Alleged Trump–Epstein real‑estate deal and possible money‑laundering scheme

From: J [[email protected]] Sent: 2/1/2019 4:46:54 PM To: Michael Wolff Subject: Fwd: FYI first edit ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Michael Wolff [ee Date: Fri, Feb 1, 2019 at 11:07 AM Subject: FYI To: Jeffrey Epstein <[email protected]> Books and newspaper accounts of Trump’s 45 years in business were full of his shady dealings, and the presidency had only helped to highlight them and to surface even juicier ones. Real estate was the world's favorite money laundering currency and Trump's perceived A -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 billionaire lifestyle, cache, and market viability, forced him into constant and unsubtle schemes. Practically speaking, you couldn’t miss him, as the Mueller investigation appeared to be finding. In November 2004, for instance, Jeffrey Epstein, the financier later caught in a scandal involving under-age prostitutes, agreed to buy out of bankruptcy a house in Palm Beach, Florida for $36 million—a house that had been on the market for two years. Epstein and Trump had been close friends—playboys in arms, as it were—for more than a decade, with Trump always hopeful that Epstein would provide some of his financial expertise to enabvle h8im to survive. Trump was beholden to Deutsch Bank and was on the hook personally for 40 million dollars. Epstein took Trump to see the Palm Beach house to advise him on construction issues involved with moving the swimming pool. As he prepared to finalize his deal for the house, an incredulous Epstein saw a severely cash-constrained Trump bid $41 million for the property, buying it through an entity named Trump Properties LLC, ultimate owner unknown. . Trump, Epstein knew, had been in the buisness of leasing his name. Hotels are actually owned by others but renting the trump name would cost a percent or two. , Trump was willing to serve as a front man to disguise the actual ownership in a real estate transaction. (This was, in effect, just another variation of Trump’s basic business model of licensing his name for commercial properties owned by someone else.) A furious Epstein suspected that others actually owned the new house. then getting extensive scrutiny in Florida papers. The disagreement re the purchase of the house became all the more bitter when, two months later, the house was put on the market for $125 million. Well known to Trump, who often visited with Epstein at his Palm Beach house, whose visits were confirmed in depostions of Epsteins houseman. It appears that Epstein was visited almost every day, by and had been for many years, by girls who he paid for massages with happy endings—girls recruited, and who often returned to his house from the local massage HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_030974