By Tom Winter, Hallie Jackson and Kenzi Abou-Sabe
...Maloni told NBC News (click here) last year that the loan was repaid in December.
Manafort's LLC, Summerbreeze, then took out a new $9.5 million loan in December using the Hamptons property and house in Alexandria, Virginia, as part of the collateral. The lender was Federal Savings Bank of Chicago, whose chief executive, Calk, was an economic adviser to the Trump campaign.
In January 2017 Federal Savings Bank also lent Manafort and his wife mortgage loans in the amount of $5.3 million and $1.2 million for a separate property located at 377 Union Street in Brooklyn, New York.
The loans for the 377 Union property totaled 6.5 million and were for a property that Manafort initially bought for less than $3 million.
Between the Hamptons property and the Brooklyn property the Federal Savings Bank loaned Manafort $16 million or 5 percent of all of the bank's loans, according to records kept by the FDIC....
Am I understanding that right? All the loans made by "Federal Savings Bank" amounted to $320 million for those two years, 2016 and 2017. Manafort received 5 percent of that $320 in the way of $16 million. Five percent. Five percent puts him in a position that Trump always enjoyed in that he indirectly owned the bank if he was to declare bankruptcy without refinancing to keep the bank open.
5 percent of the value of all the loans for two years. That is amazing. These guys are real operators, aren't they?
That is what bothers me about Trump and his properties, like the gold hotel in Las Vegas. Trump embarks on these investments with abandon and then declares bankruptcy under Chapter 11 to keep the property and rid himself of debt in order to save the banks. It is not an occasional business model that goes bad without warning, these are pre-meditated bankruptcies.
No one can build a gold covered hotel and pay for it's construction. That simply isn't possible. Trump brings contractors into his properties believing they are going to see significant profits to their contract, but, eventually these contractors loss considerable assets and quite possibly go bankrupt themselves due to Trump's plans.
Now, Manafort is doing the exact same thing. While I am sure it is nice to own extravagant homes, they provide a venue for loans that are extraordinary. I doubt if Paul Manafort and his wife ever intended to pay back those loans in completion. Just like Trump. Isn't that fraud?
There has to be a way to discern sincere business contracts with the idea of paying them in earnest when something goes awry and bankruptcy is the only way out. There was either a good investment in the beginning and something went wrong in the market place, like the bottom fell out of the tourism economy into Las Vegas and the ability to pay contracts simply dried up. That as opposed with Trump properties time and again. No business model is that bad all the time to allow wealth to be accumulated by a family that owed so much to so many others. It all seems rather questionable to me.
I realize this is quid pro quo. It raises other questions.
That is what bothers me about Trump and his properties, like the gold hotel in Las Vegas. Trump embarks on these investments with abandon and then declares bankruptcy under Chapter 11 to keep the property and rid himself of debt in order to save the banks. It is not an occasional business model that goes bad without warning, these are pre-meditated bankruptcies.
No one can build a gold covered hotel and pay for it's construction. That simply isn't possible. Trump brings contractors into his properties believing they are going to see significant profits to their contract, but, eventually these contractors loss considerable assets and quite possibly go bankrupt themselves due to Trump's plans.
Now, Manafort is doing the exact same thing. While I am sure it is nice to own extravagant homes, they provide a venue for loans that are extraordinary. I doubt if Paul Manafort and his wife ever intended to pay back those loans in completion. Just like Trump. Isn't that fraud?
There has to be a way to discern sincere business contracts with the idea of paying them in earnest when something goes awry and bankruptcy is the only way out. There was either a good investment in the beginning and something went wrong in the market place, like the bottom fell out of the tourism economy into Las Vegas and the ability to pay contracts simply dried up. That as opposed with Trump properties time and again. No business model is that bad all the time to allow wealth to be accumulated by a family that owed so much to so many others. It all seems rather questionable to me.
I realize this is quid pro quo. It raises other questions.
