Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Why
FBI Can't Tell All on Trump, Russia
By Russ Baker [1], C.
Collins [2], Jonathan Z. Larsen [3] / WhoWhatWhy [4]
March 30, 2017
Reporters:
Jonathan Z. Larsen is the former editor of The Village Voice, whose reporting
team included the late Wayne Barrett and Robert I. Friedman. These people and
the paper produced many of the important early investigative reports on Donald
Trump and on the mob. Larsen is now a senior editor and board member of
WhoWhatWhy. Russ Baker, a former investigative reporter for The Village Voice,
is Editor-in-Chief of WhoWhatWhy. C. Collins is a WhoWhatWhy reporter.
UPDATE: Listen
to a behind-the-scenes interview on this exclusive Trump-Russia-FBI story — a
conversation with Russ Baker and Jonathan Larsen on Radio WhoWhatWhy [5].
***
The
Federal Bureau of Investigation cannot tell us what we need to know about
Donald Trump’s contacts with Russia. Why? Because doing so would jeopardize a
long-running, ultra-sensitive operation targeting mobsters tied to Russian
President Vladimir Putin — and to Trump.
But
the Feds’ stonewalling risks something far more dangerous: Failing to resolve a
crisis of trust in America’s president. WhoWhatWhy provides
the details of a two-month investigation in this 6,500-word exposé.
The
FBI apparently knew, directly or indirectly, based upon available facts, that
prior to Election Day, Trump and his campaign had personal and business
dealings with certain individuals and entities linked to criminal elements —
including reputed Russian gangsters — connected to Putin.
The
same facts suggest that the FBI knew or should have known enough prior to the
election to justify informing the public about its ongoing investigation of
potentially compromising relationships between Trump, Putin, and Russian
mobsters — even if it meant losing or exposing a valued informant.
***
It
will take an agency independent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to
expose Donald Trump’s true relationship with Moscow and the role Russia may
have played in getting him elected.
Director
James Comey rece [6]ntly revealed [6] in
a congressional hearing for the first time that the FBI “is investigating … the
nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and
the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the
campaign and Russia’s efforts.”
However,
a two-month WhoWhatWhy investigation has revealed an important
reason the Bureau may be facing undisclosed obstacles to revealing what it
knows to the public or to lawmakers.
Our
investigation also may explain why the FBI, which was very public about its
probe of Hillary Clinton’s emails, never disclosed its investigation of the
Trump campaign prior to the election, even though we now know that it commenced
last July.
Such
publicity could have exposed a high-value, long-running FBI operation against
an organized crime network headquartered in the former Soviet Union. That
operation depended on a convicted criminal who for years was closely connected
with Trump, working with him in Trump Tower — while constantly informing for
the FBI and the Department of Justice (DOJ), and being legally protected by
them.
Some
federal officials were so involved in protecting this source — despite his
massive fraud and deep connections to organized crime — that they became his
defense counsel after they left the government.
In
secret court proceedings that were later unsealed, both current and former
government attorneys argued for extreme leniency toward the man when he was
finally sentenced. An FBI agent who expressed his support for the informant
later joined Trump’s private security force.
In
this way, the FBI’s dilemma about revealing valuable sources, assets and
equities in its ongoing investigation of links between the Trump administration
and Russian criminal elements harkens back to the embarrassing, now infamous
Whitey Bulger episode. In that case, the Feds protected Bulger, a dangerous
Boston-based mobster serving as their highly valued informant, even as the
serial criminal continued to participate in heinous crimes. The FBI now
apparently finds itself confronted with similar issues: Is its investigation of
the mob so crucial to national security that it outweighs the public’s right to
know about their president?
Jack
Blum, a former senior Senate investigator and one of America’s foremost experts
on white-collar financial crime, sums up the complexity — and the urgency — of
the situation:
“What
makes this investigation especially difficult is that it will lead into the
complex relations between the counterintelligence operations of the FBI and its
criminal investigative work,” says Blum.
“Further,
it is likely other elements of the intelligence community are involved and that
they have ‘equities’ to protect. Much of the evidence, justifiably, will
be highly classified to protect sources and methods and in particular to
protect individuals who have helped one or another of the agencies involved.
“I
Can’t Go into Those Details Here”
In his
March 20 testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, FBI Director James
Comey said that he could not go into detail about its probe into the Trump
administration’s Russian connection.
If he
had, we might have learned that, for more than three decades the FBI has had
Trump Tower in its sights. Many of its occupants have been targets of major
investigations, others have been surveilled, and yet others have served as
informants. One thing many of them have in common is deep ties to organized
crime — including the Russian mafia.
Felix
Sater fits all of these categories. A convicted felon, Sater worked in Trump
Tower, made business deals with Donald Trump through Sater’s real estate firm,
Bayrock, cooperated with the FBI and CIA [7] and was subsequently protected
by the DOJ from paying for his crimes. And the Moscow-born immigrant remains
deeply linked to Russia and Ukraine.
Based
on documents examined by WhoWhatWhy, it is possible to draw
certain conclusions that help connect the dots between Trump, the FBI, Russia
and the mob.
The
resulting picture is not a pretty one for Donald Trump. However, because of its
efforts to neutralize the organization of perhaps the world’s most powerful
mobster — a man considered a serious national security threat — the Bureau
might just have compromised its own ability to provide to Congress or inform
the American public about all of the ties that exist between Trump, his
presidential campaign and the regime of Vladimir Putin.
