Trump's Media Company Investigated For Possible Russian Money Laundering Scheme

According to a new report from The Guardian, the Trump Media and Technology group has been investigated as part of a money laundering scheme involving Russia. The investigation involves two loans the company received that were funnelled through intermediaries in the Caribbean but appear to have originated through allies of Vladimir Putin. Farron Cousins explains what's happening.

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*This transcript was auto-generated. Please excuse any typos.

According to a massive new report from The Guardian, it looks like Trump Media and Technology Group as of late this past year, has been under investigation for potentially being involved in a Russian money laundering scheme. Yes. All roads with Trump apparently lead back to Russia, and this investigation is centered on two loans totaling 8 million that Trump media and technology received back in, I think December, 2021, when the company was basically broke in, in danger of shutting down. So here's what happened at the time, like I said, they needed money. The merger with Digital World Acquisition was recently announced at the time, and they still needed the money because the merger was gonna take almost a year to finalize. They had to be able to keep operating in the meantime. So they were able to secure two loans that came from a bank in the Caribbean, except when the investigators in New York at the Securities and Exchange Commission, who by the way did tell the guardian that this is officially a criminal investigation, which is the first time that word has been used criminal.

They looked into these two loans from two separate banks and they determined that they were connected to, uh, let's see, centers on a part owner of the bank, an individual named Anton Postlet, Oloff Aloff. That sounds more right. Who appears to be a relation of Putin Ally Alexander Smirnoff. So it's a Putin Ally's relative that owns the bank, that funneled the loan to Trump media and technology. Now, here's the problem with proving a money laundering case under New York State law. You would, uh, basically have to prove that the entity that accepted the money that was from Ill gotten Gaines, uh, knew that the money they had received was not legit. Uh, legit. Excuse me. So that's difficult, right? It's not like you've got people employed at Trump Media and technology who raised concerns about where the money came from and said, maybe we should give it back, right? Oh, no, I'm sorry. The Guardian says that's exactly what happened. So the one criteria that prosecutors would have to meet in order to charge them with money laundering appears to have been met, at least based on the evidence. I can see here, here it is, the obscure origins of the 8 million loans caused alarm at Trump Media. And in the spring of 2022, Trump media's then Chief Financial Officer, Philip Wuhan weighed

Returning the money, but the money was never returned, in part because losing 8 million out of the roughly 12 million in cash that Trump Media had in its accounts at the time would've placed significant stress on its financial situation. So you've got a guy who's no longer the Chief Financial Officer, Trump Media, you know, Hey, get outta here. We don't want you cuz you want us to give back $8 million. Who cares where it came from? We need it. Okay? But, but they, they only have to meet one standard to prove criminal money laundering. And, uh, it seems like this man, Phillip Yuhan, excuse me, um, kind of seems like he's the guy that could testify and say, oh yeah, we knew something was up with the money. We knew we shouldn't have taken it. I wanted to give it back. I asked them to give it back. There's records of me saying we need to give it back, but we didn't give it back. Yeah. That, uh, that, that doesn't seem good for, for Trump media and technology certainly doesn't seem good for the pending merger with Digital World acquisition that's gonna pay over a billion dollars for Trump media and technology. You know, you really wanna buy a company that might go down and be dissolved for money laundering Russian money.

Sometimes the headlines just right themselves, don't they? It's always about Russia with Donald Trump, isn't it? And he always say, oh, the Russia, Russia, Russia, dude, you're neck deep with the Russians. Can we just admit that, you know, 2016 election aside, if you get popped for laundering Russian money, you're never gonna be able to escape the shadow of 2016 bud. And it's only gonna make everything that did happen in 2016 se seen seem a lot more likely, um, in case you can't tell, like, I'm loving this story.