reporter by phone from his 2005 honeymoon. “But sometimes people say wonderful things whether they mean them or not.”

#Trump

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5mybestarticles · 11 years ago

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Trumped: the multi-million-dollar lawsuit over Toronto’s most controversial new condo-hotel

The Trump tower, downtown’s tallest new condo-hotel, is a monument to excess. And, like its tycoon namesake, it’s surrounded by controversy: 38 investors are suing the hotel for millions. Lessons from a post-crash real estate market

In the city’s new five-star hotel landscape, the Ritz represents elegant European classicism, the Shangri-La cool, Asian chic, and the Trump unfettered American pomp. Like its loud-mouthed namesake, the Trump is brash, proud and full of bluster. Stock, the hotel’s restaurant and bar, is outfitted with shiny tufted black leather seating and silver accents. Its lobby, a shimmering expanse of marble and mirrors, seems sprung, fully formed, from the imagination of Joan Collins.

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. The Trump is their first Toronto real estate venture. In 2002, during a meeting in Shnaider’s office at Dufferin and Finch, they agreed on a plan to build the city’s biggest, fanciest, five-starriest hotel. They both travel frequently for work and agreed that Toronto’s hotels lacked the quality of the ones they stayed at in London, New York and Moscow. Back then, Toronto’s swankiest option was the old Four Seasons, a dour brutalist tower in Yorkville. But the city was emerging as a major North American financial centre, a place where serious players were coming to do big international deals. These titans were in need of boardrooms in which to meet, bloody steaks to consume, and high-thread-count sheets to sleep between.

In 2004, Talon bought a site at the corner of Bay and Adelaide for $27.4 million. The location was perfect—smack in the centre of the business district. This was before the cultural revitalization of the city’s downtown core, but Levitan and Shnaider could see the signs: the revamping of the Bay’s flagship department store, the plans for the new Bell Lightbox, not to mention a phalanx of condos and restaurants springing up in the city centre. By the time the hotel was completed, it would be the anchor point of a tourist-friendly downtown.

The luxury hotel required a famous brand, which is how the pair ended up approaching Donald Trump. At the time, Trump’s reality show The Apprentice was riding high in the ratings, and the Trump brand was associated with luxury, success and business prowess, not with headline-making Twitter spats and an aborted Republican leadership bid. They worked out a deal to license the Trump name.

They planned a 65-storey mixed-use building consisting of a restaurant and bar, a day spa, 118 condos—some as large as 4,400 square feet and selling for up to $9.1 million—and 261 “condo-hotel suites,” traditional hotel rooms that Talon intended to sell as residential real estate investments. The condo-hotel set-up was unusual in Toronto. It’s an attractive model for developers because it allows them to raise capital up front from investors.

Donald Trump is a shareholder in other Trump developments in Chicago, New York and Las Vegas, but not in Toronto. The hotel would bear his name and his style, and an affiliate of his management company would run the day-to-day hotel service. According to the early marketing brochures, it would be a model for “Manhattan-style luxury living in Toronto.”

By the time the Trump opened in 2012, ten years after the plan was hatched and more than two years later than originally scheduled, the financial climate had, of course, drastically changed. The hotel now felt like a throwback to a cockier, pre-recession era, back when hedge fund managers ruled the world and Bernie Madoff was a respected financial guru. A group of buyers now regret their investment in the building, and millions of dollars in deals between them and Talon are on the verge of collapsing. The group claims their condo-hotel units often sit empty, and they’ve launched a series of lawsuits alleging the Trump sales team misrepresented how much profit they’d make. The defendants say the lawsuits have no merit, that no misrepresentations were made. The claims have yet to be heard in court.

The Trump investors believed they’d bought into a get-rich-quick scheme. How did something so promising go so wrong?

Before there was the Trump Tower, there was the Trump tower sales office, a glass-fronted box that stood on the same prime corner from which the hotel would eventually rise. A polished young sales team sold a steady stream of units, over the phone, online and in person, to a diverse cross-section of buyers—including elderly Korean pensioners, wealthy Nigerians and a now-defunct U.K. company called WorldWide Properties, which bought four floors of hotel units with the intention of flipping them.

When the Trump broke ground, half of the residential condos had sold, as had 191 of the condo-hotel units, which ranged in price from $736,000 to $3.8 million. The suites could be rented out as part of the hotel, providing extra income to buyers. In the Trump system, occupancies are organized in a strict, computerized rotation, which ensures that the least rented room jumps to the front of the queue. The hotel charges service fees for maintenance (linens, towels, cleaning, etc.) and management, but the rest of the rental profit goes to the owner of the room. The promotional material declared that “investing in hotel suites is a trend that’s sweeping the United States… The reason? Great cash flows, no concern for maintenance and reasonable cash requirements as a down payment. Leverage is key, especially in these times of low interest rates.”

