File 030987
Michael Wolff Email on Trump's Financial Dealings and Epstein's Real Estate Scandal (File 030987)
February 2019 email from Michael Wolff to Jeffrey Epstein discussing Trump's business practices, money laundering in real estate, and a controversial 2004 Palm Beach property transaction involving Epstein, Trump, and Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev.
Summary
Michael Wolff describes Trump's decades of questionable business dealings and his use of real estate for money laundering. The email details a 2004 incident where Epstein and Trump competed for a Palm Beach mansion, with Trump ultimately purchasing it for $41 million through a Delaware entity financed by Deutsche Bank, then selling it to Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev for $96 million, netting a $55 million profit without investment. Wolff suggests this transaction may have involved money laundering, and notes that Epstein's investigation by Palm Beach police escalated during this period. The document concludes with a reference to Steve Bannon telling Epstein he was the person Bannon feared most during Trump's 2016 campaign.
From: Michael WolffSent: 2/1/2019 4:07:11 PMTo: Jeffrey Epstein [jeeyacation@gmail.com]Subject: FYIImportance: HighBooks and newspaper accounts of Trump's 45 years in business were full of hisshady dealings, and the presidency had only helped to highlight them and to surface evenjuicier ones. Real estate was the world's favorite money laundering currency and Trump'sB-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 billionairelifestyle, cache, and market viability, forced him into constant and unsubtleschemes. Practically speaking, you couldn't miss him, as the Mueller investigationappeared to be finding.In November 2004, for instance, Jeffrey Epstein, the financier later caught in a scandalinvolving under-age prostitutes, agreed to buy out of bankruptcy a house in Palm Beach,Florida for $30 million—a house that had been on the market for two years. Epstein andTrump had been close friends—playboys in arms, as it were—for more than a decade,with Epstein often counseling Trump on his chaotic financial affairs. Epstein took Trumpto see the Palm Beach house to advise him on construction issues involved with moving aswimming pool. As he prepared to finalize his deal for the house, an incredulous Epsteinsaw a severely cash-constrained Trump bid $41 million for the property, buying it throughan entity called Trump Properties LLC, financed by Deutsche Bank. Trump, Epstein knew,had been renting his name, telling Epstein he ought to do the same—that is, for an amplefee, Trump was willing to serve as a front man to disguise the actual ownership in a realestate transaction. (This was, in effect, just another variation of Trump's basic businessmodel of licensing his name for commercial properties owned by someone else.) A furiousEpstein, suspecting that the real owner was a Russian oligarch, who Trump knew, DmitryRybolovlev—part of the close Putin circle of government-aligned industrialists in Russia—threatened to expose the deal, then getting extensive scrutiny in Florida papers. The fightbecame all the more bitter when, two months later, the house was put on the market for$125 million. Well known to Trump, who often saw Epstein at his current Palm Beachhouse, Epstein was visited almost every day, and had been for many years, by girls who hepaid for massages with happy endings—girls recruited from local restaurants, strip clubs,and, also, Trump's Mar-a-Lago. Just as the threats and enmity of the two friends increasedover the house sale, Epstein found himself under investigation by local Palm Beach police.Epstein's legal problems vastly escalated as the house, with only minor improvements,was bought for $96 million by Dmitry Rybolovlev. That is, Trump had either miraculouslyearned $55 million, without putting up a dime, or Rybolovlev, or someone such asRybolovlev, paid Trump Properties, LLC—actual owner unknown—$96 million, therebyproviding a clean payment of $55 million to someone. Rybolovlev might have, in effect,paid himself for the house, thereby cleansing the money. Epstein, on his part, would spend12 months in jail on a prostitution charge.HOUSE OVERSIGHT 030987After the election, when Bannon was introduced to Epstein, Bannon told him, "You werethe one person I was truly afraid of coming forward during the campaign.""And rightly so," said Epstein.HOUSE OVERSIGHT 030988