# Is Donald Trump a Putin patsy? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [July 25, 2016, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-donald-trump-a-putin-patsy/760875 "2016-07-25T19:00:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-donald-trump-a-putin-patsy/760875/261 "2016-07-27T20:37:41Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > Trump is an oxen-moron. Made me larf. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-donald-trump-a-putin-patsy/760875/262 "2016-07-27T20:47:02Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > 1. Obama is a highly respected man who has steered the economy out of the toilet, and back into good shape. Despite an oppositional Republican Party whose only priority for the country was to make Obama a one term president. > [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > 2.) Imagine actually believing this. What [specifically](http://www.factcheck.org/2016/01/obamas-numbers-january-2016-update/) are you [having trouble believing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-A09a_gHJc)? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-donald-trump-a-putin-patsy/760875/263 "2016-07-27T20:52:00Z")
Question of the hour seems to be Did Trump ever actually meet Putin. Just recently, he said he had never met him. But a couple of sites I visit claim that he is on record on at least two occasions saying he did meet Putin. There were no links offered, which is unusual, so I do not put this out there as solid fact. ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-donald-trump-a-putin-patsy/760875/264 "2016-07-27T21:07:04Z")
> **[Donald Trump's Plea to Russian Hackers Roils Presidential Campaign](https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/2016-conventions/donald-trump-s-plea-russian-hackers-roils-campaign-n618061)** > > The charge that Donald Trump has effectively allied his campaign with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin would sound like a crackpot conspiracy theory. What kind of a moron says something like this publicly? (asking Putin to hack Clinton’s emails) And this moron wants the nuclear codes? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-donald-trump-a-putin-patsy/760875/265 "2016-07-27T21:07:45Z")
OK, a bit more clarity. According to this from _Time_ > **[Here's the Deal With That Putin '60 Minutes' Episode Trump Mentioned](https://time.com/4108198/donald-trump-60-minutes-putin/)** > > There's a couple problems with his story Trump claimed to have met Putin when both were on _60 Minutes_, but that wasn’t true, which is to say, he’s not lying now because he was lying then. OK, then. However, this: > **[NPC Luncheon with Donald Trump, chairman and president of the Trump Organization](https://www.press.org/events/npc-luncheon-donald-trump-chairman-and-president-trump-organization)** > > Donald Trump, chairman and president of the Trump Organization, will speak at a National Press Club luncheon on Tuesday, May 27. > Trump is a well-known real estate mogul and the creator of the hit television series “The Apprentice” and “Celebrity... from the National Press Club luncheon is cited as Trump claiming he met Putin in Moscow and found him a delightful chap, etc. Only trouble with this cite is that its a video of the whole hour long thing, so if you want to verify, you gotta listen to all of it. I pass. So, anyway, in the first instance, maybe he was telling the truth about not meeting Putin because he was lying when he said he did. Might also be true in the second instance, I suppose. But he was lying, the only question being what he was lying about. Frankly, at this point, I doubt he even knows himself. “If you always tell the truth, you don’t have to remember as much.” - Mark Twain ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-donald-trump-a-putin-patsy/760875/266 "2016-07-27T21:31:32Z")
Trump continues to dodge questions about Russian investment, even though as has been noted previously, Don Jr. claimed that the Russians were giving them a lot of investment money and Kremlin official spokespersons directed further questions about the matter to the kid (which is weird, right?) Today, he was asked directly if Russians had invested in Trump’s business: > **[Trump Still Won’t Answer Key Question About His Business Ties With Russia](https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/trump-presser-russia-business)** > > During an unprecedented off-the-rails press conference Wednesday, Donald Trump fielded several questions about his business ties with Russia, but the candidate never answered the essential question… > [@Donald Trump](#): > > Trump then fielded a question about whether there are any “oligarchs who have investments in the Trump Organization.” > > “Of course not, I own the Trump Organization,” Trump responded. “Zero. Zero.” Yeah, I’ll take “Answers that don’t actually address the question, Alex”. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-donald-trump-a-putin-patsy/760875/267 "2016-07-27T21:34:22Z")
