Trump, Deutsche Bank, and Russia

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's character and record of dishonesty. The update  -- recently published --includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms.

David Enrich at NYT:

Anti-money-laundering specialists at Deutsche Bank recommended in 2016 and 2017 that multiple transactions involving legal entities controlled by Donald J. Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, be reported to a federal financial-crimes watchdog.

The transactions, some of which involved Mr. Trump’s now-defunct foundation, set off alerts in a computer system designed to detect illicit activity, according to five current and former bank employees. Compliance staff members who then reviewed the transactions prepared so-called suspicious activity reports that they believed should be sent to a unit of the Treasury Department that polices financial crimes.

But executives at Deutsche Bank, which has lent billions of dollars to the Trump and Kushner companies, rejected their employees’ advice. The reports were never filed with the government.

...
 “You present them with everything, and you give them a recommendation, and nothing happens,” said Tammy McFadden, a former Deutsche Bank anti-money laundering specialist who reviewed some of the transactions. “It’s the D.B. way. They are prone to discounting everything.”

...
 In the summer of 2016, Deutsche Bank’s software flagged a series of transactions involving the real estate company of Mr. Kushner, now a senior White House adviser.

Ms. McFadden, a longtime anti-money laundering specialist in Deutsche Bank’s Jacksonville office, said she had reviewed the transactions and found that money had moved from Kushner Companies to Russian individuals. She concluded that the transactions should be reported to the government — in part because federal regulators had ordered Deutsche Bank, which had been caught laundering billions of dollars for Russians, to toughen its scrutiny of potentially illegal transactions.

This is not true. I have spent a long time looking into this, and @DeutscheBank was the only bank willing to lend to @realDonaldTrump for 20 years because of his pattern of defaults and the bank’s hunger for growth in the US. https://t.co/Qh4siSpEgM

— David Enrich (@davidenrich) May 20, 2019

I’m pretty sure this is the first time @realDonaldTrump has mentioned @DeutscheBank in a tweet. https://t.co/DF1EJNzdOP

— David Enrich (@davidenrich) May 20, 2019

For more on the long, complicated history between @realDonaldTrump and @DeutscheBank —> https://t.co/5kD4vCXm7y

— David Enrich (@davidenrich) May 20, 2019

The Security Risk Administration, Continued

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's record of ethical laxity and carelessness about state secrets. The update -- just published --includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms.

Tom Hamburger, Rachael Bade and Ashley Parker at WP:

The senior White House official whose security clearance was denied last year because of concerns about foreign influence, private business interests and personal conduct is presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner, according to people familiar with documents and testimony provided to the House Oversight Committee.

Kushner was identified only as “Senior White House Official 1” in committee documents released this week describing the testimony of Tricia Newbold, a whistleblower in the White House’s personnel security office who said she and another career employee determined that Kushner had too many “significant disqualifying factors” to receive a clearance. ...

Newbold told the House Oversight Committee that Kushner’s background investigation raised concerns about foreign influence, outside business interests and personal conduct, according to a document released by the committee.

David A. Fahrenthold, Devlin Barrett, and Josh Dawsey at WP:

On Wednesday, three top Senate Democrats asked FBI Director Christopher A. Wray to investigate whether foreign spies could exploit weaknesses at Mar-a-Lago to steal classified information. Zhang’s arrest “raises very serious questions regarding security vulnerabilities at Mar-a-Lago, which foreign intelligence services have reportedly targeted,” wrote Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.); Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee; and Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee.

 …

“The president has no idea who most of the people around him at the club are,” said another White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. “You pay and you get in.”

The Security Risk Administration

 In  Defying the Odds, we discuss  Trump's record of ethical laxity and carelessness about state secrets.  The update  -- just published --includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms.

Kate O’Keeffe and Aruna Viswanatha at WSJ:

U.S. counterintelligence officials in early 2017 warned Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, that Wendi Deng Murdoch, a prominent Chinese-American businesswoman, could be using her close friendship with Mr. Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, to further the interests of the Chinese government, according to people familiar with the matter.

U.S. officials have also had concerns about a counterintelligence assessment that Ms. Murdoch was lobbying for a high-profile construction project funded by the Chinese government in Washington, D.C., one of these people said.

