Trump Media Got Millions in Loans from Foreign Sources with Russian Ties | CPT PPP Coverage

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Between the tangle of duplicity that is the former president*’s finances and the sudden appearance at odd points of various Russian names, any future biography is liable to read like Tolstoy’s Book Of Practical Accounting. From the Guardian:

The company – Trump Media, which owns Trump’s Truth Social platform – initially came under criminal investigation over its preparations for a potential merger with a blank check company called Digital World (DWAC) that was also the subject of an earlier investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Towards the end of last year, federal prosecutors started examining two loans totaling $8m wired to Trump Media, through the Caribbean, from two obscure entities that both appear to be controlled in part by the relation of an ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin, the sources said.

The long arm of the kleptocracy reached out to help Trump Media.

Though the two payments to Trump Media ostensibly came from two separate entities – first Paxum Bank and second ES Family Trust – the trustee of ES Family Trust, a person called Angel Pacheco, appears to have simultaneously been a director of Paxum Bank. The Russian connection, as being examined by prosecutors in the US attorney’s office for the southern district of New York, centers on a part-owner of Paxum Bank – an individual named Anton Postolnikov, who appears to be a relation of Putin ally Aleksandr Smirnov. Smirnov, who heads the Russia-controlled maritime company Rosmorport, worked in the Central Office of the Russian government until 2017. Before that, Smirnov was the first deputy minister of justice of Russia until 2014, and for most of Putin’s first two terms as president, Smirnov served in the executive office of the president.

Back in the dim times before insurrections and Stormy and the mugging of the Ukrainian government, money-laundering was suspected to be the primary window into the life beyond the law plausibly enjoyed by the former president*. There were the exorbitant prices paid by various Russians for various properties. There was son Eric’s release of the cat from the bag. Now here we are, back to the beginning again (allegedly).

Prosecutors appear to have also taken a special interest in the payments because the off-shore Paxum Bank has a history of providing banking services for the pornography and sex worker industries, which makes it higher risk of engaging in money laundering and other illicit financing. There appears to have been some awareness at Trump Media that the first $2m was to come through because Trump’s eldest son Don Jr, who joined the board with Trump ally Kash Patel and former Republican turned Trump Media chief executive Devin Nunes, had confirmed to the company’s lawyers to proceed with the transaction. “Just want to keep you in the loop – no guaranty that these will get signed and funded, but we remain hopeful,” John Haley, outside counsel for Trump Media said in a 24 December 2021 email seen by the Guardian, to which Don Jr replied: “Thanks john much appreciated. d.”

Lord only knows where this one will lead. But here is another list of potential crimes, and another list of Volga Bagmen, to add to our collective political breakdown. And the guy isn’t even president* anymore!

Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976. He lives near Boston and has three children.