This thread is not about Romney or about respect or disrespect for Obama. Those are perfectly acceptable discussion topics **that need to be taken to a new thread**. [/Moderating] ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-donald-trump-a-putin-patsy/760875/268 "2016-07-27T21:34:28Z")
Maybe there are investors, but not “oligarchs”? Just small investors, which he tends to prefer, because they don’t have lawyers on retainer. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-donald-trump-a-putin-patsy/760875/269 "2016-07-27T21:37:10Z")
> [@Crybaby\_Boobie](#): > > Just remember everyone. This person gets access to national security briefings starting Friday. Maybe he’ll invite the Russians to read those too! Can anyone doubt that he’d be willing to sell that information if the price is right? (To ISIS, to the Russians, to the North Koreans…to anyone.) Apparently this is actually going to happen. The briefers presumably have _some_ discretion over what they reveal, but: > [@](#): > > Weisberg: So how classified is the information you get into in those briefings? Is it comparable to the level of briefing a president gets when in office, or is it something short of that? > > McLaughlin: Well, it’s very close. [A veteran candidate briefer from the CIA on Trump and classified information.](http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/07/a_veteran_candidate_briefer_from_the_cia_on_trump_and_classified_information.html) ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-donald-trump-a-putin-patsy/760875/270 "2016-07-27T22:03:35Z")
> [@Merneith](#): > > Today, he was asked directly if Russians had invested in Trump’s business: > > "Trump then fielded a question about whether there are any ‘oligarchs who have investments in the Trump Organization.’ > > ‘Of course not, I own the Trump Organization,’ Trump responded. ‘Zero. Zero.’" > Yeah, I’ll take “Answers that don’t actually address the question, Alex”. I’d take that as question too narrow to get the complete answer. It’s completely believable there are no other equity investors in, IOW joint owners of, The Trump Organization besides Trump. And Russian oligarchs have no particular interest in acting as banks nor Trump any shortage of banks to borrow from, so debt owed by TTO to Russian oligarchs is equally unlikely. It’s highly unlikely that Russian oligarchs have ‘investments in TTO’. It doesn’t mean he actually has no dealing with Russian oligarchs (or other entities there), through for example joint investments by TTO and others in projects, etc. But that wouldn’t be an investment _in_ TTO, which is what was asked. Anyway Trump seemed to say pretty clearly he has no dealings with Russian entities. If someone can prove he has significant ones, they’ll show him to be a liar (though it hasn’t had a dramatic impact up to now when Trump was shown to be lying). I think this is mainly a gambit to bring back the topic of Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns, which should be a problem for Trump, by putting it in terms of the hot issue of the moment so it’s not ‘old news’. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-donald-trump-a-putin-patsy/760875/271 "2016-07-27T22:18:40Z")
> [@Corry\_El](#): > > Anyway Trump seemed to say pretty clearly he has no dealings with Russian entities. If someone can prove he has significant ones, they’ll show him to be a liar (though it hasn’t had a dramatic impact up to now when Trump was shown to be lying). ? I thought the [WaPo article](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-trumps-financial-ties-to-russia-and-his-unusual-flattery-of-vladimir-putin/2016/06/17/dbdcaac8-31a6-11e6-8ff7-7b6c1998b7a0_story.html?tid=a_inl) had already been linked. > [@](#): > > Putin canceled at the last minute, but he sent a decorative lacquered box, a traditional Russian gift, and a warm note, according to Aras Agalarov, a Moscow billionaire who served as a liaison between Trump and the Russian leader. > > Still, the weekend was fruitful for Trump. He received a portion of the $14 million paid by Agalarov and other investors to bring the pageant to Moscow. Agalarov said he and Trump signed an agreement to build a Trump Tower in the heart of Moscow — at least Trump’s fifth attempt at such a venture. > \ > “Almost all of the oligarchs were in the room,” Trump bragged to Real Estate Weekly upon returning home. > \ > “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets,” Trump’s son, Donald Jr., told a real estate conference in 2008, according to an account posted on the website of eTurboNews, a trade publication. “We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.” ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-donald-trump-a-putin-patsy/760875/272 "2016-07-27T22:41:50Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > ? I thought the WaPo article had already been linked. But it doesn’t disprove Trump’s statement in the press conference (other link above) particularly in respect of the joint investment in a ‘Trump Tower’ in Moscow which he says never came to fruition, and AFAIK that hasn’t been contradicted. I wasn’t trying to be Clintonian 🙂 with _has_ and _significant_. I just doubt it’s going to hurt Trump with persuadable voters to show that he _intended_ (‘yeah we wanted to’) joint investment in a building project in Moscow some years ago that never happened, nor that Trump getting ‘a portion’ of $14mil, some guy said, as part of deciding where to hold the Miss U pageant some years ago is significant (if we’re not going to play the reglar feller game, ie ‘by cracky that’s a lot of money to me!’), as proof that Trump is lying in saying he has no dealings with Russians. I’d stick with Trump’s zero, zero answer about Russian investors in TTO being overwhelmingly likely to be true, significant dealings of TTO there now have not been demonstrated, and the whole line of questioning is mainly to bring back up his refusal to release tax returns while dodging the ‘old news’ label (though I don’t have a problem with ‘old news’ if it’s stuff a politician stonewalled into being ‘old news’, which is the case here). ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-donald-trump-a-putin-patsy/760875/273 "2016-07-27T22:47:18Z")
> [@Corry\_El](#): > > I’d take that as question too narrow to get the complete answer. It’s completely believable there are no other equity investors in, IOW joint owners of, The Trump Organization besides Trump. And Russian oligarchs have no particular interest in acting as banks nor Trump any shortage of banks to borrow from, so debt owed by TTO to Russian oligarchs is equally unlikely. It’s highly unlikely that Russian oligarchs have ‘investments in TTO’. In fact, Donald Trump does have a shortage of banks to deal with, because of his habit of leaving his investors high and dry. This WSJ article mentions it for one - [http://www.wsj.com/articles/when-donald-trump-needs-a-loan-he-chooses-deutsche-bank-1458379806](http://www.wsj.com/articles/when-donald-trump-needs-a-loan-he-chooses-deutsche-bank-1458379806) > [@Anupreeta Das](#): > > But the relations at times have been rocky. Deutsche Bank’s giant investment-banking unit stopped working with Mr. Trump after an acrimonious legal spat, even as another arm of the company continued to loan him money. > Related > > Other Wall Street banks, after doing extensive business with Mr. Trump in the 1980s and 1990s, pulled back in part due to frustration with his business practices but also because he moved away from real-estate projects that required financing, according to bank officials. Citigroup Inc., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley are among the banks that don’t currently work with him. > [@Cory El](#): > > It doesn’t mean he actually has no dealing with Russian oligarchs (or other entities there), through for example joint investments by TTO and others in projects, etc. But that wouldn’t be an investment _in_ TTO, which is what was asked. Trump was asked, “Have any oligarchs invested in your business”? He replied, “No, I own the business”. Just because he owns the business - a point no one disputes or cares about - doesn’t mean that other people have not invested in his business. It certainly doesn’t mean that the business doesn’t owe money to anyone. Trump dodged the question and straight up lied about his business relations with Russia. > [@Cory El](#): > > Anyway Trump seemed to say pretty clearly he has no dealings with Russian entities. If someone can prove he has significant ones, they’ll show him to be a liar (though it hasn’t had a dramatic impact up to now when Trump was shown to be lying). > > I think this is mainly a gambit to bring back the topic of Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns, which should be a problem for Trump, by putting it in terms of the hot issue of the moment so it’s not ‘old news’. In addition to the matter that CarnalK linked, proving that Trump is lying, there’s also this item from the NYT - [http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/06/us/politics/donald-trump-soho-settlement.html?\_r=0](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/06/us/politics/donald-trump-soho-settlement.html?_r=0) Discussing Russian and Kazakhstan involvement in Trump’s Manhatten projects. > [@NYT](#): > > Mr. Trump was foggy on how he first came to do business with Bayrock, a small development company whose offices were in Trump Tower in Midtown. In a deposition a few years ago, he said it might have been a Bayrock associate, Felix H. Sater, who first approached him in the early 2000s. > > Mr. Sater, a Russian immigrant, had recently joined Bayrock at the behest of its founder, Tevfik Arif, a former Soviet-era commerce official originally from Kazakhstan. Bayrock, which was developing commercial properties in Brooklyn, proposed that Mr. Trump license his name to hotel projects in Florida, Arizona and New York, including Trump SoHo. > > The other development partner for Trump SoHo was the Sapir Organization, whose founder, Tamir Sapir, was from the former Soviet republic of Georgia. In addition to receiving a licensing agreement, Mr. Trump would manage the completed condo-hotel, and he was also given a minor equity interest in it. > > Emails and testimony in several lawsuits show that Mr. Sater and Mr. Arif worked closely with Mr. Trump and others in the Trump Organization. Mr. Trump was