Donald Trump and the Republicans in Congress downplayed and degraded British spy Michael Steele’s, infamous dossier. Yet, no one has disproven the facts in it. Now, award-winning reporters, Michael Isikoff and David Corn have unearthed a second Trump event, eerily similar to the dossier.
It happened on an early summer evening in Las Vegas, NV while Trump was still in the Miss Universe Beauty Pageant business. This was in 2013. Two Russians and their publicist, who was British, had been organizing a dinner party for 20 at a restaurant at the Palazzo hotel and casino, CUT. Then, something extraordinary occurred.
Trump’s security chief and confident, Keith Schiller — who had been with him a long time, called the Russians. The bodyguard told them that Trump wanted to come to the party. They quickly agreed.
Emin Agalarov was seated between the future president and Rob Goldstone. Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, sat on the other side of Goldstone. Aras Agalarov sat across the table from 45. The vice president of Crocus International, Ike Kaveladze, sat at the table, too. His company was U.S.-based.
The GAO (Government Accountability Office) identified the business Kavteladze managed to have opened over 2,000 bank accounts with two U.S. banks to serve Russian-based people. This happened in 2002.
The Russians moved over $1.4 billion from Russians and East European people. GAO reported it was “for the purpose of laundering money.” Kaveladze’s primary client then was Crocus International. With a Trump term, Kaveladze insisted the GAO was on “another Russian witch-hunt in the United States.”
The president was sociable, according to Isikoff and Corn. Trump inquired about Aras’ jet. The man responded that he owned a Gulfstream 550, but he had ordered a Gulfstream 650.
The president offered a suggestion that showed Trump as his best self-promotion:
‘If that was me. I would have said I was one of only one hundred people in the world who have a Gulfstream 650 on order.’
After they had eaten, Isikoff and Corn reported that a smaller group of people went to a nightclub in the Vegas Palazzo mall, a questionable place called the Act. The after-partiers were :
‘Trump, Emin, Goldstone, Olivia Culpo (who won the 2012 Miss USA contest), and Nana Meriwether, the outgoing Miss USA. Trump and Culpo were photographed in the lobby by a local paparazzi.’
The Nevada Gaming Control Board and the Palazzo mall’s owner’s investigators had the nightclub under surveillance for three months. The owner, Sheldon Adelson, was a huge GOP donor. They had a good reason for concern. Isikoff and Corn reported:
‘The club featured semiadult women performing simulated sex acts of bestiality and grotesque sadomasochism…among the club’s regular acts cited by the judge was one called “Hot for Teacher,” in which naked college girls simulate urinating on a professor. In another act, two women disrobe and then “one female stands over the other female and simulates urinating while the other female catches the urine in two wine glasses.”
The club’s owners knew that Trump was in town, so they stocked up on Diet Coke, because the president does not drink. According to the book’s authors:
‘The owners had also discussed whether they should prepare a special performance for the developer, perhaps a dominatrix who would tie him up on stage or a little-person transvestite Trump impersonator. They nixed that idea.’
They all went to the nightclub owners’ box, where pop star and son of a Russian oligarch, Emin, was already seated. Emin, Goldstone, and Culpo toasted Trump, because his 67th birthday had been the day before.
Trump chatted up Emin, according to Goldstone:
‘When it comes to doing business in Russia, it’s very hard to find people in there you can trust,We’re going to have a great relationship.’
As the Miss USA pageant broadcast came to an end, Trump announced the pageant would be in Russia the next year. Then, he made a production of signing a contract with his new partners, the Agalarovs, and declared:
‘This will be one of the biggest and most beautiful Miss Universe events ever. These are the most powerful people in all of Russia, the richest men in Russia.’
Just two days after the after-hours party, Trump tweeted how much he wished to become Putin’s “new best friend:”
‘Mr. @realDonaldTrump anyone you meet becomes your best friend — so I’m sure Mr. Putin will not be an exception in Moscow.’
Isikoff is the Chief Investigative Correspondent for Yahoo News, and David Corn is the Washington bureau chief of Mother Jones. This was taken from the first of two excerpts of their book Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump Its release date is March 13.
To read the full excerpt, click on this link.
Featured Image via Getty Images/Chip Somodevilla.
