The Trump - Putin Nexus

Why are people surprised?

31 March 2022

Washington DC

America is indirectly at war with an enemy that has credibly threatened to use nuclear weapons. Millions of American lives could be put on the line if the crisis is mismanaged. The enemy is committing war crimes verging on genocide. This is the most serious national security crisis since the Cuban Missile Crisis. At this time in American history a former president has joined forces with America’s enemies to work together to destroy the sitting President and hand victory in the war to the aggressor. The most shocking part of the arrangement is that anyone is shocked by it.

Putin and Trump are separately in a desperate struggle for survival. The only way either can survive is to help the other. Trump’s only way of guaranteeing he does not go to jail is to regain executive privilege. Putin’s only way to win in Ukraine is to have Trump return to office and complete his plan to destroy NATO from the inside out. The timelines do not look like they will align. But that does not mean their mutually supporting efforts will be easily given up. Putin and Trump have been working together for decades. The chips are down. Will they win? Or will freedom and democracy prevail in Ukraine and America?

Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked military invasion of a European democracy is a global outrage. Prior to the war he issued a direct nuclear threat against anyone “who tries to stand in our way”. Since then, he has issued additional nuclear threats. (Whether he uses his nukes will be assessed on our sister substack Unconventional Nuclear Warfare). It is one of the many ironies of this war that Putin’s miscalculations have triggered the very thing he feared most - EU/NATO unity and NATO protection of Ukraine (albeit by indirect means). The US and its partners have walked a very fine line to deny Putin the opportunity to escalate against NATO while at the same time supplying vital and consequential intelligence, material and training, keeping Ukraine in the fight. So far this delicate balancing act has denied Putin a pathway to nuclear confrontation that could easily get out of hand and escalate to general nuclear war.

America is at war and the stakes are total. A long time ago in a far away land, there used to be bipartisanship in foreign policy that included core principles such as icon-clad norms on not undermining a wartime President or giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Domestic politics ‘stopped at the waters edge’ so the saying went. Criticism and debate took place, as they should, but not in public. The fact these norms have been totally destroyed was perhaps inevitable. The speed and ease with which they were eviscerated underlies the bigger revelation - America was never as strong as we thought. It was highly susceptible to a program of destabilization mounted by a wily foe whose century-long knowledge of agitprop transferred perfectly to the digital world.

American unity has been destroyed from the inside out by cartoons. It is ironic that a superpower was felled by such trivial means. It required the coincidental alignment of some unusual stars. Algorithms prioritize attention maximization for profit on social media platforms. If you are selling a product this system works brilliantly. It explains why Facebook, that is ‘free’ to users, is one of the biggest companies in the world. Translated to politics, attention is gained and maximized by outrage. So the algorithm prioritized outrage at just the moment a candidate came along whose only political skill was outrage.

Russian intelligence and right-wing American political machines happened on algorithmic psychometric political manipulation at the same time (via Cambridge Analytica). It was a coincidence. Once discovered, both would rapidly deploy the system for their own ends. Increasingly, their interests came into alignment. The result? Memes move the masses. Cartoons were deployed by Russian intelligence and right wing American political machines on both sides of all issues to generate maximum outrage. The beneficiary? The outrager-in-chief and his foreign and domestic backers.

In addition to this remarkable coincidence of technology, propaganda and power, Vladimir Putin was the beneficiary of the FSB’s long game. The FSB casts many fishing lines into military, diplomatic, media, academic and commercial waters. They happily trawl along for decades, occasionally getting a nibble here and there that can be useful. They first hooked Trump back in the 1980s. He was the quintessential American - full of himself, commercially successful, a media profile, and connected. He was a minnow back then but with the right feeding and prodding he might become a shark. Little did they know they had landed the biggest whale in the history of influence fishing.

Trump was the perfect target to become an asset. Unlike an agent who has been ‘turned’ by an intelligence officer (MI6/CIA operative) against their government, an asset is typically an (unwitting) easily manipulated person who has some useful degree of influence in a society or government or access and placement to those who do. Intelligence officers (MI6/CIA staff) use appeals to ‘Money, Ideology, Compromise/coercion, Ego/extortion’ or “MICE” (or a variant thereof) to lure both assets and agents.

