By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com
The special investigation into alleged ties between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia may now include serious criminal allegations about a dormant real-estate development firm accused of running a criminal operation while it was partnering with the future president and the Kremlin.
The Russian-connected Bayrock Group, which operated two floors below Trump’s office in the Trump Tower in New York, is accused in a lawsuit of serving as a front for money laundering while the company was partnering with Trump on a number of real estate projects.
One of the influential partners was Felix Sater, a Russia-born career criminal with ties to the Kremlin and American organized crime groups, Bloomberg reports.
The president has repeatedly claimed he barely knows Sater, but former Bayrock employees said Sater met frequently with Trump at his organization’s headquarters in New York and escorted Trump’s children around Moscow.
Sater also teamed up with Trump’s personal attorney to in a failed attempt to lobby National Security Adviser Michael Flynn on a Ukrainian peace proposal.
While testifying about Russian interference before the House Intelligence Committee in March, FBI Director James Comey declined to answer a question about Trump’s relationship with Sater, who was born in the Soviet Union in 1966 before emigrating with his parents to Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, a heavily Russian enclave.
Sater had worked as a mob informant for the FBI before he fled to Russia to escape criminal charges.
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- Time: Will Robert Mueller Separate Fact from Fiction?
- Here Are the Lawyers Helping Robert Mueller in Russia Investigation
- Intriguing Link Between Mueller Probe, Trump And Alleged Money Laundering
