This is good, all we need is Jason Bond...
"What I've been seeing posted ;
In case you haven't connected the news dots... Putin controls the largest oil company in Russia. He made a 500 Billion dollar deal with the CEO of Exxon Mobil. Obama put sanctions in place which stopped that deal. Russia then hacked into our government in order to get Trump elected. When the CIA told Congress this in September (James Comey was also in that meeting), Mitch McConnell refused to tell the American people, blackmailing Obama saying he would frame it as playing partisan politics during the election. Comey released the infamous no-information letter. Mitch McConnell's wife was picked for Trump's cabinet. The CEO of Exxon is now the Secretary of State. Wonder why our President has been so quick to dismiss the CIA's findings?.........it gets better.....
Here are some facts : Decide for yourselves
1) Trump owes Blackstone/ Bayrock group $560 million dollars (one of his largest debtors and the primary reason he won't reveal his tax returns)
2) Blackstone is owned wholly by Russian billionaires, who owe their position to Putin and have made billions from their work with the Russian government.
3) Other companies that have borrowed from Blackstone have claimed that owing money to them is like owing to the Russian mob and while you owe them, they own you for many favors.
4) The Russian economy is badly faltering under the weight of its over-dependence on raw materials which as you know have plummeted in the last 2 years leaving the Russian economy scrambling to pay its debts.
5) Russia has an impetus to influence our election to ensure the per barrel oil prices are above $65 ( they are currently hovering around $50)
6) Russia can't affordably get at 80% of its oil reserves and reduce its per barrel cost to compete with America at $45 or Saudi Arabia at $39. With Iranian sanctions being lifted Russia will find another inexpensive competitor increasing production and pushing Russia further down the list of suppliers. As for Iranian sanctions, the 6 countries lifting them allowing Iran to collect on the billions it is owed for pumping oil but not being paid for it. These billions Iran can only get if the Iranian nuclear deal is signed. Trump spoke of ending the deals which would cause oil sales sanctions to be reimposed, which would make Russian oil more competitive.
7) Rex Tillerson (Trump's pick for Secretary of State) is the head of ExxonMobil, which is in possession of patented technology that could help Putin extract 45% more oil at a significant cost savings to Russia, helping Putin put money in the Russian coffers to help reconstitute its military and finally afford to mass produce the new and improved systems that it had invented before the Russian economy had slowed so much.
8) Putin cannot get access to these new cost saving technologies OR outside oil field development money, due to US sanctions on Russia, because of its involvement in Ukrainian civil war.
9) Look for Trump to end sanctions on Russia and to back out of the Iranian nuclear deal, to help Russia rebuild its economy, strengthen Putin and make Tillerson and Trump even richer, thus allowing Trump to satisfy his creditors at Blackstone.
10) With Trump's fabricated hatred of NATO and the U.N., the Russian military reconstituted, the threat to the Baltic states is real. Russia retaking their access to the Baltic Sea from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia and threatening the shipping of millions of cubic feet of natural gas to lower Europe from Scandinavia, allowing Russia to make a good case for its oil and gas being piped into eastern Europe.
Sources: Time Magazine, NY Times, The Atlantic, The Guardian UK......phew.....did you make it thru all of that?..."
Now, in lieu of doing the research myself...here is a somewhat better treatment from Truth or Fiction that works better than the above roving chatter....
(https://www.truthorfiction.com/donald-trump-owes-560-million-to-blackstonebayrock/)
Summary of eRumor:
President-elect Donald Trump owes $560 million to Blackstone/Bayrock, a so-called collective of Russian oligarchs that have heavy sway over the Russian government and Vladimir Putin.
The Truth:
Claims that Donald Trump owes $560 million to Blackstone/Bayrock have been circulating for weeks on social media, but we couldn't find any documentation about how much, if anything, Trump owes those firms.
Any claims about Donald Trump's net worth, income or debt can't be verified because Trump hasn't released his tax returns.
It's not clear where, exactly, the claim that Donald Trump owes $560 million to Blackstone/Bayrock started — but it appears frequently in the comment sections of social media posts and articles about Russian hacking, Donald Trump and the 2016 election. The post cites a number of sources, but none of them include any specific claims about Trump owing Blackstone/Bayrock $560, or any money at all.
