Was Trump a Russian Asset? 975 Shares Share Tweet Pin Email Reading Time: 14 minutes After five years of the Trump-Russia conversation, what do we really know?
Our guest on this week’s WhoWhatWhy podcast, investigative journalist Craig Unger, goes deep in his new book, American Kompromat, to lay out a comprehensive theory to connect all the dots. He asserts that former US intelligence officials John Brennan, James Clapper, and Dan Coats were convinced that Trump was a Russian asset (although their own credibility has been questioned by other experts). ‘The perfect target’: Russia cultivated Trump as asset for 40 years – ex-KGB spy. Donald Trump was cultivated as a Russian asset over 40 years and proved so willing to parrot anti-western propaganda that there were celebrations in Moscow, a former KGB spy has told the Guardian.
Yuri Shvets, posted to Washington by the Soviet Union in the 1980s, compares the former US president to “the Cambridge five”, the British spy ring that passed secrets to Moscow during the second world war and early cold war. Now 67, Shvets is a key source for American Kompromat, a new book by journalist Craig Unger, whose previous works include House of Trump, House of Putin. The book also explores the former president’s relationship with the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. ‘The perfect target’: Russia cultivated Trump as asset for 40 years – ex-KGB spy. Donald Trump was cultivated as a Russian asset over 40 years and proved so willing to parrot anti-western propaganda that there were celebrations in Moscow, a former KGB spy has told the Guardian.
Yuri Shvets, posted to Washington by the Soviet Union in the 1980s, compares the former US president to “the Cambridge five”, the British spy ring that passed secrets to Moscow during the second world war and early cold war. Now 67, Shvets is a key source for American Kompromat, a new book by journalist Craig Unger, whose previous works include House of Trump, House of Putin. The book also explores the former president’s relationship with the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. “This is an example where people were recruited when they were just students and then they rose to important positions; something like that was happening with Trump,” Shvets said by phone on Monday from his home in Virginia.
Then, in 1987, Trump and Ivana visited Moscow and St Petersburg for the first time. Is Trump a Russian Agent?: Explaining Terms of Art and Examining the Facts. A number of commentators and critics have labeled President Trump an Agent of the Russian Federation.
It is often not clear if they mean that he is unwittingly adopting Russian propaganda, knowingly doing the bidding of the Kremlin or is an out-and-out controlled secret asset of the Russian intelligence services. All are sordid. Some are merely repulsive while others are illegal and even treasonous (in the common though not legal understanding of that term). Experts Concerned Pale Russian Mystic Constantly At Trump’s Side May Attempt To Influence 2020 Election. WASHINGTON—Increasingly troubled about the role the self-proclaimed visionary and healer might play in the presidential race, intelligence experts expressed concerns Friday that Volokov Molchalin, the pale Russian mystic constantly at President Donald Trump’s side, may attempt to influence the 2020 election.
Building Coalitions AFTER-the-Fact! “I got you, Comrade!”
Tiger Beat on the Potomac (thanks Charlie) morning email thingie tells us about a new kind of diplomacy where you try to build a coalition AFTER you’ve done whatever the hell you wanted to do (formatting and enigmatic emboldening is theirs): SUNDAY SHOW PREP … SECRETARY OF STATE MIKE POMPEO, who will appear on all the major Sunday shows this week, was on “HANNITY” last night, and this gives a good insight into his mindset at the moment: “I spent the last day and a half, two days, talking to partners in the region, sharing with them what we were doing, why we were doing it, seeking their assistance, they’ve all been fantastic. And then talking to our partners in other places that haven’t been quite as good. Frankly, the Europeans haven’t been as helpful as I wish that they could be.
“THE BRITS, THE FRENCH, THE GERMANS all need to understand that what we did — what the Americans did — saved lives in Europe as well. Donald Trump brutally fact-checked by his own Justice Department on ’60 Minutes’ for Ukraine conspiracies. Donald Trump’s Ukraine Scandal Has Its Roots in Russia. President Trump and his allies nearly succeeded in consigning the Mueller report to oblivion.
William Barr, Trump’s compliant Attorney General, got a jump on the process when he preëmpted the public release of the report by providing a misleading summary, which minimized the special counsel’s findings on Russian interference in the 2016 campaign. Trump compounded Barr’s distortions by falsely and endlessly repeating that the report found “no collusion, no obstruction.” Congressional Democrats did little for the cause of clarity by using the report as an occasion to debate the semantics of what constitutes an impeachment investigation.
