Trump’s ties to the Russian mafia go back 3 decades

[homersapien 11,812]

Won't hear this on fox.

 

On November 9, 2016, just a few minutes after Donald Trump was elected president of the United States, a man named Vyacheslav Nikonov approached a microphone in the Russian State Duma (their equivalent of the US House of Representatives) and made a very unusual statement.

“Dear friends, respected colleagues!” Nikonov said. “Three minutes ago, Hillary Clinton admitted her defeat in US presidential elections, and a second ago Trump started his speech as an elected president of the United States of America, and I congratulate you on this.”

Nikonov is a leader in the pro-Putin United Russia Party and, incidentally, the grandson of Vyacheslav Molotov — after whom the “Molotov cocktail” was named. His announcement that day was a clear signal that Trump’s victory was, in fact, a victory for Putin’s Russia.

Longtime journalist Craig Unger opens his new book, House of Trump, House of Putin, with this anecdote. The book is an impressive attempt to gather up all the evidence we have of Trump’s numerous connections to the Russian mafia and government and lay it all out in a clear, comprehensive narrative.

The book claims to unpack an “untold story,” but it’s not entirely clear how much of it is new. One of the hardest things to accept about the Trump-Russia saga is how transparent it is. So much of the evidence is hiding in plain sight, and somehow that has made it harder to accept.

But make no mistake: Trump’s ties to shady Russian figures stretch back decades, and Unger diligently pieces them together in one place. Although Unger doesn’t provide any evidence that Trump gave the Russians anything concrete in return for their help, the case he makes for how much potential leverage the Russians had over Trump is pretty damning.

I spoke to Unger about what he learned, how he learned it, and why he thinks Russia’s use of Trump constitutes “one of the greatest intelligence operations in history,” as he puts it in the book.

A lightly edited transcript of our conversation follows.

Sean Illing

I’ll ask you straightforwardly: Do you believe the Russian government successfully targeted and compromised Trump?

Craig Unger

Yes, absolutely. But let’s go back in time, because I think all of this began as a money-laundering operation with the Russian mafia. It’s well known that Trump likes doing business with gangsters, in part because they pay top dollar and loan money when traditional banks won’t, so it was a win-win for both sides.

The key point I want to get across in the book is that the Russian mafia is different than the American mafia, and I think a lot of Americans don’t understand this. In Russia, the mafia is essentially a state actor. When I interviewed Gen. Oleg Kalugin, who is a former head of counterintelligence in the KGB and had been Vladimir Putin’s boss at one point, I asked him about the mafia. He said, “Oh, it’s part of the KGB. It’s part of the Russian government.”

And that’s essential to the whole premise of the book. Trump was working with the Russian mafia for more than 30 years. He was profiting from them. They rescued him. They bailed him out. They took him from being $4 billion in debt to becoming a multibillionaire again, and they fueled his political ambitions, starting more than 30 years ago. This means Trump was in bed with the Kremlin as well, whether he knew it or not.

 

Read the rest of the interview at: https://www.vox.com/world/2018/9/12/17764132/trump-mueller-russia-mafia-putin-craig-unger

[AUFAN78 4,061]

Yet another case of small vox.

[homersapien 11,812]

On 12/8/2018 at 8:40 PM, AUFAN78 said:

Yet another case of small vox.

Ah yes, avoid the substance by focusing on the messenger. 

[GiveEmElle 1,559]

I’ve read several pieces from a variety of sources that suggest the same thing. American banks stopped lending to Trump so he was getting money somewhere else which probably explains his refusal to release tax returns. Russia is bankrolling Trump and he owes them bigly. And when they are done with him they’ll destroy him with the kompromat. I can hardly wait to see how Franklin Graham spins Golden Showers. 

[Proud Tiger 4,261]

23 hours ago, GiveEmElle said:

I’ve read several pieces from a variety of sources that suggest the same thing. American banks stopped lending to Trump so he was getting money somewhere else which probably explains his refusal to release tax returns. Russia is bankrolling Trump and he owes them bigly. And when they are done with him they’ll destroy him with the kompromat. I can hardly wait to see how Franklin Graham spins Golden Showers. 