#Trump

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zainwriteronline · 8 years ago

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A Trump Tower Goes Bust in Canada

The failure this week of Trump Toronto showcased a familiar scenario: big promises, glitzy image, a Russian-born financier, aggrieved smaller investors – but few losses for the mogul himself.

This Trump-branded and Trump-managed jewel is also, as a business venture, a bust.

“We heard fantastic things about [Shnaider],” Trump told a Forbes reporter by phone from his 2005 honeymoon. “But sometimes people say wonderful things whether they mean them or not.”

#Trump

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chrisfrominvis · 11 years ago

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Trumped: the multi-million-dollar lawsuit over Toronto’s most controversial new condo-hotel

The Trump investors believed they’d bought into a get-rich-quick scheme. How did something so promising go so wrong?

Promotions featured an airbrushed picture of Trump, along with a personal endorsement: “We’re going to do something very special in Toronto.” Trump himself, the ad said, “has an undeniably keen eye for a deal.” The ad neglected to mention that Trump wasn’t the project’s developer, just its smiling face.

Sarbjit Singh, a 49-year-old warehouse supervisor from Milton, was one of the early buyers. Singh first heard about the Trump in October 2006 from a real estate agent who told him it was a great investment opportunity. He and his wife, Kimberly, had recently bought a house and just had their second daughter. He didn’t have the money to buy another property. “I was only making between $50,000 and $60,000 a year,” he says. “I’m a regular person, not rich.”

But the prospect of getting his own piece of Trump magic proved too tempting. He claims the agents at the Trump sales centre told him he couldn’t possibly lose money since the “absolute worst case scenario” was that the hotel ended up at 55 per cent occupancy, and even then the projected returns were healthy. “I asked them a long list of questions,” he recalls. Who was going to arrange the mortgages? What would the interest rate be? Would the property be categorized as commercial or residential (commercial properties come with much higher interest rates). He alleges the sales associate assured him he had nothing to worry about. According to Singh, they said Talon was already working on financing with lenders, and it would all go smoothly. The units would qualify for residential mortgages. Singh then asked at what point he could flip the unit, and the agent told him directly after closing. “You’ll make a lot of money,” he remembers the agent telling him. “Even if you don’t sell, you’ll be making lots of money from the reservation program.”

Armed with Talon’s projection sheet, his head dancing with trust funds for his daughters, Singh went to his mother and father, who are retired and living on a pension. He convinced them to take out a $150,000 line of credit on their house, which they owned outright, so he could put down a deposit of $173,400 on an $869,000 suite. He believed, like many other investors I spoke to, that he was buying a piece of real estate directly from Donald Trump and that he couldn’t lose. “I bought it on the strength of his name alone. He’s Donald Trump—hotels and real estate are his business, not mine. I trusted that it would work.”

Construction of the Trump Tower got off to an inauspicious start. It took two years to receive planning permission from the city, and there were more delays after Talon broke ground in late 2007. Because of the site’s small footprint—15,000 square feet—only one crane could be employed at a time. Shnaider admitted it was a bit of a nightmare. “I wouldn’t do such a project again in Toronto,” he said. More significantly for investors, the economic reality changed. As Levitan put it, “It was a very complicated project that became delayed, and in that time the economy fell apart. How can I control that?” In the new market, the projection sheets Talon had distributed with the initial sales package weren’t worth the creamy stationery they were printed on.

In March 2012, Sarbjit Singh took possession of his unit and started paying monthly fees of $8,207, which covered realty taxes, common fees and interest. He expected his rental profits to more than offset the fees, but when the first revenue statements came in, he knew something was wrong: in four months, his unit had been rented 49 times—roughly a 40 per cent occupancy rate and lower than the “absolute worst case scenario” the agent had discussed with him. Singh’s room was running at a loss. When he called hotel management, they told him the bad news: because of the dampened hotel market, they’d been renting his room out at a discounted rate. (Rooms at the Trump that were forecast to cost $550 to $600 per night have been available for $400 on Expedia.) Singh was losing approximately $5,000 a month.

His problems didn’t end there. He visited several major banks and was told the property was commercial, not residential, and thus he’d need a commercial mortgage, for which he’d need to put 50 per cent down—money he didn’t have. Even if he could find the down payment, the commercial interest rates would raise his mortgage payments beyond what he could afford to carry.

