Tag: Russia

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Donald Trump Russia

FBI Raids Condo Owned By Two Russians At Trump Towers In Florida

Though the Trump Tower in New York is probably much more well-known than any other property that carries the name of the indicted and twice-impeached former president/sex offender, all of the attention this week has been on Trump Towers located at Sunny Isles Beach in Florida.

On Thursday, according to The Miami Herald, FBI agents raided Trump Tower III in Florida, which just so happens to be owned by two Russians.

A squad of FBI special agents, assisted by local police, descended on Trump Tower III at 15811 Collins Ave. to carry out a search of unit 4102. It’s owned by a shell company, MIC-USA LLC, that is controlled by two Russian businessmen, Oleg Sergeyevich Patsulya and Agunda Konstantinovna Makeeva, according to state corporation records.

On Friday, a spokesman for the FBI’s Miami field office said it “was conducting court-ordered law enforcement activity in the vicinity of that location,” but provided no other information.

Sunny Isles Beach has been called “Little Moscow” because it serves as a home to a large number of Russian expatriates, some of whom expressed worries when Russia invaded Ukraine last year. In response, the U.S. government began cracking down with sanctions against oligarchs who are believed to hide their wealth by purchasing real estate in South Florida and other U.S. locations.

Trump agreed to have his name placed on the three Sunny Isles Beach condos before he became president in 2016. It was believed doing so would help promote sales of the units.

The Herald also reports that “MIC-USA … acquired the three-bedroom, three-bath condo residence at Trump Tower III for $1.65 million a decade ago, according to Miami-Dade property records.

In 2020, BAC Florida Bank, which provided financing for the purchase, sued Patsulya and Makeeva, claiming they defaulted on their $975,000 mortgage. The dispute was resolved later that year, though it’s not clear how from the court records. MIC-USA, controlled by the two Russians, continued to own the 41st-floor unit at Trump Tower III.

Though he has denied any connections to Russia, the former president’s son, Eric, said in 2014 that the Trump Organization got significant funding from Russian sources, according to The Hill:

”I said, ‘Eric, who’s funding? I know no banks — because of the recession, the Great Recession — have touched a golf course. You know, no one’s funding any kind of golf construction. It’s dead in the water the last four or five years,’”  the writers told WBUR.

“And this is what he said. He said, ‘Well, we don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.’ I said, ‘Really?’ And he said, ‘Oh, yeah. We’ve got some guys that really, really love golf, and they’re really invested in our programs. We just go there all the time.’”

 

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Congress GOP Joe Biden

Jamie Raskin: GOP’s Bogus Claims Of A Biden Bribery Scandal Can Be Traced To Giuliani And Russia

On Wednesday, Republicans on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee made an announcement that they had been made aware of information being held by the FBI that allegedly proves President Joe Biden has been involved in a bribery scandal that supposedly took place while he was serving as vice president in the Obama administration.

CBS News reports that the allegation came from House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer (KY) and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA).

In their letter to (FBI Director Chris) Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland, Grassley and Comer said that it had come to their attention that “the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) possess an unclassified FD-1023 form that describes an alleged criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Biden and a foreign national relating to the exchange of money for policy decisions.”

“It has been alleged that the document includes a precise description of how the alleged criminal scheme was employed as well as its purpose,” their letter said. 

The White House immediately responded to announcement from Grassley and Comer, with Ian Sams, the White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations, noting:

“For going on five years now, Republicans in Congress have been lobbing unfounded, unproven, politically-motivated attacks against the President and his family without offering evidence for their claims or evidence of decisions influenced by anything other than U.S. interests.”

“When it comes to President Biden’s personal finances, anybody can take a look: he has offered an unprecedented level of transparency, releasing a total of 25 years of tax returns to the American public.”

And now Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, is suggesting that the latest attempt by Republicans to create a scandal is actually part of a Russian campaign to discredit President Biden, explaining in a statement:

“Committee Republicans are recycling unsubstantiated claims floated by Senate Republicans by issuing a subpoena to the FBI to require the release of a June 2020 tip from an unknown informant.  During this same time period, Rudy Giuliani and Russian agents, sanctioned by Trump’s Treasury Department, were peddling disinformation aimed at interfering in the 2020 presidential election.  Given Chair Comer’s commitment to ‘dismantle’ the FBI, it’s no surprise that he would rely on these unverified tips to attack President Biden in one more baseless partisan stunt.”

