Meanwhile, this was happening just last year
Just don’t suggest that there was collusion. That would be a witch hunt:
Federal prosecutors in New York involved in the criminal investigation into Donald Trump’s social media company last year started examining whether it violated money laundering statutes in connection with the acceptance of $8m with suspected Russian ties, according to sources familiar with the matter.
The company – Trump Media, which owns Trump’s Truth Social platform – initially came under criminal investigation over its preparations for a potential merger with a blank check company called Digital World (DWAC) that was also the subject of an earlier investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
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.
Even if Trump Media and its officers face no criminal exposure for the transactions, the optics of borrowing money from potentially unsavory sources through opaque conduits could cloud Trump’s image as he seeks to recapture the White House in 2024.
No it won’t. It changes absolutely nothing. But it’s just another example of Trump’s corruption and our apparent tolerance for it. This man is a former president who is running again. And he’s doing shady deals with people attached to Vladimir Putin. I guess you can’t exactly blame him. Nothing came of the Mueller investigation despite the evidence that Trump went to great lengths to obstruct justice to keep the authorities from finding out what they were up to.
The details are at the link if you’re interested. It sounds like a typical Trump money laundering scheme to me. It wouldn’t be the first time. Here’s how the scheme came to the attention of the feds:
The obscure origins of the $8m loans caused alarm at Trump Media and, in the spring of 2022, Trump Media’s then chief financial officer Phillip Juhan weighed returning the money, according to Wilkerson.
But the money was never returned, Wilkerson said, in part because losing $8m out of the roughly $12m cash that Trump Media had in its accounts at that time would have placed significant stress on its financial situation.
Prosecutors appear to have also taken a special interest in the payments because the off-shore Paxum Bank has a history of providing banking services for the pornography and sex worker industries, which makes it higher risk of engaging in money laundering and other illicit financing.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.”
Since Orlando, who arranged the $8m financing, is an SEC-licensed broker-dealer, he would be subject to SEC rules governing anti-money laundering and “Know Your Customer” requirements that mandate due diligence of investors to combat the proliferation of illicit money.
As a private company arranging private loans, the obligations for Trump Media to vet the financing under the SEC rules are less clear. But the securities regulations are separate to the US criminal money laundering statutes, which apply universally.
A spokesman for Don Jr declined to comment. Orlando, Nunes, Patel and Juhan did not respond to requests for comment.
Federal prosecutors’ interest in the two payments appears to have started when Wilkerson, through his attorneys Patrick Mincey, Stephen Bell and Phil Brewster, alerted the US attorney’s office for the southern district of New York to the payments on 23 October 2022.
Trump was the chairman of Trump Media at the time, though it was unclear whether he was aware of the opaque nature of the two loans. Trump typically did not seem to be particularly interested in managing the day-to-day running of Trump Media, Wilkerson said.
But Trump was interested in the deal, Wilkerson said, because he got to own 90% of the shares without putting any money into the company. According to one source familiar with the matter, however, Trump invested some money into DWAC, which could allow him to cash out twice in the event the merger was consummated.
He knew. He approved. There are so many stories like this about his business deals over many years. He’s been a prolific money launderer for decades. That he would do it knowing he was running for president again is the ultimate “up yours” to the US justice system.