The project, a planned $100 million Chinese garden at the National Arboretum, was deemed a national-security risk because it included a 70-foot-tall white tower that could potentially be used for surveillance, according to people familiar with the intelligence community’s deliberations over the garden. The garden was planned on one of the higher patches of land near downtown Washington, less than 5 miles from both the Capitol and the White House.

Devlin Barrett at WP:

Secret Service agents arrested a woman at President Trump’s Florida resort this past weekend after she was found carrying two Chinese passports and a thumb drive with malicious software on it, according to court documents.

Prosecutors allege the woman, Yujing Zhang, first told security officials at Mar-a-Lago that she was there to go to the swimming pool, and due to an apparent language barrier, staff at the club thought she was a relative of one of the club’s members.

Once inside the grounds, Zhang allegedly told a receptionist that she was there for a United Nations event scheduled for later in the day about Chinese-American relations. No such event was on the schedule, so the receptionist called the Secret Service, according to court papers.

Isaac Stanley-Becker at WP:

“The Secret Service does not determine who is invited or welcome at Mar-a-Lago; this is the responsibility of the host entity,” the agency noted in a statement on Tuesday. “The Mar-a-Lago club management determines which members and guests are granted access to the property.”

...

Democrats decry the financial burden of the president’s double life, as well as the prospect that he could be using his office to drive business to his commercial venture. Each jaunt to South Florida saddles taxpayers with an average $3.4 million, according to a report released in February by the Government Accountability Office.

...

[In] February 2017 when Mar-a-Lago — which has been everything from a wedding venue to the site of New Year’s Eve bacchanalia — was briefly transformed into the Situation Room.

Guests at the country club snapped photos of Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe huddling over dinner about their response to a ballistic missile test by North Korea. The chaotic scene on the dining terrace was captured in a Facebook post by Richard DeAgazio, a retired investor and club member from the Boston area.

Chinese Deep Massage

 In  Defying the Odds, we discuss  Trump's record of scandal.  The update  -- just published --includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms.

David Corn, Dan Friedman, and Daniel Schulman at Mother Jones:

The latest Trump political donor to draw controversy is Li Yang, a 45-year-old Florida entrepreneur from China who founded a chain of spas and massage parlors that included the one where New England Patriots owner Bob Kraft was recently busted for soliciting prostitution. She made the news this week when the Miami Herald reported that last month she had attended a Super Bowl viewing party at Donald Trump’s West Palm Beach golf club and had snapped a selfie with the president during the event. Though Yang no longer owns the spa Kraft allegedly visited, the newspaper noted that other massage parlors her family runs have “gained a reputation for offering sexual services.” (She told the newspaper she has never violated the law.) Beyond this sordid tale, there is another angle to the strange story of Yang: She runs an investment business that has offered to sell Chinese clients access to Trump and his family. And a website for the business—which includes numerous photos of Yang and her purported clients hobnobbing at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s private club in Palm Beach—suggests she had some success in doing so.

ndb, just Cindy Yang — founder of the sex spa where New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft was busted for soliciting prostitutes — hanging out with Donald Trump, Don Jr, Eric Trump, Ron DeSantis, Matt Gaetz, and Rick Scott.

At Mar-a-Lago... where she is a member. 👀 pic.twitter.com/dToUZR5AeE

— Caroline Orr (@RVAwonk) March 8, 2019

Yang’s company is promoting an upcoming event at Mar-a-Lago featuring Trump’s sister, Elizabeth Trump Grau. The co. bills it as “a once-in-a-lifetime publicity opportunity” where "Chinese elites" will have the chance to mingle with Trump Grau and members of Congress pic.twitter.com/5iCxZXqkVA

— Daniel Schulman (@DanielSchulman) March 9, 2019

A blast from the past...On May 12, 2017   Javier C. Hernández reported at NYT:

The real estate company owned by the family of Jared Kushner, son-in-law and senior adviser to President Trump, said on Friday that its employees would no longer take part in a cross-country roadshow in China this month.

