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From: J [jeevacation@gmail.com]
Sent: 2/1/2019 4:11:28 PM
To: Michael Wolff
Subject: Re: FYI
Needs edit but ... ie 36! M Ryboloev not known in 05 , Talk later
On Fri, Feb 1, 2019 at 11:07 AM Michael Wolff < > wrote:
Books and newspaper accounts of Trump's 45 years in business were full of his
shady dealings, and the presidency had only helped to highlight them and to surface even
juicier ones. Real estate was the world's favorite money laundering currency and Trump's
B-level real estate business was quite explicitly designed to appeal to money launderers.
What's more, Trump's own financial woes, and desperate efforts to maintain billionaire
lifestyle, cache, and market viability, forced him into constant and unsubtle
schemes. Practically speaking, you couldn't miss him, as the Mueller investigation
appeared to be finding.
In November 2004, for instance, Jeffrey Epstein, the financier later caught in a scandal
involving under-age prostitutes, agreed to buy out of bankruptcy a house in Palm Beach,
Florida for $30 million—a house that had been on the market for two years. Epstein and
Trump had been close friends—playboys in arms, as it were—for more than a decade,
with Epstein often counseling Trump on his chaotic financial affairs. Epstein took Trump
to see the Palm Beach house to advise him on construction issues involved with moving a
swimming pool. As he prepared to finalize his deal for the house, an incredulous Epstein
saw a severely cash-constrained Trump bid $41 million for the property, buying it
through an entity called Trump Properties LLC, financed by Deutsche Bank. Trump,
Epstein knew, had been renting his name, telling Epstein he ought to do the same—that
is, for an ample fee, Trump was willing to serve as a front man to disguise the actual
ownership in a real estate transaction. (This was, in effect, just another variation of
Trump's basic business model of licensing his name for commercial properties owned by
someone else.) A furious Epstein, suspecting that the real owner was a Russian oligarch,
who Trump knew, Dmitry Rybolovlev—part of the close Putin circle of government-
aligned industrialists in Russia—threatened to expose the deal, then getting extensive
scrutiny in Florida papers. The fight became all the more bitter when, two months later,
the house was put on the market for $125 million. Well known to Trump, who often saw
Epstein at his current Palm Beach house, Epstein was visited almost every day, and had
been for many years, by girls who he paid for massages with happy endings—girls
recruited from local restaurants, strip clubs, and, also, Trump's Mar-a-Lago. Just as the
threats and enmity of the two friends increased over the house sale, Epstein found
himself under investigation by local Palm Beach police. Epstein's legal problems vastly
escalated as the house, with only minor improvements, was bought for $96 million by
Dmitry Rybolovlev. That is, Trump had either miraculously earned $55 million, without
putting up a dime, or Rybolovlev, or someone such as Rybolovlev, paid Trump Properties,
LLC—actual owner unknown—$96 million, thereby providing a clean payment of $55
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million to someone. Ryboloyley might have, in effect, paid himself for the house, thereby
cleansing the money. Epstein, on his part, would spend 12 months in jail on a prostitution
charge.
After the election, when Bannon was introduced to Epstein, Bannon told him, "You were
the one person I was truly afraid of coming forward during the campaign."
"And rightly so," said Epstein.
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