On Wednesday, as part of a court filing related to a search warrant issued against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, we learned for the first time that Manafort once received a $10 million “loan” from a Russian oligarch who just so happens to be a close personal friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
As Reuters reports:
“In an affidavit attached to the July 2017 application, an FBI agent said he had reviewed tax returns for a company controlled by Manafort and his wife that showed a $10 million loan from a Russian lender identified as Oleg Deripaska.
“[Special Counsel Robert] Mueller has been investigating the financial links between Manafort and Deripaska, a metals magnate who is known to be close to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Deripaska was among the Russian oligarchs sanctioned by the United States in April.”
Interesting information, but there’s also a connection to Donald Trump that goes far beyond the fact that Manafort was running his campaign during the 2016 election, and that connection could well be the final link Mueller needs to prove that Trump took financial payoffs directly from Vladimir Putin himself.
Deripaska, who was named in the search warrant for Manafort’s residence, is also close friends with another Russian oligarch, Dmitry Rybolovlev.
Rybolovlev, who is also under investigation by Mueller, made Trump a very sweet deal on a piece of Florida real estate back in 2008, as CNN reports:
“The Maison de L’Amitie is a massive beachfront estate in Palm Beach, Florida. The 81,738 square foot mansion sits on 6.2 acres — with 475 feet of sandy beach facing the Atlantic Ocean. It belonged to Abraham Gosman, a millionaire who owned health care properties across the country — until he went bankrupt.
“In a 2004 auction, Trump snapped up the property from Gosman’s Chapter 7 Bankruptcy Estate for $41 million, according to property records.
“Four years later, Trump sold the mansion for $95 million.”
So in four years, the property increased in value by $51 million. How did that happen? The answer is of special interest to Robert Mueller, and that should be of great concern to Trump.
There has long been suspicion that Trump was given $95 million by Rybolovlev as a way of funneling approximately $50 million from Putin, who had already begun grooming Trump as a Russian asset who would pay dividends down the road. At the time, Trump was unable to borrow money from American banks due to his many bankruptcies which left the big U.S. banks on the hook for billions in losses incurred as a result of Trump’s risky real estate ventures.
Also, it now seems likely that the infamous Trump Tower meeting in June of 2016 wasn’t just a way for Russia to convey “dirt” they had on Hillary Clinton. It may also have been a way for Russian operatives to give tens of millions of dollars in cash to Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Manafort, all three of whom were at the meeting. That money was later used to finance the 2016 Trump campaign.
As is usually the case with greedy assholes like Donald Trump, it all comes back to money, and following the money trail is how Robert Mueller will finally bring an end to the criminal enterprise being run by the traitorous American president.
Tick tock, Donnie; Mueller is coming for you.