After months of hitting Hillary Clinton for ties to foreign governments through the Clinton Foundation while serving as Secretary of State, Donald Trump has to answer questions regarding his own organization’s dealings.
A report from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and the Center for Public Integrity found that Donald Trump’s real estate organization rented out office space to an Iranian bank between 1998 and 2003, which was later determined by U.S. authorities to have links to terrorist groups and the Iranian nuclear program.
Bank Melli, one of Iran’s largest state-controlled banks, was inherited by Trump when his real estate organization purchased the General Motors building on Fifth Avenue in New York City, according to public records.
It would be one thing to allow an international bank to conduct business on your property, but Bank Melli has been alleged to have obtained sensitive information to help aid the Iranian nuclear program and funneled money to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which has sponsored several terrorist attacks against the U.S.
In 1995, President Bill Clinton approved an embargo that prevented Americans from conducting trade with Iranian businesses in response to Iran’s support for global terrorist attacks against the U.S. and its allies, including the 1994 suicide bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people.
On the campaign trail, Trump has touted his business record and has said he is very hands-on when it comes to managing his properties. So, the question remains, how much did Donald Trump know about Bank Melli and its sponsoring of terrorist activities and building the Iranian nuclear program?
So far, Trump has refused to answer questions about anything.
“What is certain: Trump, as chronicled in our story, has been a relentless critic of both Iran itself and the Obama administration’s willingness to strike a deal with Iran over its nuclear program,” Dave Levinthal, a senior political reporter with the Center for Public Integrity, told Red Alert. “Trump said this month that he’d be willing to shoot Iranian ships ‘out of the water’ if Iranian sailors made rude gestures at U.S. sailors and accused Hillary Clinton of cutting deals with ‘foreign adversaries’ such as Iran ‘as long as they are willing to line her pockets.’ So Trump’s willingness to house and take payments from a state-controlled Iranian bank stands in stark contrast to his political statements about Iran.”
With 36 days left in the election, are these revelations about Trump’s real estate ventures on par with the accusations he’s made about Clinton accepting donations from foreign governments through the Clinton foundation?
For now, Clinton won’t let this fall through the cracks, releasing this statement:
This likely won’t swing millennial voters to one camp or the other, but instead will re-emphasize how unlikable Trump and Clinton are. Gary Johnson and Jill Stein are ready to embrace those disaffected millennials with open arms.
