The best-case scenario is that Russia has dirt on Donald Trump
The New York Times reported this week that Donald Trump was briefed in March that a Russian intelligence unit that “has been linked to assassination attempts and other covert operations in Europe intended to destabilize the West or take revenge on turncoats” offered Afghan insurgents bounties to kill US troops. “Islamist militants, or armed criminal elements closely associated with them, are believed to have collected some bounty money,” according to the report, which was confirmed by The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. Twenty US service members were killed in Afghanistan last year.
Trump was given “a menu of potential options” to respond to the attacks, but “the White House has yet to authorize any step.”
A month later, in late April, Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin “issued a rare joint statement” commemorating US and Russian forces linking up in Germany during World War II, saying it was “an example of how our countries can put aside differences, build trust, and cooperate in pursuit of a greater cause.”
Two weeks later, in early May, he bragged about his efforts to forge closer ties with Russia to a gathering of Republican lawmakers, saying, “all of a sudden, we have this great friendship. And, by the way, getting along with Russia is a great thing, getting along with Putin and Russia is a great thing.”
Later that month, he outraged other Western leaders by inviting Putin to attend the G7 meeting. He then spoke to Putin about getting Russia re-admitted to the organization that had expelled it over Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
There has long been speculation that Russia has some sort of kompromat on Trump. Mythical “pee tapes” aside, Trump has longstanding ties to the Russian mob dating back 30 years. Russian money poured into Trumpworld when no bank would give him a loan after his casinos went belly-up. Russian oligarchs and other members of the country’s elite have reportedly snatched up $100 million worth of his tacky properties in Florida alone. He made over $50 million on one “strange” real estate deal with Dmitry Rybolovlev, a billionaire oligarch.
If Russia has dirt on Trump, that may be the best-case scenario. Because what are the alternatives? That he’s such a narcissist that Putin’s praise so flatters him that he’s willing to overlook Russia putting bounties on US troops’ heads? That he’s thanking them for meddling in the 2016 and 2020 elections on his behalf? That it’s just an act of trolling or revenge against the intelligence community and the FBI for embarrassing him with their reports of Russian interference and subsequent investigations? Or is he looking to assure that Russian cash continues to flow into his businesses after he leaves office? Maybe he still has high hopes to get that Trump Tower Moscow deal off the ground.
If the Commander-in-Chief is continuing to do Russia’s bidding after being informed that they’re paying people to kill US soldiers because they could destroy him, or possibly land him in prison, that would at least be an act of self-preservation. The alternatives are pettier, and would show that not only can he be bought off, but that he can be had cheaply.
Separately, a new book review of Catherine Belton's 'Putin's People' provides another source for the belief that Putin has kompramat on useful idiot Trump.
Putin’s People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took On the West, Catherine Belton, Harper Collins (U.K.) and Macmillan Publishers (U.S.), 640 pp., £22, April 2020 ($17, June 2020 in United States)
The signs may have been there for decades, but the KGB’s continuing influence only came to the attention of most in the West in 2016 with evidence that Moscow had intervened on behalf of Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential elections. Belton dives deeply into the world of the post-Soviet hucksters who surrounded Trump long before his White House bid, identifying their ties to Russian intelligence and how they used KGB tactics to entangle the future president in a web of financial obligation. “In the beginning, Trump’s business was probably no more than a convenient vehicle through which to funnel funds into the U.S.,” writes Belton, as she traces his contacts with figures like construction tycoon Agas Agalarov, antique smuggler Shalva Tchigirinsky, and oil-trader Tamir Sapir, who all “operated in the half-light between the Russian security services and the mob.” Gradually, these relationships deepened, and Belton suggests that “at some point Trump became a political opportunity.”
