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NEWS & POLITICS

Trump’s mob connections

There’s a reason why Trump’s behavior is so “Mafia-like.”

By AMANDA LUZ HENNING SANTIAGO

SEPTEMBER 27, 2019

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Following the White House’s release of the transcript of a phone call between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff called Trump’s pressure on Zelensky to help him smear former Vice-President Joe Biden, “a classic Mafia-like shakedown of a foreign leader."

BY AMANDA LUZ HENNING SANTIAGO

The comparison was fitting, considering Trump is known to havemultiple ties to mobsters. Trump himself was quoted saying that he was tentative to sign onto participating in the reality show “The Apprentice” due to the number of “mobsters” frequenting his place of work.

"I don't want to have cameras all over my office, dealing with contractors, politicians, mobsters and everyone else I have to deal with in my business," Trump told a panel at the Museum of Television and Radio in Los Angeles, in 2004. "You know, mobsters don't like, as they are talking to me, having cameras all over the room. It would play well on television, but it doesn't play well with them."

Trump’s behavior and language have also been likened to that of mobsters by several news outlets, who have noted that his speech is often peppered with terms typically used by members of the mob, like late Gambino family boss John Gotti. The president’s former attorney, Michael Cohen, who is currently serving a three-year sentence in federal prison for tax evasion and campaign finance violation, has also remarked that Trump operates “much like a mobster would do,” in February, while testifying before the House Oversight and Reform Committee. And Cohen should know – he has alleged mob connections himself. 

Perhaps it’s common when working as a major real estate developer and landlord in New York City to brush up against mob-connected figures. The Five Families of New York have historically been influential in the city’s construction unions and private waste management companies, for example. Even so, Trump’s history of friendly – and sometimes ethically dubious – interactions with mobsters is remarkably long and complex. 

To break it down, we’ve compiled a list of the president’s most notable Mafia connections:

Roy Cohn

Known as one of New York’s most ferocious and cold-hearted lawyers, Roy Cohn worked for U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy, a slew of New York city mobsters, such as members of the Genovese crime family – and Trump. Cohn became Trump’s attorney in the 1970s, and it has been reported that the pair spoke on the phone as frequently as five times per day, while working together. 

Many of Cohn’s mob-connected clients also controlled a large portion of New York City’s construction unions. Trump employed construction companies run by mafiosos Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno and Paul Castellano to build his Trump Plaza and Trump Tower apartment buildings. 

House Wreckers Union Local 95

The union, run mainly by the Genovese crime family, hired a large swath of nonunion, undocumented Polish and South Korean demolition workers to work alongside its union members. Trump used Local 95’s undocumented workers in 1979 to demolish the Bonwit Teller department store in order to make way for Trump Tower.

Trump denied knowing that he had employed undocumented workers, but was nevertheless fined $325,000 on the grounds of partipacting in a conspiracy to violate a fiduciary duty, in 1991. Though, the case was settled in negotiations and an agreement was sealed – so it’s unclear how much of the fine Trump actually paid.

John Staluppi

Trump created his first name-licensing deal with a luxury limo rental company owned by John Staluppi, a “made” member of the Colombo crime family in 1988, according to Newsweek. 

Daniel Sullivan

A large, gregarious man, with a criminal record and ties to the Mafia, Daniel Sullivan began working for Trump as a “labor consultant.” Later, the pair operated a drywall manufacturing business together that was connected to a racketeering scheme involving the carpenters' union and the Genovese crime family. 

Sullivan also introduced Trump to Kenneth Shapiro, who worked for Philadelphia mobster Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo as their financier and agent, which he and Trump entered into an Atlantic City land-leasing deal with. 

After Trump was advised that Sullivan would hurt his ability to secure a casino license, by the New Jersey's Gaming Enforcement agency, Trump cut ties with Sullivan – though, the two still kept in contact. Trump later offered Sullivan the position of chief labor negotiator at his organization, according to his former “consultant.”

 

Michael Cohen & Felix Sater

Cohen’s uncle, Morton Levine, ran Brooklyn social club El Caribe, which was frequented by members of Italian-American and Russian-American organized crime families in the 1970s and 1980s. Leaders of the Russian mob, Evsei Agron and Marat Balagula, were known for using the club as their personal office and handled their “business” there for years. 

Cohen also has close ties with Felix Sater, a Russian-born investor, connected to both the New York and Russian mafia, whom Cohen has known since childhood. Sater’s father was also "a reputed capo in the Mogilevich organized crime syndicate," Talking Points Memo reported in 2018. Despite his mob connections, Sater is also said to have been an informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigations and an asset for the Central Intelligence Agency. 

