Trump’s Corruptness

10 October 2026, posted by Eric Zuesse. (All of my recent articles can be seen here.)

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https://www.instagram.com/reels/DeR6I4DO7j0/

NARRATOR: You have to watch this clip from last week tonight with John Oliver:

Take Joseph Schwartz, the head of a nursing home empire who was facing three years in prison for,

among other things, orchestrating a $39 million payroll tax scheme to which he had pled guilty.

But it wasn’t just his employees who suffered from how Schwartz managed his nursing homes.

It was the patients in them, too.

“Betty McFadden’s son was in a Schwartz-run nursing home in Arkansas after a stroke left him unable to move.

Sanitary conditions were so poor there in 2017

that inspectors documented maggots on her son’s catheter.

The state later issued fines for neglect.

Do you think the people in the nursing home

just ignored what was blatantly negligent care?

Yes, I do.”

Yeah, so do I.

And yet, despite all of that,

Schwartz received a full pardon from Trump.

And while I cannot say for sure why,

I’m guessing it didn’t hurt.

that he had paid nearly a million dollars to right-wing operatives

who claimed to have worked with Laura Loomer

and another hundred thousand dollars or more

to a lobbyist who had a different set of connections to Trump.

Incredibly, one of the arguments Schwartz’s supporters made for his pardon

was that he had paid his full five million dollars in federal restitution,

which makes it pretty frustrating to learn

that as part of his pardon [by Trump],

he was actually refunded that five million dollars.

NARRATOR: As part of his pardon, he was refunded that five million dollars.

That’s right. The court ordered Joseph Schwartz to pay $5 million in restitution,

and Trump’s pardon handed that money right back to him.

We actually covered Joseph Schwartz in the very first episode of the Pardon Papers.

You just heard John Oliver walk through the details, and I want to repeat what I said back then.

At one of Schwartz’s Tennessee facilities, a resident was found lying in feces with maggot-infested open wounds.

said the health insurance benefits for her and her co-workers weren’t being funded.

They were left paying thousands of dollars out of pocket or going without care entirely.

Schwartz was sentenced to three years in prison.

He served three months.

We can’t say exactly what led President Trump to pardon him.

We do know Schwartz spent an enormous amount of money,

and he made no secret of what he wanted that money to buy.

He wanted a pardon.

On November 14, 2025, that’s exactly what happened.

This case raises serious questions about using the pardon power to erase corporate crimes,

cancel penalties, and reward people who spend huge sums chasing clemency.

The potential for abuse is obvious and reform is overdue.

That’s why I support a constitutional amendment to limit the presidential pardon power.

https://www.instagram.com/reels/DeUJKP8ATIb/

There was something else about this ceremony that was fundamentally wrong.

Five of the six people who received medals yesterday were immigrants.

That’s Elon Musk, who was born in South Africa,

Sergey Brin, who was born in Russia,

Jensen Wang and Lisa Su, who were both born in Taiwan,

Satya Nadella, who was born in India.

The only person born in the United States to receive an award yesterday was Michael Dell.

The President of the United States stood in a room filled with people who had come to this country from somewhere else,

accumulated massive wealth, and helped shape the modern tech industry,

and he celebrated them as national treasures, praising their contributions to America,

and then handed them the nation’s highest scientific and technology honors.

all while his own vice president had spent the morning restricting the immigration pathways

that have allowed generations of scientists, engineers, and innovators to build their lives and careers in this country.

Even worse, Vice President J.D. Vance publicly accused Microsoft of abusing employment-based immigration programs

and suspended the company’s participation in a program they used to sponsor foreign workers for permanent residency.

That was just yesterday morning.

And then yesterday afternoon, Donald Trump was presenting Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella

with the National Medal of Technology and Innovation.

Nadella was born in India and came to the United States as a student,

eventually working here on an H-1B visa.

This is their con, and it’s led by the great American con man himself, Donald Trump.

Trump puts on these theatrical events to flatter his wealthy donors and powerful allies,

while J.D. Vance announces corruption crackdowns that allow the administration to present itself

as tough on manufactured crime coming from these supposed foreign workers.

https://www.instagram.com/reels/DbyO9OnhkfC/

The story of Lil Donnie, the money laundering criminal, part two, the 2000s.

