Sec’y pokes holes in wall
A BANK IN CYPRUS investigated several accounts tied to President Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort for possible money laundering, according to a new report.
At least one of about 15 accounts associated with Manafort was used to take in millions of dollars from a billionaire supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin, NBC News reported Tuesday.
Banking sources said transactions from some of those accounts raised enough concern for the bank to open an internal investigation for potential money laundering.
Once the probe opened, Manafort shut the accounts, the sources said.
A Manafort spokesman said in a statement to NBC News that all of the accounts existed only for “a legitimate business purpose” with clients Cyprus, a Mediterranean nation often used Russian money transfers.
“All were legitimate entities and established for lawful ends,” the statement said, adding that Manafort had “no specific personal recollection” of closing the accounts.
Manafort served as the second of Trump’s three presidential campaign advisers, but the longtime lobbyist resigned after four months when reports emerged of his potentially illegal off-the-books deals for $12.7 million from the party for former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.
Manafort is now at the center of multiple federal probes — including investigations from the CIA, FBI and the Treasury Department — for potential Russian connections, and more of his money mysteries have emerged just this year. in island for
Real estate experts said Manafort made several odd real estate transactions in New York City — spanning a period of 11 years — using tactics that resemble money laundering.
Using limited liability companies to buy real estate is not unusual or illegal — but large loans on properties bought with cash can often be a red flag, experts say.
The Associated Press also revealed that Manafort secretly worked for a Russian billionaire advancing Putin’s interests in 2005.
The AP reported last week that Manafort proposed an ambitious political strategy in a June 2005 memo that was based on work he had done in Ukraine. Manafort described how his plan could be used to influence politics in the United States and Europe to the benefit of the Russian government. WASHINGTON — Geographic and physical challenges, including the Rio Grande and threatened wildlife, will make it difficult to build the “big, beautiful wall” that President Donald Trump has promised on the U.S.-Mexico border, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said Wednesday.
Building a wall “is complex in some areas,” including Big Bend National Park and along the river, which twists through nearly half of the 2,000-mile border, Zinke said.
Hundreds of species live within 30 miles of the border, including threatened jaguars and Mexican gray wolves.
The Trump administration is poised to relax protections for the jaguars, which live in northern Mexico and parts of the Southwestern United States, to make it easier to build the wall.
Throughout the campaign, Trump energized his crowds with his insistence that a wall will be constructed along the border and that Mexico will pay for it.
The complications Zinke highlighted were the same faced by Trump’s predecessors, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, as they sought to build or complete hundreds of miles of fencing along the border.