Remember ACORN? They are Back

Posted on May 31, 2017May 31, 2017 by Denise Simon

From their website in part:

CPD now has 51 staff, offices in New York City, Washington, DC, and Oakland, CA, and staff in Minnesota, Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, and Chicago. We work with a remarkably strong cohort of 11 national partners and 43 state partner organizations in 30 states.

CPD’s model for change draws from the successful base-building and policy advocacy of partner organizations such as Make the Road New York (MRNY), CASA de Maryland, and PCUN in Oregon, as well as New York Communities for Change (NYCC), Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) and Action Now in Illinois, among many others. Around the country, base-building organizations are demonstrating that it is possible to grow to scale, with strong institutional infrastructure and innovative organizing models, and leverage that strength to win cutting-edge policy victories at the federal, state and local levels. CPD grows out of this experience, to bring a range of additional capacities to the field to help base-building organizations scale up even further, to deepen and grow the progressive movement infrastructure, and to advance a pro-worker, pro-immigrant, racial and economic justice policy agenda nationwide.

New $80M Anti-Trump Network Spearheaded by Soros-Funded Org With Former ACORN Employees

Network will focus on pushing back against voter laws leading up to the 2018 and 2020 elections

A new $80 million anti-Trump network is being led by an organization whose top funder is liberal billionaire George Soros and which employs former members of the controversial and now-defunct Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN).

The Center for Popular Democracy Action Fund, the 501(c)(4) sister organization of the Center for Popular Democracy (CPD), a New York-based nonprofit that receives the bulk of its funding from George Soros, announced at their spring gala Tuesday that they will be heading up the new $80 million anti-Trump network that will span 32 states and have 48 local partners, CNN reported.

The network will seek to mobilize new voters and fight voter identification laws. It will also focus on gerrymandering and automatic voter registration programs with an eye on the 2018 and 2020 election cycles.

Rep. Keith Ellison (D., Minn.), the deputy chair of the Democratic National Committee, backed the new effort.

“This national network, led by working class people of color and immigrants, will supply the power and the fight we need to resist the Trump administration’s all-out assault on American values,” Ellison told CNN. “I look forward to standing with CPD Action’s leaders in the streets and in Congress to win real progressive change.”

The Center for Popular Democracy, which was founded in 2012, consists of old chapters of ACORN, the community-organizing group that was forced to close after being stripped of its federal funds following controversy in 2010.

Andrew Friedman, a co-executive director at the Center for Popular Democracy, co-founded Make the Road New York, a Latino immigrant group that has worked alongside CPD on a number of anti-Trump campaigns. Friedman serves on the board of Make the Road New York (MRNY) and Make the Road Action Fund, which are closely linked to CPD and contain many overlapping staffers.

Others in leadership roles at CPD have come directly from ACORN.

Brian Kettenring, the other co-executive director of the CPD, was an organizer for ACORN from 1995 to 2010.

Steve Kest, a senior advisor at CPD, worked for ACORN for 35 years and served as its national executive director.

Christina Livingston, a board member of CPD, is the executive director of the Alliance for Californians for Community Empowerment. Livingston previously organized for ACORN out of Los Angeles.

Steve Dooley, the director of partnerships at CPD, began his career at ACORN in D.C. Dooley later directed ACORN’s offices in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.

Greg Basta, the director of sustainability initiatives at CPD, worked as the statewide canvass director for the New York ACORN for five years.

Basta was a founding staff member of New York Communities for Change (NYCC), an ACORN offshoot that was founded in 2010.

The groups, which have combined to receive millions in funding from George Soros, funnel money to each other.

From 2012 to 2014, New York Communities for Change provided $81,700 to the Center for Popular Democracy, according to the group’s Form 990s up to 2014, the last available year. NYCC also passed $358,533 to the Make the Road New York Action Fund during this time.

The Center for Popular Democracy gave New York Communities for Change $406,667 between 2012 and 2014. CPD additionally gave Make the Road New York $173,955. CPD’s Action Fund added another $100,000 to New York Communities for Change.

The Center for Popular Democracy did not respond to inquiries on the new $80 million anti-Trump network. New York Communities for Change and Make the Road New York also did not return requests for comment.

CPD and MRNY have been extremely active in the anti-Trump arena, using protests and pressure campaigns.

The two groups recently “partnered” on a “Corporate Backers of Hate” campaign that targeted JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, Boeing, Disney, IMB, Uber, Blackrock, and Blackstone, corporations they say could profit from President Trump’s policies.

The “mass lobbying” campaign consists of directly pressuring higher ups at each company through emails and has been called “unprecedented” by corporate responsibility experts.

Make the Road was also reported to have organized the “spontaneous” protests at New York’s JFK Airport following Trump’s Muslim travel ban. However, it was later discovered that the protests had been planned since the day after the presidential election.

Uber, which had continued to pick up passengers from the airport during the event, found themselves in the center of the #DeleteUber pressure campaign following the protests. The CEO of Uber, Travis Kalanick, later stepped down from Trump’s advisory council.

The group is also behind the #GrabYourWallet campaign, which targets retailers for carrying Trump family products. Nordstrom ultimately pulled Ivanka Trump’s products, although the store had claimed they had dropped her brand due to declining sales.

The Center for Popular Democracy’s new multi-million dollar network falls in line with a number of major liberal groups who have reorganized to fight back against voter laws following Donald Trump’s victory.

Demos, a New York City-based progressive public policy group chaired by Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D., Mass.) daughter, has been assisting unions in pushing back against election lawsuits in number of states after counties had failed to properly maintain their voter rolls. Demos received hundreds of thousands in funding from Soros’ groups.

Marc Elias, Hillary Clinton’s former top campaign lawyer, recently joined the board of Priorities USA Action, a major Democratic super PAC that received $9.5 million from Soros during the 2016 election cycle.

