Moscow ‘aided’ Trump
TRANSCRIPTS: SPY RESEARCHED PRESIDENT’S CAMPAIGN TIES TO RUSSIANS
Country denies it interfered in the 2016 polls to help Trump.
Testimony to the US Congress by the head of a political research firm indicates that the Trump Organisation’s sales of properties to Russian nationals may have involved money-laundering, the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee said on Thursday.
The panel released the transcript of a November 14 closeddoor interview with Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson, whose firm hired a former British spy to research then-presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign ties to Russians and produced a dossier.
“Those transcripts reveal serious allegations that the Trump Organisation may have engaged in money laundering with Russian nationals,” representative Adam Schiff said.
The Trump Organisation dismissed the allegations as unsubstantiated.
Another Democrat on the Republican-controlled committee, Representative Jim Hines, sought to temper Schiff’s comment, telling CNN that Simpson “did not provide evidence and I think that’s an important point. He made allegations.”
The House of Representatives panel is conducting one of the three congressional investigations into possible collusion between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller is leading a separate probe by the US Justice Department. Moscow denies the conclusions of US intelligence agencies that it interfered in the 2016 election to help Trump and Trump denies any collusion.
In his testimony, Simpson said that his firm closely examined sales of condominiums in Trump properties in New York, Miami, Panama City and Toronto.
“There were a lot of real estate deals where you couldn’t really tell who was buying the property,” Simpson said.
“And sometimes properties would be bought and sold, and they would be bought for one price and sold for a loss shortly thereafter, and it really didn’t make sense to us. We saw patterns of buying and selling that we thought were suggestive of money-laundering,” he continued.
Alan Garten, the Trump Organisation’s chief counsel, said that the deals Simpson referenced primarily involve properties to which Trump licensed his name, rather than owning, developing or selling them.
“These accusations are completely reckless and unsubstantiated for a multitude of reasons. These issues have nothing to do with the scope of the investigation,” by the House intelligence committee, Garten said in a phone interview. – Reuters