6/29/18: Aaron Banks, a person you’ve
never heard of, may turn out to be an important link in the Mueller
investigation.
To understand why, think Russians, lots of Russians. Think lots
of gold, lots of diamonds, and the Isle of Man.
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Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin parks money in offshore tax havens. |
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No smoking gun has been found – but as is true with most
characters in the Trump campaign – there are plenty of spent shell casings
lying about.
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Banks is not your typical “person of interest” in the Mueller
probe. He never worked to get Donald J. Trump elected. He’s not even American.
Nevertheless, if you want a template for what the Russians were up to during
the 2016 campaign, you have it with Banks. By the time Britons voted to
leave the European Union that summer, he was already a well-known financier.
Banks was a leading backer of the Brexit strategy, a position favored by Putin
and his Forty Thieves. In that cause, Banks spent eight million pounds out of his
own pocket. That’s $12 million American.
You might have imagined that here was a patriot who
envisioned a better day for his country. If only the United Kingdom would chart
a different course in matters of trade and border policies!
Emails leaked from one of Mr. Banks’s accounts paint a darker
picture. Behind the scenes, agents of the Russian government were cozying up to
the Brexit-loving tycoon. We know Mueller and his investigators are pouring
through Banks’s emails, looking for clues. No smoking gun has been found – but as
is true with most characters in the Trump campaign – there are plenty of spent
shell casings lying about.
Earlier this month, The
New York Times noted, Banks was called in front of Parliament for
questioning. British lawmakers, knowing Russia had wished to see their country
leave the European Union and weaken the Western alliance, wanted to ask Banks
about ties to Putin and his pals.
Like every last member of Team Trump to end up being
investigated, Banks’s memory proved fuzzy. He admitted he had “two lunches and
a cup of tea” with the Russian ambassador, Alexander V. Yakovenko, during the
run-up to the Brexit vote (June 23, 2016). Oh, Banks added as an afterthought,
the ambassador did inquire. Would he be interested in investing in a deal
involving half-a-dozen Russian gold mines?
Why, no, Banks says he told Yakovenko. He did not wish to
bother.
Diamond
mine or gold mine?
Now that his emails have surfaced, it becomes clear there was
much that Mr. Banks “forgot” to mention during testimony. He wasn’t offered
just one chance to invest. He was offered three. The second involved Alrosa, a
state-controlled Russian diamond mine. The third involved a rich Russian,
described to Banks in an email from an investment adviser as “a mini oligarch,”
and a gold mine in Guinea, Africa. British reporters began sniffing about.
Friday, reporters from The New York Times
joined the truffle hunt. Banks said in an interview with the Times that he did recall being offered
those deals. But wasn’t it mean, he grumbled, this “wholesale theft” of his
emails.
Why, who would stoop so low as to steal a man’s emails!
“Why
would the Russians do this for Banks?”
On this side of the Atlantic, where Republicans control
Congress, lawmakers were not exactly working overtime to pursue these sorts of
leads. Across the pond, Damian Collins, chairman of the parliamentary committee
looking into Russian interference in the Brexit vote, sounded quite suspicious
after perusing Banks’s email trail. “The question is,” Collins wondered, “Why
would the Russians do this for Banks? What it looks like is that Russia decided
he was someone they wanted to do
business with and they wanted
to see prosper and succeed – and Banks, alongside that, wanted to hide the extent of his contacts with
the Russians.”
In the face of freshly uncovered email evidence, Banks found
himself in a bit of a biscuits and jam. He was forced to admit that there had been a fourth meeting with
the ambassador. Banks was quick to say that his testimony previously, about
“two lunches and a cup of tea” was “relatively accurate.”
If that sounds to you like Trump and his campaign staff
describing meetings with Russians, it should.
It turns out Banks and his media adviser, Andrew Wigmore, had
another friendly meeting with a Russian diplomat named Alexander Udod.
That would be five.
Udod was recently listed as one of 23 suspected Russian
spies and expelled from Great Britain in the wake of the attempted
poisoning of Putin critic and former Russian spy, Sergei Skripal. That
poisoning on British soil left Skripal and Skripal’s daughter in critical
condition.
For Banks, the meeting with Udod was good. This led to his
first meeting with the Russian ambassador, which led to a meeting with a
Russian businessman, who offered Banks a chance to invest in Russian gold
mines. “I am very bullish on gold so keen to have a look,” Banks later emailed
the businessman. He was interested enough to contact a banker familiar with
Russian gold and diamond mines to say he was pondering a role in what he called
“the gold play.”
“I intend to pop in and see the ambassador as well,” Banks
said in an email. He copied that email to Udod.
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Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has multiple offshore accounts. |
Greed
before God and Country.
Banks swears on his bank book that he never engaged in any
deal. But he failed to mention in testimony that he had been offered a second
investment opportunity by the same Russian tycoon, Siman Povarenkin. Povarenkin
told Banks that the Russians were about to sell a 10 percent stake in Alrosa, a
giant diamond mining operation. Would Banks prefer to invest in diamonds? In an
email on January 16, 2016, another investment adviser working for Banks wrote
to Povarenkin to assure him that his client had “not forgotten about your
Alrosa project.”
So: diamonds it was. (See:
11/29-30/18 and 12/17-21/18.)
