FBI looked into Trump plans to build hotel in Latvia with Putin supporter

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

They wanted to build the Las Vegas of the Baltics.

In 2010, a small group of businessmen including a wealthy Russian supporter of Vladimir Putin began working on plans to build a glitzy hotel and entertainment complex with Donald Trump in Riga, the capital of Latvia.

A senior Trump executive visited the city to scout for locations. Trump and his daughter Ivanka spent hours at Trump Tower with the Russian, Igor Krutoy, who also knows compatriots involved in arranging a fateful meeting at the same building during the 2016 US election campaign.

Then the Latvian government’s anti-corruption bureau began asking questions.

The Guardian has learned that talks with Trump’s company were abandoned after Krutoy and another of the businessmen were questioned by Latvian authorities as part of a major criminal inquiry there – and that the FBI later looked into Trump’s interactions with them at Latvia’s request.

-snip-

Jon Swaine
Thu 29 Mar 2018 06.00 BST Last modified on Thu 29 Mar 2018 17.04 BST


Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/29/trump-fbi-hotel-latvia-investigation-russia-links

[Botany]

1. nothing to see here, move on .... nothing to see here move on

[Frustratedlady]

2. Why does so much of our news come from The Guardian?

This has always puzzled me. Are our newspapers gagged as to important news like this?

[poboy2]

3. Its disturbing. Our 4th estate is in large part overtaken by corporations. -nt

[FiveGoodMen]

4. Funding

The Guardian, known from 1821 until 1959 as the Manchester Guardian, is a British daily newspaper. Along with its sister papers The Observer and the Guardian Weekly, The Guardian is part of the Guardian Media Group, owned by the Scott Trust. The Trust was created in 1936 "to secure the financial and editorial independence of the Guardian in perpetuity and to safeguard the journalistic freedom and liberal values of the Guardian free from commercial or political interference." The Scott Trust became a limited company in 2008, with a constitution to maintain the same protections for the Guardian. Profits are reinvested in journalism rather than to benefit an owner or shareholders.[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian

[Frustratedlady]

5. Too bad the U.S. didn't follow suit many years ago.

I know I trust their news items more than most American newspapers, including our own.

Thanks for the info.