Elias was tapped as the group shifts its focus on pushing back against state-level Republican efforts on voting laws. Every Citizen Counts, a nonprofit founded by Clinton allies focused on mobilizing African American and Latino voters, was absorbed into Priorities USA.

Elias will spearhead challenges against state voting laws from the organization’s nonprofit arm, which is building a national database to be a “one-stop inventory of restrictive voting measures” that they will share with other progressive groups.

Elias previously engaged in a multi-state effort to overturn voter ID laws leading up to the 2016 presidential election. The challenges were backed by millions of dollars from Soros.

Soros has a goal of enlarging the electorate by 10 million voters by 2018, the Washington Free Beacon discovered after a trove of hacked Soros documents were released last year by DC Leaks.

The plan to grow the electorate by millions of voters and combating “suppression” was listed as a top priority in a 220-page guide from his Open Society Foundations.

“The Open Society Foundations supports efforts to encourage wider participation in U.S. elections, and opposes measures used to try to suppress voter participation,” a spokesman from the Open Society Foundations told the Free Beacon at the time.

Govt in Healthcare Causing Critical Doctor Shortage

Posted on May 31, 2017May 31, 2017 by Denise Simon

Affording medical school, impossible, paying back college loans, impossible, paying all the administrative/paperwork labor costs in practice, impossible, relying on prompt payments from government on Medicare, impossible, care by government compliance standards, impossible.

Burnout = Probable

Image result for obamacare doctor shortage

Blame Obamacare and Congress for the coming drought of doctors

When you go to the Internet or phone book today, there are hundreds of physicians listed in most urban areas. But in the next two decades, you can expect more difficulty finding a physician in your hometown — a major physician shortage is looming, thanks to Obamacare and Congress.

In the last year, I have seen many mid-career physicians leaving the practice of medicine. While the growth of mid-level hospital administrators has ballooned by nearly 3,000 percent in the last 30 years, fewer students are entering medical school. In fact, according to Compdata surveys, hospital administrators now account for a large proportion of the costs of healthcare.

The pending physician shortage will affect both primary care as well as numerous essential subspecialties. When I was in medical school, I was told that specialists, such as cardiologists, would be in abundance and I would not be able to get a job. My classmates and I were pushed towards jobs in primary care.

However, many of us chose to pursue our passions — for me, it was cardiovascular medicine. I have been a practicing cardiologist for almost 17 years now — I never had any issue with finding a job in my chosen field.

Based on a new report from the Association of American Medical Colleges, it is expected that we will see a shortfall of nearly 100,000 doctors by the year 2030. A closer look at the predictions show that we will have a shortage of 40,000 primary care physicians, as well as a shortage of nearly 60,000 physicians in specialties such as allergy and immunology, cardiology, gastroenterology, and infectious disease. In general surgery, the report predicts that there will be 30,000 fewer surgeons than are needed to provide care to those who need it.

Why Are Doctors Leaving Medicine?

A 2016 report from the Physicians Foundation found an alarming growth in burnout and dissatisfaction among practicing physicians — 47 percent of respondents in the survey indicated plans to “accelerate” their retirement and move into areas outside of clinical medicine.

The most common reason for leaving medicine included regulatory burdens and electronic health records. Nearly 63 percent indicated that they have negative feelings about the future of healthcare and only half of all physicians would actually recommend a career in medicine to their children. Many of my colleagues feel they have no voice and have no way to impact healthcare policy — even in their own institution.

As regulatory requirements and non-clinical tasks continue to mount, physicians are finding themselves spending less and less time with patients. According to 2016 research from the Annals of Internal Medicine, most doctors only spend 25 percent of their day engaging with patients — the bulk of the time is spent on non-clinical electronic and regulatory paperwork. In fact, for every hour of direct patient contact, physicians have an additional 2 hours of electronic paperwork.

Most of this is due to either mandatory electronic medical record coding (to help the hospital systems bill at the maximal levels) or due to government-mandated documentation (such as asking about gun use during office visits — most of which has never shown a survival or outcome benefit).

What Is the Solution?

These statistics should be incredibly troubling for all Americans seeking healthcare. With access already an issue in the healthcare system for many and more reforms on the way, we must do more to entice bright young minds to medicine—and retain those that are currently delivering care to millions of patients.

While the AAMC argues that the answer to averting a shortage lies in creating more training spots and allowing advanced practice nurses and physician assistants to do the work of trained physicians, the real answer to the pending crisis lies in Washington.

Congress must act to save healthcare. Years of Obamacare and the resulting increase in regulations applied to physicians have begun to erode the very core of medical care — the doctor-patient relationship. Physicians are now tasked with checking boxes and filling out forms rather than bonding with patients.

Congress has spent the first 6 months of this year simply posturing and grandstanding about healthcare rather than actually working on meaningful reform. Once again, no real physician input into the creation of a workable healthcare reform bill has been sought by those in Washington (reminiscent of how Obamacare was created). Those in Congress must listen and act now:

1. Limit Meaningless Electronic Paperwork

Currently doctors spend far too much time with electronic medical records. Electronic records, while touted to be a patient safety tool, are nothing more than a way for hospitals and healthcare systems to ensure that they are billing patients at the highest levels — capturing all possible charges. Physicians are forced to click through myriad pathways in the record in order to document their care and work and all of these pathways are carefully designed to maximize billing codes. Most doctors take home two or more hours of electronic documentation nightly in order to keep up with patient care loads.

We must streamline paperwork and balance documentation with patient care. Doctors should not be billers and coders for the healthcare system.

