Donald Trump And The Felon: Inside His Business Dealings With A Mob-Connected Hustler

https://www.forbes.com/sites/richar...usiness-dealings-with-a-mob-connected-hustler

This story appears in the October 25, 2016 issue of Forbes.

Felix Sater is not a name that has come up much during the presidential campaign. That he has a colorful past is an understatement: The Russian-born Sater served a year in prison for stabbing a man in the face with a margarita glass during a bar fight, pleaded guilty to racketeering as part of a mafia-driven "pump-and-dump" stock fraud and then escaped jail time by becoming a highly valued government informant.

He was also an important figure at Bayrock, a development company and key Trump real estate partner during the 2000s, notably with the Trump SoHo hotel-condominium in New York City, and has said under oath that he represented Trump in Russia and subsequently billed himself as a senior Trump advisor, with an office in Trump Tower.



Usually such an association would ignite a political firestorm. From the Clintons' Whitewater deals to Richard Nixon's relationship with Florida banker and developer Bebe Rebozo, all the way back to 19th-century industrialist Mark Hanna's influence over William McKinley, presidential candidates have long suffered by dint of association.

Sater has been profiled in the Washington Post, on ABC News and in several other outlets. But few have taken much note of him, presumably because Trump has said, under oath, that he barely knew him. "If he were sitting in the room right now, I really wouldn't know what he looked like," he said in a deposition in November 2013. Asked how many times he had ever conversed with Sater, he said, "Not many." And asked about a previous BBC interview, in which he was questioned about Sater's mafia connections, Trump said he didn't recall the interview.

--This is a pattern for Trump, claiming ignorance when he is caught out on something. It's normal for him, and something that guilty people do to try and feign innocence. --Durandal

This past December Trump went further: "Felix Sater, boy, I have to even think about it," Trump told AP, referring questions about Sater to his staff. "I'm not that familiar with him."

End of story? Not quite. Looking into Trump's deals, FORBES has uncovered numerous e-mails and sworn statements that indicate Sater was closer to Trump, his organization and his children than previously revealed. Additionally, FORBES has connected three billionaire oligarchs from Kazakhstan to potential deals involving Trump and Sater.

READ: Trump And The Oligarch 'Trio' http://www.forbes.com/sites/richardbehar/2016/10/03/trump-and-the-oligarch-trio/?nowelcome

Why does this matter? The story of Sater and the one involving billionaires quietly backing the Trump-Bayrock deals speaks to a key virtue of any good businessman--due diligence--that seems especially relevant for a candidate running on private-sector acumen and the need to do "extreme vetting" of those seeking to get into the country.

It wouldn't have taken much vetting to get the scoop on Sater. FORBES retained a highly regarded global-risk-assessment firm to conduct a background check, using only what was available to it in 2007--the year the Trump-Bayrock relationship was promoted. The investigative firm (it asked not to be named for fear of political repercussions) discovered many facts that we're revealing here and others that have come out before, including felony convictions and organized crime ties. Such due diligence on Sater could have been done for $5,000.

TRUMP AND SATER



2002 Felix Sater has testified that he joined Bayrock, controlled by Tevfik Arif, around 2002. Bayrock was based in Trump Tower. In a sworn deposition in 2008, Sater testified that he would pitch business ideas to Trump ("just me and him") and his team ("on a constant basis").

2005 FORBES has obtained a letter to Sater [ http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3117824-Trump-Letter-Re-MGA-Layouts-2-11-05.html#document/p1 ], listed as Bayrock's "managing director," from Donald Trump Jr., which states that his father would be a partner in a proposed hotel-tower in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The letter is cc'd to the Trump Organization's VP of development.

2005 Donald Trump gave Sater and Bayrock an exclusive deal to develop a project in Russia, according to Sater's 2008 deposition. "I'd come back, pop my head into Mr. Trump's office and tell him, you know, 'Moving forward on the Moscow deal.' And he would say 'All right.'"

"I showed him photos, I showed him the site, showed him the view from the site. It's pretty spectacular."

