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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsExplosive new book claims the KGB began grooming 'young and vain' Donald Trump 40 years ago
...by saving him from financial ruin and turned him into a Russian asset who gave Putin 'everything he wanted' as president.
(DailyMail) Donald Trump was cultivated as a Russian asset more than 40 years ago which exploded into a decades-long 'relationship' of mutual benefit to both Russia and Trump, a shocking new book claims.
Trump was rescued multiple times from multiple bankruptcies by boatloads of Russian cash laundered through his real estate in the 80s and 90s, the author asserts. Russian money also picked up the tab for buildings franchised under Trump's name.
An invitation to Russia by a high-level KGB official in 1987 under the guise of a preliminary scouting trip to build a Trump hotel in Moscow, was in fact 'deep development' by KGB handlers that furthered creating secret back channels and allowed the Russians to influence and damage American democracy, the author claims.
When Trump became President, it was time to pay the piper and Trump gave Putin everything he wanted, the author writes. Author Craig Unger makes the revelations in his new book, American Kompromat, How the KGB Cultivated Donald Trump, and Related Tales of Sex, Greed, Power and Treachery. Unger is a journatist and author of six books, including the New York Times bestsellers House of Bush, House of Saud, and House of Trump, House of Putin.
Read More:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9184687/How-Russia-began-grooming-Donald-Trump-40-years-ago-saving-financial-ruin-book-claims.html

bluestarone
(18,715 posts)I fear not!
Dan
(4,286 posts)secondwind
(16,903 posts)🤬🤬
DBoon
(23,418 posts)and let them keep Crimea
DonaldsRump
(7,715 posts)Robert "Bobby 3-Sticks" Mueller and his crack team of lawyers and investigators couldn't?
President Biden's AG should release the Mueller Report, unredacted to the fullest extent possible, so we can really understand what Mueller found and what he investigated (and did NOT investigate).
brush
(58,733 posts)Last edited Wed Jan 27, 2021, 07:47 PM - Edit history (1)
to head the trump/Russia probe as we came to find out, unfortunately, that he was past his prime.
And then of course Barr came on the scene and shut the investigation down before it was completed. He saved the Russian asset from being revealed.
samsingh
(17,965 posts)mueller betrayed the country
WyattKansas
(1,648 posts)Otherwise the Petulant Crybaby would throw a tantrum and fire him and his team. And the Petulant Crybaby had his 'Yes Men' controlling the funding and Mueller's investigation, regardless of how much they played their part for the public. If you want to blame someone, first look at who was in charge of Mueller in the Republican's warped view of an independent investigator that resembled the opposite of what Kenneth Starr was allowed to sniff with a hard-on.
Bernardo de La Paz
(52,394 posts)Surely Mueller must know there is bigger stuff yet to be revealed, even if he only got a glimpse.
secondwind
(16,903 posts)THAT was our clue.....
Bernardo de La Paz
(52,394 posts)DeminPennswoods
(16,474 posts)how narrowly Mueller's investigation was defined and that Rosenstein managed it much more closely than almost everyone knew.
samsingh
(17,965 posts)i don't believe he could be stopped from that statement
i think Mueller was a plant from the beginning and that's the reason trump did not force his firing
LiberalLovinLug
(14,390 posts)berating and threatening him. Graham had no problem calling the Georgia governor and requesting he throw out votes, so I'm sure he and others were relentlessly pestering Mueller all the time during the investigation. "You'd better not........or else......."
Still Mueller could have resisted if he chose to. Even if it meant being ostracized by his own lifelong party. IMO he was cowing to his party over country. And easily capitulated. Which included remaining silent as much as possible about it to the media.
Mr.Bill
(24,906 posts)when I see his report without Barr's redactions.
brush
