Senators demand probe into Trump’s dealings with Iran-linked oligarch
Democrats ask Justice Department, Treasury to probe if Trump Organization broke laws by dealing with Azerbaijani tied to Revolutionary Guards for Baku project
WASHINGTON — A group of Democratic senators called for a federal investigation Thursday into President Donald Trump’s business dealings with an Azerbaijani oligarch said to have extensive ties to Iran’s hard-line Revolutionary Guard Corps.
In a letter sent to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and FBI Director James Comey, the senators demanded a probe over whether Trump violated US anti-corruption and sanctions laws.
They also want authorities to inquire whether the Trump Organization’s partnership with an Azerbaijani businessman to build Trump Tower Baku, a hotel project that ultimately went undeveloped, served as a conduit for money-laundering and other illicit activities undertaken by the IRGC, a powerful Iranian military body seen as responsible for exporting terror abroad.
Signed by Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin and California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the letter cited an investigative report published in The New Yorker earlier this month that raised questions into whether Trump violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act — a 1977 law that was designed, among other things, to prevent bribery from foreign officials.
The report alleged The Trump Organization’s “notoriously corrupt” local partner for building project in Baku previously headed an IRGC-linked construction company and fought in the Iran-Iraq war.
Even though the president’s real estate company pulled out of the Trump Tower Baku project, “serious questions remain unanswered about the Trump Organization’s potential criminal liability,” the letter reads.
“It appears that the lack of due diligence by the Trump Organization described in the article exposed President Trump and his organization to notoriously corrupt Azerbaijani oligarchs, and may also have exposed the Trump Organization to the IRGC,” the Democratic lawmakers wrote.
The Trump Organization’s partner for the Trump Tower Baku — for which the firm licensed its name — was a company owned by Anar and Elton Mammadov, the respective son and brother of Ziya Mammadov, who served as the country’s transportation minister until February of this year.
According to The New Yorker piece, Ziya Mammadov — who is described in US diplomatic cables published by Wikileaks as “notoriously corrupt even for Azerbaijan” — granted a number of multimillion dollar contracts as transportation minister to the Iranian construction firm Azarpassillo, whose chairman, Keyumars Darvishi, previously headed the IRGC-linked construction company Raman and fought in the Iran-Iraq war.
The IRGC is one the most powerful entities in Iran, tasked with both defending the regime at home and exporting the country’s “Islamic Revolution” abroad. It also controls large swaths of the Iranian economy, including through its extensive holdings in the country’s oil and gas industries.
The IRGC has drawn the ire of the US for sponsoring terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas and over accusations it deals in drug trafficking and money laundering. The Trump administration is reportedly weighing labeling the IRGC a terrorist organization.
Although the report in The New Yorker does not say whether or not the IRGC had any indirect involvement in funding the project through their ties to the Mammadovs, it details the extensive business ties between the family and Darvishi while raising the possibility money tied to the IRGC may have been funneled into the project.
The senators specifically asked the Justice Department to investigate whether the Trump Organization failed to conduct its adequate due diligence under the FCPA guidelines to assess whether a business relationship with the Mammadov family would constitute a violation.
Furthermore, they want to know whether the company acted with “willful blindness regarding its business partners’ illicit acts in the Trump Tower Baku dealings, including the Mammadov family, and whether the Trump Organization could face criminal prosecution.”
The senators also asked the Justice Department to provide them an explanation if it is determined an investigation is not necessary.
The Treasury Department was also called on to direct the Office of Foreign Assets Control to conduct its own investigation into whether the company “maintained proper compliance controls in this case” and whether the Trump Organization violated sanctions law by doing business with a group linked to the IRGC.
The Times of Israel Community.