When last we left Donnie, he’d spent the last 20 years dabbling in Russian and Italian mafia money laundering.

At this point, Trump was blacklisted from multiple banks.

He’d just gone through multiple major bankruptcies and he was essentially broke.

Donnie partnered with a company called the Bayrock Group, which he gifted an office to in Trump Tower.

Bayrock was a Russian mafia front, according to its own former executives.

They built Trump Soho and laundered millions upon millions through it.

And by 2008, even Donnie Jr. admitted that the money is pouring in from Russia.

And by 2011, they hit the gas.

Trump Ocean Club in Panama was nearly 100% owned by the Colombian drug cartel.

The lead broker, Alexandra Ventura Nogueira, admitted on counter…

to laundering money and said some buyers were fronts for Russians.

Donnie made around $60 million from this.

When that worked, they did it again with Trump Toronto

and Trump Tower Baku in Azerbaijan and Trump Tower Batumi in Georgia.

At this point, Trump’s only job and only stream of income

was laundering money from criminal enterprises that traded in human misery.

By 2013, federal prosecutors busted a Russian-American

organized crime and money laundering operation

run out of Trump Tower itself.

One third of the units in Trump’s buildings

were owned by 63 different Russian buyers

who paid Donny nearly $100 million.

The towers were jokingly known as Little Moscow.

More than 1,300 Trump condos sold in all cash deals

to shell companies, totaling roughly $1.5 billion

in transactions bearing classic money laundering red flags.

And as Trump entered politics,

This number became more insane.

Before he was nominated, around 4% of Trump property buyers were anonymous LLCs likely used for laundering.

After his election, that number spiked to 70 fucking percent.

And the one bank who would still do major business with Trump, Deutsche Bank,

was fined hundreds of millions of dollars for their Russian mafia-linked money laundering schemes.

And weirdly, even though Donnie kept defaulting on loans,

And even though Donnie kept suing them, for some reason Deutsche Bank kept lending him billions, which has never been explained.

The crazy thing is, none of this is hidden. None of this is secret.

And yet there he sits, siphoning off every dollar he can, while you, yes, you watching this, follow the law and get poorer and poorer and poorer.

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So, I asked ChatGPT: “Please fact-check this [the last of those 3 Instagrams]:” and I pasted in that anti-Putin instagram and transcript. It replied:

Fact-check: “The Story of Lil Donnie, the Money Laundering Criminal, Part Two”

Overall verdict: The video contains numerous substantially accurate facts drawn from documented investigations, but it also makes several exaggerated, unsupported, or misleading claims.

Most importantly, it fails to distinguish between three different propositions:

1. Criminals laundered money through properties bearing Trump’s name.
2. Trump or his businesses knowingly facilitated that laundering.
3. Trump personally committed the crime of money laundering.

Evidence establishing the first does not, by itself, establish the second or third.

I checked the supplied transcript against investigative reporting, including Reuters, NBC News, Global Witness, and financial-regulatory findings. Here is the claim-by-claim assessment.

1. Trump, Bayrock, and Russian organized crime

Video’s allegation	Assessment
Trump had suffered multiple bankruptcies and had difficulty obtaining bank financing.	Substantially true. Several Trump casino businesses underwent bankruptcy proceedings, and his access to conventional financing was severely constrained.
Trump partnered with Bayrock Group, which operated from Trump Tower.	True.
Bayrock was a Russian mafia front, according to former executives.	Partially supported. Former insiders made serious allegations of organized-crime connections, but those allegations do not establish that the entire company was legally proven to be a mafia front.
Trump SoHo laundered millions upon millions of dollars.	Not established as stated. Serious allegations involving Bayrock financing and criminally connected individuals exist, but the specific amount allegedly laundered through Trump SoHo is not demonstrated here.
Donald Trump Jr. acknowledged substantial Russian money flowing into Trump properties in 2008.	Substantially true. His widely reported 2008 remarks concerned Russian investment in the family’s real-estate business, not an admission that the money was criminal.