Rather, the source articles detail Trump's relationships with Blackstone Group LP and Bayrock Group LLC, and those firm's relationships with Russian investors and government officials. And, although there's nothing in those articles (or anywhere else on the web) to support the claim that Donald Trump owes Blackston/Bayrock $560 million — we'll provide a little background on what's known about Trump's dealings with the firms and their Russian connections.
Is Donald Trump in Debt to Blackstone?
Donald Trump is closely connected to Blackstone cofounder, chairman and CEO Stephen Schwarzman, and Schwarman has had dealings with Russian government officials in the past.
Schwarzman cofounded Blackstone in 1985 and today it has offices located around the globe — including China, Hong Kong, India and Dubai — and manages more than $360 billion in assets. In 2011, Vladimir Putin appealed directly to Blackstone to invest in Russia, Reuters reports:
The May 18 gathering was a radical departure for Putin, who normally receives foreign executives when they seek his personal blessing to close multibillion-dollar deals.
Speaking through an interpreter to guests including Blackstone's Stephen Schwarzman and Abu Dhabi's Hareb Al Darmaki, he spelled out how the fund would work alongside foreign investors to buy businesses in Russia.
By 2014, Blackstone announced that it was "giving up on Russia" after its invasion of Ukraine resulted in a new round of sanctions, the Moscow Times reports:
U.S. and European sanctions against state-backed Russian companies to punish Moscow for its intervention in Ukraine are deterring Western investment.
Blackstone's decision was also prompted by the fact that it had not found suitable investment opportunities in the past three years.
In January 2016, however, the New York Times reported that Schwarzman sat on the board of international advisors for an investment fund backed by the Russian government and directly linked to Vladimir Putin from 2011-2014:
Mr. Medvedev wanted to attract overseas investors to the country's companies, and tried to entice them by matching state funds with private capital. The partnership with the state, the theory went, would reduce the investors' worries about the risk of nationalization and arbitrary regulation.
To further shore up support, the fund rounded up prominent investors to serve on the advisory board. Along with the TPG and Blackstone executives, the fund recruited Leon Black of Apollo Global Management; Richard M. Daley, the former mayor of Chicago; Kurt Björklund of Permira; and Chinese and Middle Eastern fund managers.
By lending their names to the fund's advisory board, these financial heavyweights were supposed to ensure that money did not flow to political pet projects. The first wave of deals focused on bread-and-butter investments in companies building out Russia's infrastructure and catering to the middle class.
Today, Trump remains closely connected to Schwarzman. In December 2016, Trump appointed Blackstone's CEO and cofounder to serve on the President's Strategic and Policy Forum, which will be "called upon to meet with the president frequently to share their specific experience and knowledge as the president implements his plan."
In the end, Trump has strong connections to Blackstone, and Blackstone executives have had business dealings with the Kremlin — but we couldn't find any direct proof that Trump is currently in debt to Blackstone, or even that it's connected to Russia today.
Is Donald Trump in Debt to Bayrock?
We couldn't find any public records detailing how much, if at all, Donald Trump and the Trump Organization are currently in debt to Bayrock Group LLC.
But Trump's dealings with the New York-based real estate development firm have been well documented over the years. Bayrock has backed Trump projects around the world. Perhaps most notably, Bayrock was the primary backer of the the $370 million Trump SoHo luxury condo development that was completed in 2008.
Trump SoHo has become a confusing, tangled web. Not surprisingly, it's also been the subject of a number of lawsuits that have shed light on its financing — which is how it relates to the Donald Trump owes Blackstone/Bayrock $560 million claim.
First, Trump SoHo condo buyers filed suit claiming that they had been "defrauded by inflated claims made by Mr. Trump, his children and others of brisk sales in the struggling project" to create a false sense of urgency and force sales. Trump settled the suit in 2011, agreeing to refund 90 percent of original deposits, assuming no guilt, the New York Times reports.
A second lawsuit filed by Bayrock finance chief Jody Kriss alleged that funding for Trump SoHo and other Trump-Bayrock projects arrived "magically" from sources in Russia and Kazakhstan. The lawsuit also alleged that "tax evasion and money-laundering are the core of Bayrock's business model."
Questions about Bayrock's involvement with the Trump Organization quickly circled back to the development firm's principal players, Tevfik Arif and Felix Sater. Arif is the Kazakh real estate developer and investor who founded Bayrock Rock. Sater, a native of Russia, had mafia ties and became a government informant after a "pump and dump" stock scheme. Stater has testified that he represented Trump in Russia, billed himself as a senior Trump advisor, and had an office in Trump Tower, Forbes reports.
