Is there anything or anyone that Trump’s involved with that isn’t a corrupt grift? Or worse?
That’s a rhetorical question because the answer is an obvious “no.” At least when it comes to everything I can think of: from Trump University to his Russia-loving 2016 campaign to his efforts to overthrow the election and now Truth Social – Trump has surrounded himself with grifters and/or shady Russians who enable his grift.
The New York Times has the latest stench reeking from Trump World: two brothers who just pleaded guilty to insider trading:
Two brothers from Miami pleaded guilty on Wednesday in federal court in Manhattan for their role in a nearly $23 million insider-trading scheme surrounding the 2021 announcement that former President Donald J. Trump’s social media company planned to merge with a cash-rich shell company.
Michael and Gerald Shvartsman, who had pleaded not guilty to securities fraud charges last summer, were set to go on trial later this month. But the brothers decided this week to forgo a trial, instead entering their guilty pleas before Judge Lewis J. Liman of U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Each man pleaded guilty to one count of securities fraud.
Michael Shvartsman, according to federal prosecutors, was the mastermind of the scheme to profit from the announcement, in October 2021, that Trump Media & Technology Group planned to merge with Digital World Acquisition Corporation, a shell company that had just raised $300 million in an initial public offering. The authorities charged Michael Shvartsman, 53, a Miami financier, with making $18.2 million in illicit trading profits; and his brother, 46, who owns an outdoor furnishing store in Miami, with raking in $4.6 million.
The brothers are Canadian citizens, The Times notes, and could face deportation once they complete their sentences. But something tells me that Trump won’t be calling them “animals” any time soon.
There’s a third guy involved in the scheme who is due to go on trial at the end of the month, though nobody from Trump Media has been charged with any wrongdoing, The Times said. But this paragraph from the same Times article jumped out at me:
The federal authorities investigated a handful of other people who were associated with the Shvartsmans and had made profitable trades around the time of the merger announcement, according to court filings. Among them was Anton Postolnikov, a Russian American financier who made $22.8 million in trading profits. But none of those individuals were charged with wrongdoing, or found to have any ties to anyone associated with Trump Media.
Perhaps The Times should have added the words “so far” to its sentence about no wrongdoing having been found. Because the name Anton Postolnikov should be ringing alarms, if not appearing in criminal charges (yet).
Earlier on Wednesday, Frances Langum reminded us, via The Guardian, that Postolnikov was instrumental in helping Trump’s social media company go public – and getting him a tidy $4 billion as a result – “only after it had been kept afloat in 2022 by emergency loans provided in part by a Russian-American businessman under scrutiny in a federal insider-trading and money-laundering investigation.” That businessman is Postolnikov, of course.
But wait, there’s more: Susie Madrak wrote about Postolnikov a year ago. She quoted a Washington Post headline: "Trust linked to porn-friendly bank could gain a stake in Trump’s Truth Social, ES Family Trust offered $8 million in loans to Trump Media in an unusual deal criticized for conflicts of interest.” Then she wrote:
You will be shocked and stunned to learn that the owner of [porn-friendly] Paxum Bank, Anton Postolnikov, "is the nephew of Alexander Smirnov, a former deputy justice minister in the Russian government, according to a 2016 report by Delovoy Peterburg, a Russian business newspaper. Smirnov became general director of the state-controlled maritime company Rosmorport in 2021, according to published reports."
Alexander Smirnov? The same Alexander Smirnov who was just arrested for spreading lies about President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter?
Although news reports talk about the FBI’s Smirnov having “sketchy foreign connections,” including connections to Donald Trump and the Trump Media & Technology Group, there are other details that do not match, such as there is no indication the FBI's Smirnov was a director of Rosmorport.
But even if there are two, unrelated Alexander Smirnovs, the whole thing stinks of shady Russian involvement.