The Bayrock relationship warrants serious scrutiny. But identifying Russian or former-Soviet investment is not equivalent to proving that the investments were proceeds of crime.

2. Trump Ocean Club, Panama

This is among the video’s strongest areas because independent investigators uncovered extensive evidence of connections to financial crime.

Principal source: Global Witness investigation, corroborated by Reuters/NBC reporting.

The project involved individuals linked to criminal money laundering.

Global Witness documented investments involving Colombian fraudster David Murcia Guzmán, subsequently convicted in the United States of money laundering.

Lead broker Alexandre Ventura Nogueira had serious criminal connections.

Reuters reported that Brazilian prosecutors were investigating him for financial crimes and money laundering. Nogueira also described buyers and brokers connected to Russian organized crime.

“Nearly 100% owned by the Colombian drug cartel.”

Unsupported. Investigators documented purchases involving criminally connected individuals, not that nearly the entire building was owned by a Colombian cartel.

“Donnie made around $60 million.”

Not verified as an amount actually received. Global Witness reported that Trump stood to gain $75.4 million under the project’s arrangements, while Reuters cited court records indicating $30–50 million in earnings. These figures measure different things.

The Global Witness investigation also identified at least 139 anonymous Panamanian companies created in connection with the development’s presales, an important potential money-laundering warning sign.

Global Witness

+2

3. Toronto, Baku, and Batumi

The video asserts that the Panama arrangement was repeated in Trump-branded developments in Canada, Azerbaijan, and Georgia.

These projects did involve controversial partners or financing arrangements. However, the video provides no evidence establishing that each was used to launder criminal proceeds, much less that Trump knowingly participated.

Verdict: The implication of a proven repeated criminal operation is unsupported.

4. The 2013 Russian gambling and money-laundering operation in Trump Tower

Substantially true, but potentially misleading.

Federal prosecutors uncovered a Russian-American gambling and money-laundering operation associated with Trump Tower in Manhattan.

However, the operation’s use of premises in Trump Tower does not establish that Trump participated in it or knew about its activities.

The video’s omission of that distinction could lead viewers to infer a connection that has not been demonstrated.

5. Russian purchasers, anonymous companies, and cash transactions

The video alleges that 63 Russian buyers purchased approximately $100 million in Trump properties and that more than 1,300 condominiums were sold through approximately $1.5 billion in all-cash transactions involving shell companies.

Investigative reporting does support substantial purchases of Trump-branded real estate by Russian or former-Soviet buyers and extensive use of cash purchases and corporate entities.

But the video does not identify the original studies, their precise populations, or their methodology. I therefore cannot independently verify those exact totals.

Crucially, even accurate totals would not prove that every transaction — or even most transactions — constituted money laundering. They would establish potential warning signs requiring investigation.

A review of Trump-branded property transactions did identify numerous purchasers with Russian or former-Soviet connections.

Committee to Investigate Russia

+1

6. Anonymous buyers supposedly increased from 4% to 70%

This allegation requires particular caution.

The video says that before Trump’s nomination, approximately 4% of purchasers were anonymous LLCs, but after his election the proportion reached 70%.

Those numbers need to be checked against the original study, including its time periods, geographic coverage, and definition of anonymous ownership.

Even if both percentages are correct, the video’s suggestion that the purchases were likely used for laundering is an additional claim requiring evidence.

Verdict: Exact percentages not independently verified; criminal interpretation unsupported.

7. Deutsche Bank and Russian money laundering

This is another area in which the video rests on substantial documented facts.

Deutsche Bank Russian mirror-trading enforcement, 2017

$630 million

In combined U.S. and British regulatory penalties.

Approximately $10 billion

In suspicious Russian-linked transactions identified by regulators.

Sources: Reuters reporting on the New York Department of Financial Services and UK Financial Conduct Authority enforcement actions.

Investing.com

+1

The video is correct that Deutsche Bank faced substantial penalties over its handling of suspicious Russian transactions.

It is also correct that Deutsche Bank maintained an unusually important lending relationship with Trump after other lenders had become reluctant to finance him.

