Trump's Russian Obsession 2

A Digital Publication of The Anonymous Anything Society - July 25, 2018

THE OBSESSION DONALD TRUMP HAS WITH EVERYTHING RUSSIAN - Chapter II

"I have nothing to do with Russia, no deals, no contacts," so repeats President Donald Trump nearly every day. He apparently does not realize that anyone with a computer can access data in the Florida state agencies and Dade County offices, including municipal bureaus for the cities of Hollywood, Miami, Palm Beach and Sunny Isles Beach.

In 2004, Trump was top bidder in the Dade County, Florida bankruptcy court, paying $41-million for a massive Palm Beach mansion built by an American, who had gone bankrupt. Trump sold it in 2008 for $95-million to Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev.

The Russian oligarch, a wheeler-dealer, reported to be 51 years old and worth $9.8-billion, is known in Russia as the "Fertilizer Tsar," due to his recent purchase of Urakaly, the largest producer of potassium in Russia. He spends a great deal of time in France with wife #2. According to the McClatchy News Bureau, Rybolovlev's first wife is accusing him of buying the Florida mansion from Trump to avoid paying Russian tax assessments.

Trump has tried for years to get permission to build a tower in Moscow. For a time, the late Anatoly Dobrynin, longtime Russian Ambassador to the U.S., was supposed to be an enabler for Trump in the effort, but died without the goal having been achieved.

Trump surrogates Felix Salter, a senior Trump advisor with a checkered background, was born in Russia. He and attorney Michael Cohen, now estranged from the President, could not gain a foothold in an effort made in 2013 to get permission to build a fourteen-floor Trump Tower close to the Kremlin. This past Monday, Cohen said that Trump signed a letter of intent to pursue a Trump Tower style of development, supposedly looking to hook-up with a Russian builder. My guess is, Trump is now being assisted by Aras Agalarov, a mega-developer billionaire in Russia who sponsored the 2013 Miss Universe Contest in Russia, but every attempt to find a builder has failed so far. Trump's unenviable record of not paying his debts, filing for bankruptcies and stiffing sub-contractors and workers, is a deal-killer.

The Donald is making a fortune off of Russian investors. Reuters, the Word's oldest news service, found that at least 63 persons with Russian passports have thus far paid $98.4-million for condos in Trump Towers in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida, shown above. I looked at the website for the towers today and saw that 111 luxury apartments are still being offered for sale and 108 can be rented, longtime, or by vacationers. Edgardo Defortuna, a major developer in Florida, estimates that Trump stands to make as much as $80-billion from Trump-branded developments in the Miami area, many of them Russians.

One of the most interesting purchasers of a condo in Trump Sunny Isles Beach apartments is Alexander Yuzik. This Russian bought Unit 3001, a three-bedroom luxury apartment overlooking the beach for $1.3-million. Reuters says that Yuzik was a senior executive for the Russian firm that built the new administration building in Moscow for the GRU, the principal intelligence agency for Russia. Putin served as an intelligence officer, reaching the rank of colonel in GRU, while serving in East Germany for 15 years. Perhaps with Putin's help, Trump's luck in Moscow will change.

There are many other Russians that Trump has cultivated—oligarchs who owe their riches to close association to Vladimirovich Putin. We will introduce you to them in coming weeks and explain their connection to our President.

I'll conclude with a question: What did Trump and Putin agree or disagree upon in their two hour tete-a-tete in Helsinki?

-Phil Richardson, Observer of the Human Condition and Storyteller. "He goes doddering on into his old age, making a public nuisance of himself."—Joseph Menchen

Our unending thanks to Jim Bromley, who programs our Archive of Prior Commentaries

Respond to: k7os@comcast.net