Trump is wide open on MICE fronts. He is obsessed with money. If he has any ideology, it is money. He is constantly bragging about his wealth: “I am really rich… “I’m the most successful person ever to run for the presidency, by far”. Money is central to how he thinks about everything. Even his foreign policy. He has certainly been compromised (lots on that below). As he occasionally likes to do, Putin reminded Trump that he had kompromat in a recent “leak” designed to keep Trump on plan. He has an ego the size of Texas. In July 2021 he said that if George Washington and Abraham Lincoln formed a ticket and ran again him they "would certainly lose". In short, Trump is a textbook intelligence recruitment candidate. Any technique would work.

“In terms of his personality, the guy is not a complicated cookie,” he said, “his most important characteristics being low intellect coupled with hyperinflated vanity. This makes him a dream for an experienced recruiter.”

This was the assessment of Yuri Shvets, a KGB Major working in Washington in the 1980s. He has outlined in detail how Trump was identified and cultivated, starting with his 1977 marriage to Ivana Zelnickova which put him on the radar of Czechoslovakia’s intelligence service. When the couple travelled to Russia in 1987 undercover KGB officers worked Trump’s needy ego hard, suggesting he run for office.

“For the KGB, it was a charm offensive. They had collected a lot of information on his personality so they knew who he was personally. The feeling was that he was extremely vulnerable intellectually, and psychologically, and he was prone to flattery.

“This is what they exploited. They played the game as if they were immensely impressed by his personality and believed this is the guy who should be the president of the United States one day: it is people like him who could change the world. They fed him these so-called active measures soundbites and it happened. So it was a big achievement for the KGB active measures at the time.”

The Guardian reports that upon his return to the US “Trump began exploring a run for the Republican nomination for president and even held a campaign rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire”. He also took out a full page advert in the New York Times “An open letter from Donald J. Trump on why America should stop paying to defend countries that can afford to defend themselves”. Sounds familiar?

Shvets, who had returned home by now, was at the headquarters of the KGB’s first chief directorate in Yasenevo when he received a cable celebrating the ad as a successful “active measure” executed by a new KGB asset.

In 1984, David Bogatin, a Russian immigrant taxi driver, purchases five condos in Trump Tower for a total of $6 million. Trump is intrigued about the purchase and demands to meet the buyer at settlement. In 1987, Bogatin, who is linked to the Russian mob, pleads guilty to fraud and the condos are seized as money laundering fronts. This is the opening gambit of a string of Russian mobsters buying condos in Trump Tower and other properties.

Oleg Kalugin, a former head of counterintelligence for the KGB has admitted that the Mafia amounts to “one of the branches of the Russian government today.” Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov was a business associate of Trump Tower resident Vadim Trincher. His notoriety was not particularly well hidden given he was on the FBI top ten list. Together, Tokhtakhounov and Trincher ran two gambling rings “in a unit directly below" Trump's personal residence in Trump Tower. They were under FBI surveillance on the 63rd floor for several years ending in raids in 2013 that resulted in “the indictments of 34 members and associates of Russian organized crime”. Tokhtakhounov, “who fled the country to avoid prosecution, appeared later that year at Trump’s 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow”.

Trump famously bought a waterfront Palm beach estate for $41m and sold it to a Russian oligarch for $95m just four years later, moments before the 2008 market crash. While significant in its own right, especially given the timing not only of the crash but the sellers financial position at the time, that one-off sale pales by comparison to the quantity and specific terms of other sales to Russians.

In 2008 Don Jr admitted that, "Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets."

A Reuters review has found that at least 63 individuals with Russian passports or addresses have bought at least $98.4 million worth of property in seven Trump-branded luxury towers in southern Florida, according to public documents, interviews and corporate records.

These numbers do not include any of the aforementioned mobsters or intelligence agents. Nor do they count 703 of 2044 Trump branded units sold to LLCs with unknown ownership - all bought in cash, thus avoiding scrutiny.