2. Remove Hospital Administrators from the Care Equation

In some institutions, there are more mid-level managers than physicians. These executives are not physicians and are not trained in the practice of medicine. Their primary focus is to increase market share for the healthcare system and to “manage” healthcare professionals by creating algorithms of care and regulations. Administrators will claim that their activities will help with quality improvement and patient safety. However, most of these individuals are highly compensated and I am not aware of any data that suggests their activities have ever been shown to improve patient outcomes. For most physicians, administrators are a mechanism for increasing cost of care.

Physicians should be part of the decision-making process in any healthcare system and should have a voice — currently there are very few physicians in the C-suite.

3. Remove Barriers to Patient Care

Nothing frustrates doctors more than not being able to provide care to patients. We must make healthcare more accessible and provide physicians with the resources they need to efficiently provide high-quality affordable care. We must promote the use of telemedicine and digital tools to enhance the doctor-patient interaction.

We must allow physicians and patients to build long term relationships and facilitate and promote engagement. No longer can we allow networks and insurers to dictate which doctor a patient can see — “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.”

4. No Longer Allow Insurance Companies to Dictate Care

As a practicing physician, I spend a great deal of time battling with insurance companies over appropriate care for my patients. I find myself spending hours each week on the phone with an insurance company bureaucrat arguing that a particular test or therapy is indicated (even though these are supported by clinical guidelines) rather than caring for patients. We must not allow insurers to dictate how highly-trained physicians should care for their patients.

Insurers must abide by the practice guidelines and indications for tests and procedures that have been approved by major national organizations, such as the American College of Cardiology, for example.

Global Dark Money in Condos of Secrecy

Posted on May 30, 2017May 30, 2017 by Denise Simon

Federal money laundering cases generally take place within the context of a larger racketeering case governed by the RICO Act. Money laundering is typically only one aspect of a pattern of organized crime which may be nationwide or international. That being the case, money laundering is often the lesser offense in a pattern of crimes that can result in lifetime imprisonment.

Image result for money laundering UNODC

Money Laundering Quick Links & References

A few years ago, Peter Schweizer wrote:

Throw Them All Out

How politicians and their friends get rich off insider stock tips, land deals, and cronyism that would send the rest of us to prison.

(If you have not read the book, try it out. It lays the ground work not only for politicians but international civilians also use the same model by gaining diplomatic status of obscure countries with bribes)

Now for the rest of the story.

Federal money laundering laws are guided by the RICO Act and there are a handful of countries with criminals operating under shadow corporations that clean money via real estate investments. London, New York and Miami are the prime cities where billions are spent on luxury real estate and the actual owner is never known.

Money laundering has a wide range of criminals that include Mafia, drug cartel leaders, Russians, Cypriots, business owners and even Kazakhstanis.

Some investigative journalists have done a remarkable job at tracking this phenomenon and there was even a documentary produced in 2015. This condition is actually a global shadow economy that has an estimated value in the range of billions of dollars. The New York Times has somewhat of a collection of related cases that you may find interesting where even Malaysia is included.

The Miami Herald did a story in 2015 on how Miami is but one crown jewel for offshore dollars fueling the real estate boom there. Ever heard of Isaias 21 Property or Mateus 5 International Holding? No? You’re not supposed to know.

Miami has a long history of money laundering. Its financial institutions report more suspicious activity than any other major U.S. city besides New York City and Los Angeles, according to FinCen data. And a recent case of money laundering involving fancy condos and the violent Spanish drug gang Los Miami drew further scrutiny to South Florida.

Jack McCabe, an analyst who studies the booming local housing market, said it’s impossible to know how many homes are purchased with dirty money.

“But I think many people believe it could be a sizable portion of the new condominium market in Miami,” McCabe said. “Even though developers and real-estate professionals suspect many of these units are bought with illegal funds, they realize their projects may not be successful without that support.”

Much has been in the news recently about the Trump team and companies being involved with Russian officials and oligarchs. There is hard evidence and some cases have already been through the legal system. We certainly cannot dismiss Hillary and Bill Clinton when it comes to collusion with those inside the Kremlin either much less a handful of other countries through their foundations. It appears there is no ‘statute of limitations’ with regard to US Code law on RICO.

The Russians have been dirty for years and those inside the Russian Federation and oligarchs have been moving illicit millions to billions out of the home country. For example how about a certain prominent Russian as one of the named depositors is billionaire oligarch (and personal friend of Vladimir Putin) Gennady Timchenko, who was sanctioned by the United States in March 2014 for his role in providing “material or other support to” Russian government officials. (There’s a rumor that sometime in the 1990s, Putin and Timchenko, who holds Finnish citizenship, were arrested in Helsinki for drunk and disorderly conduct; a rap sheet is said to exist with the two men’s mug shots.)

Timchenko’s designation carried the blockbuster revelation that Gunvor, the Swiss commodities trader he co-founded, was itself a vehicle for Putin’s personal self-enrichment: “Putin has investments in Gunvor,” the U.S. Treasury notice stated, “and may have access to Gunvor funds.” Not long before the sanctions were announced, Timchenko, who is worth an estimated $14.1 billion, was said to have divested his stake in Gunvor. Then, in November 2014, it was announced that the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, helped by the Justice Department, was investigating Timchenko for money laundering. In 2013, Reuters disclosed that Timchenko had hired lobby firm Patton Boggs to persuade the U.S. Export-Import Bank, the export credit agency of the U.S. government, to finance his purchase of up to 11 Gulfstream luxury jets—a deal that was eyebrow-raising at the time and is now rendered illegal by sanctions. The rest of the story is here regarding one well known bank HSBC.

Image result for money laundering Interfima

So…back to the scandal that just wont go away, the Trump people and Russians. There are a handful of names that include Paul Manafort, Carter Page, Oleg Deripaska, Michael Cohen (Trump’s personal lawyer), Jared Kushner (Trump’s son-in-law) dealing with Vnesheconombank, Felix Sater and more.