Last November, Singh ran out of reserve cash. He stopped paying his fees and is now working in the evenings and on weekends in an effort to pay his parents’ line of credit. He recently missed a mortgage payment. He has no idea how he’ll get out of debt.

Singh retained the Toronto law firm Heydary Hamilton last November and filed a suit against the developers. Another 37 buyers have also filed suits. A Heydary lawyer named Mitchell Wine, one of the team of 14 lawyers and articling students working on the Trump cases, told me purchasers and representatives of more than 100 units have contacted his office. The firm has filed statements of claim detailing each of the investors’ stories and accusing Talon and other named parties of misrepresentation, breaches of the Ontario Securities Act, breach of contract, breach of the Condominium Act and conspiracy. Each claimant is asking for well over a million dollars in damages, plus their deposit money back with interest. Pleadings are being finalized, and preliminary motions were scheduled to be heard just after this issue went to press. In response, Talon is seeking to have the action by investors dismissed.

The investors’ suits name Trump Toronto Hotel Management Group and Talon International Inc., as well as Trump, Shnaider and Levitan personally. They allege that the defendants misled investors about the units by providing financial projections that overstated how much they would earn, and by understating expenses (such as occupancy fees). According to the investors’ statements of claim, Talon breached the Ontario Securities Act by selling the units as investment products.

The plaintiffs’ cases centre on a 2004 OSC ruling, which required Talon to market the units as mainly for occupancy, not as investments. Talon was also prohibited from forecasting or guaranteeing profits from the reservation program. And yet, included in the Trump’s original sales package are several charts entitled Estimated Return on Investment, which show detailed breakdowns of the income buyers could expect from their condo-hotel suites. They describe projected common expense fees, housekeeping expenses, estimated taxes and a mortgage projected at six per cent interest. The rental income, in turn, is projected at hotel occupancy rates of 75, 65 and 55 per cent.

Late last year, the OSC investigated the Trump deal to determine whether regulatory action was needed. They met with purchasers and Talon’s lawyers, read over all the documents, and in early December announced they would not be pursuing regulatory action on the matter. When I asked for an explanation, the OSC refused to provide one. The investors’ suits will proceed regardless of the December decision.

The fact is, Talon did warn the Trump buyers about the risks involved in buying condo-hotel units in its disclosure. “A real estate investment is, by its nature, speculative,” the document states. “If a purchaser is purchasing the real estate as an investment, the purchaser should be aware that this investment has not only the usual risks when purchasing real estate, but also those risks that are inherent to the nature of real estate securities.”

A disclaimer in the Trump disclosure lists a series of variables, many of which might seem alarmist if they hadn’t come to pass. These include, but are not limited to, “cyclical downturns arising from real changes in general and local economic conditions; varying levels of demand for rooms and related services caused by changes in travel patterns; the financial condition of the airline industry and the resulting impact on air travel…contagious illness outbreaks, natural disasters, extreme weather conditions, labour shortages, work stoppages or disputes.” There is also a clause, as required by the Condominium Act, stating that each buyer, upon receiving and reading the disclosure document, has 10 days to back out of the deal. According to Levitan, five people did just that.

Investors like Singh claim they didn’t take the warnings about risks seriously because they’d been completely convinced that the investment was a sure bet. It’s a bit like your trusted GP prescribing you a medication and then rattling off the side effects in a super-fast radio ad voice as you leave the office. If what these buyers say is true, the Trump sales team underplayed the risks and overplayed the benefits of buying their condo-hotel units. But sales pitches are hyperbolic by design.

Talon’s statement of defence denies all wrongdoing, including the allegations of misrepresentation and breaching an OSC ruling, and demands the investors forfeit their deposits and pay individual damages of $750,000 each. Levitan says they have a good case for further damages, due to all the bad press the case has received, but they are still “hoping for an amicable solution.”

In Talon’s specific response to Singh’s claim, the company denies that the Trump sales agents promised he could get a residential mortgage or guaranteed a rate of return from the reservation program. It also denies that any promotional material he received breached the OSC ruling. In Levitan’s view, the buyers’ lawsuits are purely opportunistic and won’t stand up in court. Normally, if buyers want to walk away from a deal, a developer will buy back their investment. But the Trump units were sold at the peak of the market. As Levitan points out, “Everything has changed.” Given this reality, Talon is not eager to buy back the units it sold off for millions in the middle of the condo boom. That’s how people—and developers—make money: buying low and selling high. Why should they absorb the cost of others’ bad financial timing?

