They knew. Don Jr. even presented on how much money was coming from Russia back in 2008 at a conference... "...In September 2008, Donald Trump Jr. gave the following statement to the “Bridging U.S. and Emerging Markets Real Estate” conference in Manhattan: “[I]n terms of high-end product influx into the United States, Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets; say in Dubai, and certainly with our project in SoHo and anywhere in New York. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.” Trump’s many deals with Bayrock unravels Donald Jr’s comments. He refers specifically to the Soho venture in which Trump partnered with the Russian-connected Bayrock group..."
Yepperz. The Trump "real estate empire" makes so much more sense if we assume that the goal was never to profit, but instead to shuffle around dirty money. Dunno exactly why we haven't seen the paper trail yet, surely it exists. I mean, you just copy-pasted a bit of it, and almost no one bats an eye.
That is sort of the metaphysical, underlying question we all need to ask, isn't it? Sure, there are the nogoodniks who are in on the con and spreading the money around between their shell businesses. But it really comes down to greed. People cozy up to money with the hopes some will rub off on them. For a few it is the pathological search for power, but honestly, I think 99% of these people would go away and live in Tahiti for the rest of their lives if you gave them $250m in cash and said, "Vanish." The power is just the tool they use to get to the money, unless it is filling a pathological void. I don't want to go all Godwin's Law on this, but I honestly think Americans over the next 18 months will be going through some of the soul-searching and self-reflection that the general populace of Nazi Germany went through after WWII. "How did I not see this?" "How did I allow this." "I didn't really believe it at the time... I was just going along with everyone else..." "Didn't want to make waves/risk anything..." If we can be diligent, hold those enablers to account, then maybe we can grow as a country and learn from this experience as Germany has. Everything has their limits, and when you tell every single person they are entitled to the whole shebang, there will be prices to pay down the road when they don't get what they were told they were entitled to. Let's hope we get some true progressive reform in place and everyone - mostly Trumpsters - benefit from the prosperity, and come around to this way of being/thinking. Yeah. I know. Eternal optimist... :-)