particularly taken with Mr. Arif’s overseas connections. In a deposition, Mr. Trump said that the two had discussed “numerous deals all over the world” and that Mr. Arif had brought potential Russian investors to Mr. Trump’s office to meet him. The article goes on to talk about how Felix Satar was arrested for stabbing a man and also for stock manipulation. Later on, he turned states’ evidence and helped the FBI break up a criminal group. But he continued his association with Donald Trump - > [@the same NYT article](#): > > Mr. Sater left Bayrock after the news of his criminal background was reported. But even after that, his association with Mr. Trump did not end. The Trump Organization later gave him a business card identifying him as a “senior advisor” to Mr. Trump, as well an office. Mr. Garten, the general counsel for the organization, said that Mr. Sater was never an employee, but that he had worked independently to steer potential deals to Mr. Trump. The arrangement lasted about six months, Mr. Garten said. Mr. Sater declined to comment on his dealings with Mr. Trump or with Bayrock. > > By the time Mr. Trump sat for a deposition in a lawsuit in November 2013, it was clear he no longer saw the benefit of knowing the Bayrock executives with whom he had once completed big deals. He said he barely knew Mr. Arif: “I mean, I’ve seen him a couple of times; I have met him.” > > As for Mr. Sater, “if he were sitting in the room right now,” Mr. Trump said, “I really wouldn’t know what he looked like.” As Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo points out, the above information only came out because Trump was being sued by a bunch of other investors in his Trump Soho project, who claimed they were being lied to about the state of the finances. [http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trump-putin-yes-it-s-really-a-thing](http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trump-putin-yes-it-s-really-a-thing) > [@TPM](#): > > One example of this [ie: Russian money pouring in, per Don Jr.'s claim] is the Trump Soho development in Manhattan, one of Trump’s largest recent endeavors. The project was the hit with a series of lawsuits in response to some typically Trumpian efforts to defraud investors by making fraudulent claims about the financial health of the project. Emerging out of that litigation however was news about secret financing for the project from Russia and Kazakhstan. Most attention about the project has focused on the presence of a twice imprisoned Russian immigrant with extensive ties to the Russian criminal underworld. But that’s not the most salient part of the story. > > \ > > Another suit alleged the project “occasionally received unexplained infusions of cash from accounts in Kazakhstan and Russia.” In short: Donald Trump is pathalogical liar and con man, with longstanding ties to shady Russian businesses. ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-donald-trump-a-putin-patsy/760875/274 "2016-07-27T22:53:07Z")
> [@Corry\_El](#): > > But it doesn’t disprove Trump’s statement in the press conference (other link above) particularly in respect of the joint investment in a ‘Trump Tower’ in Moscow which he says never came to fruition, and AFAIK that hasn’t been contradicted. > > I wasn’t trying to be Clintonian 🙂 with _has_ and _significant_. I just doubt it’s going to hurt Trump with persuadable voters to show that he _intended_ (‘yeah we wanted to’) joint investment in a building project in Moscow some years ago that never happened, nor that Trump getting ‘a portion’ of $14mil, some guy said, as part of deciding where to hold the Miss U pageant some years ago is significant (if we’re not going to play the reglar feller game, ie ‘by cracky that’s a lot of money to me!’), as proof that Trump is lying in saying he has no dealings with Russians. > > I’d stick with Trump’s zero, zero answer about Russian investors in TTO being overwhelmingly likely to be true, significant dealings of TTO there now have not been demonstrated, and the whole line of questioning is mainly to bring back up his refusal to release tax returns while dodging the ‘old news’ label (though I don’t have a problem with ‘old news’ if it’s stuff a politician stonewalled into being ‘old news’, which is the case here). We’ve provided actual examples of Donald Trump lying his face off about his connections to Russian business men - for example, claiming he didn’t even know Felix Sater, a man he’s on record of knowing for years. It won’t change the minds of the non-persuadable voters who don’t care about Donald’s pathological lying and shady Russian friends. It won’t probably won’t change the minds of Donald’s apologists. They should be ashamed of themselves. That’s no reason for the rest of us to let up on pointing out the truth. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-donald-trump-a-putin-patsy/760875/275 "2016-07-27T23:09:11Z")
He’s claiming it was a joke? :rolleyes: Yeah, like joking about a bomb while you’re in the TSA line, eh? ---