Once a stockbroker, Sater lost his license in the 1990s for participating in a mob-linked plot to inflate marginal stocks and unload them onto unsuspecting investors and hiding the profits abroad, The Wall Street Journal reported in 2016. The former broker was convicted of racketeering and sentenced to prison. He also spent time in prison, for slamming the stem of a martini glass into a man’s face during a bar fight.

The former attorney worked with Sater on a Trump Tower deal in Moscow, while Trump was on the campaign in 2015.Though, Trump has denied knowing Sater in the past, there is conclusive evidence that he worked for the Trump Organization as a broker for years. In emails to Cohen, Sater boasted about having ties to Russian President Vladamir Putin, saying that he would solidify the real estate deal in Russia that Trump’s organization was pursuing with the president’s help – and help secure Trump the presidency. There is no evidence that Sater ever delivered on his promises. The Trump Tower Moscow deal eventually fizzled out and since the news of Sater’s involvement in Trump’s Russia dealings emerged he has practically vanished from the public eye. 

Robert LiButti

Trump denied knowing racehorse trader and high-rolling gambler, Robert LiButti, who is said to have had ties to John Gotti, when probed by the Philadelphia Inquirer in 1991. But LiButti’s daughter, Edith Creamer, told Yahoo News in 2016 that is simply not true, and that Trump knew very well who her father was, and that she and her father had both flown with Trump in his helicopter. It was also reported that Trump took an interest in LiButti’s daughter, prompting the high-roller to threaten the future president to stay away, or suffer the loss of his, uh, crown jewels, so to speak. Even more damning, there’s a video of LiButti and Trump attending the “WrestleMania IV” event together in 1988.

Trump almost bought a $500,000 racehorse from LiButti, but backed out at the last minute, according to Yahoo, and once personally handed the alleged mob affiliate a $350,000 check while he was gambling at a craps table in Trump’s casino.

 

Innuendo, and speculation that an acquaintance, or even a business contact, is a mob connection.

If that is the case, every mob prosecutor has mob connections.

Another expert attempt at McCarthyism, lib.

Biden and Pelosi are associating themselves with a carrier criminal who was part of a criminal enterprise.

They must also be mob connected...

Leonard Robinson6 days ago227Views 5Votes 3Comments

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, made these controversial remarks at a Congressional Black Caucus press conference immediately after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of the murder of George Floyd:

“Thank you, George Floyd, for sacrificing your life for justice,” Pelosi said. “For being there to call out to your mom—how heartbreaking was that? Call out for your mom, ‘I can’t breathe.’ But because of you and because of thousands—millions of people around the world who came out for justice, your name will always be synonymous with justice.” 

Watch the Speaker’s comments in this video which examines how far the media and the Democrats have gone to push George Floyd into full-blown Martyrdom:

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But is George Floyd a martyr?

Was Floyds’ life up to the day of his death one devoted to a cause, religious or political? Floyd died following a police interaction where he resisted arrest after a local merchant filed a complaint that Floyd had committed a crime. Unless freedom to pass counterfeit currency is now some moral crusade -George Floyd was not a martyr.

Let is review just a few real martyrs through out history:

• St. Lawrence (258 AD) Christian Deacon was grilled to death on orders of Roman Emperor Valerian.
• St. Margaret ( 1586) England was pressed to death for refusing to denounce her faith.
• St. Bartholomew, among the twelve apostles of Jesus, was skinned alive till death.
• Joan of Arc ( 1431) was burned at the stake at age 19 for fighting for her religious beliefs.
• William Tyndale ( 1536) known as the “Father of the English Bible” who translated 90% of the King James Version of the scriptures was strangled to death then burned at the stake.
• Clement Shahbaz (2011) active spokesperson against the laws concerning Pakistan’s blasphemy laws was gunned down.
• Father Jacques Hamel was ordained as a priest and served in the Churches of Notre-Dame de Lourdes, St. Antoine, St. Pierre Les Elbeuf, and Saint Etienne du Rouvray (2016) had his throats slit by two Islamic extremists during mass.
• Annalena Tonelli (2003) was an inspired ally of humanitarian efforts in Somalia and a Roman Catholic missionary who was shot in the head.
• Kayla Mueller(2015) American Humanitarian Christian Worker died following harrowing captivity by ISIS leaders where she was tortured and later died in captivity.

