How Russian Money Helped Save Trumps Business

[circa]

In the fall of 1992, after he cut a deal with U.S. banks to work off nearly a billion dollars in personal debt, Donald Trump put on a big gala for himself in Atlantic City to announce his comeback. Party guests were given sticks with a picture of Trump’s face glued to them so they could be photographed posing as the famous real-estate mogul. As the theme music from the movie Rocky filled the room, an emcee shouted, “Let’s hear it for the king!” and Trump, wearing red boxing gloves and a robe, burst through a paper screen. One of his casino executives announced that his boss had returned as a “winner,” according to Trump biographer Michael D’Antonio.

But it was mainly an act, D’Antonio told Foreign Policy. In truth Trump was all but finished as a major real-estate developer, in the eyes of many in the business, and that’s because the U.S. banking industry was pretty much finished with him. By the early 1990s he had burned through his portion of his father Fred’s fortune with a series of reckless business decisions. Two of his businesses had declared bankruptcy, the Trump Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City and the Plaza Hotel in New York, and the money pit that was the Trump Shuttle went out of business in 1992. Trump companies would ultimately declare Chapter 11 bankruptcy two more times. When would-be borrowers repeatedly file for protection from their creditors, they become poison to most major lenders and, according to financial experts interviewed for this story, such was Trump’s reputation in the U.S. financial industry at that juncture.

For the rest of the ’90s a chastened Trump launched little in the way of major new business ventures (with a few exceptions, such as the Trump World Tower across from the United Nations, which began construction in 1999 and was financed by two German lenders, Deutsche Bank and Bayerische Hypo- und Vereinsbank). “He took about 10 years off, and really sort of licked his wounds and tried to recover,” D’Antonio said. As late as 2003, Trump was in such desperate financial trouble that at a meeting with his siblings following his father’s death he pressed them to hurriedly sell his father’s estate off, against the late Fred Trump’s wishes, the New York Times reported in an investigation of Trump family finances in October. And his businesses kept failing: In 2004, Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts filed for bankruptcy with $1.8 billion dollars of debt.

But Trump eventually made a comeback, and according to several sources with knowledge of Trump’s business, foreign money played a large role in reviving his fortunes, in particular investment by wealthy people from Russia and the former Soviet republics. This conclusion is buttressed by a growing body of evidence amassed by news organizations, as well as what is reportedly being investigated by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the Southern District of New York. It is a conclusion that even Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., has appeared to confirm, saying in 2008—after the Trump Organization was prospering again—that “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets.”

[circa]

It would be great if Trump had followed protocol and released his taxes before becoming President. I wonder what's in there that he doesn't want anyone to see?

https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/bl ... ax-returns

Attached link is Obama/Biden tax returns

[High on Death]

The retort for this one will be refreshingly short.

Are you ready? Here goes...

BULLSHIT!!! 100% pure, home made by hand, BULLSHIT!

[circa]

The retort for this one will be refreshingly short.

Are you ready? Here goes...

BULLSHIT!!! 100% pure, home made by hand, BULLSHIT!

Wait just so we're clear: are you saying Don Jr didn't make that statement in 2008?

[High on Death]

I'm saying that the name of this thread is absolute bullshit.

Let me know if you want to talk about any actual issues.

[circa]

I'm saying that the name of this thread is absolute bullshit.

Let me know if you want to talk about any actual issues.

Much like how the city of Seattle isn't ACTUALLY dead (like the title of one of your recent posts).. sometimes the title is just there to get people to click the thread.. Hopefully you don't mind.. However if you are willing to not exaggerate in your thread titles.. I guess I could do the same?

[High on Death]

I'm saying that the name of this thread is absolute bullshit.

Let me know if you want to talk about any actual issues.

Much like how the city of Seattle isn't ACTUALLY dead (like the title of one of your recent posts).. sometimes the title is just there to get people to click the thread.. Hopefully you don't mind.. However if you are willing to not exaggerate in your thread titles.. I guess I could do the same?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that thread said Seattle was Dying, not that it was dead. And I merely named the thread after the title of the news piece. I didn't think I was being deceptive.

Did you watch the piece? I hope you did. It's actually a couple of years old, so you can be assured that the piece is entirely Trump-, Antifa-, and BLM-free. It is about drug abuse and the consequences when elected officials and the courts refuse to do their jobs. It shows the very high human price of the so-called "compassion" of people who in reality just don't give a shit.

The only connection to current events is that now in many cities it's not just petty property crimes and public lewdness that's not being prosecuted. Nowadays they're also declining to prosecute violent felonies, including arson, looting, attempted murder, etc.