Thread by @karolcummins

Trump designates elite Iranian military force as a terrorist organization cnn.com/2019/04/08/pol…

Trump and his eldest daughter developed a hotel in Azerbaijan that appears to be a corrupt operation run by a family known as “the Corleones of the Caspian” with links to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.

H/T @Chickylala
rawstory.com/2019/04/bombsh…

The Trump International Hotel & Tower Baku — conceived in 2008 as a luxury apartment building but converted in 2014 into a hotel — has never opened, and both local observers and international experts are baffled by the building’s existence
rawstory.com/2019/04/bombsh…

📌Donald Trump’s Worst Deal
The President helped build a hotel in Azerbaijan that appears to be a corrupt operation engineered by oligarchs tied to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.
newyorker.com/magazine/2017/…

💰Trump Baku - Azerbaijan💰

https://twitter.com/karolcummins/status/1104191716859404289?s=21

📌Trump’s financial filings show he’s partners in the Baku deal with Anar Mammadov, the son of Azerbaijan’s transportation minister Ziya Mammadov.

rawstory.com/2019/04/bombsh…

U.S. officials believe Ziya Mammadov, laundered money for the Iranian military, although no formal charges were brought against him or his son, Anar Mammadov — who is Trump’s partner in the Baku hotel venture.
rawstory.com/2019/04/bombsh…

📌Ziya Mammadov’s brother, Elton Mammadov, is an influential member of the Azerbaijani parliament, & is who signed contracts for the project & founded Baku XXI Century, which owns the tower.
rawstory.com/2019/04/bombsh…

📌The Mammadov family is described as “The Corleones of the Caspian,” have a reputation for using their government positions to enrich themselves and their partners — which includes construction firms tied to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.
foreignpolicy.com/2014/06/10/the…

The Trump administration has now condemned that group — which has been accused of drug trafficking, sponsoring terrorism abroad and money laundering — as a terrorist organization.
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📌Trump Org’s Garten claimed Trump played only a passive role in the Baku development by licensing his name for use by Mammadov’s son, for which he was paid at least $2.8 million, according to limited public filings.
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📌Other documents suggest Trump was paid an additional $2.5 million for the use of his name in 2012, and Trump also signed a contract to manage the hotel after it opened for an undisclosed fee tied to the venture’s performance.
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Garten announced a month after Trump’s election that the Trump Organization had severed ties with the hotel, but The New Yorker reported those claims were incomplete and inaccurate.
rawstory.com/2019/04/bombsh…

Former Trump Tower in Azerbaijan, Dogged by Controversy, Is Engulfed by Fire, but of course...
nytimes.com/2018/04/28/wor…

Jan deRoos, the Cornell professor, said the Trump Organization’s interest in the Baku project — which was overseen by Ivanka Trump — was atypical and “very, very intense.”
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That close involvement may open up the Trump Organization to criminal prosecution under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which was passed in 1977 to forbid American companies from rewarding corrupt foreign officials — even if they did so unwittingly.
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📌📌Garten all but admitted corruption was involved with the project — “I’m not going to sit here and defend the Mammadovs,” he said
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A legal expert who specializes in the FCPA law dismissed those claims as nonsense.

“You can’t go into business deals in Azerbaijan assuming that you are immune from the FCPA, nor can you escape liability by looking the other way,” said Jessica Tillipman,
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📌📌”The entire Baku deal is a giant red flag — the direct involvement of foreign government officials and their relatives in Azerbaijan with ties to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Corruption warning signs are rarely more obvious.”
rawstory.com/2019/04/bombsh…

📌Trump complained about FRCP law in May 2012, the month before the Baku deal was completed.

“Every other country goes into these places and they do what they have to do,” Trump said. “It’s a horrible law and it should be changed.”
rawstory.com/2019/04/bombsh…

📌📌📌Trump complained that American companies that refused to give bribes — and The New Yorker reports on duffel bags of cash changing hands during Baku construction — would “do business nowhere.”
rawstory.com/2019/04/bombsh…

📌📌Trump’s disdain for the FCPA law persisted after he became president. In February 2017, according to the New Yorker, he derided it to then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson:
newyorker.com/magazine/2017/…

FCPA Enforcement under the Trump Administration: No “Piling On,” but Otherwise Business as Usual
blankrome.com/publications/f…

📌For the FCPA’s anti-bribery provisions to be implicated there must be “an offer, payment, promise to pay, or authorization of the payment of any money, or offer, gift, promise to give...
washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/…

... or authorization of the giving of anything of value” to a “foreign official” either directly or indirectly.
washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/…

@threadreaderapp unroll please and thank you. #IRG
#Baku #Azerbaijan

📌Why Azerbaijan is an important geographical hub:

https://twitter.com/elliadventurer/status/1115309259477082113?s=21