Executives from Kushner Companies, including Nicole Meyer, Mr. Kushner’s sister, were expected to appear in the southern cities of Shenzhen and Guangzhou and the central city of Wuhan this month, according to ads for the events.

But after an uproar, the company and its Chinese partner said on Friday that Kushner Companies would no longer be present at those events, although it will continue to actively court investors.

The company is seeking $150 million in financing for a New Jersey housing development through a program that gives foreigners who invest at least $500,000 a shot at green cards, which allow permanent residence in the United States. The overall sum represents about 15 percent of the total cost of the property project.

But the effort to raise money in China drew widespread criticism, with ethics experts saying it presented a conflict of interest. Mr. Kushner continues to benefit from a stake in his family’s real estate business and other investments worth as much as $600 million.

Donald Trump, Security Risk

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Russian involvement in the 2016 campaign.  The update  -- just published --includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms.

At The Guardian, Walter Shapiro explains why Trump is a security risk.

Less than a week after the inauguration, Sally Yates, the acting attorney general, warned the White House Flynn was a security risk potentially subject to Russian blackmail. Instead of having the national security adviser frogmarched to the sidewalk, Trump allowed him to soldier on at the center of national security decision-making for another 18 days.

Then there was the Oval Office moment in May 2017 when Trump the Blabbermouth sold out Israel. Bragging about foiling a plot by the Islamic State in a meeting with the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, Trump inadvertently revealed a major Israeli espionage operation. Russian generosity meant that this information was almost certainly shared with its Iranian allies.

The New York Times reported last October that Trump regularly speaks with friends on an insecure iPhone that is closely monitored by the Chinese...

 The president was equally forthright a month ago when he unequivocally denied that he intervened in any way to get a permanent security clearance for his son-in-law Jared Kushner.

But, to use Watergate lingo, that denial became “inoperative” this week with a new bombshell report from the Times. In May 2018, Trump ordered the White House chief of staff, John Kelly, to grant Kushner a high-level clearance despite the opposition of career intelligence officials.

Scrubbing Jared

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's approach to foreign policy.

From The Week:

Monday presented a jarring split screen between U.S. and Israeli officials jubilantly inaugurating a U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem and Palestinian protesters being shot and gassed by Israeli forces at the Gaza border, a few miles away. Israeli forces shot dead 57 people, wounded 2,700 more, and a small child died after inhaling tear gas, the Gaza Health Ministry said. Jared Kushner, President Trump's son-in-law and White House adviser, briefly alluded to the protests in his speech at the embassy ceremony, but for some reason, the White House removed that section from its official transcript.

Wow!! Jared Kushner’s controversial comment about Gaza during Embassy opening saying “as we have seen from the protests of the last month & even today, those provoking violence are part of the problem & not part of the solution” was omitted from official White House transcript! pic.twitter.com/M6zRdg4Jcp

— Ayman Mohyeldin (@AymanM) May 14, 2018

"The Best People," continued

In  Defying the Odds, we discuss  Trump's record of  scandal. 

The choice of servants is of no little importance to a prince, and they are good or not according to the discrimination of the prince. And the first opinion which one forms of a prince, and of his understanding, is by observing the men he has around him; and when they are capable and faithful he may always be considered wise, because he has known how to recognize the capable and to keep them faithful. But when they are otherwise one cannot form a good opinion of him, for the prime error which he made was in choosing them.

-- Machiavelli

Shane Harris, Carol D. Leonnig, Greg Jaffe and Josh Dawsey report at WP:

Officials in at least four countries have privately discussed ways they can manipulate Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, by taking advantage of his complex business arrangements, financial difficulties and lack of foreign policy experience, according to current and former U.S. officials familiar with intelligence reports on the matter.

Among those nations discussing ways to influence Kushner to their advantage were the United Arab Emirates, China, Israel and Mexico, the current and former officials said.

It is unclear if any of those countries acted on the discussions, but Kushner’s contacts with certain foreign government officials have raised concerns inside the White House and are a reason he has been unable to obtain a permanent security clearance, the officials said.