In the weeks ahead, you can expect to hear more from Comer and other Republicans about this nonexistent scandal they’ve created out of thin air. They have nothing, but it won’t keep them from peddling lies to their constituents for the purpose of slagging Biden and trying to raise money off it.

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Donald Trump Russia WTF?!

Trump Declares That The United States Is The ‘Biggest Threat’ In The World, Not Russia

According to failed, one-term, twice-impeached former president Donald Trump, the biggest threat in the world is the United States, not Russia, which invaded a sovereign nation last year and is currently engaged in a scorched earth policy of murder, pillaging, and mass rape.

In a video he posted on his failing Truth Social site, the disgraced ex-president went on an angry rant in which he demanded that fighting in Ukraine “cease” immediately and called for the US to reevaluate whether it should remain a member of the NATO alliance.

Then came the declaration that some Americans are the biggest threat to the nation.

“Our foreign policy establishment keeps trying to pull the world into conflict with a nuclear-armed Russia based on the lie that Russia represents our greatest threat. But the greatest threat to Western Civilization today is not Russia. It’s probably, more than anything else, ourselves and some of the horrible, U.S.A. hating people that represent us. It’s the abolition of our national borders. It’s the failure to police our own cities. It’s the destruction of the rule of law from within. It’s the collapse of the nuclear family and fertility rates, like nobody can believe is happening. It’s the Marxists who would have us become a Godless nation worshipping at the altar of race, and gender, and environment. And it’s the globalist class that has made us totally dependent on China and other foreign countries that basically hate us.”

“These globalists want to squander all of America’s strength, blood and treasure, chasing monsters and phantoms overseas—while keeping us distracted from the havoc they’re creating right here at home. These forces are doing more damage to America than Russia and China could ever have dreamed. Evicting the sick and corrupt establishment is the monumental task for the next president. And I’m the only one who can do it. I’m the only one that can get the job done. I know exactly what has to be done.”

Trump’s remarks drew harsh criticism on “Morning Joe” Friday, with host Joe Scarborough angrily insisting that Trump needs to move to Russia if he loves the country so damn much.

“Blah, blah, blah — do you know what’s boring to me? What’s boring is the hatred for America, the hatred for America that you hear spewing from Donald Trump’s mouth. Donald Trump hated America before he became president of the United States, talked about how the American dream was dead — yeah, try telling that to the immigrants, the migrants, the refugees risking their lives to come to the United States of America … Talk to immigrants that get here, they will tell you about the American dream, it’s talked about all over the world.”

The MSNBC host continued:

“It’s crazy, Donald Trump hates America — listen to him talk about i. The United States, the country, as Fox News anchors used to remind us, the country that fed and — wait, this country has fed and freed more people than any other planet in the history of the world … We won World War I, we won World War II with the help of our allies, we were the driving force, we were the arsenal of democracy. Look what we are doing, helping Ukraine push back against war crimes daily, yet all Donald Trump does, all other people do is, they bash the United States of America, they attack the United States military, our men and women in armed forces, they attack our intel community.”

“They hate America. By their own words, if they hate it so much, why don’t they move to Russia? Russia will take them, they’ve taken Steven Segal, they’ll take Donald Trump and everybody else saying that the U.S. military is going to use helicopters that it used in Afghanistan to kill Americans who voted for Trump. They hate us, they hate America, so why are they still here?”

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Donald Trump Jr. Russia

Donald Trump Jr. Suspected Of Laundering $8 Million From Kremlin-Linked Companies: Report

Donald Trump Jr., son of failed former president Donald Trump, is under criminal investigation in New York for allegedly laundering at least $8 million from two Russian companies with ties to the Kremlin, according to The Guardian.

Reportedly, Don Jr. facilitated the transfer of money from the two Russian entities to Trump Media, which owns the Truth Social platform.

Towards the end of last year, federal prosecutors started examining two loans totaling $8m wired to Trump Media, through the Caribbean, from two obscure entities that both appear to be controlled in part by the relation of an ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin, the sources said.

