In December 2016 the Trump Organization announced it would end its licensing deals in Azerbaijan and neighboring Georgia, in order to stave off potential conflicts of interest. In the case of the Baku project, however, it’s already too late—the building is nearly complete.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard is a major military, political, and economic force in Iran and in the Middle East. Domestically, it has ties to companies that oversee roughly $12 billion in capital for construction and engineering projects, including Iran’s nuclear defense programs. It has also helped finance terror organizations, including al-Qaeda and Hezbollah.

Davidson suggests that the Trump Organization might have violated sanctions placed against Iran and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard for conducting business with the Mammadov family. He quotes lawyers who were astounded by the Trump camp’s claims that the due diligence process revealed no red flags. It’s also possible that the Baku project violates the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a law designed to prevent American companies from rewarding foreign governments in exchange for preferential treatment.

Ironically, the Trump regime has been a regular critic of Iran, and has reportedly proposed classifying the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization in line with those other groups. Apparently it could still make a great business partner.

Heather Timmons contributed to this piece.

The image above was taken by vita86 and shared under a CC-By-SA-3.0 license on Wikicommons.

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