At NYT, Katie Rogers and Maggie Haberman report on the announcement that Brad Parscale would head Trump's reelection campaign:

The 2020 campaign announcement, as is common in Trump world, didn’t quite go off without a hitch: For starters, it initially alarmed ethics experts, who said its description of Mr. Kushner as “senior adviser and assistant to the president, and President Trump’s son-in-law,” was in violation of the Hatch Act, which prohibits political activities by government employees. The announcement was later edited to remove “senior adviser.”

“We’ve got a campaign that’s obsessed with campaigning and doesn’t even know what the Hatch Act rules are around Jared Kushner,” Richard W. Painter, who served as a White House ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush administration, said in an interview. “They don’t have any idea what the rules are, and they really don’t care.”

The timing of the announcement also came hours before the disclosure that Mr. Kushner’s security clearance level had been downgraded.

AP reports:

The political strategist and online guru who was named President Donald Trump's 2020 campaign manager Tuesday has a close financial relationship with a penny-stock firm with a questionable history that includes longstanding ties to a convicted fraudster, according to an Associated Press investigation.

Brad Parscale, who played a key role in Trump's 2016 election victory, signed a $10 million deal in August to sell his digital marketing company to CloudCommerce Inc. As part of the deal, Parscale currently serves as a member of California-based company's management team.

Glenn Thrush at NYT:

Department of Housing and Urban Development officials spent $31,000 on a new dining room set for Secretary Ben Carson’s office in late 2017 — just as the White House circulated its plans to slash HUD’s programs for the homeless, elderly and poor, according to federal procurement records.

Insecurity at the White House

In  Defying the Odds, we discuss  Trump's record of  scandal. 

The choice of servants is of no little importance to a prince, and they are good or not according to the discrimination of the prince. And the first opinion which one forms of a prince, and of his understanding, is by observing the men he has around him; and when they are capable and faithful he may always be considered wise, because he has known how to recognize the capable and to keep them faithful. But when they are otherwise one cannot form a good opinion of him, for the prime error which he made was in choosing them.

-- Machiavelli

White House staff secretary Rob Porter had to quit this week because his ex-wives told the media that he beat them.  Chief of staff John Kelly screwed up the situation royally, as Chris Cillizza explains at CNN:

Let's review the facts here. Porter's ex-wives told the FBI in January 2017 that he had abused them verbally and physically. Thirteen months later, Porter still had no permanent security clearance due to the questions regarding these incidents. That, coupled with the fact that Kelly had come to learn at least some of the allegations against Porter last fall, make Kelly's urging Porter to stay on the job all the more appalling.

At no point in the past year did Kelly not think to ask why Porter's security clearance hadn't come through? After all, Porter was one of the people who spent the most time with President Trump on a daily basis -- and someone who was, effectively, the gate-keeper of all information that Trump saw. Upon hearing the allegations -- or part of them -- against Porter last fall, Kelly never felt like it was his job to find out more? And, after learning more of the details earlier this week, Kelly thought it made sense to put out a fulsome statement praising Porter -- a statement that was crafted at least in part by White House communications director Hope Hicks, who was romantically involved with Porter?

Also at CNN,  Jim Sciutto, Gloria Borger and Zachary Cohen report:

Thirty to 40 White House officials and administration political appointees are still operating without full security clearances, including senior adviser to President Donald Trump Jared Kushner and -- until recently -- White House staffer Rob Porter, according to a US official and a source familiar with the situation.

The White House claims that the backlog of interim security clearances is a procedural consequence of the review process carried out by the FBI and White House Office of Security, which can take time to complete.

But several sources, including intelligence officials who have served previous Democratic and GOP administrations, describe the backlog as very unusual and make clear that the process should have been completed after a year in office.

Eliana Johnson at Politico:

“The concept of interim clearances was created for somebody in a position of importance to be able to come on board and start working right away while the investigation ran its course,” said Bradley Moss, an attorney who specializes in security clearance law. “I’ve never heard of somebody just being allowed to sit on an interim clearance indefinitely. It runs contrary to the entire concept of the clearance process."

That’s why Kelly concluded that White House aides whose backgrounds would preclude them from receiving full clearances would have to go, according to the senior administration official.

