Understanding the Trump-Russia Money Channel - Josh Marshall

By JOSH MARSHALL Published JULY 26, 2017 10:38 AM

Over the past weeks and months we’ve learned numerous new details about Russian operations in the 2016 election and a long list of contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian nationals or Russian government or intelligence officials. After the revelations of Donald Trump Jr’s meetings in June 2016, we may not yet have evidence of collusion per se. But we have clear evidence of the desire to work directly with the Russian government to defeat Hillary Clinton. With the intent, we know there was no shortage of opportunity. This is the critical, central issue, what did Trump, his family and campaign do with the Russians during their 2016 subversion campaign? But it’s far from the only question. And to make sense of that central question we have to go back further, to the money channel between Trump and the countries of the former Soviet Union which stretches back at least a decade earlier and quite possibly to the 1990s.

Here’s why this is important.

If there’s a there there in the Trump-Russia story, it didn’t come out of nowhere. It almost certainly began in the money channel I described above. The existence of such a channel is neither inherently illegal or subject to any dispute. We know from voluminous reporting that such a channel existed. Money from the countries of the former Soviet Union was key to funding numerous Trump building projects. Russians and nationals from other FSU countries bought up numerous individual apartment units in Trump-branded buildings. A number of Trump’s key business partners and rainmakers were either emigres from the former Soviet Union or Americans who were conduits for money from the same countries. Through these various threads of the story money laundering, organized crime and various kinds of criminal behavior are persistent and ubiquitous. None of this is really up for debate. It’s all been demonstrated by voluminous reporting.

Since I wrote this post a year ago, this has led me to the following cardinal assumption. If there was a quid pro quo between the Trump entourage and Russia during the 2016 election, if there were payoffs, collusive relationships or blackmail those almost certainly grew out of relationships and business dealings that originated in that money channel. Therefore understanding that channel, how it came into existence, what was transacted across it and really everything about it becomes critical to understanding the whole story.

Because of that I early on became very interested in two figures who were clearly part of this money channel and ubiquitous in numerous Trump business projects going back to the first years of the 21st century: Michael Cohen and Felix Sater. Cohen came into Trump’s orbit circa 2006 because he and his family were buying up apartment units in Trump buildings. Cohen is American-born but from early adulthood seemingly his entire professional life was business with emigres from Russia and Ukraine. He was a big player in the Ukrainian/Russian-dominated taxi business, the casino boat business and of course New York City real estate business – all with Russian and Ukrainian emigres. He married a Ukrainian immigrant, as did his brother. He had business interests in Ukraine as well, including an ethanol business he established with his brother and his brother’s in-laws. Somehow, very early on, Cohen became tied into the Russian/Ukrainian emigre community in New York.

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