Last October, an investigation by the Miami Herald found that at least 13 buyers in the Florida complex have been the target of government investigations, either personally or through their companies, including “members of a Russian-American organized crime group.”

Today, buying properties via LLCs is becoming better known for asset protection. But LLC purchases were unusual even up to the early 2000s. According to David Cay Johnston’s “The Making of Donald Trump,” at the time of the 1984 deal with Bogatin

Trump Tower was one of only two major buildings in New York City that sold condos to buyers who used shell companies that allowed them to purchase real estate while concealing their identities.

That puts the following statistics in an interesting light

More than one-fifth of Donald Trump’s US condominiums have been purchased since the 1980s in secretive, all-cash transactions that enable buyers to avoid legal scrutiny by shielding their finances and identities, a BuzzFeed News investigation has found. Records show that more than 1,300 Trump condominiums were bought not by people but by shell companies, and that the purchases were made without a mortgage, avoiding inquiries from lenders.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union it has been estimated that "$1.3 trillion in illicit capital has poured out of Russia”, according to James Henry, a former chief economist at McKinsey & Company who consulted on the Panama Papers. A lot of that money was seeking no questions asked depositories. High end real estate cash transactions are excellent for this purpose. The price is always high (more money laundered) and the buyers easy to sue because they cant provide provenance for the funds.

The timing for the infusion of no-questions-asked-cash was also auspicious. He was persona non grata on Wall St. Due to “a series of bankruptcies in the 1990s” Trump had run out of American banks willing to offer him credit. One of his Russian friends suggest to him that Deutsche Bank might be willing to help. After all, Deutsche Bank was one of the few international banks willing to do business inside Russia due to sanctions and well known corruption issues that represent high risk.

“Germany’s Deutsche Bank, gave him lavish credit.” This was at the same time the Bank’s “Moscow division was facilitating a $10bn money-laundering scam for the benefit of Kremlin VIPs”.

The relationship was a highly unusual one. Trump and Deutsche Bank would sue one another over a Trump refusal to pay on one deal, while initiating additional new deals the very same week. It has been estimated that in total, Trump received $2bn in funding from Deutsche Bank. Not bad for a bankrupt who continued to default on loans with the new lender. His son-in-law Jared Kushner was also a Deutsche Bank client. He was in deep trouble over the purchase of 666 5th Ave. The bank continued to offer Kushner very generous terms until Kushner found middle east investors to bail him out (long story there on US policy in the region re Qatar).

Was Trump being cultivated by Deutsche Bank acting as a cutout for Putin?

[In 2020 Deutsche Bank] is a $1.5 trillion colossus, one of the world’s largest banks, with offices in 59 countries — and, thanks to its well­ documented pattern of violating laws, an international symbol of greed, recklessness and hubris. Its rap sheet includes manipulating international currency markets; playing a central role in rigging a crucial benchmark interest rate known as Libor; whisking billions of dollars in and out of Iran, Syria, Myanmar and other countries in violation of sanctions; laundering billions of dollars on behalf of Russian oligarchs, among many others; and misleading customers, investors and American, German and British regulators.

It also got into financial and later reputational trouble for working with Jeffrey Epstein, and a dizzying array of scandals, criminal investigations, indictments, DOJ fines and criminal convictions. For an extensive list go here and for a comprehensive account based on a book go here.

Opening of the Harley-Davidson Café in New York City in October 1993. Trump and Epstein had already been friends for years before this picture was taken and yet Trump still allowed Epstein around his children.

The consequences of all this risk-taking, mismanagement and fraud are now clear. Between 2015 and 2017, the bank was forced to record losses of more than $10 billion, and it only barely returned to profitability in 2018. Since 2007, its stock price has fallen 95 percent… In 2020 the International Monetary Fund singled out Deutsche Bank as the institution posing the biggest risk to the global banking system.

