April 7, 2017

Trump's shady friend Felix Sater

WhoWhatWhy’s March 27 exclusive on Donald Trump, the FBI, Russia, and the mob focused on several key figures. One was Felix Sater, a Trump associate and prized FBI informant. We delved into his criminal past, his company, Bayrock, and its work with the Trump Organization.

Sater was even more intimately involved with Trump and his fortunes than we initially realized. According to a sworn 2008 deposition in a suit Trump filed against the author Timothy O’Brien, the developer gave Sater’s company, Bayrock, an exclusive on all development deals in Russia.

Sater expanded on the point of how central their relationship was.

“It’s highly unlikely I’ve had conversations prior to the end of 2005 with almost any developer where I didn’t use my ‘Trump card’ — my ‘Trump card’ was what is my value added, my competitive advantage. My competitive advantage is anybody can come in and build a tower. [But] I can build a Trump Tower, because of my relationship with Trump.”

Sater had even proposed to take the Mar-a-Lago brand global, to pitch a “high-end resort situation.” He was going around the world selling Trump’s name while playing to Trump’s megalomaniacal instincts.

THE FULL STORY

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Don't understand what people see what with this. What could possibly be wrong about doing business??? It's a very, very, very common activity, one billions of people do every day. What's wrong with branding??? What's wrong with having an exclusive agreement for a certain territory? Also a very, very, very common business practice. One can only presume that those criticizing this have a trust fund or something or don't need to work for a living or worry about money. But for most people doing business is an admirable activity, something that provides jobs and prosperity. Is Sam really unaware that it's now very common for Americans to be doing business in other countries?

What's next? Demanding Trump be impeached because his wife speaks a foreign language? How strange.