(58,733 posts)But IMO he should've indicted trump. There's nothing in the Constitution against that. It's just a kind of gentleman's agreement that has prevailed over the years. But if such an agreement endanger the nation, it must be disregarded out of loyalty to the country.
After all, what were they going to do to Mueller, fire him, or put him in jail? No. And he was retired. He didn't need to worry about keeping his job.
Mike 03
(18,067 posts)book on Trump, House of Trump, House of Putin. He felt at the time he wrote it that he couldn't prove the case. Despite that, it is quite an important book. (It's just hard to keep all the Russian names straight. )
He has done a lot of serious work on this subject, earlier than other journalists. The only reason I stopped recommending the book is because it sort of got lost in the avalanche of Trump books that followed.
treestar
(82,383 posts)than to prove it in court. In any event, Mueller thought the sitting President could not be indicted.
DonaldsRump
(7,715 posts)If true, I would think a 4 decade old relationship between Trump and Russia might be slightly relevant to what "Bobby 3-Sticks" was investigating regarding Russian interference. An investigation does not automatically lead to an indictment.
treestar
(82,383 posts)Bobby 3 sticks name come about? I have not heard that before !
DonaldsRump
(7,715 posts)...and apparently the three-fingered Boy Scouts' salute: https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-perspec-thingsmueller-0325-story.html
As with many of us, I was deeply disappointed Mueller, his team, and his findings. I compare him and them to the Watergate Special Prosecution Task Force and its great leaders Archibald Cox and Leon Jaworski and their staff (many of whom became very prominent lawyers in their own right). There is NO comparison.
Apparently, Mueller and his team were afraid of being fired (which actually happened to Archibald Cox), so they limited their investigation to avoid that. That is not smart....that's chicken.
I cannot stand hearing Mueller's top staff now telling us about how bad Trump is/was (e.g., Andrew Weissman). There was a time and place for this, and that was during the investigation.
When I use Bobby Three Sticks, I'm sorry to say it's derisively. I simply cannot believe he let himself be played by Trump. That's why I am hoping that the release of the Mueller Report unredacted to the maximum extent possible might shed some light on what Mueller and his team really found. I don't think we know that. However, Mueller had plenty of opportunities to set the record straight, if it needed straightening, and the most prominent was his July 2019 testimony before Congress. He was basically incoherent, which again played into Trump and Barr's hands. Indeed, the very next day, Trump was emboldened enough to make his calls to Ukraine to find dirt on Joe Biden, an act which directly led to Trump's impeachment.
Bernardo de La Paz
(52,394 posts)colorado_ufo
(5,973 posts)It was pretty much all in plain sight, including the real estate deals with Russians who vastly overpaid for the properties. All of it, the money laundering, the business failures, the corruption, the secret then revealed meetings with Russian assets, the unusual number of Russians occupying his properties, the beauty contest in Moscow, Trump's absolute failure to confront Putin about anything either during the campaign or the presidency, his obsequience to Putin, the invites of Russian notables to the Oval Office and ban of the US press at the meeting, and on and on. Jared's attempt to establish a back channel from the Russian Embassy to the Kremlin. Can you even begin to imagine what we DON'T know?
Trump probably also appealed to the KGB because he was 'vain, narcissistic, highly susceptible to flattery and greedy'.
'With Trump it wasn't just weakness. Everything was excessive. His vanity, excessive, Narcissism, excessive. Greed, excessive. Ignorance, excessive', writes the author.
'Deeply insecure intellectually, highly suggestible, exceedingly susceptible to flattery, Trump was anxious to acquire some real intellectual validation - and the KGB would be more than happy to humor him,' the author added.

