Interest

RUSSIA
Sater’s other activities during this period, including
his cooperation with the Department
of Justice on the Coppa case in 1998–2001,
and his foreign travel.
20 See Gary Silverman, “U.S. Election: Trump’s
Russian Riddle,” Financial Times, August
14, 2016; Mike McIntire, “Donald Trump
Settled a Real Estate Lawsuit, and a Criminal
Case Was Closed,” New York Times, April
5, 2016; and Rosalind S. Helderman & Tom
Hamburger, “Former Mafia-linked Figure
Describes Association with Trump,” Washington
Post, May 17, 2016. Note that previous
accounts of Sater’s activities have overlooked
the role that this very permissive relationship
with Federal law enforcement, especially the
FBI, may have played in encouraging Sater’s
subsequent risk-taking and financial crimes.
See Lorienton N.A. Palmer et al. v. John Doe
98-CR-01101 et al., Case No. 13-2373-cv,
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
(June 5, 2014), cert. denied, Supreme Court of
the United States (January 12, 2015). Accessed
at National Review Online.
21 See Palmer v. Doe, p. 13.
22 Sater’s 1998 case, never formally sealed, was
U.S. v. Sater, 98-CR-1101, United States District
Court Eastern District of New York. The
case in which Sater secretly informed was U.S.
v. Coppa, 00-CR-196, United States District
Court Eastern District of New York. See also
Michael Weiss, Catherine A. Fitzpatrick, and
James Miller, “Trump’s Russia Towers: He Just
Can’t Get Them Up,” Daily Beast, November
6, 2016.
23 See Charles V. Bagli, “Real Estate Executive
with Hand in Trump Projects Rose from
Tangled Past.” Sater also may have taken other
steps to conceal his criminal past. According
to the 2015 lawsuit filed by ex-Bayrocker Jody
Kriss, Arif agreed to pay Sater his $1 million
salary under the table, allowing Sater to pretend
that he lacked resources to compensate
any victims of his prior financial frauds. See
the complaint of Kriss et al. v. Bayrock et al.,
No. 10 Civ. 3959 (LGS) (FM), United States
District Court Southern District of New York,
pp. 2, 18. The lawsuit also alleges that Sater
may have held a majority of Bayrock’s ownership,
but that Arif, Sater, and other Bayrock officers
may have conspired to hide this by listing
Arif as the sole owner on offering documents.
24 See Palmer v. Doe, p. 155.
25 See Sigrún Davíðsdóttir’s Icelog, the blog of Icelandic
journalist Sigrún Davíðsdóttir.
26 See “Report of the Special Investigation
Commission on the 2008 Financial Crisis”
Rannsóknarnefndir Alþingi, April 12, 2010.
27 These loans are disclosed in “Corporate Credit—Disclosure
of Large Exposures > €40
mm” Kaupthing Bank, September 25, 2008.
This document was disclosed by Wikileaks
in 2009. On p. 145, the report lists a €79.5
million yacht-construction loan to Russian
vodka magnate Yuri Shefler’s Serena Equity
Ltd.; on p. 208, it mentions a €45.8 million
yacht-construction loan to Canadian-Russian
billionaire Alex Shnaider’s Filbert Pacific Ltd.
See also Rowena Mason, “Kaupthing Leak Exposes
Loans,” Telegraph, August 4, 2009.
28 See Kriss v. Bayrock; author’s analysis of
Kaupthing/FLG employees’ published career
histories.
29 Author’s interview, Reykjavik, July 2016.
30 “Dossier on Alex Schneider—co-owner of “Zaporizhstal,”
Uniad. The passage in Russian,
with the father’s name underlined, is as follows:
“
.” “” is the
dative case of “ ,” or “Evsei
Shnaider,” the father’s name in Russian.
31 The Zurich company registry reports that “Seabeco
SA” (CHE-104.863.207) was initially
registered on December 16, 1982, with “Boris
Joseph Birshtein, Canadian citizen, resident in
Toronto” as its President. It entered liquidation
on May 5, 1999 in Arth, which was handled
by the Swiss trustee Paul Barth. The Zurich
company registry listed “Boris Joseph Birshtein,
Canadian citizen, resident in Toronto,”
as the president of Seabeco Kirgizstan AG in
1992, while “Boris Joseph Birshtein, Canadian
22 THE AMERICAN INTEREST