Trump-Russia Dossier: Unraveling The Web Of Financial Entanglements

Despite Donald Trump's claims that he has nothing to do with Russia and has no financial interests in the country, his actions over the last few decades paint a different picture. Trump has pursued business deals in Russia since 1987, and has repeatedly travelled there to explore potential business opportunities.

In 1996, Trump trademark applications were submitted for potential Russian real estate development deals. Trump, his children, and his partners have repeatedly visited Russia, connecting with real estate developers and Russian government officials to explore joint venture opportunities. While Trump was never able to successfully conclude any real estate deals in Russia, individual Russians have invested heavily in Trump properties.

Efforts to build a Trump building in Moscow continued into June 2016 while Trump was securing the Republican nomination for the presidential election. In 2015, Trump said that his repeated attempts to launch business deals with Russians resulted in contacts with “the top-level people, both oligarchs and generals, and top of the government people.

Trump's former longtime lawyer, Michael Cohen, admitted that he lied to Congress about the extent of the Trump Organization's push to open a Trump Tower in Moscow during the 2016 election. Cohen said discussions on the plan lasted until June 2016, which was after Trump had clinched the GOP nomination for president.

In 2018, Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian election interference did not uncover enough evidence to level conspiracy charges against the Trump campaign, but did conclude members of Trump's campaign welcomed the Kremlin's interference.

Trump's business ties with Russia

Donald Trump has been pursuing business deals in Russia since 1987, and has travelled there several times to explore potential business opportunities. In 1996, Trump trademark applications were submitted for potential Russian real estate development deals.

Trump has repeatedly denied having any financial interests in Russia, claiming that Russia has never tried to use leverage over him. However, his actions over the last few decades suggest otherwise.

In 1987, Trump visited Russia to investigate developing a hotel, invited by Ambassador Yuri Dubinin whom he had met in New York the year before. In 1996, Trump returned to Russia, visiting Moscow with Howard Lorber and Bennett S. LeBow to scout potential properties for "skyscrapers and hotels". He also made connections with the development company Bayrock Group, which would later result in Trump Soho.

In 2005, Trump gave Bayrock Group an exclusive deal to build a Trump-branded property in Moscow. The deal was led by the Russian-born businessman Felix Sater, who has become a key figure in Mueller's investigation and Cohen's plea deal. In 2006, Sater accompanied Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr. on a Moscow trip, and arranged for Ivanka to sit in Putin's office chair during a tour of the Kremlin.

In 2007, Trump announced that Trump Vodka would expand its distribution into Russia, his first foray into the Russian market. In 2008, Trump Jr. said that Russians make up a "disproportionate cross-section" of a lot of their assets.

Efforts to build a Trump Tower in Moscow continued into June 2016 while Trump was securing the Republican nomination for the presidential election. Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, told Congress that these efforts ended in January 2016, and as a result, Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress in 2018.

In addition to Trump's own business ties with Russia, several of his associates have also been connected to the country. These include Michael Flynn, Jeff Sessions, Rex Tillerson, Jared Kushner, Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, Carter Page, Tevfik Arif, Roger Stone, Alex Shnaider, JD Gordon, Wilbur Ross, Erik Prince, and Michael Cohen.

Trump's financial ties with Russia

There is a complex web of connections between former US President Donald Trump, his associates, and Russian President Vladimir Putin. While many of these ties are not inherently damning, they do reveal a mysterious and extensive network of connections.

Trump's Business Ties with Russia

Trump has a long history of doing business with wealthy Russians and former Soviet nationals. After his financial disasters in the 1990s, no US bank would lend to him, so he turned to foreign money. Trump's former longtime architect, Alan Lapidus, confirmed that Trump's involvement with Russia was "deeper than he's acknowledged".

Trump's post-90s revival was facilitated by the Bayrock Group, run by investors with connections to the former Soviet Union. Bayrock supplied Trump with the equity stake he needed to entice new lenders for big projects. The biggest of these was the Trump SoHo, a condominium and hotel in New York. Trump received 18% of the equity for licensing his name, and the project was financed in part by Russian money.