The group of disgruntled buyers, Levitan says, is primarily composed of people who did not attempt to rescind the deal in the allotted time frame, then realized they couldn’t secure financing and decided to file suit. The fact that they don’t have the money to close only shows that they probably shouldn’t have taken the risk in the first place. “Instead they claim that they thought they were buying from Donald Trump and we promised them a rose garden,” Levitan says with a snort. “It’s a pure form of extortion.”

He says he’s sad for the people who got in over their heads. He’d prefer “the world to be a rosy place in which people are always happy with their investments,” but that didn’t happen with Trump. “So what am I supposed to do?” he says. “Go to the drywall contractor and say, ‘Sorry, but I can’t pay you because 30 investors aren’t paying me?’ ”

Raymond Diep, a Toronto real estate lawyer at the firm Aaron & Aaron, which handled a number of the Trump condo-hotel closings, said his firm’s clients weren’t happy about losing money each month, but they chose to take a long-term view on the investment. “They realized that things might be negative now, but in the end the market would go up again.”

None of Aaron & Aaron’s clients were going to go personally bankrupt on the Trump deal; they absorbed their losses and decided to wait it out. Diep believes the Heydary lawyers are cashing in on private desperation. “They’re making it look like a shady investment, but it’s not really like that. The investors had high expectations. It was the height of the market. Now that it’s slowed down, they’re having regrets about it. It’s that simple.”

Sarbjit Singh, who is in no position to close in cash, says that Talon should have said that only investors of high net worth need apply. Instead, the Trump project was sold as a great investment for people of modest means, like himself. “If you need to be a millionaire to close, they should have targeted millionaires.”

Donald Trump declined to speak with me, but Ivanka, his daughter, agreed. The 32-year-old is vice-president of development and acquisitions for the Trump Organization. When I reached her, she was in the back of a chauffeur-driven car on the way to the airport. “It was very important to me to give you some time,” she said the moment she got on the phone. Ivanka is a glamorous blond jewellery designer and former model with a business degree from Wharton. Over the years, her father has used her as the new face of Trump, trotting her out at public events and even appointing her as a judge on The Apprentice.

Ivanka is an excellent human shield for her father, who is no stranger to lawsuits. He has been sued by investors on several hotel projects and has launched his own litany of suits against a long list of perceived offenders, including an unauthorized biographer, a former Miss U.S.A. contestant, Deutsche Bank and the comedian Bill Maher, who offered, on The Tonight Show, to pay Trump $5 million if he could prove his father was not an orangutan. Trump sent him a copy of his birth certificate, but Maher did not pay up.

Ivanka said she is staggered by the investors’ claims that they believed they were buying their units directly from Trump.

“I don’t know of many people who wouldn’t retain a lawyer to explain to them how this relationship works,” she says. “It’s articulated exactly in the purchase documents… We’re just like the Ritz or the Four Seasons. It’s not different in any way.”

She says the claims against her father and his company are completely without merit. When I point out that people were led to believe they would make money and now they are losing it—and, similarly, that they would be able to secure financing where now they cannot—Ivanka bridles, her voice rising in the controlled manner of one who is used to conflict but not to having her authority questioned. She points out, quite rightly, that with any investment, whatever the asset class, and especially with real estate, those who approach things with a long-term perspective tend to do best. She says the unhappy buyers in the Trump Toronto case are suffering from a severe case of buyer’s remorse—which is nobody’s problem but their own.

She objects to the implication that the investors were misled in any way, and each time I try to suggest that perhaps the sales tactics were overly aggressive, she jumps in and loudly talks over me, extolling what she calls “the beauty of the asset,” by which she means the hotel itself.

“I wish that everyone could be happy, but sometimes these things can be a challenge,” she says airily. “It’s important to remember that the lawsuit doesn’t relate to us in any way. We have no contracts with these people, and we didn’t sell them real estate.” With that, she declares she must go, says a quick goodbye and hangs up.

#Trump

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tommygunnews · 10 years ago

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A Trump Tower Goes Bust in Canada

This Trump-branded and Trump-managed jewel is also, as a business venture, a bust.

#donald trump

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marshallstrue · 12 years ago

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Trumped: the multi-million-dollar lawsuit over Toronto’s most controversial new condo-hotel

The Trump investors believed they’d bought into a get-rich-quick scheme. How did something so promising go so wrong?

Ivanka said she is staggered by the investors’ claims that they believed they were buying their units directly from Trump.

#donald trump #corruption us

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dirtymoneyenough · 11 years ago

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Trumped: the multi-million-dollar lawsuit over Toronto’s most controversial new condo-hotel

The Trump investors believed they’d bought into a get-rich-quick scheme. How did something so promising go so wrong?

to be continued...

#trump

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