**Author:** ![DerekMichaels00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f14d63/32.png) [@DerekMichaels00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DerekMichaels00)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-donald-trump-a-putin-patsy/760875/276 "2016-07-27T23:12:52Z")
[his new logo](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CoaDo-pUIAE7vcP.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-donald-trump-a-putin-patsy/760875/277 "2016-07-27T23:14:17Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > He’s claiming it was a joke? :rolleyes: Yeah, like joking about a bomb while you’re in the TSA line, eh? Don’t forget that other Great Republican who told Russia “the bombing starts in five minutes”. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-donald-trump-a-putin-patsy/760875/278 "2016-07-27T23:14:28Z")
> [@Merneith](#): > > In fact, Donald Trump does have a shortage of banks to deal with, because of his habit of leaving his investors high and dry. This WSJ article mentions it for one - > > Trump was asked, “Have any oligarchs invested in your business”? > > He replied, “No, I own the business”. > Just because he owns the business - a point no one disputes or cares about - doesn’t mean that other people have not invested in his business. It certainly doesn’t mean that the business doesn’t owe money to anyone. > > Trump dodged the question and straight up lied about his business relations with Russia. > In short: Donald Trump is pathalogical liar and con man, I don’t disagree with the last statement, minus the psychoanalysis, Trump lies a lot. Also I understand that people in a campaign or caught up in it have to flog the issue of the day. I don’t expect Democratic operatives to come out near the end of the day and say ‘OK, there’s really not that much here’. I get that. But, I don’t think there’s much there in terms of proving Trump lied significantly in what he said as related by the Slate article. Nor was he evasive particularly. I’m not ruling out that somebody will prove he lied to a degree that will change the opinion of people who don’t already think he’s a ‘pathological liar’, but the info in the WaPo and NYT articles doesn’t IMO. On TTO’s funding, the WSJ article noted that some major banks don’t want to deal with him. That is not the same as saying he doesn’t have plenty of banks to borrow from, which he does, there are lots of banks. The likelihood he is _borrowing_ from Russian oligarchs is near zero, people like that are not seeking low returns like you get from lending money to other big companies. And what Trump was clearly saying, in ordinary business language, is that he is _sole_ owner of TTO, IOW there are no other equity investors, which is also highly likely to be true. This is just by way of information. That was a silly question basically. The fact that TTO is a solely owned entity and doesn’t borrow from foreign/private entities is pretty much a no brainer. The right question would instead have been what (or whether) TTO owns or partly owns assets in Russia, and if so jointly with whom. Trump seemed pretty clearly to say no, but wasn’t 100% directly asked that. The most specific question was the wrong one, by a political reporter who doesn’t know how to ask the right question about such a topic, a common problem. And the other articles referred to specify cases where TTO tried to make investment there some years in the past. Trump said, per the Slate article, ‘yeah we tried to’, but didn’t. If Trump was basically lying on that, it’s yet to be demonstrated to a level which would move the needle with people who aren’t going to go semi-ape shit, with due respect, at any suggestion Trump isn’t the devil incarnate. But about equal numbers of voters now favor Trump to opposing him when Clinton is the alternative. I don’t see the Russian dealings thing or Trump’s statements about it as very decisive in changing that if the media doesn’t come up with a _lot_ more. And the ‘treason’ thing by Democrats wrt Trump’s dumb comment about Russian hacking risks overplaying that and looking desperate, IMO. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-donald-trump-a-putin-patsy/760875/279 "2016-07-27T23:30:22Z")
PS to add, or it would have been relevant to ask if Russian entities are joint investors with TTO in any assets inside or outside Russia. But the question asked was not investments ‘in your business’. It was any ‘oligarchs who have investments in the Trump Organization.’ Trump’s answer to that too narrow question was highly likely correct. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2016, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-donald-trump-a-putin-patsy/760875/280 "2016-07-27T23:39:44Z")
🆒 > [@Merneith](#): > > We’ve provided actual examples of Donald Trump lying his face off about his connections to Russian business men - for example, claiming he didn’t even know Felix Sater, a man he’s on record of knowing for years. Now hold on just a damn minute, there; can you _prove_ that wasn’t John Barron? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-donald-trump-a-putin-patsy/760875.md?page=13) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-donald-trump-a-putin-patsy/760875.md?page=15)