Considering the work of the FBI, the DoJ and State’s Attorneys General, the work appears to have a beginning but no end for both Trump and Clinton. As an aside, we need to ask officials where the Clinton investigation is, it at all. But moving on. This summary is not meant to take any anti-Trump position at all, in fact, we need him to succeed for the sake of America’s future. This is meant to be somewhat of a public service with all the chatter and investigations.

If you want to know what members of congress know and what the FBI is doing, here is but one clue:

NEW YORK

The net is closing around a duo of fugitive oligarchs and their kin accused of laundering Kazakh money in posh U.S. real estate — including Trump Organization properties.

In a complicated case with potential implications for President Donald Trump’s business empire and associates of the real-estate-developer-turned-president, Switzerland has revealed it is considering an extradition request from Ukraine to hand over the son of a former Kazakh energy minister — and both men are facing money-laundering allegations in the United States and charges in Kazakhstan.

It’s the latest development in a saga that is reaching into Bayrock Group, an international real estate and investment company that paid the Trump Organization a license fee for the use of its name and an 18 percent ownership stake in the New York hotel and condo project.

The Khrapunov family is accused in U.S. lawsuits of “cleaning” illicit money through the purchase and quick resale of U.S. luxury properties, including daughter Elvira Kudryashova’s purchase of three Trump-branded condos in New York and a 9,000-square-foot Studio City mansion flipped in months to pop singer Bruno Mars for $6.5 million.

An investigation by McClatchy and reporting partners, involving interviews with officials representing legal matters against the accused in four countries, reveals:

▪ Ukraine has recently asked Switzerland to extradite Ilyas Khrapunov, son of former Kazakh Energy Minister Viktor Khrapunov, for alleged computer hacking.

▪ Ilyas Khrapunov and his wife secured unusual diplomatic posts representing the Central African Republic in Geneva, a move that helped provide them with a means of travel.

▪ Court documents tie Felix Sater — a Trump associate, Bayrock partner and twice-convicted Russian émigré — to some of the Khrapunovs’ transactions.

▪ Kazakh authorities asked the United States for information on Bayrock as part of the ongoing attempt to recover funds.

▪ A New York court decision may further reveal details about the Kazakh family’s financial flows into condos in the Trump SoHo building, developed and sold by Bayrock. Bank records include large transfers from a now-sanctioned Cyprus lender.

Federal lawsuits brought in Los Angeles by the city of Almaty and former business partners in New York are advancing against Ilyas and Viktor, who is also a former mayor of Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city. Both Khrapunovs and Ilyas’ father-in-law, Mukhtar Ablyazov — an uber-wealthy fugitive banker who owned BTA Bank until it was seized by regulators in 2009 — face criminal charges in Kazakhstan. Authorities allege $10 billion went missing from the bank, Kazakhstan’s third largest, and that Ablyazov moved out at least $4 billion.

The trio say they are the victims of political persecution by President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who has ruled oil-rich Kazakhstan since 1990. The country ranks in the bottom quarter on transparency measures, and Nazarbayev’s family is accused of stashing money in offshore companies.

The gathering legal drama is shining light on Trump business associate Bayrock Group, which involves Kazakh partners who helped develop the Trump SoHo building in New York and projects in Arizona and South Florida. This at a time when Donald Trump’s Russian and foreign ties are under greater scrutiny.

Crucial to Trump and his businesses — and the ability of lawyers to establish whether the Trump Organization had any knowledge of or benefit from any illegal money flows — is whether the United States or Switzerland hears the lawsuits against the Khrapunovs. If prosecutors convince a California court to hear the case, lawyers will have much greater ability to dig for evidence through a process known as discovery; Switzerland’s rules are far more restrictive.

This New York City Department of Finance document shows Elvira Kudryashova as the manager of SoHo 3311 LLC, which bought a unit in the Trump SoHo building. She is the daughter of Viktor Khrapunov, a fugitive Kazakh politician facing money laundering charges abroad and two civil lawsuits in the United States.

TheUkrainian extradition request from March shows that Ilyas Khrapunov is sought there for allegedly orchestrating a computer hack of a law firm representing BTA Bank.

“The allegations against me are preposterous,” Ilyas Khrapunov said in an interview, dismissing as “political” the accusations that he used malware in an email to gain access to and publish contents from a hard drive.

The Swiss are weighing the matter.

“In the Khrapunov case, an international assistance procedure and a national procedure for money laundering are currently underway at the Geneva Public Prosecutor’s Office,” said Henri Della Casa, a spokesman, confirming two Swiss probes. “We are making no further comments.”

Ablyazov, who uses his Facebook page as a protest site, was arrested by French police disguised as gardeners outside his home in Cannes in 2013. He was freed last December after France dropped an extradition order, determining he could not receive a fair trial, and he remains there.

California connection

The net tightening began here. According to allegations in the California lawsuit, Viktor Khrapunov arranged for rigged auctions of state property during his term as mayor of Almaty from 1997 to 2004. He and his wife, Leila, allegedly purchased property at substantially below-market rates using shell companies they controlled, then sold off the properties for a profit estimated at $300 million.

Documents published by the self-described transparency group WikiLeaks show that Viktor Khrapunov was a kleptocracy concern for U.S. diplomats.

“Many observers are puzzled as to how Khrapunov, who is known to be quite corrupt . . . has managed to stay in government,” Kevin Milas, the U.S. embassy’s second in command, wrote back to agency headquarters in a Jan. 17, 2007, confidential memo about a political reshuffling.

The internal note cited an industrialist who had complained of being hit up for a bribe by Khrapunov.