High rise communal living usually involves occasional brushes with neighbors, in car parks, at letter boxes, waiting for elevators or attending HOA meetings. People talk. Even at the elite snobby gold plated Trump Tower there would be some interaction and just a bit of gossip. The extent of Russian mobsters, intelligence officers and agents (two different things), and those linked to same, all living at 725 5th Ave does seem quite coincidental. Add in all the Russians buying Trump properties all over the world and the role of property in money laundering and the coincidences mount. Top it off with a bank with all the same links, that has been criminally convicted of Russian money laundering among a long list of fraudulent activities; and that bank’s willingness to work with Trump when no other bank would - including losing significant amounts to him in threatened or actual legal proceedings - and the coincidences start to lack spontaneity.

Remarkably enough, the Trump Tower Russia connections do not end there. Kelly Ann Conway and Paul Manafort had Trump Tower properties. Conway has not been alleged to have had any illegal contacts. The same cannot be said for Paul Manafort. HIs relationships with a who’s who of SVR, oligarchs and mobsters is well documented. He has been linked with Oleg Deripask, Konstantin Kilimnik, Victor Boyarkin, and Dmytro Firtash. Manafort’s deputy, Rich Gates “had admitted knowing that [Kilimnik] was a former officer with Russian military intelligence, the GRU”.

Manafort, along with his one time business partner Roger Stone, had worked his way up in Republican politics and then went off shore to help spread democracy. He worked for some of the most liberal freedom loving world leaders anywhere in the world. He had built a reputation for repackaging controversial foreign leaders for U.S. consumption. Filipino dictator Ferdinand Marcos, Angolan guerilla leader Jonas Savimbi, and Zairian strongman Mobutu Sese Seko were among his clients.

With a resume like that, the next logical step was to prop up Viktor Yanukovych, Putin’s puppet dictator in Ukraine. Yanukovych was a very useful tool in Putin’s black box of tricks. Like all key Putin associates, he was backed by “Russian businessmen”, aka, oligarchs and the mob. Yanukovych helped drive a wedge into NATO when surrounding countries were clamoring join to protect themselves from Russia.

Yanukovych was removed from power when a corrupt election brought the people to the streets. The 2004 Orange Revolution saw his opponent Viktor Yushchenko win a run off election. One of Yushchenko priorities was Ukrainian accession to NATO which he viewed as a fundamental bulwark against Putin and his cronies like Yanukovych. This naturally inflamed Putin who went to work to destroy Yushchenko. Literally. Yushchenko was poisoned. He survived but with serious injuries including permanent facial scarring. Putin believed then Secretary of State Clinton had masterminded the ‘color revolutions’ along Russia’s Western flank.

Paul Manafort and Rich Gates were hired by Yanukovych in the run up to the 2010 election. Manafort offered a full suite of political black ops to the Ukrainian dictator. In line with the Cambridge Analytical playbook, Manafort and Gates ran a social media smear campaign against pro-democracy and pro-NATO opposition leader, Yulia Tymoshenko and through her, Secretary of State Clinton. Viktor Yanukovych won with Manafort’s support but was again subject to a new revolution in 2014 that resulted in a sentence in absentia to 13yrs in prison. His kleptocracy was exposed to the world including bizarrely, a private zoo. He ran back to Putin in Moscow for protection before sentencing.

Having successfully installed a Putin dictator in Ukraine in 2010, Trump Tower resident Paul Manafort was tapped to do the same for America in 2016. Owing $10 million to Konstantin Kilimnik, Manafort offers his services to Trump “for free” knowing the value of his work for Russia would be invaluable. Putin was delighted.

Trump knew his mission - destroy NATO - the idea the KGB put into his head in 1987. Trump was not just against NATO, but in fact any Obama initiative, as well as the EU, the TTP, NAFTA, indeed, all alliances and foreign commitments. So it was not like the FSB had to convince him to do something he did not already favor. In Trump, Putin got lucky. No sex tape needed (although I expect Putin has a lot of kompromat on Trump. Trump has no shame so he might even be proud of a sex tape - but he would know the potential damage of financial kompromat). Also psychologically, they were aligned too (that's in another chapter CIVIL WAR II and its a hell of a read). 