But the video makes an unsupported causal leap: Deutsche Bank’s Russian money-laundering failures do not establish that its loans to Trump were themselves part of that scheme.

The assertion that Deutsche Bank’s willingness to continue lending to Trump has never been explained is also misleading. Its commercial motivations and internal lending decisions have been subjects of substantial reporting and investigation, even if questions about particular decisions remain.

8. “Trump’s only job and only stream of income was laundering money”

False as stated, and unsupported as a criminal allegation.

Trump had multiple identifiable business activities during the period, including licensing, property management, entertainment, and other commercial arrangements.

Whether particular transactions facilitated money laundering is a separate question.

The video’s assertion that laundering was Trump’s only source of income is not supported by the available financial evidence.

Final assessment

Documented underlying financial misconduct and criminal connections	Substantial evidence
Money-laundering warning signs in Trump-branded developments	Substantial evidence
Trump knowingly facilitated particular laundering transactions	Not established by the evidence examined
Trump personally committed money laundering	Not established by the evidence examined
The video’s precise numerical allegations	Mixed: some supported, others unverified or exaggerated

My conclusion: The video has a substantial factual foundation, particularly regarding Bayrock, the Panama development, suspicious real-estate transactions, and Deutsche Bank. But it presents allegations, warning signs, and documented crimes by associates as though they collectively prove Trump’s personal criminal responsibility.

There is an important further distinction: Failure to establish that Trump knowingly participated is not evidence that he did not participate. Nor should Trump’s own denials be treated as independent evidence of innocence.

The strongest factually defensible conclusion is that Trump and his businesses maintained documented commercial relationships involving individuals and transactions linked to financial crime, and that some Trump-branded properties presented serious money-laundering warning signs. Whether Trump himself knowingly participated in particular laundering schemes requires additional evidence.

This is a preliminary rather than exhaustive fact-check: I verified several central claims against investigative and regulatory reporting, but not every number or every underlying court record in the video.

“Please fact-check its anti-Putin allegations.”

I have examined the transcript of the Instagram video you supplied. It contains allegations involving Russian organized crime, Russian investors, and individuals associated with Vladimir Putin, but it makes no explicit allegation that Putin personally directed or participated in Trump’s alleged money laundering.

The important distinctions are these:

Allegation or implication	Fact-check
Bayrock had connections to Russian organized crime.	Supported. Felix Sater, a Bayrock executive, pleaded guilty in a securities-fraud scheme involving organized-crime figures. PolitiFact +1
Bayrock received money from investors associated with Putin.	Alleged, not conclusively established. Former Bayrock finance director Jody Kriss alleged that an investment fund attracted Russians favored by Putin. PolitiFact
Russian money entered Trump-branded real estate.	True. Reuters documented approximately $98.4 million in purchases by at least 63 Russian buyers in seven Florida towers. That does not establish that the money originated with Putin. LegalClarity
Money connected to criminal activity entered Trump SoHo.	Supported by investigative evidence. OCCRP traced approximately $3 million associated with a Kazakhstan fraud case into three Trump SoHo condominiums. The investigation did not establish that Putin supplied the money. OCCRP
Putin personally organized or authorized these transactions.	Not established.
Putin used Trump properties to launder his personal wealth.	Not established.
Trump and Putin jointly operated a money-laundering enterprise.	Not established.

One additional relevant fact comes from a congressional investigation. During the 2015 Trump Tower Moscow negotiations, Felix Sater attempted to arrange connections involving Putin. However, Sater subsequently described his own claims of Kremlin influence as salesmanship. The congressional record therefore documents the attempt to invoke Putin’s influence, not proof that Putin authorized the proposed arrangement.

GovInfo

Conclusion

The video’s documented Russian connections cannot logically be attributed to Putin merely because the individuals involved were Russian, belonged to Russian organized crime, or had alleged connections to his government.

I found no demonstrated evidentiary basis in this material for accusing Putin personally of participating in Trump’s alleged money laundering.

That is not a finding that Putin was uninvolved. It means that the evidence examined does not establish his involvement.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.