The family fled to Switzerland in early 2008, where Ilyas already lived, seeking political asylum a few years later.

Viktor Khrapunov faced an Interpol detention request beginning in 2012, yet the family was able to buy the property in Los Angeles and the three Trump SoHo condos in New York. Ilyas Khrapunov was put under the same request in 2014.

The Khrapunovs say their fortune is clean and comes from family matriarch Leila, a businesswoman and TV anchor who became owner of Kazakhstan’s first private TV station.

“Switzerland has refused twice to extradite Viktor Khrapunov on the grounds that he would not have an equitable trial in Kazakhstan,” said Ilyas Khrapunov. “Switzerland proposed instead to have the trial delegated to them but Kazakhstan refused, fearing that the truth would come out.”

Friends in low places

The investigation by McClatchy and partners also found that Ilyas Khrapunov and his wife, Madina, Ablyazov’s daughter, were appointed to unusual diplomatic posts representing the Central African Republic at the U.N. Mission in Geneva.

A source tied to the Central African Republic, granted anonymity, said the couple had been appointed by former ruler Francois Bozizé before he was toppled and fled his troubled nation in 2013. Through a land acquisition the couple obtained dual citizenship in the Caribbean haven of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

“Due to refusal of Kazakhstan to renew passports of the family, we were forced to apply through legal process to obtain secondary citizenships in order to exercise our rights to travel,” said Ilyas Khrapunov.

The diplomatic appointments and the recent extradition request are just chapters what’s been a complex, decade-long legal battle that is slowly providing more detail on Trump Organization associate Bayrock Group.

Trump’s associate

Bayrock is an international real estate and investment firm that worked with Trump on at least three known joint projects, and involves Kazakh businessmen.

Trump personally dealt with Bayrock, giving the developer a one-year exclusive right to build a Trump International Hotel and Tower in Moscow. In exchange he’d get a 20-25 percent stake in it.

“I am delighted at having the opportunity to partner with Bayrock Group LLC on yet another world-class development,” Trump wrote in a Jan. 1, 2005, letter to Tevfik Arif, a Kazakh partner of Bayrock, that was entered into evidence in a New Jersey lawsuit. “Moscow is one of the fastest growing cities in the world and offers the best location for a Signature Donald J. Trump development.”

At the time it entered the condo-branding deal with Trump, Bayrock was co-run by a twice-convicted Russian émigré and Trump associate named Felix Sater.

Court documents in New York involving the Khrapunovs tie Sater to multiple transactions by an investment firm in Luxembourg called Triadou SPV S.A., which invested in the United States and elsewhere. People close to the transactions, speaking privately because of ongoing businesses, say Sater had access to Trump and bragged about his Trump connections, even calling him “Mr T.”

In a 2013 videotaped deposition, Trump suggested he barely knew Sater.

“If he were sitting in the room right now, I really wouldn’t know what he looked like,” Trump said under oath as witness in a Florida lawsuit against Bayrock Group.

A prospectus shows Triadou was fully owned by SDG Capital S.A., a company on Lake Geneva that operates as Swiss Development Group, founded at the time the Khrapunovs fled to Switzerland. They say, in court documents, that it was sold in March 2013 to a Swiss businessman, who retained Ilyas Khrapunov through 2015.

Former Triadou Director Nicolas Bourg testified under oath last year that his company belonged to the Khrapunovs, who ordered him to sell assets and move money out of the United States after the California lawsuit was filed in 2014. The Khrapunovs say that is not true and that they’ve kept Swiss authorities informed of their purchases.

Bourg further testified that the Khrapunovs and Ablyazov co-mingled investments and used offshore shell companies to camouflage the purchase and sale of properties in the United States and elsewhere.

Another Triadou associate, New York developer Joseph Chetrit, settled with lawyers for the city of Almaty in 2015 and pledged to support their effort to recover what the city calls more than $300 million in stolen funds.

Sater was named in a lawsuit against a Triadou-owned company that was settled in December 2013. He is also being sued by one former Bayrock partner, Jody Kriss. And according to a recent story by The Wall Street Journal, Sater has issued veiled threats to dish on other Kazakhs because of a dispute he has over legal fees with another Bayrock partner of Kazakh origin, Tevfik Arif.

Arif gained international notoriety when he was arrested in 2010 while throwing what Turkish authorities called a lavish sex party on a luxury yacht involving teenage girls. The charges were later dropped.

Leila Khrapunov briefly did business with Arif and Bayrock in a joint venture called KazBay, which was going to invest in Kazakh natural resources but never got off the ground, in part because of revelations in a New York Times story in late 2007 that Bayrock’s Sater had a checkered past.

Kazakh authorities have alleged in their criminal case that Viktor Khrapunov’s stolen money was deposited at Eurasian Bank in Almaty and then transferred to Switzerland. That bank is owned by Alexander Mashkevich, a strategic partner in Bayrock and someone who, according to a report by McClatchy last month, is linked in sealed British court documents to organized crime groups. Mashkevich is not named in the U.S. lawsuits against Khrapunov, and the Khrapunovs banked with several lenders.

U.S. vs. Switzerland

The battle over which court should hear the high-stakes California lawsuit could determine whether the plaintiff’s lawyers establish any involvement in alleged money laundering by Trump associates.

I am convinced that Switzerland could become a model for countries that have recently embarked on the path of democracy.

Viktor Khrapunov on his website

“Switzerland is a perfectly adequate venue for my client,” said John Kenney, Khrapunov’s legal counsel in New York with the firm Hoguet Newman Regal & Kenney.

A federal court in California agreed in July 2015, but that decision was overturned this past March 30 on appeal by lawyers for the city of Almaty, allowing the case in Los Angeles to proceed.

