Felix Sater Dig additional…

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/ct-trump-felix-sater-felon-adviser-20151204-story.html

Donald Trump knew a man he named as a senior business adviser in 2010 had been convicted in a major Mafia-linked stock fraud scheme, according to Associated Press interviews and a review of court records.

Trump had worked with Felix Sater previously during the man's stint as an executive at Bayrock Group LLC, a real estate development firm that partnered with Trump on numerous projects after renting office space from the Trump Organization. But Sater's past was not widely known at the time because he was working as a government cooperator on mob cases and the judge overseeing Sater's own case kept the proceedings secret. After Sater's criminal history and past ties to organized crime came to light in 2007, Trump distanced himself from Sater.

three years later…

"Felix Sater, boy, I have to even think about it," Trump said, referring questions about Sater to his staff. "I'm not that familiar with him."

According to Trump lawyer Alan Garten, Sater's role was to prospect for high-end real estate deals for the Trump Organization. The arrangement lasted six months, Garten said.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/16/politics/felix-sater-donald-trump-cnntv/index.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/28/us/politics/trump-tower-putin-felix-sater.html?referer=

some "leaked emails" supposedly showing communication…

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/08/why-robert-mueller-has-trump-soho-in-his-sights

ater’s history, after all, would have likely raised eyebrows. In order to stay out of prison in the wake of his 1998 conviction for stock fraud, he became a clandestine asset for the F.B.I. and other government agencies. His case came up during Loretta Lynch’s confirmation hearings for attorney general in 2015. Asked why the records in Sater’s fraud conviction were sealed, she responded that Sater had provided “information crucial to national security and the conviction of over 20 individuals, including those responsible for committing massive financial fraud and members of La Cosa Nostra.”

There are differing accounts of exactly what Lynch may have been referring to, but according to one of his business associates, Salvatore Lauria, Sater became involved in a plan to buy anti-aircraft missiles on the black market for the C.I.A. As Lauria tells the story in his autobiography, The Scorpion and the Frog, with Langley’s backing, Sater agreed to participate in a complicated scheme to buy a dozen Stinger missiles from Afghanistan with tracking devices. The missile deal fell through, but after 9/11, Sater called Lauria to say the terrorist attacks had made them so valuable that they “were now going to be the F.B.I.’s new best friend,” according to the writ. (Sater’s attorney, Wolf, described the book as “completely false.”)

Felix Sater

C_A spy?

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/broward/article1942548.html

A decade before he launched the celebrated Fort Lauderdale Trump Tower, Felix Sater hatched a bold plan to keep out of prison.

Charged in a New York securities scandal, the 46-year-old businessman traveled to his native Russia where he took on a unique role that went far beyond flipping on dangerous criminals.

He began spying for the CIA.

Tapping into the vast underground of the former Soviet Union, Sater was able to track down a dozen Stinger missiles equipped with powerful tracking devices on the black market.

2733844

I am a bit slow on the uptake, but

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Intelligence_Agency

The Directorate of Operations is responsible for collecting foreign intelligence (mainly from clandestine HUMINT sources), and for covert action. The name reflects its role as the coordinator of human intelligence activities between other elements of the wider U.S. intelligence community with their own HUMINT operations. This Directorate was created in an attempt to end years of rivalry over influence, philosophy and budget between the United States Department of Defense (DOD) and the CIA. In spite of this, the Department of Defense recently organized its own global clandestine intelligence service, the Defense Clandestine Service (DCS),[22] under the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).

This Directorate is known to be organized by geographic regions and issues, but its precise organization is classified.[23]

So you would think that State and C_A work together.

So now this…

https://www.nationalreview.com/2013/05/stingers-benghazi-jim-geraghty/

Earlier this week, Roger L. Simon of PJ Media broke a story with shocking revelations, contending that slain U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens was in Benghazi on September 11 to buy back Stinger missiles from al-Qaeda groups that had been originally provided to them by the U.S. State Department.

Simon cited two former U.S. diplomats:

Stevens’ mission in Benghazi, they will say, was to buy back Stinger missiles from al-Qaeda groups issued to them by the State Department, not by the CIA. Such a mission would usually be a CIA effort, but the intelligence agency had opposed the idea because of the high risk involved in arming “insurgents” with powerful weapons that endanger civilian aircraft.

Hillary Clinton still wanted to proceed because, in part, as one of the diplomats said, she wanted “to overthrow [Qaddafi] on the cheap.”

going back to Sater, in the book "The Scorpion and the Frog High Times and High Crimes" (Was POTUS telegraphing something again perhaps?)

https://trump-russia.com/2017/09/16/the-scorpion-and-the-frog/

“We ran into guys selling shiploads of arms to Arabs and other Muslims — Libya, Iraq — countries that were hostile to the United States,” Lauria wrote.

At some point, according to the book, Sater made an initial contact with “someone connected to the CIA.”

Sater gave this version of events to New York magazine.

One night, Sater told me, he went to dinner with a contact that he assumes was affiliated with the GRU, the Russian military-intelligence agency, where he was introduced to another American doing business in Moscow, Milton Blane. “There’s like eight people there,” Sater said, “and he’s sizing me up all dinner long. As I went to take a piss, he followed me into the bathroom and said, ‘Can I have your phone number? I’d like to get together and talk to you.’ ” Blane, who died last year, was an arms dealer. According to a government disclosure made 13 years ago in response to a Freedom of Information Act query, Blane had a contract with the Defense Department to procure “foreign military material for U.S. intelligence purposes.” Sater says the U.S. wanted “a peek” at a high-tech Soviet radar system. “Blane sat down with me and said, ‘The country needs you,’ ” Sater said.

Back to the book. Sater’s unofficial contact in the CIA came to see him and told him the agency wanted a radar tracking system that the Russians had developed before the fall of the Soviet Union. The radar tracking system had never been deployed, and the CIA worried that the system could fall into the hands of our enemies.

“We looked around through Lex’s contacts and found we could definitely get the radar system. For once, this was a deal we were doing with no interest in the money. We were doing it to enhance our own position regarding the legal charges, and also as something that might benefit the country. Money or profit was not an issue. We just wanted the credit for doing it. With a direct line to the radar system, we contacted our lawyer in New York, who went to Washington DC to talk to the CIA”

The CIA was interested. The agency sent a man to Russia, and Sater located the radar tracking system. (In other parts of the book, Lauria calls it a “missile guidance system.”)

With that success, Sater was approached about acquiring a dozen Stinger missiles. The Stinger was the portable, shoulder-fired missile that used a heat-seeking sensor to home in on an aircraft’s engine. They could be fired from as far away as 5 miles away and could easily bring down a passenger airliner.

The CIA was desperate to get hold of them. Lauria states that at least 12 Stinger missiles were obtained by Osama bin Laden.

So was it the State Dept. buying back missiles through Stevens, or was it C_A buying back through Sater? Two different batches?

skip forward to :24