And Robert Mueller himself invited a certain measure of confusion by telling his story in dense, legalistic prose. Barely six months after he delivered the report, it had already faded into the mists of Trumpiana: post-Sean Spicer, pre-whistle-blower. But the Russia and Ukraine scandals are, in fact, one story. Deutsche Bank has Trump’s taxes — and loan applications cosigned by Russian oligarchs: report. Enjoy this piece?
… then let us make a small request. Like you, we here at Raw Story believe in the power of progressive journalism — and we’re investing in investigative reporting as other publications give it the ax. Raw Story readers power David Cay Johnston’s DCReport, which we've expanded to keep watch in Washington. We’ve exposed billionaire tax evasion and uncovered White House efforts to poison our water. We’ve revealed financial scams that prey on veterans, and legal efforts to harm workers exploited by abusive bosses. OH DEAR: Christopher Steele Told State Dept About Trump Tower-Alfa Bank Collusion Connection. Is Trump a Russian Agent?: Explaining Terms of Art and Examining the Facts - Just Security. Trump corrupt, but "too dumb to meet the specific intent requirement of the US criminal code" Apparently, despite Individual-1’s (corrupt) intent, he can be manipulated by a foreign power and yet not be their intelligence asset.
It’s enough to peel an origin. This tells us something about co-conspirators and the elusive indictment while being POTUS*. Perhaps it’s the difference between “incidental” and “coincidental”. The fully released Mueller report should bring some clarity. Fraud is nothing unfamiliar to Trump. Remember obstruction is its own crime. The Barr Summary or Riddle Me This, Batman. If you believe Bill Barr’s letter, you have to believe that Russia did meddle in the election.
(And not to split hairs we know that they are planning a second round of criminal interference and no one, No One, NO ONE!! 1! Is doing anything about preventing it from happening again!) Shocked Vladimir Putin Slowly Realizing He Didn’t Conspire With Trump Campaign. ‘Who The Hell Was I Working With Then?’ Asks Russian President MOSCOW—Saying that he had been “totally blindsided” by the revelations from the recently released findings of the Mueller investigation, a shocked Vladimir Putin reportedly came to the realization Tuesday that he didn’t conspire with Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign after all.
Trump Tower Moscow: Rudy Giuliani Said There Were “No Plans.” Here They Are. BuzzFeed News; Wikimedia; Getty Images; Trump Tower rendering provided to BuzzFeed News The plan was dazzling: a glass skyscraper that would stretch higher than any other building in Europe, offering ultra-luxury residences and hotel rooms and bearing a famous name. Trump Tower Moscow, conceived as a partnership between Donald Trump’s company and a Russian real estate developer, looked likely to yield profits in excess of $300 million. New evidence of Trump giving a Russian oligarch a sweetheart deal builds the case for quid pro quo. Thinking the unthinkable about Donald Trump. According to reports last weekend, the FBI first began to suspect Trump was working for Russia when he fired FBI Director James Comey in May of 2017.
“Counterintelligence investigators had to consider whether the president’s own actions constituted a possible threat to national security,” The New York Times reported. “Agents also sought to determine whether Mr. Motherjones. Strange real estate deal raises specter of Putin buying Trump. In July 2008, Donald Trump undertook one of his most infamous transactions. He sold a mansion in Palm Beach for $95 million to Dmitry Rybolovlev, Russian oligarch and billionaire. Trump had purchased it four years earlier for $41.35 million. The sale price was nearly $54 million more than Trump had paid for the property, even though he had made only modest improvements in it. Trump boasts about his dealmaking skills in this transaction, but the details suggest something more sinister. July 2008 was the middle of the recession. - The Washington Post. Mueller Dropping Russia Probe, Says Trump Working for Israel and Saudis. The Mueller Russia probe, according to mainstream media sources, Daily Beast, BBC, Vanity Fair, UK Independent, Mother Jones, al Jazeera, the UK Guardian and others, as of mid-December 2018, has changed direction.