However, Moss added, the president himself holds the ultimate authority over the clearance process, which he can alter by executive order – though it would be unprecedented. “If he wants individuals like Jared Kushner and Rob Porter to just sit with interim clearances for three years, he can do that,” Moss said.

Kushner and Espionage

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's role in American political history. Remarkably, we have reached a point where there are serious questions about the loyalty of people close to the White House.

Brooke Seipel reports at The Hill:

Former acting CIA director John McLaughlan on Friday responded to reports that President Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner discussed setting up a secret communications line between Trump's transition team and the Kremlin, saying if such reports are true, it would be considered espionage.

"I don’t want to overstate this because obviously there is a lot we don’t know — we don’t know the exact content of the conversation. We don’t know the objective that was a part of the conversation — those things we don’t know," McLaughlan said on MSNBC's "The Last Word" Friday.

"But I can’t keep out of my mind the thought that, if an American intelligence officer had done anything like this, we’d consider it espionage.”

The president's son-in-law and senior adviser inquired about using Russian diplomatic facilities for the communications, apparently to shield the talks, U.S. officials briefed on intelligence reports told The Washington Post.

Tom Winter and Robert Windrem report at NBC:

The Russian banker Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner met with in December is viewed by U.S. intelligence as a "Putin crony" and a graduate of a "finishing school" for spies who was often tasked with sensitive financial operations by Putin, according to multiple U.S. officials and documents viewed by NBC News.

Sergey Gorkov, 48, graduated from the FSB Academy, which was chartered in 1994 to educate Russian Intelligence personnel. He has long served Russian President Vladimir Putin in critical economic roles. Most recently, Putin chose him to head of the state-owned VneshEconomBank (VEB). As the Russian state national development bank, VEB has played a critical role in blunting the impact of U.S. sanctions against Russia by finding other sources of foreign capital.

Before that, Gorkov was the deputy chairman of Sberbank, Russia's biggest bank, also state-owned, and also under U.S. sanctions since 2014.

Trump and Democracy

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's role in American political history.

Tom Nichols at USA Today:

There is a serious danger to American democracy in all this. When voters choose ill-informed grudges and diffuse resentment over the public good, a republic becomes unsustainable. The temperance and prudent reasoning required of representative government gets pushed aside in favor of whatever ignorant idea has seized the public at that moment. The Washington Post recently changed its motto to “democracy dies in darkness,” a phrase that is not only pretentious but inaccurate. More likely, American democracy will die in dumbness.

Those of us who criticized Trump voters for their angry populism were often told during and after the election not to condescend to our fellow citizens, and to respect their choices. This is fair. In a democracy, every vote counts equally and the president won an impressive and legitimate electoral victory.

Even so, the unwillingness of so many of his supporters to hold him to even a minimal standard of accountability means that a certain amount of condescension from the rest of us is unavoidable.

In every election, we must respect the value of each vote. We are never required, however, to assume that each vote was cast with equal probity or intelligence.

Michael Gerson at The Washington Post:

Ultimately, Trump is failing because he has little knowledge of the world and no guiding star of moral principle. The best of our leaders — think Abraham Lincoln — have been sure about the truth and uncertain about themselves. Trump is the opposite. His mind is uncluttered by creeds. He knows what he wants at any given moment, but it can bear little relation to the moment following. Who really believes that he would be sleepless if the wall were not built or if NAFTA ultimately survived? Who believes he would not be sleepless because of a nasty joke at his expense during a dinner party?

Without deep and thoughtful beliefs, persuasion is impossible. It is public reasoning that allows others to follow a leader’s footsteps in the snow. What has Trump done to rationally and respectfully persuade his critics?

Without deep and thoughtful beliefs, the prevailing advice is often the latest advice. For a rootless leader, in Oscar Wilde’s phrase, “passions are quotations.”

Trump clearly wants to be judged by a frenetic level of activity. But the issue at hand is direction, not momentum. It is useful to undo some past liberal excesses, as Trump has done. But negation can’t be confused with inspiration. There can be no measure of political progress without a measuring stick of political conviction. Instead, we are treated to hysterical self-praise. Appalling — but, hey, what did we expect?