Trump's former real-estate partner also confirmed that Trump's revival was largely funded by Russians, who were willing to buy his brand.

Trump's Campaign and Associates' Ties with Russia

During the 2016 presidential campaign, members of Trump's campaign and other associates had frequent contact with senior Russian intelligence officials.

Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr., met with a leader of a Syrian opposition group backed by the Russian government to discuss how the US could work with Russia on the Syrian conflict. He also met with a Russian billionaire, who claimed to have "official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia".

Michael Flynn, Trump's former National Security Advisor, accepted $33,750 for a speech at a Moscow gala honouring RT, Russia's propaganda arm. He also appeared on RT as a foreign policy analyst and was paid over $67,000 by Russian companies before the 2016 election.

Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and Senior Advisor, met with the Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the Presidential transition. Kislyak then requested a second meeting, which Kushner had a deputy attend. However, Kushner did later meet with Sergei Gorkov, the head of a Russian state-owned development bank with close ties to Putin.

Trump's Unusual Policy Stances on Russia

Throughout his 2016 campaign and presidency, Trump has refused to criticise Putin and has advocated for policies towards Russia that conflict with the foreign policy goals of the Republican Party. He has also consistently badmouthed NATO and caused rifts in the alliance against Russia.

Investigations into Trump's Financial Ties with Russia

Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the Southern District of New York have investigated supposed collusion or conspiracy between Trump and Russia, including the financing of Trump's businesses and his campaign.

While Trump has consistently played down his business links to Russia, recent filings by the special counsel allege that Trump hoped to make "hundreds of millions of dollars from Russian sources" for a project in Moscow.

While there is extensive evidence of Trump's financial ties with Russia, it is unclear whether these connections influenced his policies as president. Investigations into alleged collusion between Trump and Russia are ongoing, and they may provide further insights into the nature of their relationship.

Trump's relationship with Deutsche Bank

Former US President Donald Trump's relationship with Deutsche Bank has been the subject of much scrutiny, with the bank being his largest single lender. Over the years, Deutsche Bank has loaned Trump hundreds of millions of dollars for various projects, including a Miami golf resort, a tower in Chicago, and a luxury hotel in Washington, DC. The relationship between the two began in 1998 when other major banks considered Trump too risky for loans due to his companies' history of bankruptcies and loan defaults.

Despite this history, Deutsche Bank continued to lend to Trump, even after he defaulted on loans and sued the bank in 2008. In 2011, Trump again turned to Deutsche Bank to pay off the debt from the 2008 loan, and the bank agreed to loan him $48 million. This unusual decision was facilitated by Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who had formed a relationship with a private banker at Deutsche Bank, Rosemary Vrablic.

In 2013, Deutsche Bank adjusted Trump's net worth by about 50%, from over $4 billion to $2.65 billion, but this did not stop them from issuing him loans. The bank's wealth management group managing director, David Williams, testified that such large changes in net worth are not unusual for high-wealth clients and that the bank conducts its own due diligence to verify information. However, in 2020, New York Attorney General Letitia James alleged that Trump had committed "potential fraud" by inflating his net worth in financial documents used by the bank to decide on loan terms.

As a result of these allegations and Trump's failure to respond to the bank's concerns, Deutsche Bank decided to enforce a "managed exit" from their relationship with the former president in 2021. Trump paid off most of his debt to the bank in May 2022, but the fallout from their relationship continues, with the bank facing investigations and regulatory actions related to its dealings with Trump.

Trump's relationship with Bayrock Group

The Bayrock Group is a private real estate investment and development firm founded in 2001 by Tevfik Arif, a former Soviet official from Kazakhstan. The company has been the target of multiple conspiracy theories involving Donald Trump, including attempts to use Arif's background as a former Soviet citizen to connect Trump to Russia. However, there is no credible evidence to support these allegations.

The Bayrock Group and The Trump Organization established a legitimate business partnership that began when Bayrock moved its offices to the Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan. This relocation brought the two companies into close proximity and sparked their interest in doing business together. The result of this initial collaboration was the Trump SoHo, a $450 million, 46-story, 39-unit, condo-hotel hybrid located in SoHo, New York City. The deal was signed by Bayrock, the Trump Organization, and the Sapir Organization, with Trump providing a licensing deal for the hotel in exchange for an 18% equity stake in the project.