Further,
Trump’s business association with Sater and Bayrock may have put the
president’s financial interests at substantial risk, including possibly
millions of dollars in fines, penalties, or other damages, should civil or
criminal misconduct be proven in court or otherwise resolved if claims were
triggered. Anyone who knew of Trump’s jeopardy in this matter would have
enormous leverage over the Trump operation.
The
government’s kid-glove treatment of Sater is partially explained in those
long-suppressed legal documents, which reveal that the mobbed-up businessman
was perceived by the authorities to be extraordinarily cooperative and useful.
Legal filings on Sater’s behalf state that he “reported daily” to the FBI for
many years.
Sater
agreed to assist the US government on issues of national security and organized
crime. His activities were first revealed in a lawsuit brought by a former
employee of Sater’s real estate firm, Bayrock. While working with Trump,
Sater’s name became “Satter” publicly — presumably with the knowledge if not
the encouragement of the FBI.
This distanced Satter the businessman, and his
partners, from Sater the criminal.
Attorneys
representing the plaintiff spent years untangling the financial machinations of
Bayrock — which they allege involve hundred of millions of dollars in claims
arising from, among other things, money laundering and fraud.
They
also sought to expose the government’s awareness of — even complicity in —
Sater’s activities.
Their
efforts to unseal court documents, including Sater’s legal history, have been
met with a concerted pushback by DOJ lawyers, mischaracterizations of the case
record, and even — according to the attorneys — anonymous death threats.
Felix
Sater could not be reached for comment.
A
Stunning Discovery
The
story of Donald Trump’s business dealings with a Russian mobster might never
have come out were it not for a Bayrock employee stumbling upon Sater’s
cooperation agreement with the FBI, among other sensitive information, that had
inadvertently been left accessible.
That
employee sought out attorney Fred Oberlander, who combed through the documents.
Over time, Oberlander — who was instructing undergraduates at Yale University
in computational physics and computer science from age 18 — began to
deconstruct the byzantine financial structure that was Bayrock, which allegedly
hid a range of crimes, including massive-scale money laundering from sources in
the former Soviet Union.
On
February 10, 2010, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in
Manhattan, instructed Oberlander, in a secret order, not to inform the
legislative branch of the United States government what he knew about Felix
Sater. (That order remains under seal, but a federal judge has unsealed a redacted version [8].)
Apparently,
the appellate court was persuaded that the unusually broad order was justified
on the merits, but the lawyers opposing Sater found the imposed remedy
extraordinary.
“Our
being ordered to not tell Congress what we know may well be the first and only
hyper-injunction in American history,” asserts Oberlander’s own attorney,
Richard Lerner. “If there are others who have been scared silent by judges who
wish to nullify Congressional and public oversight, we may never know. That is
frightening.”
[9]
Characters
Out of a James Bond Movie
Preventing
the Russian mafia from expanding its foothold in the United States has been one
of the Bureau’s top priorities. In fact, it might be the FBI’s most important
function apart from its role in the fight against terrorism.
The
Russian mob has a breathtaking and underappreciated reach. It is so powerful
that FBI Agent Peter Kowenhoven told CNN in 2009 [10] that
Semion Mogilevich, its “boss of bosses,” is a strategic threat, and a man who
“can, with a telephone call or order, affect the global economy.”
Russ
Baker is editor of WhoWhatWhy.com [11] and author of
"Family
of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, America’s Invisible Government and the Hidden
History of the Last Fifty Years [12]."
[14]
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/russ-baker
[2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/c-collins
[3] http://www.alternet.org/authors/jonathan-z-larsen
[4] http://whowhatwhy.org/
[5] http://whowhatwhy.org/2017/03/27/behind-scenes-interview-exclusive-trump-russia-fbi-story/
[6] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/03/20/full-transcript-fbi-director-james-comey-testifies-on-russian-interference-in-2016-election/
[7] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/17/nyregion/17trump.html
[8] https://casetext.com/case/in-re-motion-for-civil-contempt-by-john-doe
[9] http://www.whowhatwhy.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/image02-4.jpg
[10] http://edition.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/10/21/mogilevich.fbi.most.wanted/
[11] http://whowhatwhy.com
[12] http://www.familyofsecrets.com/
[13] mailto:corrections@alternet.org?Subject=Typo on Why FBI Can't Tell All on Trump, Russia
[14] http://www.alternet.org/
[15] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
[2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/c-collins
[3] http://www.alternet.org/authors/jonathan-z-larsen
[4] http://whowhatwhy.org/
[5] http://whowhatwhy.org/2017/03/27/behind-scenes-interview-exclusive-trump-russia-fbi-story/
[6] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/03/20/full-transcript-fbi-director-james-comey-testifies-on-russian-interference-in-2016-election/
[7] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/17/nyregion/17trump.html
[8] https://casetext.com/case/in-re-motion-for-civil-contempt-by-john-doe
[9] http://www.whowhatwhy.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/image02-4.jpg
[10] http://edition.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/10/21/mogilevich.fbi.most.wanted/
[11] http://whowhatwhy.com
[12] http://www.familyofsecrets.com/
[13] mailto:corrections@alternet.org?Subject=Typo on Why FBI Can't Tell All on Trump, Russia
[14] http://www.alternet.org/
[15] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
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