Trump's Deep Russia Links Span 40 years
While DonaldTrump faced bankruptcies at home and sought trademark and hotel deals in Russia, his businesses operated in the shadow of money laundering and suspect-financing accusations
For anyone shocked by the U.S. embrace of Russia at the expense of Ukraine and has forgotten the extent of Donald Trump’s many contacts with Moscow, this timeline offers a refresher.
1984
David Bogatin, a Russian emigre, buys five condos at Trump Tower; federal and Congressional investigators determine a few years later that Bogatin worked for the Russian mob in New York and that the condos were purchased to launder money; Bogatin had fled the country. Source: New Republic; 7.13.17
1987
Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dubinin invites Trump to Moscow. In "The Art of the Deal," Trump says the aim was to build a large luxury hotel across the street from the Kremlin in partnership with the Soviet government. Source: New Republic; 7.13.17
1987
Trump and wife Ivana visit Moscow. Source: NY Times, 1.16.17
1987
Police in New South Wales, Australia, warn the state government not to approve a Trump-sponsored casino in Sydney. 30 years later, News Corp reveals documents citing the reason: "Trump mafia connections.” Source: Washington Post 9.26.16
1991
Fall of the Soviet Union
1995
Trump declares $916M loss on taxes. Source: NY Times, 10.1.16
1996
Trump applies for trademark in Russia. Source: NY Times, 1.16.17
1996
Trump visits Russia with Vector Group CEO Howard Lorber and Vector Chairman Bennett LeBow to view potential hotel development sites; he later says he's in discussions with Moscow's mayor; announces plans to invest $250M in Russia for two residential buildings (neither are built). Sources, New Yorker, 5.19.97; Bloomberg 7.25.17; NYT, 1.16.17
1997
Trump says the Russian government wants to give him a massive bronze statue of Christopher Columbus to erect at his proposed West Side Yards development in Manhattan. source: The New Yorker, 5.19.97
1998
US complaint alleges Russian emigre Felix Sater, a future Trump business associate, engaged in money laundering and stock manipulation. The complaint is reportedly kept secret because Sater is a CIA informant. Source: USA Today, 3.28.17
1999
Boris Yeltsin names a former longtime KGB operative, Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister of Russia; Soon after, Putin publicly outlines a covenant: he won't revisit the auction of state assets if the oligarchs holding them support national priorities. Source: Wall Street Journal, 8.31.17
1999
Ground broken for Trump World Tower in NYC; a third of units sold on floors 76-83 involve people or LLCs connected to Russia and neighboring states. Source: Bloomberg Business Week, 3.16.17
CONTEXT
In '80s and '90s, Trump opens three casinos in Atlantic City, NJ. Trump's Taj Mahal undergoes bankruptcy. Ultimately, six Trump companies declare bankruptcy through 2009. Trump seeks to renegotiate $3.2B in debt amid various bankruptcies. In 2004, during the opening of "The Apprentice," Trump says that he was "billions of dollars in debt" in 1991
c. 2000
Developer sells 10% of 2,000 condos in a Trump-backed Florida development to Russians or Russian-Americans. Source: Bloomberg BusinessWeek; 3.16.17
2002
Sotheby's teams with Russian firm to sell Trump World Tower units, including Moscow sales events; many buyers operate via shell companies. Sources: Bloomberg BusinessWeek; 3.16.17; USA Today, 3.28.17
CONTEXT
Oct 1998, Russia defaults on $40B of debt amid stock market crash during the Asian financial crisis, and rich Russians seek havens
Jan 2004
Trump launches "The Apprentice" reality TV show
May 2004
An Uzbek emigre who bought a Trump World Tower condo and was later charged with money laundering is murdered in Manhattan. Source: New York Magazine, 2004
2005
Trump business partner Felix Sater is in Moscow to pursue a plan for a Trump Tower. The deal fizzled. Source: NY Times 1.16.17
2006
Felix Sater, Donald Trump Jr., and Ivanka Trump travel to Moscow pursuing business deals. Source: NYT 1.16.17
2006
Over two years, through 2008,Trump applies for trademarks in Russia for such marks as Trump, Trump Tower, Trump International Hotel and Tower. Source: NY Times 1.16.17
2007
Trump says in a deposition "We will be in Moscow at some point." Trump says he's met with Russian investors about a Trump Tower in Moscow and says Donald Trump Jr. is working to get a separate deal there off the ground. Source: NY Times 1.16.17
2008