Putin was also after revenge on Clinton. Hunter Biden fit the narrative perfectly. There was just enough odd about Biden’s Ukraine connections to concoct a huge scandal that sounded plausible. Giuliani was played like a fiddle by Russian intelligence. Trump was given a new weapon to use against his enemy.

Awash in Russian intelligence manipulation that tied in to his domestic political schemes, Trump attempts to manipulate the new president, Zelenskyy, to completely fabricate evidence to be used in an American political scandal in exchange for desperately needed defense weapons. For his part, Zelenskyy knows Ukraine is a major target of Putin’s. It is why he needed the weapons so badly. [The weapons we now struggle to deliver fast enough to keep pace with all the tank killing.] Zelenskyy, smart, courageous, and very ably supported by what we now see as a cadre of incredibly capable political/military advisers, wisely does not let himself be manipulated by the American President and thus get sucked into Trump’s Russian-sponsored plot.

Trump and Putin have mutual needs

All Trump wants is to stay out of prison. Regaining executive privilege guarantees that. Trump declared the war a genius and savvy move because it would distract Americans from the mounting legal challenges that he is facing at the state and federal level. It also gives the right wing media sphere a wedge issue to further divide America and platform Russian propaganda into at least one side of American politics. The program is working. A majority of conservatives support Putin thanks to the constant efforts of Fox’s Tucker Carlson and lesser Russian assets.

Once Trump is installed, America will no longer have elections - just play ones like they have in Russia and Iran. Importantly for Putin, Trump will pull out of NATO and hand global unity on Ukraine to Putin.

"In fact, Trump had privately indicated that he would seek to withdraw from NATO and to blow up the U.S. alliance with South Korea, should he win reelection... “Yeah, the second term,” Trump had said. “We’ll do it in the second term.”    

The problem is Trump may not be able to come to the rescue in a timely manner. Russian forces are losing so hard and fast and the home front is under such robust pressure that Putin is no doubt concerned the clock is running down faster than a coup can deliver Trump back into a position to help. The best scenario for the next phase of the unfolding American coup, as publicly outlined by both Roger Stone and Matt Gaetz at rallies, is a sweep of the Congress at the mid terms, impeachment of Biden and Harris, and Trump made Speaker just long enough to be the next in line of succession when the impeachment convictions pass.

Putin for his part, has all the incentive in the world to do what he can to find dirt on Hunter Biden and offer any and all other help to his prized asset.

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Update 31 MAR 2023

The above story came out in Nov 2022. CWII somehow missed it. Thats a major fail. It suggests Trump sold out Ukraine to Putin long before he was first elected in 2016. In exchange for agreeing to the “Mariupol plan” the Russians and their proxies in Ukraine would conduct psyops in the US using social media in an attempt to push swing states into Trump’s camp. This story has many of the receipts of the entire Trump-Russia scandal.

Known loosely as the Mariupol plan, after the strategically vital port city, it called for the creation of an autonomous republic in Ukraine’s east, giving Putin effective control of the country’s industrial heartland, where Kremlin-armed, -funded and -directed “separatists” were waging a two-year-old shadow war that had left nearly 10,000 dead. The new republic’s leader would be none other than Yanukovych [Manaforts pro-Kremlin client ousted by pro-democracy demonstrations]. The trade-off: “peace” for a broken and subservient Ukraine.

Trump was already suggesting that he would upend the diplomatic status quo; if elected, Kilimnik [Manafort’s SVR “businessman” handler] believed, Trump could help make the Mariupol plan a reality.

[US Prosecutor Andrew Weissmann] realized the Mariupol plan was the “quo” Putin wanted for the “quid” of helping Trump’s campaign. “On August 2, if not earlier,” he wrote in his 2020 memoir, “Russia had clearly revealed to Manafort — and, by extension, to the Trump campaign — what it wanted out of the United States: ‘a wink,’ a nod of approval from a President Donald Trump, as it took over Ukraine’s richest region.”

In the weeks that followed [a deal between Kilimnik and Manafort on behalf of Trump], operatives in Moscow and St. Petersburg would intensify their hacking and disinformation campaign to damage Clinton and help turn the election toward Trump, which would form the core of the scandal known as Russiagate.

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