“The city of Almaty is confident that when the court reviews the evidence, it will find that Viktor Khrapunov unjustly enriched himself to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars by abusing his position as mayor, and with the assistance of his son Ilyas and others, laundered it throughout the world,” said Matthew L. Schwartz, a lawyer with Boies, Schiller & Flexner, which is representing Almaty in the New York case.

The Khrapunovs have until later in June to decide whether to appeal, but for more than two years they’ve avoided sitting for depositions in the U.S. cases.

“The defendants have sought to delay the case at every turn,” said David Schindler, a lawyer who represents Almaty in the California case. “Nevertheless our client remains committed to holding the Khrapunovs accountable for the money they stole from the people of Almaty.”

Trump’s licensing deals on properties typically involved payment of a fee for the use of his name and a Trump property management firm on-site, and Trump often got a small percentage from the first-time sales of condos too.

Depositions could shed light on whether and how the Trump Organization, through Bayrock Group and its Kazakh investors, benefited in any flow of illicit money.

One court document in a related British case shows Kazakh authorities filed a legal assistance request in 2013 to the U.S. government seeking details on the corporate structure of 15 companies it said were tied to the Khrapunovs, including Bayrock Group Inc. and Bayrock Group LLC.

Thus far, Ilyas Khrapunov has resisted providing evidence, but we look forward to the opportunity to question him about his role in his family’s crimes.

Matthew Schwartz, lawyer for the city of Almaty

The Financial Times reported last October that it had seen documents showing Sater had worked closely with Elvira Kudryashova in 2012, a year before she signed the documents for the three Trump SoHo condos. Kudryashova and Ilyas Khrapunov bought the condos so they could vacation in New York, with the properties offered as hotel rooms when they were not there.

Condos in the Trump SoHo building were developed and sold by Bayrock, which also vetted buyers.

Alan Garten, executive vice president and chief legal officer of the Trump Organization said it “was not responsible for the sale of units at Trump SoHo.”

The condos were bought by three companies that were registered in April 2013 within days of each other with the New York Division of Corporations: Soho 3310 LLC, Soho 3311 LLC and Soho 3203 LLC. They were dissolved the following year after the properties sold.

Court records show Kudryashova transferred a total of $3.1 million from a Wells Fargo account for the condo purchases. Bank documents also show her receiving large sums from an offshore company that used the Cyprus lender Federal Bank of the Middle East, which was headquartered in Tanzania. The Treasury Department blacklisted that bank as a “Primary Money Laundering Concern” on July 22, 2014.

A New York court decision in early May granted Almaty access to certain Khrapunovs-related bank transfers from abroad, and that could provide more details about the flow of their money into luxury properties that were held for short periods.

These sorts of purchases led the U.S. Treasury Department last year to begin a project to identify the true owners of shell companies that held luxury real estate in Miami and New York. It was later expanded to large cities in California and Texas.

Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, cautioned that “these efforts have a long way to go before the federal government has the tools it needs to stop money laundering through shady real estate deals and anonymous shell companies.”

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article gave the wrong law firm for John Kenney, who is with Hoguet Newman Regal & Kenney.

This story involved collaboration between McClatchy and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, a global journalism network that investigates transnational corruption.

Paluch is a special correspondent.

Reagan’s SDI Missile Intercept Test Successful

Posted on May 30, 2017May 30, 2017 by Denise Simon

Defense Department Makes Successful Missile-Intercept in Test

WASHINGTON, May 30, 2017 — The Defense Department today successfully intercepted an intercontinental ballistic missile target during a test of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense element of the nation’s ballistic missile defense system, according to a Missile Defense Agency news release.

NBCNY

The successful test was conducted by the Missile Defense Agency, in cooperation with the U.S. Air Force 30th Space Wing, the Joint Functional Component Command for Integrated Missile Defense and U.S. Northern Command.

‘An Incredible Accomplishment’

“The intercept of a complex, threat-representative ICBM target is an incredible accomplishment for the GMD system and a critical milestone for this program,” said MDA Director Navy Vice Adm. Jim Syring. “This system is vitally important to the defense of our homeland, and this test demonstrates that we have a capable, credible deterrent against a very real threat. I am incredibly proud of the warfighters who executed this test and who operate this system every day.”

This was the first live-fire test event against an ICBM-class target for GMD and the U.S. ballistic missile defense system.

During the test, an ICBM-class target was launched from the Reagan Test Site on Kwajalein Atoll in the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Multiple sensors provided target acquisition and tracking data to the Command, Control, Battle Management and Communication system.

The Sea-Based X-band radar, positioned in the Pacific Ocean, also acquired and tracked the target. The GMD system received the target tracking data and developed a fire control solution to intercept the target.

A ground-based interceptor was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, and its exo-atmospheric kill vehicle intercepted and destroyed the target in a direct collision.

Flight Data Slated for Evaluation

Initial indications are that the test met its primary objective, but program officials will continue to evaluate system performance based upon telemetry and other data obtained during the test.

The test, designated Flight Test Ground-Based Interceptor-15, will provide the data necessary to assess the performance of the GMD system and provide enhanced homeland defense capabilities.

The GMD element of the ballistic missile defense system provides combatant commanders the capability to engage and destroy intermediate and long-range ballistic missile threats to protect the U.S. The mission of the Missile Defense Agency is to develop and deploy a layered ballistic missile defense system to defend the United States, its deployed forces, allies and friends from limited ballistic missile attacks of all ranges in all phases of flight.

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Evaluation of Missile Defense System

“This is the first test event against an ICBM-class target for the ground-based mid-course defense system,” Davis said. “Program officials will evaluate system performance based upon telemetry and other data obtained during the test.”

A release and video are expected from the Missile Defense Agency, Davis said.