The author claims surveillance on Trump began in 1977 when he married Ivana Zelnickova, a Czech national from a district where the secret police force was in league with the KGB and Trump was already talking about wanting to be president one day (pictured in Russia)

In 1987 Donald and Ivana Trump visited Palace Square in St.Petersburg, Russia. The author says the invitation to Russia by a high-level KGB official in 1987 under the guise of a preliminary scouting trip to build a Trump hotel in Moscow, was in fact 'deep development' by KGB handlers that furthered creating secret back channels and allowed the Russians to influence and damage American democracy
Mike 03
(18,067 posts)I don't think I'll be able to resist this yet-another-Trump book.
highplainsdem
(53,770 posts)liberal_mama
(1,495 posts)and this was long before he ran for president.
The Blue Flower
(5,694 posts)"Epstein had made videotapes of sexual acts that he could use for blackmail or kompromat compromising material - and photos of Trump with a bevy of young girls and girls giggling at the semen stains on Trump's pants when in the company of the under eighteen-year olds and he couldn't hold back his 'excitement'."
That said, Craig Unger is a credible researcher.
dawg day
(7,947 posts)I remember it was claimed the FBI and police had found a cache of tapes when they raided his mansion. Never heard any more.
oldsoftie
(13,538 posts)And it wasnt just trump i'm sure
pandr32
(12,525 posts)I immediately went (mentally) to the image of him biting his lower lip (his excited rat face) while with Jeffrey Epstein at a party surrounded by young women/girls.
Totally Tunsie
(10,885 posts)They'll work and wait patiently for years to develop their targets.
I_UndergroundPanther
(13,004 posts)For decades they've been systematically destroying our government,making it smaller..and smaller to drown it in a bathtub.
Guy Whitey Corngood
(26,759 posts)Mike 03
(18,067 posts)I was a big fan of House of Trump, House of Putin.
dclarston13
(439 posts)Has laid all this out sometime ago. As have some others. I think for the most part intelligence agencies don't care, or he is a double agent. I doubt the latter.
SWBTATTReg
(24,747 posts)yet the traitorous republicans all still are in lockstep w/ rump still. Time to do some major house cleaning. Permanent and serious house cleaning.
colorado_ufo
(5,973 posts)Well, that's pretty generous!
Roisin Ni Fiachra
(2,574 posts)DSandra
(1,407 posts)Not only how he went out of his way to deflect criticism of Russia, or his coziness with the Russians, but how on just about every major decision domestically, he did the Opposite of what your supposed to do, in a way that would further weaken America, from screwing NATO and the reversal of the TPP to the coronavirus and the sedition campaign and attempted insurrection.
superpatriotman
(6,622 posts)Elon? Bezos?
colorado_ufo
(5,973 posts)Cruz is almost too weak even for them.
FuzzyRabbit
(2,112 posts)Moscow Mitch? Rand Paul? Most of the republican senate?
I find it hard to believe that Trump is the only one. I am sure that the Russians have other assets in place already, and more in the works.
Walleye
(37,511 posts)dhill926
(16,953 posts)can't believe this didn't get more play....
Tanuki
(15,561 posts)moondust
(20,697 posts)Last edited Wed Jan 27, 2021, 02:37 PM - Edit history (1)
The KGB saw Dump as a potential asset and may have used its espionage tools to track him. Old KGB man Putin probably had access to the kompromat they collected. The kleptocrats knew Dump had no morals or loyalty to anything but himself so they could easily manipulate him to launder rubles or otherwise do their bidding. I wouldn't rule out him compromising U.S. intelligence during those secret meetings with Putin. The seeds of SolarWinds?
Where are Epstein's "videotapes of sexual acts that he could use for blackmail or kompromat"?
K/R
AntiFascist
(13,016 posts)keithbvadu2
(40,915 posts)Mr.Bill
(24,906 posts)They should have cultivated someone who didn't have the intelligence of a six year old child.
Cassielfsw
(4 posts)... To six-year-old children.
Mr.Bill
(24,906 posts)to all six year old kids.
Firestorm49
(4,281 posts)Intel knows much more than we do, so what went wrong? After all, we here at DU were fully aware of his failings just from press releases and things like the pussy video.
I think we have much more faith in our system than we should. Be thankful that the brown shirts arent already rounding us up. It was that close.
What a bunch of...........!
LiberalArkie
(17,240 posts)I believe Trumps days are over. Is Cotton or one of the new guys the new one?
cstanleytech
(27,334 posts)After all if Trump does sue Trump can be forced to give a deposition under oath and that is the last thing a guilty person would probably want.
TomVilmer
(1,874 posts)... from the really unreliable "Daily Mail". Anyway, here is a link to a chapter from his new book in "Vanity Fair":
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/01/jeffrey-epstein-and-donald-trump-epic-bromance
TNNurse
(7,215 posts)oldsoftie
(13,538 posts)Aussie105
(6,683 posts)Russia saw Trump as a potentially useful idiot way early.
But he wouldn't be the only one Russia developed hooks into, playing the long game.
Not just Russia though, look closer to home and think of all the US 'influencing' in South America and the Middle East over the last century or so.
Some of it quite blatant and out in the open, other 'influencing' more subtle.
Some of it involved armed conflict, US boots on foreign soil.
Vietnam war for instance, conflict based on the 'Domino theory' of Communism creeping across Southern Asia and further South. Something that prompted Australian involvement in that war.
Probably no world power NOT doing any of that.
. . . . but we like to pretend it's only 'the bad guys' who do it, OUR country is as pure as the driven snow, right?
burrowowl
(18,115 posts)FakeNoose
(36,515 posts)
Full title is American Kompromat: How the KGB Cultivated Donald Trump, and Related Tales of Sex, Greed, Power, and Treachery
I've read other books by Mr. Unger that were quite well-researched.

smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)

Sedona
(3,827 posts)alphafemale
(18,497 posts)Incredibly stupid.
Incredibly narcissistic.
And willing to sell out his family (country) for flattery and a few hookers.
trueblue2007
(18,380 posts)Faux pas
(15,512 posts)
onenote
(44,922 posts)Personally, I'm not sure I buy it.
Lets see....that would be massive failure #456 in a long line of them.
Dirty Socialist
(3,252 posts)This needs national attention!