2006 Donald Trump Jr. and sister Ivanka travel to Moscow. Sater claims Donald Sr. asked him to show them around the city. "He asked if I wouldn't mind joining them and looking after them while they were in Moscow." Trump Organization general counsel Alan Garten tells FORBES it was a coincidence that all were there at the same time.

READ: Trump And The Oligarch 'Trio' http://www.forbes.com/sites/richardbehar/2016/10/03/trump-and-the-oligarch-trio/?nowelcome

2007 In a lawsuit, the manager of a proposed Trump hotel-condo tower in Phoenix alleges that Sater threatened to have a cousin shock his testicles, cut off his legs and leave him "dead in the trunk of his car" if the manager "disclosed to any party any of [Sater's] suspected improprieties and past criminal conduct." Sater strongly denies the allegation; the case was settled.



FORBES has also obtained a May 2007 letter from Bayrock's executive vice president [ http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3117816-Julius-Schwarz-Letter-Pdf.html#document/p1 ], Julius Schwarz, to Bayrock's chairman saying "there were at least a hundred times when the deal [$50 million equity for Trump projects from a company in Iceland] could not have closed, among them because of the risk of discovering Felix's past." Schwarz tells FORBES that the letter is legitimate, but while he e-mailed it to his wife for her opinion, it was "never sent" to the chairman.

... Plenty more at the source.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurelmoglen/2017/02/23/people-under-30-crushing-it-in-consumer-tech/
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Trump pals around with criminals and does business in Russia. It's no wonder he and Putin are so close.

 

Mob connections can be made to almost every president of the past 100 years. Most of these connections are through unions, but there's also some direct connections through individuals. The most famous one was probably Kennedy and Sinatra.

 

Ah, the Trumpster two step again!

Can't deal with facts, so we must pretend that facts don't matter (or claim they are fake, take your pick, either is equally bogus), and then substitute a made up generalization for reality.

Personally, the only Presidents that I can think of that ever had anything close to Mob connections were JFK and Ronald Reagan.

 

I don't care if Trump knows a mob guy. Just like I didn't care about any of the other presidents knowing mob guys.

 

Fake News: Mob "connected" to a "partner"? That's pretty tenuous.

 

I already figured that out. Trumpsters always shut their eyes tight, cover their ears and start yelling "fake news" whenever they are presented with facts about the Clown Prince.

But Trump has had associations with a whole host of unsavory characters. He had to, since the legitimate banks won't have anything to do with him. His deals always end up in court and he doesn't pay his bills.

So you have to go to the hard money guys after you've made yourself that kind of reputation.

 

LMAO, "fake news", once again.

 

Actually, there's quite a lot about Bayrock out there. Trump has been palling around with these gangsters for quite some time.

This isn't the only report on it either, and it's hardly "tenuous".

https://www.ft.com/content/33285dfa-9231-11e6-8df8-d3778b55a923

http://time.com/4433880/donald-trump-ties-to-russia/

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It's the Trumpster two step!

 

Amazing how this comes out after Don Vito Trump is already our president. Where were these investigative journalists when the election was going on?

 

I'll deal with them Tom.

Obama has connections to actual terrorist, hes funded them and released them from prison ...his home city just named a street after one of them.

You want us to be concerned that Trump did business with a shady guy, ok I'll hear you out.

But you do realize that since you didn't object to any Obama terror connections that you have no clout heading into a conversation about Trump's mob connections, right?

 

You will note that both of the stories that I posted detailing Trump's association with Bayrock were from well before the election.

This stuff has been out there, in some cases for years.

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Typical right wing lies. You can't document a word of this nonsense.

 

Oh I cant?