The real money trail that initially led to Russia has now branched out, it goes to Israel, to Saudi Arabia, to the UAE and even the “Russia trail” may not be a trail at all. It may well be fake. You see, many of those investigated as Russians, always listed as “close to Putin,” are, in actuality, more closely tied to Trump supporters Semion Mogilevich and Felix Sater, listed as Russian crime bosses who are both Israeli citizens with long histories of working with the Mossad. Mogilevich, who “works” the fake Russian pro-Trump network, according to our sources, on behalf of Israel, has been on the FBI 10 Most Wanted list since 2009 for murder, extortion, prostitution, drug and weapons trafficking.
A key area that led Mueller to broaden the scope of his inquiry was Ukraine. Related. WaPo Buries Buries Lede. Russian agents reached out to Trump to offer 'political synergy' in November 2015: Mueller memo. - The Washington Post. The Trump Organization Planned To Give Vladimir Putin The $50 Million Penthouse In Trump Tower Moscow. BuzzFeed News; Getty Images President Donald Trump’s company planned to give a $50 million penthouse at Trump Tower Moscow to Russian President Vladimir Putin as the company negotiated the luxury real estate development during the 2016 campaign, according to four people, one of them the originator of the plan.
Trump Insists Manafort, Assange Only Discussed How Bad Collusion Is. WASHINGTON—Downplaying reports that his former campaign chairman may have collaborated with the controversial Wikileaks founder in 2016, President Trump said Tuesday that Paul Manafort and Julian Assange did indeed meet on occasion to discuss how collusion was a bad thing they would “never, ever” do.
“Sure, they met a few times, but the only thing they ever talked about was how much they hate collusion and anyone who participates in collusion,” the president told reporters, saying both Manafort and Assange had assured him their meetings in London’s Ecuadorean embassy had been called for the sole purpose of outlining all the different ways people can engage in collusion and all the reasons why it was illegal and immoral to do so. “I firmly believe this was nothing more than two good, honest men clarifying to each other how disgraceful it would be to coordinate their efforts to tamper with an election, because that sort of behavior is clearly wrong. Reporters Dox Putin’s Top-Secret Hitmen Team. Who Might Have Kompromat on Trump? Expert: Did Russian Trolls Change The Election Results? Probably. Kathleen Hall Jamieson is one of the smartest people out there about the intersection of politics and media, and she was on CNN this morning to talk about her new book, Cyberwar: How Russian Hackers and Trolls Helped Elect a President: John Berman said Russian influence "might not be the pertinent question here, and the question you look into is, whether they influenced enough votes to make a difference.
What did you find? " "I found the trolls, that is, the Russians in our social media, had a theory of the election that is sound, and that is, they were using themes consistent with Donald Trump's, and they were appealing with constituents, as a result we presume persuasive," she said. Russian state TV goes into overdrive defending Trump's genitalia: 'Stormy's expectations are unreasonably high'
Trump 'dossier' stuck in New York, didn't trigger Russia investigation, sources say. - The Washington Post. - The Washington Post. Documentary filmmaker connects the dots between Trump and Russia's 'money laundering kingpin' BUSTED: High End Russian Hooker Ring Run From Miami Trump Property. Politics.theonion. Trump, facing fury, says he misspoke with Putin. In one of the only times of his presidency he's admitted to a mistake, Trump said that when he returned Monday from the summit with Putin in Helsinki, Finland, he "realized there is some need for clarification" about his remarks on Russian interference in the 2016 US election.
"In a key sentence in my remarks I said the word 'would' instead of 'wouldn't,' " the President said Tuesday. He explained he had reviewed a transcript and video of his remarks. "The sentence should have been: 'I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be Russia,' " he said. "Sort of a double negative. " During Monday's news conference, Trump said, "I don't see any reason why it would be" Russia that interfered in the election. Russian state TV host pegs Trump as a Putin asset: 'He really smells like an agent of the Kremlin' Russia-NRA Arrest: This Is as Close as It Gets to Collusion. Trump-Putin summit: A terrible White House photo is the perfect image. User Data and Cookie Consent. Here’s the Email Russian Hackers Used to Try to Break Into State Voting Systems. The screenshot, shown below, confirms NSA reporting that the email purported to originate from the vendor, Tallahassee-based VR Systems, but was sent from a Gmail account, which could have easily tricked less scrupulous users.
