FYI

Books and newspaper accounts of Trump’s 45 years in business were full of his
shady dealings, and the presidency had only helped to highlight them and to surface even
juicier ones. Real estate was the world's favorite money laundering currency and Trump's
perceived A -level real estate business was quite explicitly designed to appeal to money
launderers. What’s more, Trump’s own financial woes, and desperate efforts to maintain
billionaire lifestyle, cache, and market viability, forced him into constant and unsubtle
schemes. Practically speaking, you couldn’t miss him, as the Mueller investigation
appeared to be finding.

In November 2004, for instance, Jeffrey Epstein, the financier later caught in a scandal
involving under-age prostitutes, agreed to buy out of bankruptcy a house in Palm Beach,
Florida for $36 million—a house that had been on the market for two years. Epstein and
Trump had been close friends—playboys in arms, as it were—for more than a decade,
with Trump always hopeful that Epstein would provide some of his financial expertise to
enabvle h8im to survive. Trump was beholden to Deutsch Bank and was on the hook
personally for 40 million dollars.

Epstein took Trump to see the Palm Beach house to advise him on construction issues
involved with moving the swimming pool. As he prepared to finalize his deal for the
house, an incredulous Epstein saw a severely cash-constrained Trump bid $41 million for
the property, buying it through an entity named Trump Properties LLC, ultimate owner
unknown. . Trump, Epstein knew, had been in the buisness of leasing his name. Hotels are
actually owned by others but renting the trump name would cost a percent or two. ,
Trump was willing to serve as a front man to disguise the actual ownership in a real estate
transaction. (This was, in effect, just another variation of Trump’s basic business model of
licensing his name for commercial properties owned by someone else.) A furious Epstein
suspected that others actually owned the new house. then getting extensive scrutiny in
Florida papers. The disagreement re the purchase of the house became all the more bitter
when, two months later, the house was put on the market for $125 million. Well known to
Trump, who often visited with Epstein at his Palm Beach house, whose visits were
confirmed in depostions of Epsteins houseman. It appears that Epstein was visited almost
every day, by and had been for many years, by girls who he paid for massages with happy
endings—girls recruited, and who often returned to his house from the local massage

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