You might think Banks’s memory would have been jogged a bit
in September 2017 when an Alrosa mine in Russia turned up a 27.85 carat pink diamond estimated to be worth
roughly $10 million.
But no.
In interviews this week, Banks first said he knew nothing
about the Alrosa project. Then email evidence forced him to admit he had heard
about it. He insisted he did not pursue it. Then it turned out his business
partner and friend James Mellon, also a major backer of the Brexit strategy,
did get in on the deal.
In case you’ve forgotten, some of the most serious
allegations in the Steele dossier involve lucrative deals in Russian gas and oil offered to leading
figures in the Trump campaign.
Greed before God and Country.
Mellon, The New York
Times reported, is “a prominent investor based in the Isle of Man,” and “a
partner with Mr. Banks in a financial institution on the island. Mr. Mellon has
made hundreds of millions of dollars investing in Russia since the fall of the
Soviet Union, often alongside businessmen close to President Vladimir M.
Putin.”
The Times
continued:
Three weeks after the 2016
Brexit vote, the Russian government sold the Alrosa stake in a private
offering to a restricted group of investors [emphasis added]. The shares
were sold at a discount to the market
price at a time when the value of both the stock and diamonds were
rising.
Mr. Mellon’s fund management
company, Charlemagne Capital, was among a restricted number of investors who
were allowed to participate.
A third Russian investment deal surfaced in April 2016, two
months before the Brexit vote. Yet another investment banker (with connections
in Russia) emailed Banks. Would he like to invest in a gold mine in Guinea,
with a Russian businessman who “shares your passion for the yellow metal?”
Banks first told reporters he had no memory of this discussion.
I mean, who would remember talking about a gold mine in Africa and a Russian
oligarch who owned it?
Oops.
Banks had to call reporters back and admit there had been a
meeting on May 10, 2016, that possibly involved a discussion about that mine.
Banks
and Russian ambassador discussed Trump campaign.
In August 2016, Banks met with the Russian ambassador for
lunch again. Banks’s emails reveal that the two discussed the Trump campaign.
They met again on November 12, after Trump won. This time discussion turned to
Jeff Sessions and the role he might play in the Trump cabinet.
In the end, Banks professed complete innocence, telling The New York Times, “The idea that
things were dangled as some sort of carrots for me to be involved with the
Russians is very far-fetched. I wonder what the Russians wanted from me?”
I think I can answer that, but first, I’d like to answer the
question Banks didn’t pose. What did Banks want?
Banks wanted what all these shady crooks want – great wealth –
more money than any human being needs. Banks was driven by greed. Think guys
like Banks and those Russian oligarchs pillaging their homeland and members of
the Trump campaign wouldn’t be happy to cheat their own people? Think again.
Consider, the Isle of Man, where Banks and Mellon do
business. It’s a notorious tax haven where the superrich from around the
globe gather, financially speaking, to avoid paying taxes. Meanwhile, ordinary
taxi drivers, truckers and teachers, the butcher, the baker, and the
candlestick maker all cough up their hard-earned dough.
Those with accounts on the Isle of Man, where the tax rate is
virtually zero, normally enjoy total secrecy. Hackers broke into bank records
in in 2015 and revealed all kinds of sleazy operations. Those with hidden
accounts on the Isle included John Whittaker, a Briton, sitting atop a fortune
estimated to be 2.3 billion pounds, or $3.4 billion American. Trevor Baines, a
man who amassed a fortune of 130 million pounds, and then went to jail for
money laundering, also banked on the Isle of Man. Nigel Farage, leader of the Brexit charge, had an
account on the island. At the same time, he was campaigning against leaders of
the European Union who he insisted were dodging
their share of taxes.
How greedy are these people? How low are they willing to go
to sell out their homelands? In another recent leak of secret tax records,
involving a Panamanian law firm and multiple offshore tax shelters, several interesting names popped up. First among thieves,
you might say, were Wilbur Ross, President Trump’s Secretary of Commerce and
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. That meant you had Secretary Mnuchin
weaseling out of paying taxes to the Treasury Department he runs. Gary
Cohn, Trump’s former chief economic adviser, set up 22 separate companies in
Bermuda, another tax haven. Trump’s former Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson,
also set up fake companies on the island. Ben Carson, head of Housing and Urban
Department, sheltered part of his wealth in Bermuda.
Who else appears to be evading their taxes? Tom Barrack, the
billionaire businessman who organized the Trump inauguration ceremonies, favors
the Cayman Islands. That’s one of the most famous tax havens. Jay Clayton, Trump’s
SEC chairman, also has a stash of cash in the Caymans.
20,000
corporations – 1 address.
How absurd is this system? How greedy are these folks? And
why might we suspect a guy like Trump – whose tax returns are eternally hidden?
More than 100,000 corporations claim their headquarters are
located in the Cayman Islands. This means they avoid paying taxes they would
owe the United States and other governments round the world. That includes
20,000 corporations with addresses in the same five-story office tower, the
Ugland House.
If you are still wondering how far these people will go to
pile up more and more wealth, consider the population of the Cayman Islands, where all these
corporations claim they’ve located headquarters. As a public service, we can
provide you with that number. It would be 62,347.
Or to put it simply, every man, woman, and baby in diapers on
the islands must be running 1½ corporations.
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The Cayman Islands: Home to more corporations than people. |