Annie Applebaum at The Washington Post:

the real problem with [Ivanka] Trump is not what she and her husband, Jared Kushner, contribute to the president’s “image,” but what their presence says about the culture of this White House. One of the things that distinguishes rule-of-law democracies from personalized dictatorships is their reliance on procedures, not individual whims, and on officials — experienced people, subject to public scrutiny and ethics laws — not the unsackable relatives of the leader. That distinction is now fading.

No ordinary public official would be allowed to dine with the leader of China, as Trump did, on the same day that China granted valuable trademarks to her company. No civil servant would be able to profit from the jewelry she advertises by wearing on public occasions. Only in kleptocracies are sons-in-law with broad international business interests allowed to make foreign policy.

Vacuum

Mike Allen reports at Axios that many Trump jobs are going unfilled, so responsibility flows to Kushner, who can't possibly keep up with it.

"Too few people are doing too much, and it's keeping the Cabinet weak," said one outside adviser to the West Wing. "In a Cabinet of people who are used to being superstars, no one has been able to negotiate to get a high-powered team in."

...
"I don't know what Rex does every day," a friend said. "[SecDef] James Mattis is home alone."

According to the Political Appointee Tracker of the Partnership for Public Service, of 553 key positions in the Trump administration requiring Senate confirmation, 486 have no nominee, 24 are awaiting nomination, 21 have been nominated and 22 confirmed.

The partnership shared the latest historical equivalents with Axios AM. As of today:

• Trump: 21 nominations, 22 confirmed.
• George H.W. Bush: 72 nominations, 27 confirmed.
• Bill Clinton: 69 nominations, 44 confirmed.
• George W. Bush: 65 nominations, 32 confirmed.
• Obama: 120 nominations, 54 confirmed.
• As Trump might tweet: Big difference!

"Veep" Meets "The Americans"

At Buzzfeed, Ali Watkins reports that a member of the Trump campaign's foreign policy advisory committee had met with a Russian spy in 2013.

The adviser, Carter Page, met with a Russian intelligence operative named Victor Podobnyy, who was later charged by the US government alongside two others for acting as unregistered agents of a foreign government. The charges, filed in January 2015, came after federal investigators busted a Russian spy ring that was seeking information on US sanctions as well as efforts to develop alternative energy. Page is an energy consultant.

A court filing by the US government contains a transcript of a recorded conversation in which Podobnyy speaks with one of the other men busted in the spy ring, Igor Sporyshev, about trying to recruit someone identified as “Male-1.” BuzzFeed News has confirmed that “Male-1” is Page.

The revelation of Page’s connection to Russian intelligence — which occurred more than three years before his association with Trump — is the most clearly documented contact to date between Russian intelligence and someone in Trump’s orbit. It comes as federal investigators probe whether Trump’s campaign-era associates — including Page — had any inappropriate contact with Russian officials or intelligence operatives during the course of the election. Page has volunteered to help Senate investigators in their inquiry.
...
The court filing includes a colorful transcript of Podobnyy speaking with Sporyshev about trying to recruit Page.

“[Male-1] wrote that he is sorry, he went to Moscow and forgot to check his inbox, but he wants to meet when he gets back. I think he is an idiot and forgot who I am...He got hooked on Gazprom thinking that if they have a project, he could rise up,” Podobnyy said. “I also promised him a lot...this is intelligence method to cheat, how else to work with foreigners? You promise a favor for a favor. You get the documents from him and tell him to go fuck himself.”

Michael Weiss writes at The Daily Beast:

Not every bank lists a convicted spy serving 30 months in an Ohio prison as its active deputy representative in New York. But then, not every bank is headed by a former spy, much less one found to have spent time with Jared Kushner during a “roadshow” last year, when Donald Trump’s son-in-law was then just a top campaign advisor and not a likely witness about to testify before a Senate committee on Russia’s meddling in U.S. democracy.

In those charmed days before the director of the FBI raised in an open session of Congress the very real possibility that some of the president’s men might be working on behalf of a hostile foreign power, there was the curious case of a Wall Street analyst who was handcuffed in his Bronx neighborhood in late Jan. 2015 after going out for groceries. His crime wasn’t peddling junk sub-primes to trusting pensioners but working for Moscow Center.