Ballistic missile proliferation continues to be a concern for the United States as additional countries acquire a greater number of ballistic missiles, Davis said.

Those countries, according to Davis, are increasing the range and incorporating ballistic missile defense countermeasures and making them more complex, survivable, reliable and accurate.

Concerns About North Korea, Iran

Davis highlighted two countries of concern: North Korea and Iran.

While today’s test was not timed because of recent North Korean actions, he said, North Korea is one of the reasons why the United States has the capability.

“North Korea has expanded the size and the sophistication of its ballistic missile forces from close-range ballistic missiles to intercontinental ballistic missiles,” he said. “They continue to conduct test launches, as we saw even this weekend, while also using dangerous rhetoric that suggests that they would strike the United States homeland.”

In addition, Iran continues to develop more sophisticated missiles and improve the range and accuracy of current missile systems, he said.

“Their ballistic missile capability will continue to threaten U.S. strategic interests in the Middle East,” he said. “Iran’s overall defense strategy relies on a substantial inventory of theater ballistic missiles capable of striking targets throughout the region.”

The FBI Finally Addressing Chicago, Murder Capitol

Posted on May 30, 2017May 30, 2017 by Denise Simon

FBI, Chicago Police Department Work to Combat Violent Crime

Tuesday, April 18, 8:15 a.m.: Along the 5100 block of Halsted Street on the South Side of Chicago, a quiet spring morning is interrupted by gunfire. Police respond to a gas station and discover a drive-by double homicide. As they secure the crime scene and work to identify the bodies and recover evidence, distraught family members of the victims begin to arrive, their faces full of anguish and disbelief. They will not be alone in their grief. By the end of the day in a city reeling from violent crime, there will be 13 more shootings and another murder.

Chicago’s extreme gun violence—762 homicides last year and more than 4,000 people wounded—has been described as an epidemic. Primarily gang-related, the shootings are often spontaneous and unpredictable, and the toll on victims, families, and entire communities cannot be overstated. That’s why the FBI’s Chicago Division, working with the Chicago Police Department (CPD) and other agencies, has undertaken significant measures to address the problem.

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“The FBI sometimes battles a perception that we are only interested in terrorism or public corruption or large drug-trafficking organizations,” said Michael Anderson, special agent in charge of the Chicago Division. “The fact is, we are interested in those things, but in Chicago we are also getting down to the street level to address violent crime, and we are specifically going after the trigger-pullers and shot-callers.”

That street-level focus is in response to a city homicide rate that has “increased exponentially,” Anderson said. “The number of shootings is at a level that hasn’t been seen here since the early 1990s.” As a result, he explained, “what you are seeing and will continue to see in Chicago is a sustained FBI effort to support and supplement our local partners.”

That effort involves three major areas:

The creation in 2016 of a homicide task force—in addition to the FBI’s existing violent crimes squad—in which agents work alongside CPD detectives and other law enforcement officers to assist in solving the city’s murder cases;
Increased intelligence-gathering efforts to identify shooters and “directors of violence,” which includes embedding FBI analysts at CPD headquarters; and
Stepping up community outreach efforts to gain the public’s trust and enlist their help in solving crimes and making communities safer.

Chicago Police Department personnel monitor activity at the Crime Prevention Information Center on April 17, 2017.

At Chicago Police Department headquarters, personnel in the Crime Prevention and Information Center monitor violent crimes throughout the city using surveillance video and other sophisticated tools. FBI analysts assigned to the center offer additional real-time intelligence that helps police officials deploy resources as efficiently as possible.

“Simply put,” said CPD Superintendent Eddie Johnson, “the FBI has more resources than we do. We combine the resources we have with the ones they have to fight these crimes.”

FBI and CPD personnel working together in the city’s most violent neighborhoods “has helped quite a bit,” Johnson said. “And we get real-time intelligence from the FBI that we didn’t get before. They can look at our crime picture and help us figure out where to best deploy our resources.”

Johnson, a Chicago native and 29-year veteran of the police force who spent many years as a patrol officer, believes a key reason for the city’s current violence is inadequate gun laws.

“The flow of guns into Chicago is just insane,” he said. “You will find that gang members would rather be caught with a gun by law enforcement than caught without one by their rivals. What we have to do through legislation is create a mentality where gang members won’t want to pick up a gun,” he explained. “You create that by holding them accountable for their actions. We simply don’t do a good job of that right now.”

Johnson recalled that when he joined CPD in 1988, he and fellow officers responded daily to calls of gang fights in progress. “We rarely hear that call anymore,” he said. “What we hear now is a person with a gun or a person shot. They just go straight to a firearm and they resolve their disputes with a weapon.”

“What you are seeing and will continue to see in Chicago is a sustained FBI effort to support and supplement our local partners.”

Michael Anderson, special agent in charge, FBI Chicago

“Communities are being hijacked by a relatively small percentage of people,” Anderson said. “The overwhelming majority of residents are hard-working citizens going to work, going to school, trying to go about their daily lives. These communities are under siege, and they are desperately looking for help.”

Of Chicago’s 22 police districts, the majority of violent crimes are taking places in a cluster of neighborhoods on the South and West Sides. “A handful of districts—probably five or six—are responsible for the disproportionate number of homicides and shootings,” Anderson said.

FBI and CPD investigators have focused considerable effort on two of the city’s most historically violent areas—the 11th District on the West Side and the 7th District on the South Side. “Since we put the task force in place,” Johnson said, “we’ve seen significant drops in gun violence in these two districts. We are making some real positive gains,” he said. “By no means are we declaring success, but we have seen some really encouraging results.”

