‘I continue to believe that Donald Trump is compromised by the Russians’ : politics

Trump first visited the then-Soviet-Union in 1987. Within 2 months of returning, Trump was taking out full-page ads in major newspapers defending Soviet policies, he had switched his party affiliation from Democratic to Republican, and first started talking about running for President.

For several years he didn’t even pretend to hide the ties he had to Russia. In the 90’s, when all his businesses started going bankrupt, he was likely several billion underwater. Then he started, in the late 90’s and into the 00’s, making shady-looking real estate deals in Florida very often involving people who were deep with Putin, who came to power in Russia in 1999. Michael Cohen was doing business with Ukrainians connected to Putin all throughout the 00’s. And Trump again started making noise about running for President.

Trump took over the Miss Universe pageant and made multiple visits to Moscow, including eventually hosting the Miss Universe pageant there in 2013. All the while he was making shady-ass deals that were never more than 1 degree of separation from the Russian organized crime elements that were behind much of Putin’s power in Moscow.

All of which is put into perspective given the knowledge that, in 1987, at the height of the Cold War, Russian intelligence was very actively working to compromise, and turn into assets, a certain description of Americans. Namely, these were Americans who had business connections, were public figures, who had political connections and/or aspirations, and who had a tendency toward immoral behavior that could be used to generate leverage.

Donald Trump in 1987 was essentially the Perfect Storm of these traits. The idea that they wouldn’t have worked to gain leverage over him when he first visited Moscow in 1987 is absurd. The idea that they would have attempted and been unsuccessful is equally absurd. Do you really think that 1987-Donald-Trump wouldn’t have fucked the likely-15-or-so-year-olds that the KGB would have almost certainly sent to his hotel room? Please. Generating kompromat on 1987-Trump would have been such a lay-up that they could have handed it off to an intern while the real agents went out to lunch.

And of course, kompromat begets kompromat. Sex tapes with underaged girls are used as leverage to generate financial kompromat, which is used to generate more, and so on. If there is any organization in human history that knows how this dance works, it’s the 1980’s KGB.

All of which is brought to the surface from his real estate deals in the 2000’s and beyond, which bear all the hallmarks of money laundering. And money laundering is the crime in the Russian oligarchy.

It is an absurd conspiracy theory to suggest that Trump isn’t deeply compromised by Russia. It would require a confluence of coincidences unique enough to beggar belief.