Raw speculation. You have no idea or experience to back up it up. If you do any kind of business with Russia you are likely to have the Russian mafia in the loop.

You comment about Franklin Graham and Golden Showers is just sick. 

[GiveEmElle 1,559]

On Franklin’s hypocrisy 

https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2018/05/05/franklin-graham-trumps-affair-with-stormy-daniels-is-nobodys-business/

[Proud Tiger 4,261]

Just now, GiveEmElle said:

On Franklin’s hypocrisy 

https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2018/05/05/franklin-graham-trumps-affair-with-stormy-daniels-is-nobodys-business/

You are entitled to your opinion of Franklin Graham. I admire him as I did his father. I'm glad you are such an upstanding Christian to even presume capability of judging him. I bet he never called anyone's mother a bitch.

[GiveEmElle 1,559]

1 hour ago, GiveEmElle said:

I’ve read several pieces from a variety of sources that suggest the same thing. American banks stopped lending to Trump so he was getting money somewhere else which probably explains his refusal to release tax returns. Russia is bankrolling Trump and he owes them bigly. And when they are done with him they’ll destroy him with the kompromat. I can hardly wait to see how Franklin Graham spins Golden Showers. 

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/07/trump-putin-russia-collusion.html

[Proud Tiger 4,261]

5 minutes ago, GiveEmElle said:

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/07/trump-putin-russia-collusion.html

There is intelligence in NY

[GiveEmElle 1,559]

Uh oh, seems like the Christian Right might have been blackmailed to support Trump. 

 

[homersapien 11,812]

1 hour ago, Proud Tiger said:

Raw speculation. You have no idea or experience to back up it up. If you do any kind of business with Russia you are likely to have the Russian mafia in the loop.

 

Eric Trump: “We have all the funding we need out of Russia”

https://themoscowproject.org/collusion/eric-trump-funding-need-russia/

[homersapien 11,812]

1 hour ago, Proud Tiger said:

You are entitled to your opinion of Franklin Graham. I admire him as I did his father. I'm glad you are such an upstanding Christian to even presume capability of judging him. I bet he never called anyone's mother a bitch.

 

You seem to have a strange affinity for lying hypocrites:

Franklin Graham’s Astonishing Ungodly Hypocrisy

Franklin Graham in 1998 condemned President Bill Clinton's sins. In 2018, he's defending President Donald Trump's.

 

...........Graham actually said Trump's sex life is "nobody's business." His paying off a porn star is "nobody's business." His affair just months after his youngest son was born is "nobody's business."

"I don't have concern, in a sense, because these things happened many years ago – and there's such bigger problems in front of us as a nation that we need to be dealing with than other things in his life a long time ago. I think some of these things – that's for him and his wife to deal with," Graham insisted.

"I don’t defend those kinds of relationships he had. But the country knew the kind of person he was back then, and they still made the decision to make him the president of the United States," Graham said, forgetting that 3 million more chose not to make his President.

"I think when the country went after President Clinton, the Republicans, that was a great mistake that should never have happened."

Really?

Because the Franklin Graham of 2018 sounds very different from the Franklin Graham of 1998.

"Private conduct does have public consequences," Graham wrote in a 1998 Wall Street Journal op-ed titled, "Clinton's Sins Aren't Private."

"Just look at how many have already been pulled under by the wake of the president's sin: Mr. Clinton's wife and daughter, Ms. Lewinsky, her parents, White House staff members, friends and supporters, public officials and an unwitting American public," Graham wrote.

Does this seem familiar?

He continued, saying, "the God of the Bible says that what one does in private does matter. Mr. Clinton's months-long extramarital sexual behavior in the Oval Office now concerns him and the rest of the world, not just his immediate family. If he will lie to or mislead his wife and daughter, those with whom he is most intimate, what will prevent him from doing the same to the American public?"

Read the full piece at: https://www.alternet.org/franklin-grahams-astonishing-ungodly-hypocrisy