“Emails from VR Systems will never come from an ‘@gmail.com’ email address” the company warned in a November 1, 2016 security alert, which included the reproduction of the GRU email. Former NSA analyst claims US spy agencies have known Trump was 'a Russian agent' since 2016. This video connects every single dot between Trump and Russia. The Trump Tower Meeting with a Russian Lawyer is Worse Than We Thought. What we found in Facebook ads by Russians accused of election meddling. Lawyer from Trump Tower Meeting Natalya Veselnitskaya Is an Informant. Russian President Vladimir Putin on April 27, 2018 in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images. CNN's Phil Mudd: Putin sees Trump's obsession with Russian hookers and thinks 'I can work this guy' Splinternews. What Would Le Carré’s Master Spy Think of Trump and Russia? The Trump Tower meeting at the center of the Russia investigation, explained.
What really happened at Trump Tower on June 9, 2016? Internet Research Agency: Russian journalist who uncovered election interference left confounded by Mueller. After Mueller’s Indictments, an Interview With a Mole Who Was Inside Russia’s Pro-Trump Troll Factory. A former Russian troll speaks: ‘It was like being in Orwell’s world’ Simona Mangiante: Meet George Papadopoulos' Fiercest Defender. Russiaburger: The Trump-Russia Scandal Explained. Dutch agencies provide crucial intel about Russia's interference in US-elections - Media.
Here are the five biggest bombshells from the Fusion GPS founder’s House intel testimony. How Trump’s skepticism of U.S. intelligence on Russia left an election threat unchecked - Washington Post. Robert Mueller is looking into 3 big questions about Trump and Flynn’s firing. (THREAD) BREAKING: Allegations Trump spoke to Putin via speakerphone at the 2013 Miss Universe pageant, discussing both his plan to run for… People can’t stop reading a professor’s theory of a Trump-Russia conspiracy — true or not. Kremlin’s ‘chief troll’ boasted last year of ‘insane’ plan to elect Trump — and laid out evidence Mueller still probing. Everything the Trump campaign told you about the connections between Trump and Russia was a lie: Bill Moyers. Spy Circles Suggest Kremlin Is Behind Dozens of Fake Trump Sex Tapes. Multiple intel agencies claim to have Trump sex videos — but some fakes are floating around: Ex-NSA analyst.
The Four Seasons of Kremlingate. Ex-CIA official explains exactly why Trump’s ‘pee tape’ escapades are probably real. The deal Trump wanted with Russia. Trump's Business Record in Russia Is Humiliating - Bloomberg. What Does Felix Sater Mean to Donald Trump? FLASHBACK: Shady business dealings with Russia kept Trump from running against Obama in 2012. Trump Moscow Deal Seen As Asset to Campaign.
Trump Associate Tried To Broker Moscow Deal So That 'Our Boy Can Become President' FLASHBACK: Trump abruptly walked out of interview after being asked about Felix Sater connections. Trump’s business sought deal on a Trump Tower in Moscow while he ran for president. LOL. The Coward In Chief Now Says He Won't Testify Under Oath To Congress. What was in that Dossier report anyways. Trump Intelligence Allegations. Follow the money: They say it was about Russian orphans — they’re lying.
Donald Trump–Russia dossier - Wikipedia. Trump campaign emails show aide’s repeated efforts to set up Russia meetings. REVEALED: Former CIA spy believes Putin intentionally left paper trail from Trump Tower to the Kremlin. ‘Innocent people don’t behave this way’: Ex-CIA agents explain how the Trump-Russia collusion probably went down. President Trump is now directly implicated in trying to cover up the Russia scandal. The Kremlin is done betting on Trump and planning how to strike back against U.S. sanctions.
Trump dictated son’s misleading statement on meeting with Russian lawyer. Ex-NSA analyst warns Putin’s latest moves show Trump is ‘expendable’ — and GOP should worry, too. WSJ Stumped Why Trump Is Hiding His Russia Connections. Trump-Russia: Russiagate, Magnitsky Affair, Linked Again - Rolling Stone. Newrepublic. The blackmail factor: Trumpworld’s Russia lies are a major risk to national security. ‘That is some doozy of a lie!’ Trump-linked lawyer gets crushed in trainwreck CNN interview. How Trump may have helped Donald Jr. lie about his explosive Russia meeting. The ‘Manchurian’ President? - The New York Times. A Conspiracy of Dunces - The New York Times. New details emerge on Moscow real estate deal that led to the Trump-Kremlin alliance.
The photo showing it's time to ask: What did the president know and when did he know it? What You Need To Know About U.S.–Russia Tensions. CIA Presented Trump With Claims That Russia Compromised Him.