Driving through the city’s most violent neighborhoods—Austin, Englewood, North Lawndale, Auburn Gresham—the streets and parks appear peaceful, and often they are. But when the violence comes, it is sudden and usually without warning. One gang member might have disrespected a rival gang member—increasingly through social media (see sidebar)—and they go looking for each other to settle matters with their guns.

“When I started as a cop,” Johnson said, “if you had a gang of 10 guys, maybe two of them at most would be armed. Now if you have a gang of 10 guys, probably nine of them are armed. And we’ve seen kids as young as 10 and 11 with firearms.”

Investigators agree that gang members are arming themselves at younger ages. “Based on what I’ve seen over the last year,” one FBI agent said, “these guys are carrying around guns as if it’s a symbol of their pride or who they are—and the bigger the gun, the better. We are seeing handguns with extended magazines and ammunition drums attached. It’s like guns are a part of them, a part of their culture. And they are not afraid to use them.”

“We get real-time intelligence from the FBI that we didn’t get before. They can look at our crime picture and help us figure out where to best deploy our resources.”

Eddie Johnson, superintendent, Chicago Police Department

FBI Special Agent Rob Fortt speaks to students at Plato Learning Academy in Chicago on April 18, 2017.

In addition to working closely with the Chicago Police Department to stop gun violence, the FBI has a strong community outreach program. At the Plato Learning Academy middle school in the Austin community, Special Agent Rob Fortt speaks to students about the dangers of joining gangs.

The FBI is working to reach some of these youngsters before they get involved with gangs—it’s one part of the Bureau’s larger community outreach effort in the campaign to stop gun violence. At the Plato Learning Academy middle school in the Austin community recently, Special Agent Rob Fortt spoke to sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-graders about the choices they make and the consequences of those choices.

The school’s principal, Charles Williams, welcomed the opportunity for the FBI to give students a fresh perspective on law enforcement and a positive message about making good decisions. Describing the neighborhood’s reputation for violence, Williams said he has heard gunshots in the middle of the day from his office, and violent crime is a fact of life. “Our students are surrounded by it, unfortunately. It’s just something that permeates the neighborhood.”

Gang-related homicides in Chicago are most easily solved when witnesses come forward. But in the city’s violent neighborhoods, many who witness shootings or have information don’t cooperate with law enforcement, either because they distrust the police or they want to engage in “frontier justice” and seek their own retaliation, the FBI’s Anderson said. “So we are putting a lot of resources into community outreach. We are really focusing on going out in the community and building trust. If folks trust law enforcement, they are more likely to report crimes.”

***

“We have to acknowledge that we have a fractured relationship with the community,” the CPD superintendent said. “But we’re working hard to rebuild that, and the FBI is helping us do that.” Johnson added, “I haven’t been to a community meeting yet where people have said they want less police. What they want is the police to be fair, respectful, and to get the bad guys out of their communities. That’s what they want. And you start that by having a constant dialogue with them, which we are doing.”

Community activist Andrew Holmes represents another important part of law enforcement’s outreach efforts. Holmes, who has experienced the tragedy of gun violence firsthand, has been working with the FBI since 2013 on issues involving gun crimes and the human trafficking of children. He is known to law enforcement and residents of violent neighborhoods as a rapid responder when a homicide occurs. He arrives on the streets at all hours of the day and night to counsel and comfort the families of victims. And he encourages witnesses to come forward.

The work is meaningful to Holmes because his daughter was killed in Indiana when she was innocently caught in the crossfire of a gang shooting. And he recently lost an 11-year-old cousin in Chicago who was killed by a stray bullet meant for a gang member. Holmes also visits high-crime neighborhoods, going street to street to hand out pamphlets urging residents to report gun crimes. In the troubled Auburn Gresham community recently, he spoke to Betty Swanson, block captain of her neighborhood watch group.

Andrew Holmes talks with Betty Swanson in Chicago

Community activist Andrew Holmes has been working with the FBI since 2013 on issues involving gun violence. He regularly visits high-crime neighborhoods to urge residents to cooperate with law enforcement. In the Auburn Gresham community recently, he spoke to Betty Swanson, block captain of her neighborhood watch group.

On the porch of her tree-lined street, Swanson told Holmes that one of her grandsons had been murdered a few months ago. “He was going to visit his mom … after he got off work. Somebody walked up to the car and shot him. He was 28 years old.”

Although her street is largely violence-free now because so many of the residents are senior citizens, Swanson said her block group works hard to keep the area safe, and—like Holmes advocates—that means speaking up when necessary.

“One thing we try to do is to let witnesses know that it’s okay to talk,” Holmes said. “We ask people to engage with law enforcement. You’ve got to work with law enforcement. I don’t care who it is—FBI, state police, U.S. Marshals, Chicago Police—you have to.” Otherwise, the help needed to save a loved one might come too late. “You’ve got to reach over and get that phone, call the FBI,” he said. “Show these criminals—not this block, it’s not happening.”

Murder and Social Media

For those unfamiliar with Chicago’s rampant gun violence, it would be easy to think that shootings happen because of traditional turf battles—one gang trying to muscle in on a rival’s street-corner drug business. But that reality occurred in a time before social media. The new reality is increasingly virtual, and social media is playing a prominent role in the murder rate.

Violence can indeed result from “gang-on-gang and some narcotics territory disputes,” said Chicago Police Department Superintendent Eddie Johnson, “but a lot of our gun violence now is precipitated by social media.”

One gang member disrespects a rival on social media, and the rival responds in kind. The virtual argument escalates, and the gang members look to settle things with weapons. Using their electronic devices, gang members can often pinpoint their rivals’ location.

“Gun in one hand, smartphone in the other,” said Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Chicago Division Michael Anderson. Too often, that makes for a deadly mix. And in many cases, the time between the online dispute and actual shots being fired, Anderson said, “is very short.”