In 2011, Trump testified about his dealings with Bayrock, and his knowledge of Russian investors, the Times reports:
Emails and testimony in several lawsuits show that Mr. Sater and Mr. Arif worked closely with Mr. Trump and others in the Trump Organization. Mr. Trump was particularly taken with Mr. Arif's overseas connections. In a deposition, Mr. Trump said that the two had discussed "numerous deals all over the world" and that Mr. Arif had brought potential Russian investors to Mr. Trump's office to meet him.
"Bayrock knew the people, knew the investors, and in some cases I believe they were friends of Mr. Arif," Mr. Trump said. "And this was going to be Trump International Hotel and Tower Moscow, Kiev, Istanbul, etc., Poland, Warsaw."
What sort of due diligence Mr. Trump did before jumping in with his new partners is unclear. But he, as well as many others, apparently missed some dark spots on Mr. Sater's résumé. Mr. Garten said the Trump Organization typically did a background check on potential business partners like Bayrock, but not on their individual employees, so nothing about Mr. Sater would have turned up.
In the end, it's clear that Donald Trump had a close business relationship with Bayrock, which relied on investors from Kazakhstan and Russia to finance Trump projects. But specific claims about how much Trump is in debt to Bayrock — if at all — can't be proven because that information hasn't been made public.
That's why we're calling claims that Donald Trump owes Blackstone/Bayrock $560 million"unproven" at this time.
(https://www.truthorfiction.com/donald-trump-owes-560-million-to-blackstonebayrock/)
Donald Trump Owes $560 Million to Blackstone/Bayrock-Unproven!
President-elect Donald Trump owes $560 million to Blackstone/Bayrock, a so-called collective of Russian oligarchs that have heavy sway over the Russian government and Vladimir Putin.
The Truth:
Claims that Donald Trump owes $560 million to Blackstone/Bayrock have been circulating for weeks on social media, but we couldn't find any documentation about how much, if anything, Trump owes those firms.
Any claims about Donald Trump's net worth, income or debt can't be verified because Trump hasn't released his tax returns.
It's not clear where, exactly, the claim that Donald Trump owes $560 million to Blackstone/Bayrock started — but it appears frequently in the comment sections of social media posts and articles about Russian hacking, Donald Trump and the 2016 election. The post cites a number of sources, but none of them include any specific claims about Trump owing Blackstone/Bayrock $560, or any money at all.
Rather, the source articles detail Trump's relationships with Blackstone Group LP and Bayrock Group LLC, and those firm's relationships with Russian investors and government officials. And, although there's nothing in those articles (or anywhere else on the web) to support the claim that Donald Trump owes Blackston/Bayrock $560 million — we'll provide a little background on what's known about Trump's dealings with the firms and their Russian connections.
Is Donald Trump in Debt to Blackstone?
Donald Trump is closely connected to Blackstone cofounder, chairman and CEO Stephen Schwarzman, and Schwarman has had dealings with Russian government officials in the past.
Schwarzman cofounded Blackstone in 1985 and today it has offices located around the globe — including China, Hong Kong, India and Dubai — and manages more than $360 billion in assets. In 2011, Vladimir Putin appealed directly to Blackstone to invest in Russia, Reuters reports:
The May 18 gathering was a radical departure for Putin, who normally receives foreign executives when they seek his personal blessing to close multibillion-dollar deals.
Speaking through an interpreter to guests including Blackstone's Stephen Schwarzman and Abu Dhabi's Hareb Al Darmaki, he spelled out how the fund would work alongside foreign investors to buy businesses in Russia.
By 2014, Blackstone announced that it was "giving up on Russia" after its invasion of Ukraine resulted in a new round of sanctions, the Moscow Times reports:
U.S. and European sanctions against state-backed Russian companies to punish Moscow for its intervention in Ukraine are deterring Western investment.
Blackstone's decision was also prompted by the fact that it had not found suitable investment opportunities in the past three years.
In January 2016, however, the New York Times reported that Schwarzman sat on the board of international advisors for an investment fund backed by the Russian government and directly linked to Vladimir Putin from 2011-2014:
Mr. Medvedev wanted to attract overseas investors to the country's companies, and tried to entice them by matching state funds with private capital. The partnership with the state, the theory went, would reduce the investors' worries about the risk of nationalization and arbitrary regulation.