Donald Trump Jr. says at a real estate conference: “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross section of a lot of our assets. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.” He says Trump Organization wants to build luxury hotels in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Sochi; he also says Russia is a "scary" place to do business because of corruption and legal problems. Sources: New Republic. 7.13.17; NYT 1.16.17
2008
Trump sells a Palm Beach mansion for $95M to Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev, who intends to tear it down. Rybolovlev is worth $13B. Trump had paid $41M to buy it in 2004. The sale is the largest ever for a U.S. home. The home was appraised at $78M in 2009 and Trump initially listed it at $125M, later dropping the price to $100M. No link between Rybolovlev and the Kremlin has surfaced. Sources: NYT 4.5.12; Politico 7.29.16
2009
US prosecutors say Peter Kiritchenko, a Ukrainian businessman who owned two Trump condos in Florida, was part of a money-laundering scheme involving ex-Ukraine Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko. He testifies against Lazarenko and is convicted of 1 count of receiving stolen property. Source: USA Today; 3.28.17
2010
The Canadian-Russian partner working with Trump to build a Trump-branded hotel and tower in Toronto injects cash into the teetering project, some of which came from an $850M asset sale to VEB, the state-run Russian development bank. Source: Wall Street Journal, 5.17.17
2010
Trump SoHo hotel opens in NYC. In Oct 2016, former US prosecutor Ken McCallion writes in a blog that Trump SoHo "was largely financed by illegally obtained cash from Russia and Eastern European sources, including money provided by known international financial criminals and organized crime racketeers." Source: USA Today 3.28.17
2010
Two former executives from NY-based Bayrock Group LLC, which launched Trump SoHo hotel, allege in a lawsuit that the firm was created to develop Trump-branded properties in order to launder money and evade taxes. One Bayrock exec who was sued is Felix Sater. A Bayrock pamphlet lists Alexander Mashkevich as a source of financing. The Kazakh mining billionaire was accused in Belgium in 2011 in a $55 million money-laundering scheme; he paid a fine and admitted no wrongdoing. Sater calls the suit an extortion scheme. Bayrock had offices in Trump Tower. Sources: New Republic; 7.13.17; USA Today, 3.28.17; NYT, 1.16.17
2012
Congress passes and Obama signs the Magnitsky Act, which requires US sanctions against Russian officials "responsible for extrajudicial killings, torture, or other gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.” Soon after, an infuriated Russia bans US adoptions of Russian children. Sources: New Yorker, 6.27,12; NYT 1.9.17
April 2013
Three Russian buyers of Trump units in NY and Florida are indicted on gambling and money laundering charges; prosecutors say the operation, using Cyprus shell companies, was run out of Trump Tower condos. Sources: New Republic; 7.13.17; Mother Jones 9.14.16
June 2013
At the Miss USA Pageant in Las Vegas, Trump and Russian billionaire developer Aris Agalarov announce that the Miss Universe pageant will be held in Moscow. Agalarov is there with his son, Emin, a Russian pop singer who connected with the Miss Universe pageant and Trump via his music video featuring the 2012 pageant winner, Olivia Culpo. The Agalarovs pay $7 million to license the pageant. The Agalarovs do much business with the government in Moscow and the Russian Far East and later win Russian contracts to build soccer stadiums for the 2018 World Cup. Source: Forbes 7.11.17; WP 7.10.17
2013
Donald Trump Jr. tells golf writer James Dodson during a golf outing that "we have all the funding we need out of Russia" for a $100M golf course construction project, Dodson recalls in 2017. When the news breaks, Trump Jr. call the recollection "fake news." Dodson, co-author of Arnold Palmer's memoir, stands by his account. Sources: Charlotte Observer, 5.14.17; WBUR 5.5.17
November 2013