Lets break down my statement:

Obama has connections to actual terrorist,
https://www.thenewamerican.com/reviews/opinion/item/19374-six-years-later-the-clear-connection-between-barack-obama-and-the-weathermen

hes funded them
http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/obama-funded-terrorism-with-his-1-7-bil-ransom-to-iran/
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/444186/barack-obamas-palestinian-authority-bailout-us-transferred-money-may-fund-terrorism
http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/21/politics/john-kerry-money-iran-sanctions-terrorism/

and released them from prison
http://www.dailywire.com/news/11946/obama-releases-more-gitmo-detainees-despite-frank-camp#
http://dailycaller.com/2017/01/18/obama-releases-guantanamo-terrorist-who-was-trained-as-911-suicide-operative/
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/barack-obama-guantanamo-bay-close-donald-trump-inauguration-a7529491.html

his home city just named a street after one of them.
http://chicago.suntimes.com/news/aldermen-to-go-on-honorary-street-diet-after-one-last-binge/

Checkmate Tom.

 

Yeah because leftists wrung their hands together over the last POTUS' ties to Bill Ayers. Give me a break.

I'll look into this more, and look forward to doing it.

 

This is the kind of stuff even Dan Rather wouldn't run with. Pretty weak if you ask me.

 

That's a lovely song-and-dance by one of Trump's apologists and cult members. But it won't get you far....

 

No, you can't. And none of your links you cite even suggest that there is any direct connection whatsoever between Barack Obama and any terrorist group.

Furthermore, the Iran nuclear deal allowed the release of Iranian money that had been held in escrow in New York banks for nearly 40 years, so the number in the stories you cite did not consititute "funding" at all.

Try again.

 

Sorry, but the Trump Russian mob connections are real and go back several years. There is a lot more on it than the OP and the two links I posted too.
,
You, on the other hand, are already reduced to recycling old right wing hobby horses and lies. Barack Obama never had ties to any terrorist group, and your collection of links did not indicate one (I did ignore the right wing trash blogs though, as there is no reason to credit anything in Daily Baller or the rest of them).

So, now you're trying to move the goalposts and rant about the tenuous association between Bill Ayers and Obama, which has nothing to do with this thread.

You got nothin other than trying to pretend that the Con Man in Chief isn't what the facts suggest he is.

 

I concur.

The Kennedy Family Klan has always had close relations with the Mafia going back to Joseph Kennedy's bootlegging days during prohibition.

It was organized crime and the corrupt unions who helped put JFK into the White House.

As for the North East "Tri-State" area around NYC it's almost impossible for someone in the real estate developing and the construction trades not to be able to conduct business without dealing with and being associated with the numerous organized crime families along the eastern seaboard. You have no choice, you are given an offer you can't refuse.

 

The mob is well entrenched in Washington D.C. Unless there's some smoking gun tying the two to some criminal activity, I just don't care. It is what it is no matter the President.

 

Yes, but they weren't owned by the mob. The mob has had trump by the shorthairs for decades. He took big loans from them to keep afloat when the banks refused to loan him any more money and the story back then was that he was letting the mob use his casinos to launder money.
This was in the news decades ago and everyone knew that trump was just a corrupt NY con artist that was in bed with the mafia.

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Lol...This is one turd that is hard to polish, but knock yourself out.

 

I'm not defending Trump. I'm simply stating I don't care that he knows a mob guy. Is my message getting lost in leftist translation?

 

Tony Rezko.

 

Yep...But then, the press didn't see any 'there' there even though Obama had a direct connection. Selective blindness.

 

We would only know this to be true if trump was caught, arrested, tried...otherwise it is just conjecture used as propaganda by another trump hater.

Trump should have done business with people in Russia and in china. The USSR no longer exists. Russia is capitalist now. People do business with Russian capitalists. . Only with dems faux liberals does this make trump a Russian agent. So their minds are not operating rationally, what else is new?

 

Funny the left ignored Obama's relationships like Tony Rezko and Rod Blagojevich, yet the World's coming to an end with Trumps.

The left appeared to be perfectly OK with this though.

The OP is just ridiculous in that it shows the intolerance of other cultures on the left. Anyone who know any folks from eastern Europe or the Russia would know they have quite volatile personalities. The failure of the left to hold Obama responsible for his relationships with Rev. Wright, Tony Rezko and Rod Blagojevich, while holding Trumps responsible for his relationship with Felix Sater simply highlights the breathtaking hypocrisy on the left.