Donald Trump chose convicted felon to be senior adviser

Donald Trump tapped a man to be a senior business adviser to his property empire even after the man’s past involvement in a major Mafia-linked stock fraud scheme had become publicly known.

Portions of Trump’s relationship with Felix Sater, a convicted felon and government informant, have been previously known. Trump worked with the company where Sater was an executive, Bayrock Group LLC, after it rented office space from the Trump Organisation as early as 2003.

Sater’s criminal history was effectively unknown to the public at the time, because a judge kept the relevant court records secret and Sater altered his name. When Sater’s criminal past and Mafia links came to light in 2007, Trump distanced himself from Sater.