The expanded nature of the criminal investigation, which has not been previously reported, threatens to delay the completion of the merger between Trump Media and DWAC, which would provide the company and Truth Social with up to $1.3bn in capital, in addition to a stock market listing.

The initial $2 million payment came in December of 2021. At the time, Trump Media was on the verge of imploding financially.

Trump Media needed a bridge loan to keep the company afloat. But it struggled to get financing until DWAC’s chief executive Patrick Orlando sourced a $2m loan wired from Paxum Bank registered in Dominica, according to the wire transfer receipt reviewed by the Guardian.

Paxum is partially owned by Anton Postolnikov, who has connections to Putin ally Aleksandr Smirnov.

Who exactly is Aleksandr Smirnov? Rosmorport, and he worked in the Central Office of the Russian government until 2017.

Prior to that, Smirnov was First Deputy Minister of Justice of Russia until 2014, “and for most of Putin’s first two terms as president, Smirnov served in the executive office of the president.”

Trump Media’s then-chief financial officer Phillip Juhan was ready to return the money in the spring of 2022, but Don Jr. intervened.

There appears to have been some awareness at Trump Media that the first $2m was to come through because Trump’s eldest son Don Jr, who joined the board with Trump ally Kash Patel and former Republican-turned Trump Media chief executive Devin Nunes, had confirmed to the company’s lawyers to proceed with the transaction.

“Just want to keep you in the loop – no guaranty that these will get signed and funded, but we remain hopeful,” John Haley, outside counsel for Trump Media said in a 24 December 2021 email seen by the Guardian, to which Don Jr replied: “Thanks john much appreciated. d.”

Even though the Trumps have repeatedly denied financial ties to Russia or Putin, in 2008 the ex-president’s son, Eric, bragged that the opposite was true.

“In terms of high-end product influx into the US, Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets.”

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Foreign Policy Fox News Lies GOP Russia

Tucker Carlson And MT Greene Slammed For Calling The Invasion Of Ukraine A ‘War Against Russia’

According to Fox News host Tucker Carlson and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), the Russian invasion of Ukraine is actually a “war against Russia.”

Carlson had Greene as a guest on his show Thursday evening, which just so happened to be the one-year anniversary of the Russian attack on its neighbor, and he began with this fact-free soliloquy:

“It’s funny how the people who hate the United States the most and spend the most time tearing it down, oh, it’s tainted by the original sin of slavery. It’s a terrible country. 1619 project.

“Who truly hate the United States are the ones who accuse people trying to save the United States from being destroyed in a pointless war of siding with a foreign dictator. Ignore them. They do not speak in good faith. They’re liars.

“Marjorie Taylor Greene represents the state of Georgia in the Congress, and we are happy to have her on tonight. Congresswoman, you seem to be fighting still a year later, a pretty lonely battle on the Republican side to wake up your own party to what they’re supporting, which is Joe Biden’s chief and craziest policy aim. Like, what is this?”

That led Greene to do some major historical revision of her own.

“Well it doesn’t feel very lonely from my standpoint, Tucker, you know, we just heard Mike McCaul, one of my colleagues in Congress, talk about bipartisan support for this war against Russia in Ukraine.

“Yeah, there’s bipartisan support among the American people, and that’s support for our country, our border, stopping crime in our cities, reducing inflation, and making things good in America.”

Greene then added this bit of hysterical overstatement:

“Again, there’s not bipartisan support among the American people for fighting a war in Ukraine that does nothing for Americans except forced them to pay for it. You know, I’m really sick and tired of it, and so is everyone else. Here’s the problem. The problem is that the warmongers and our supreme leaders and the Biden administration are so clueless, they are so stupid and they are so disconnected with what the American people want that they are literally going to lead us into World War III.”

And instead of blaming Russia and its terrorist leader, Vladimir Putin, Greene suggested that China is the only beneficiary of the ongoing war in Ukraine.

“You know who’s for China, is the Biden administration. And the idiots that I work with in Congress that are leading us into World War Three and going to hurt America like never before.”

Carlson and Greene were shredded on Twitter for their moronic framing of the Russia-Ukraine matter.