Trump, co-owner with NBC, hosts Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. Present is Aras Agalarov, who had licensed the pageant. He is an oligarch close to Putin with whom Trump wanted to develop a high-rise in Moscow; Agalarov's son and business partner, pop singer Emin Agalarov is also present. Putin didn't show up but sent Kremlin property chief Vladimir Kozhin. Trump dined at the Nobu Moscow Japanese restaurant, owned by Agalarov, with more than a dozen Russian executives and business tycoons, including top executives of state-controlled Sberbank, Russia’s biggest bank, which sponsored the pageant. Agalarov shows Trump possible building sites around Moscow. At the post-pageant party, Trump gives his business card, private phone number, and room number at the Ritz Carlton to Miss Hungary, Kata Sarka, she says later, prompting a Trump denial. During Trump's stay, he and Agalarov say publicly they are in talks to build a skyscraper in Russia. Later, Trump tweets: "@AgalarovAras I had a great weekend with you and your family. You have done a FANTASTIC job. TRUMP TOWER-MOSCOW is next. EMIN was WOW!” Sources: New Republic; 7.13.17; Mother Jones, 9.14.16; US News, 3.6.14; Bloomberg, 7.13.17; Huffington Post 6.7.17, Financial Times 12.13.16; Russian state group RT 11.9.13; Trump twitter account
Nov-Dec 2013
After the pageant, Trump tells "Real Estate Weekly": “I have a great relationship with many Russians, and almost all of the oligarchs were in the room.” Source: New Republic 7.13.17; USA Today 3.28.17
2014
In Los Angeles, a federal lawsuit is filed by lawyers for the Kazakh city of Almaty alleging that former mayor Viktor Khrapunov owned 3 Trump SoHo units through shell companies used to hide hundreds of millions of dollars allegedly looted by selling state-owned assets. Source: USA Today, 3.28.17
Mar 2015
Amid Trump Taj Mahal bankruptcy, US Treasury fines the casino $10 million for "willful and repeated violations" of money-laundering rules; US says Taj "has a long history of prior, repeated" violations back to 2003; FBI says Russian mobster who lived at Trump Tower made frequent visits to Taj. Sources: US Treasury press release. 3.6.15; New Republic, 7.13.17
June 2015
Trump announces his candidacy for President on the Republican ticket
Sept 2015
FBI tells Democratic National Committee it's been hacked by a team linked to the Russian government. DNC fails to grasp the scope of the attacks, which included entry to servers of the Democratic National Campaign Committee. US intelligence officials later conclude that Putin ordered an effort to disrupt the U.S. election. Source: NYT, 12.13.16
Oct 2015
While running for president, Trump signs a letter of intent with a Moscow developer , IC Expert Investment, for a planned Trump Tower Moscow in return for a licensing fee for the use of the Trump name. Source: WP 8.28.17
Nov 2015
Felix Sater, who had worked on development plans with Trump, brags over email to Trump Org exec Michael Cohen that he could get Putin to assist with the Moscow project and that it would help Trump’s presidential campaign. "Our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it,” Sater wrote. “I will get all of Putins team to buy in on this, I will manage this process.” Source: WP 8.28.17
Late 2015
Britain's spy agencies alert US counterparts to suspicious "interactions" , picked up in routine surveillance, between figures connected to Trump and known or suspected Russian agents. Source: The Guardian 4.13.17
Jan 2016
Trump Org executive Michael Cohen, at the behest of Felix Sater, e-mails Putin's personal spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, to ask for help advancing the stalled Trump Tower project. Peskov later says he did not reply and the project was abandoned because government permission was not secured. Source: WP 8.28.17
March 2016
A newly installed foreign policy adviser to Trump's campaign, George Papadopoulos, sends an e-mail to seven Trump campaign aides offering to set up “a meeting between us and the Russian leadership to discuss US-Russia ties under President Trump,” telling them his Russian contacts welcomed the opportunity. Source: WP 8.14.17
Apr 2016
Trump delivers first major foreign policy speech at Washington's Mayflower Hotel, calling for "an easing of tensions" and "improved relations" with Russia that would result in "a deal that's great for America but also good for Russia." The speech was written by Richard Burt, who at the time was a lobbyist for a company owned by Russia's Gazprom. US officials say Trump, Sen. Jeff Sessions, and Jared Kushner gathered privately with Russian Ambassador Kislyak and other diplomats before the speech. During the speech, Kislyak sat in the front row. Sessions and Kushner deny such a meeting. US officials say intercepts capture Kislyak recounting to superiors that he discussed US-Russia policy with Sessions, the future attorney general. In testimony, Session doesn't recall such a discussion. Sources: WP 7.21.17; NBC 6.1.17; ABC 3.9.17; Politico, 10.7.16
Apr-Nov 2016
Michael Flynn and other advisers to Donald Trump’s campaign were in contact with Russian officials and others with Kremlin ties in at least 18 calls and emails from April to Nov 2016. Source: Reuters 5.18.17.