Again we ask, is George Floyd a martyr? Candace Owens brutally lays out the case that he is not:

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 So why have we lived through the Summer of Rage, now starting up yet again after the verdict, resulting in hundreds of injuries, dozens of deaths, and billions of dollars of retail and property loss? Why is the media gaslighting and censoring the incident and glorifying George Floyd 24/7? Why is the Democrat party making Floyd a martyr?

For a cause.

Yes, the cause is a political agenda to facilitate that the Democrats gain power in an election year and maintain that power by using racial politics to drive narratives that benefit their goals. Recall Pelosi’s “collateral damage” and “the wrap-up smear” comments? 

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Floyd’s death was an opportunity to craft a narrative and market it as propaganda to galvanize a segment of the population to pledge allegiance to the cause…the cause was Democrat political dominance. Pelosi may have spoken about collateral damage and the wrap-up smear long before the Floyd incident, but it is her strategy that was on display that is universal as a tactic.

If Black Americans in inner cities suffer or die in the riots -collateral damage. If we smear all police as systemic racist -The wrap-up smear. If the narrative sets white liberals against Republicans and BLM energizes losing black democrat base to return to the voting booth -win-win. If we make George Floyd a symbolism of our propaganda of social justice -the net gains live on past the incident. We can dip into the Floyd well over and over.

This narrative of false martyrdom is not a new game. Leftists in history are full of examples as powerful people and movements need their martyrs to attract and energize the base to the manufactured “cause.” However, one example did stand out for me while following the rise of St. Floyd that is eerily similar. Martyrdom has been used to push ideology such as Marxism and Nazism such as the case of Horst Wessel.

Wessel joined the Nazi Brownshirt paramilitary in the final days of the Weimar Republic. He made a name for himself and gained a reputation for being very violent which put him on the radar of Joseph Goebbels. In 1928, Goebbels sent Wessel to Vienna to organize the Nazi youth movement there. He organized the attack on the local headquarters of the Communist Party in Friedrichshain, Berlin, during which four workers sustained serious injuries. Shortly following this incident Horst Wessel was ambushed in his apartment by ” communists strongmen”  who shot him in the head and he died several weeks later on February 23, 1930, from his injuries.

There emerged several versions of the incident that resulted in his death:

• The Landlord  got into it with Wessel about a rent dispute he became physical with her and she engaged the communists to retaliate.
• Wessel had a prostitute he was keeping in the apartment but beat her badly and she went to the communists to have him killed.
• The entire story of how he died was fabricated to cover some unknown truth.

Whatever the real story Horst Wessel’s greatest  fame came with death as his shooting  was immediately exploited by both the Nazis and the Communists to further their political aims.

Jewish Virtual Library:

“The Communists portrayed Wessel as a pimp, while the Nazis claimed he had actually saved his girlfriend from a life of prostitution by introducing her to the Nazi Party and its values. Goebbels organized a public funeral for the new “martyr” to the Nazi cause, and 30,000 people lined the streets of Berlin to see the procession. Goebbels delivered the eulogy in the presence of Hermann Göring and Prince August Wilhelm of Prussia. During the Nazi era, his life was glorified in memorials, books, and films. Some months before he died, Wessel had written the verses to what would become the “Horst Wessel Lied” but it first gained popular currency when a choir of Stormtroopers performed it at his funeral. It was later recorded, and in 1931 it became the official anthem of the Nazi Party, played alongside Deutschland über Alles at all official occasions. The song celebrates the SA (whom Hitler would soon purge in the Night of the Long Knives).”

The canonization of Horst Wessel by Goebbels energized the Nazi Youth recruitment and strengthened the political movement long after his death.

The near transcendent veneration afforded to George Floyd by Democrats energized BLM and consolidated their political strength to retake power. Now, Floyd has even taken Reverend Martin Luther Kings’ spot!  Joe Biden deemed it so:

I suspect looking back now most see Horst Wessel for the political thug advancing an evil cause that he was. Consider that the AG of Minnesota, Keith Ellison made this stunning admissionabout the man that the President of the United States, Speaker of the House, numerous politicians, BLM, Antifa, and media all said died due to systemic racism:

“I wouldn’t call it that because hate crimes are crimes where there’s an explicit motive and of bias,” Ellison said. “We don’t have any evidence that Derek Chauvin factored in George Floyd’s race as he did what he did.” The cognitive dissonance on parade in real time does not bold well for history correcting the record on George Floyd.

H/T Bekah Lyons co-author

Mob connection to saint George, the patron saint of a...

Good job Goodlibs!