This is believable.

Cohen, in his book, talks about how Trump's shady business ethics led Russians to purchase Trump property through shell companies to hide their identities.

(Screen shot in the next tweet).

1/ https://twitter.com/GPowers03878337/status/1305296555147243520
Money laundering simply means hiding the origins of properties.

Reportedly, what Trump did when he sold real estate to Russian oligarchs was fail to inquire into the orgins of the money.

This (if true) would be known to the people who handled the sales transaction.

2/
Cohen wasn't part of those transactions. His job was basically to bully people. It's unlikely that Cohen would have seen the bank records that would establish money laundering.

What Cohen says happened is consistent with what we know about Trump taking dirty Russian money.

3/
It would be a terrible idea for Cohen to go on national television and say Trump committed a particular crime (money laundering) when he has no evidence of that.

No need. Cohen witnessed (and helped with) plenty of other Trump felonies, which he listened in his book.

4/
Mistake earlier. I wrote hiding the "origins of the properties."

Apologies. I meant "hide the origins of the money."

There's enough salacious stuff without inventing a plot line that Cohen is afraid of Russian poison when he appears to have told everything he actually saw.

5/
Here's the money laundering statute: https://justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual-2101-money-laundering-overview
New York has a similar one.

I don't doubt that Trump took Russian money in those transactions without inquiring into the origins, while knowing full well the money was stolen from the Russian people.

6/
Take Semion Mogilevich, for example. Mogilevich got his start as a young man in the Soviet Union (SU) scamming his fellow countrymen who wanted to emigrate. He offered to sell their assets & send them the money, but instead, he pocketed their money.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jan/25/russia.lukeharding

7/
8/ His victims had left the country so they couldn’t do anything. By the mid 1980s, he had millions and needed to launder it.

Money laundering means putting illegally obtained money through a few complicated transactions to hide the origins of the money (better explanation!)
8/
Foreigners, by this time, discovered that money could easily be laundered through US luxury real estate.

Trump sold Mogilevich 5 luxury condos for $6 million cash.

Come on. No way did a guy from the Soviet Union on those years have $6 obtained legally.

10/
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