Late April 2016
Democratic National Committee notices cyber intrusions. Later, it is learned that the intrusions had been going on for a year, and US officials determine that the Russian government was behind the hacks. Sources: Politico. 6.14.16; WP ?
May 2016
By this time, Russian government hackers had "exfiltrated large volumes of data from the DNC," over the preceding 10 months, according to US intelligence community's public report on Russian meddling. Source: New Yorker 7.25.17
June 2016
Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner meet in Trump Tower on June 9 with a group of Russians, including a Kremlin-connected lawyer who promised damaging info about Hillary Clinton. One organizer says it was held at the request of Emin Agalarov, son of Aras Agalarov. Also "Beginning in June," Russia adopts a clear preference for Trump, and pro-Kremlin figures speak highly of what they see as Russia-friendly positions on Syria and Ukraine, the report says, although Putin avoids directly praising Trump. Michael Hayden, ex CIA and NSA head later agrees with this characterization by an ex CIA officer writing in the Washington Post: The meeting at Trump Tower "bears all the hallmarks of a professionally planned, carefully orchestrated intelligence soft pitch designed to gauge receptivity, while leaving room for plausible deniability in case the approach is rejected." On June 15, "Guccifer 2.0,” later linked to the Russian government, starts posting DNC emails on the web. Another batch of documents is posted in early July. Source: NYT 7.11.17; New Yorker 7.25.17; WP Outlook by Rolf Mowatt-Larssen; WP 6.15.16
mid July 2016
The Trump campaign works behind the scenes at the Republican Convention to make sure the new Republican platform won’t call for giving defensive weapons to Ukraine to fight Russian and rebel forces. “Providing lethal defensive weapons” is replaced with softer language calling for “appropriate assistance.” During the convention, Russian Ambassador Kislyak meets in Washington with Sen. Jeff Sessions to discuss campaign-related matters and policy issues important to Moscow, according to intelligence intercepts. Sessions initially denied the meeting, then said campaign matters were not discussed. Carter Page and another Trump campaign aide also met with Kislyak at the same Washington event. Source: WP 7.16.16; WP 7.21.17; USA Today 3.2.17
July 2016
Shortly after the RNC convention, Wikileaks releases thousands of DNC e-mails that US intelligence later says originated with Russian hacking efforts. This occurs three days before the start of the Democratic National Convention. In addition, thousands of pages of hacked DNC documents were selectively released to local political bloggers and reporters covering competitive races for Congress. 60,000 hacked e-mails from Clinton campaign manager John Podesta are gradually released. At a press conference, Trump jauntily invites Russia to look for Hillary Clinton's "missing emails" and says "I have nothing to do with Russia whatsoever." The FBI opens an investigation into possible connections between the Trump camp and Russia but finds no conclusive or direct link between Trump and the Russian government. Source: NYT, 1.6.17 updated graphic + 12.13.16 article, WP 7.27.16, NYT 10.31.16
Nov. 2016
Donald Trump is elected President of the United States for the first time
Feb 2017
Felix Sater introduces a Ukrainian politician pushing a pro-Russian peace proposal to Michael Cohen, Trump's lawyer, Cohen tells NBC News. The plan was delivered to National Security Adviser Michael Flynn a week before he resigned. Source: Bloomberg, 8.31.17; NYT 2.19.17
Feb 2017
Trump tells reporters: "I have no dealings with Russia. I have no deals that could happen in Russia, because we’ve stayed away. And I have no loans with Russia. I have no loans with Russia at all." / Agalarov tells an interviewer in Moscow that Trump Tower Moscow project is "irrelevant" now that Trump is president and cannot do business. Source: USA Today, 3.28.17; RussianConstruction.com 2.17.17
2019
The Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election (the Mueller report) states that investigators “did not establish that the (Trump) Campaign coordinated or conspired with the Russian government in its election-interference activities." The report also says investigators “uncovered evidence of numerous links (i.e., contacts) between Trump Campaign officials and individuals having or claiming to have ties to the Russian government.” Paul Manafort and his aide Richard Gates were charged based on their activities on behalf of Ukraine. Others connected to the Campaign “made false statements” and “took other steps to obstruct the Office's investigation,” the report says.
2017-2025
Perhaps the last eight years are fresher in your memory. Needless to say, the beat goes on.
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