Following the success of Trump SoHo, Bayrock and the Trump Organization explored the possibility of further real estate development projects in Arizona and Florida under similar licensing terms. However, these negotiations took place in 2008, coinciding with the financial crisis that hit the American real estate market. As a result, these constructions were shelved, and the partnership between the two companies ended without any viable options for collaboration.

In addition to Trump SoHo, Bayrock and Trump were involved in other projects, including the Trump International Hotel & Residence in Phoenix, Arizona. In 2003, Bayrock purchased a site out of bankruptcy and announced plans for a $200 million, 190-foot Trump International Hotel. While the site was approved by the Phoenix City Council and the Planning Commission in 2005, the project faced public opposition and was never finished.

In 2005, Donald Trump entered into an agreement with the Bayrock Group for a one-year deal to develop a project in Moscow. Bayrock located Russian investors and a potential site for the high-rise, but the deal never came to fruition.

The working relationship between Donald Trump and the Bayrock Group ended in 2008, following the housing market collapse. Despite the conspiracy theories and scrutiny surrounding their partnership, the business relationship between Trump and Bayrock was a legitimate collaboration that concluded long before Trump's campaign for the 2016 US presidential election.

Trump's relationship with Felix Sater

Felix Sater is a Russian-born American mobster, convicted felon, real estate developer, and former managing director of Bayrock Group LLC. He has been an advisor to The Trump Organization and was involved in several projects with the company, including the Trump SoHo project in New York City. Sater is also a former business associate and senior advisor to Donald Trump.

Sater was born in Moscow into a Russian Jewish family and emigrated to the United States as a child, settling in New York in 1974. He attended Pace University but dropped out at 18 to work on Wall Street. In 1991, he was involved in an assault that left a man with 110 stitches in his face. For this, Sater was convicted of first-degree assault in 1993 and served 15 months in prison.

In 1998, Sater pleaded guilty to his involvement in a $40 million stock fraud scheme orchestrated by the Russian Mafia and became an informant for the FBI and federal prosecutors, assisting with investigations into organised crime. As a result of his cooperation, Sater's court records were sealed, and he served no prison time. He also received a $25,000 fine and was not ordered to pay restitution to his victims.

Sater joined Bayrock Group LLC in 2003 and played a major role in the construction of Trump SoHo, which was completed in 2010. He remained a managing director of Bayrock Group at the time. The project was a collaboration between The Trump Organization, Bayrock Group LLC, and Tamir Sapir. Sater has also been involved in other real estate projects, including the Trump International Hotel & Residence in Phoenix, Arizona, and the Conrad Fort Lauderdale in Florida.

During Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, Sater worked with Michael Cohen, Trump's former attorney, to broker a deal for a Trump Tower Moscow. Sater boasted to Cohen about his connections to Vladimir Putin and asserted that he could boost Trump's election prospects through his Russian contacts. In an email to Cohen in November 2015, Sater wrote, "I will get Putin on this program and we will get Donald elected... Our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it. I will get all of Putin's team to buy in on this. I will manage this process."

Sater has been accused of using Trump-branded projects to launder money, including a lawsuit alleging that he plotted to launder cash through Trump properties using funds allegedly stolen from a Kazakhstan bank. He has also been accused of making a death threat against a Bayrock investor, Ernie Menez, due to his finding out about Sater's past convictions and links to organised crime.

In addition to his business dealings, Sater has been involved in espionage for the US government, providing intelligence on Russia, Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, North Korea, and the Italian Mafia. He has also been credited with providing the satellite phone numbers and whereabouts of Osama bin Laden after the September 11 attacks.

Sater's relationship with Trump and his involvement in the Trump Organization's business dealings, particularly the Trump Tower Moscow project during the 2016 presidential campaign, have drawn scrutiny from federal investigators and lawmakers. He has been subpoenaed by the House Intelligence Committee and has testified behind closed doors.

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