I'm Right Again Dot Com

                             A new commentary every Wednesday — June 8, 2016 

TRUMP TOWER MISSING: From Trump Website

    This past Sunday, the Associated Press news service disseminated a disparaging story by reporter Jeff Horowitz, critical of the Trump organization's vetting process for not finding a reason to question the partnership of the Donald J. Trump with Amar Mammadova, the son of the Transportation Minister of Azerbaijan—one of the independent countries that spun its way out of the USSR when it broke up. The venture in question is the construction of a high-rise Trump Tower Hotel in downtown Baku, the Capital of Azerbaijan. As are most things of consequence in that region, the facts of the matter are hazy, convoluted, not easily substantiated and therefore, truly mysterious.

     What other billionaire real estate scion with the auspicious goal of making America great again after becoming President of the United States, could encounter a problem with this premise: join in a real estate venture with the son of a cabinet minster of a nation ruled by a president—Ilham Aliyev—who has held that position since 2003? One can expect that his title will be elevated to President for Life. His apparatchik, Ziya Mammadova, has worked his way up from railway worker to Minister of Transportation. If you are trying keeping track, I repeat: Ziya is Amar's daddy. 

      In December of 2015, Trump's daughter Ivanka announced that the project was nearing completion. As of today, the Trump website carries descriptions of Trump hotels in Chicago, Doonbeg (Ireland), Las Vegas, Miami, Panama, Soho, Toronto, Vancouver and Waikiki, but not the one in Azerbaijan. The Associated Press story quoted Trump's General Counsel Alan Garten as saying "the project was on hold for economic reasons."

    That statement holds a promise of future dilation...as well as delay. 

    One needs to be able to document more of the allegations and attributions made by Associated Press reporter Horowitz before repeating any or all of the "alleged, "silent partner," and "renowned"  protective adjectives used in the AP release to connect, however tenuously, Trump's partner in this venture and his father to "a reputed money launderer who is also a former Iranian senior general." This could be termed, at least as "guilt by DNA," if not by association.

    Whoa! Now we find that a WikiLeaks story quoted in the AP dispatch of 5 June, 2016 apparently has leaked off the Wiki website. That's not so strange when one realizes that any WikiLeaks story is open to be edited.  But by whom and why? 

    There are bound to be updates to this compelling story.

   -Phil Richardson, Observer of the human condition and storyteller. "He goes doddering on into his old age, making a public nuisance of himself." - Joseph L. Menchen

  k7os@comcast.net


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