To further shore up support, the fund rounded up prominent investors to serve on the advisory board. Along with the TPG and Blackstone executives, the fund recruited Leon Black of Apollo Global Management; Richard M. Daley, the former mayor of Chicago; Kurt Björklund of Permira; and Chinese and Middle Eastern fund managers.
By lending their names to the fund's advisory board, these financial heavyweights were supposed to ensure that money did not flow to political pet projects. The first wave of deals focused on bread-and-butter investments in companies building out Russia's infrastructure and catering to the middle class.
Today, Trump remains closely connected to Schwarzman. In December 2016, Trump appointed Blackstone's CEO and cofounder to serve on the President's Strategic and Policy Forum, which will be "called upon to meet with the president frequently to share their specific experience and knowledge as the president implements his plan."
In the end, Trump has strong connections to Blackstone, and Blackstone executives have had business dealings with the Kremlin — but we couldn't find any direct proof that Trump is currently in debt to Blackstone, or even that it's connected to Russia today.
Is Donald Trump in Debt to Bayrock?
We couldn't find any public records detailing how much, if at all, Donald Trump and the Trump Organization are currently in debt to Bayrock Group LLC.
But Trump's dealings with the New York-based real estate development firm have been well documented over the years. Bayrock has backed Trump projects around the world. Perhaps most notably, Bayrock was the primary backer of the the $370 million Trump SoHo luxury condo development that was completed in 2008.
Trump SoHo has become a confusing, tangled web. Not surprisingly, it's also been the subject of a number of lawsuits that have shed light on its financing — which is how it relates to the Donald Trump owes Blackstone/Bayrock $560 million claim.
First, Trump SoHo condo buyers filed suit claiming that they had been "defrauded by inflated claims made by Mr. Trump, his children and others of brisk sales in the struggling project" to create a false sense of urgency and force sales. Trump settled the suit in 2011, agreeing to refund 90 percent of original deposits, assuming no guilt, the New York Times reports.
A second lawsuit filed by Bayrock finance chief Jody Kriss alleged that funding for Trump SoHo and other Trump-Bayrock projects arrived "magically" from sources in Russia and Kazakhstan. The lawsuit also alleged that "tax evasion and money-laundering are the core of Bayrock's business model."
Questions about Bayrock's involvement with the Trump Organization quickly circled back to the development firm's principal players, Tevfik Arif and Felix Sater. Arif is the Kazakh real estate developer and investor who founded Bayrock Rock. Sater, a native of Russia, had mafia ties and became a government informant after a "pump and dump" stock scheme. Stater has testified that he represented Trump in Russia, billed himself as a senior Trump advisor, and had an office in Trump Tower, Forbes reports.
In 2011, Trump testified about his dealings with Bayrock, and his knowledge of Russian investors, the Times reports:
Emails and testimony in several lawsuits show that Mr. Sater and Mr. Arif worked closely with Mr. Trump and others in the Trump Organization. Mr. Trump was particularly taken with Mr. Arif's overseas connections. In a deposition, Mr. Trump said that the two had discussed "numerous deals all over the world" and that Mr. Arif had brought potential Russian investors to Mr. Trump's office to meet him.
"Bayrock knew the people, knew the investors, and in some cases I believe they were friends of Mr. Arif," Mr. Trump said. "And this was going to be Trump International Hotel and Tower Moscow, Kiev, Istanbul, etc., Poland, Warsaw."
What sort of due diligence Mr. Trump did before jumping in with his new partners is unclear. But he, as well as many others, apparently missed some dark spots on Mr. Sater's résumé. Mr. Garten said the Trump Organization typically did a background check on potential business partners like Bayrock, but not on their individual employees, so nothing about Mr. Sater would have turned up.
In the end, it's clear that Donald Trump had a close business relationship with Bayrock, which relied on investors from Kazakhstan and Russia to finance Trump projects. But specific claims about how much Trump is in debt to Bayrock — if at all — can't be proven because that information hasn't been made public.
That's why we're calling claims that Donald Trump owes Blackstone/Bayrock $560 million"unproven" at this time.
A real example of the eRumor as it has appeared on the Internet:
The first in a long list of claims, that Donald Trump owes Blackstone/Bayrock $560 million, can't be proven.
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