I'm not saying Truth Social is a money laundering operation, but...
...now I don't know how to finish that sentence.
When it comes to “Russiagate,” there’s been a lot of smoke but no fire.
But there sure is a lot of smoke. So much you can barely see what’s in front of you.
Donald Trump’s social media company Trump Media managed to go public last week only after it had been kept afloat in 2022 by emergency loans provided in part by a Russian-American businessman under scrutiny in a federal insider-trading and money-laundering investigation.
The former US president stands to gain billions of dollars – his stake is currently valued at about $4bn – from the merger between Trump Media and Technology Group and the blank-check company Digital World Acquisition Corporation, which took the parent company of Truth Social public.
But Trump Media almost did not make it to the merger after regulators opened a securities investigation into the merger in 2021 and caused the company to burn through cash at an extraordinary rate as it waited to get the green light for its stock market debut.
The situation led Trump Media to take emergency loans, including from an entity called ES Family Trust, which opened an account with Paxum Bank, a small bank registered on the Caribbean island of Dominica that is best known for providing financial services to the porn industry.
I can’t believe a bank which serves the porn industry lowered itself to working with Donald Trump.
Through leaked documents, the Guardian has learned that ES Family Trust operated like a shell company for a Russian-American businessman named Anton Postolnikov, who co-owns Paxum Bank and has been a subject of a years-long joint federal criminal investigation by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) into the Trump Media merger.
The existence of the trust has previously been reported by the Guardian and the Washington Post. However, who controlled the account, how the trust was connected to Paxum Bank, and how the money had been funneled through the trust to Trump Media was unknown.
The new details about the trust are drawn from documents including: Paxum Bank records showing Postolnikov having access to the trust’s account, the papers that created the trust showing as its settlor a lawyer in St Petersburg, Russia, and three years of the trust’s financial transactions.
The concern surrounding the loans to Trump Media is that ES Family Trust may have been used to complete a transaction that Paxum itself could not.
Paxum Bank does not offer loans in the US as it lacks a US banking license and is not regulated by the FDIC. Postolnikov appears to have used the trust to loan money to help save Trump Media – and the Truth Social platform – because his bank itself could not furnish the loan.
Postolnikov, the nephew of Aleksandr Smirnov, an ally of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has not been charged with a crime. In response to an email to Postolnikov seeking comment, a lawyer in Dominica representing Paxum Bank warned of legal action for reporting the contents of the leaked documents.
[…]
But Postolnikov has been under increasing scrutiny in the criminal investigation into the Trump Media merger. Most recently, he has been listed on search warrant affidavits alongside several associates – one of whom was indicted last month for money laundering on top of earlier insider-trading charges.
Nothing but the best people working with Donald J. Trump, no sir.
This report in The Guardian doesn’t prove that there’s anything illegal about all of this, much less that it confirms Trump is aware of any criminal activity or possible connections to the Russian government. Reporters and commentators have to be careful not to get out over their skis and make allegations which may not pan out, thereby giving normie voters an excuse to dismiss “Russiagate” allegations as a smear campaign.
Not that I have anyone in particular in mind.
But at the very least, it’s beyond dispute that Donald Trump, 45th President of the United States and 2024 Republican Party nominee for President, currently leading incumbent Joe Biden in the polls (though that lead is shrinking), has connections to some extremely shady characters to whom he may owe some favors if and when he’s in a position to grant them.
Mind you, given Trump’s history of stiffing people who work for him, there’s no guarantee he’ll pay them back.
The Florida Supreme Court has allowed an impending, extremely restrictive, abortion law to take effect. Here is the President’s public response:
And here’s which I firmly believe to be his private, behind-closed-doors response, especially since a ballot initiative which would amend the state constitution to add abortion rights was also allowed to move forward:
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