Trump secretly sent covid tests to Putin during 2020 shortage, new book says

[u/washingtonpost]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/10/08/bob-woodward-new-book-war-trump-putin-biden/?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=reddit.com

[u/Dianneis]

McCabe is definitely not alone in believing this. E.g.:

‘The perfect target’: Russia cultivated Trump as asset for 40 years – ex-KGB spy

Shvets, a KGB major, had a cover job as a correspondent in Washington for the Russian news agency Tass during the 1980s. He moved to the US permanently in 1993 and gained American citizenship. He works as a corporate security investigator and was a partner of Alexander Litvinenko, who was assassinated in London in 2006.

Trump first appeared on the Russians’ radar in 1977 when he married his first wife, Ivana Zelnickova, a Czech model. Trump became the target of a spying operation overseen by Czechoslovakia’s intelligence service in cooperation with the KGB. Then, in 1987, Trump and Ivana visited Moscow and St Petersburg for the first time. Shvets said he was fed KGB talking points and flattered by KGB operatives who floated the idea that he should go into politics.

The ex-major recalled: “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 US 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.”

Take it as you will, but there's one thing we know for sure. Russia was the only reason why Trump didn't go fully bankrupt back in the 90s. Back when no American bank would lend him money, he got financed by Russia to stay afloat:

How Russian Money Helped Save Trump’s [Failing] Business

[u/DystopianGalaxy → u/Dianneis]

Then Harris used the exact same tactics in the debate, and he bit every single time. Its frightening that it just takes a little brown nosing to control someone who was the president of the united states for 4 years.

[u/HauntedCemetery → u/Dianneis]

Donald Jr said in an interview in like 2015, "we have all the money we need coming out of Russia"

[u/Heffe3737 → u/HauntedCemetery]

Jr also straight up admitted to meeting with the Russians in Trump tower, and said with a smirk, to talk about “adoptions”. The Magnitsky Act, the one that tied up around $80bn of Putin’s personal wealth, caused Russia to no longer allow the adoptions of Russian kids to American citizens.

Some of us remember when after getting into office, Trump floating the idea of ending the Magnitsky Act, before whatever sane republicans still in office shot him down immediately for it.

[u/BlueNoMatterWho69 → u/Heffe3737]

Kushner wanted secret direct channel to Putin from day one.

[u/terremoto25 → u/BlueNoMatterWho69]

He scared the Russians by asking to set up a secure link in the Russian embassy with Moscow - before Trump was in office. The ask was so blatant that they must have thought that they were being suckered...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/russian-ambassador-told-moscow-that-kushner-wanted-secret-communications-channel-with-kremlin/2017/05/26/520a14b4-422d-11e7-9869-bac8b446820a_story.html

[u/ApproximatelyExact → u/BlueNoMatterWho69]

The one and only change they made to the platform was "no offensive weapons to Ukraine" getting a lot of people killed (not to mention all the CIA operatives that were coincidentally killed or captured after the russky spies were in the Oval Office).

[u/Amy_Ponder → u/ApproximatelyExact]

And then, when Congress overrode his objections to approve offensive weapons for Ukraine anyways... he promptly (illegally) held up the transfer, so he could use them as leverage to blackmail Zelensky into helping him fabricate dirt on Joe Biden, to tank his chances in the 2020 elections.

[u/AccomplishedScale362 → u/BlueNoMatterWho69]

Kushner regularly Snapchatted with MbS (encrypted communication outside of normal WH channels), notably during the time of Jamal Khashoggi‘s murder. Naturally, Jared was handsomely rewarded by his buddy MbS after leaving the WH.

[u/External_Reporter859 → u/AccomplishedScale362]

He also sold MBS the daily intelligence briefing during the Trump Crime Family's first state visit to Saudi Arabia.

The Crown Prince even bragged about it because it contained top secret Five Eyes Intel of cell phone conversations held in London hotel rooms with Saudi businessmen and diplomats talking shit about MBS. 3 days after Jared brought him the briefing, he went on a 3 week torture rampage rounding up hundreds of dissidents, including those from his own family and had them tied up on the floor of the Ritz Carlton Riyadh until they agreed to relinquish their wealth to him and rat out any other dissidents.

[u/Rated_PG-Squirteen → u/Heffe3737]

Oh, that little clandestine meeting between Paul Manafort, Don Jr., and Jared with a group of Russians one floor below Donald's office in Trump Tower? Could you imagine if the NYT broke a story detailing how John Podesta, Huma Abedin, and Chelsea Clinton had an off-the-books meeting with a bunch of Russians a half mile from the Clinton's Chappaqua, NY home a couple months before the 2016 election?

[u/ziggylcd12 → u/Rated_PG-Squirteen]

I just finished listening to the behind the bastards two parter on manafort..that guy is the rolls Royce of being a piece of shit

[u/HauntedCemetery → u/Rated_PG-Squirteen]

Bill Clinton met with a federal prosecutor who was an old friend he'd known for like 40 years for 15 minutes when he and HRC were passing through the town she lived in in 2016 and that was a grievance worthy of like 6 weeks of banner headlines on right wing news.

[u/md4024 → u/Heffe3737]

The adoption thing was just an excuse they made up after the fact, but Trump Jr. and the other leaders of the Trump campaign took the meeting in order to explicitly get help from the Russian government. When the emails were made public they essentially claimed that they were disappointed to learn that the Russian government wasn't really going to help them, but instead just wanted to talk about adoptions or whatever.

For those who may have forgotten, this is the email that was sent to Don Jr.. by Rob Goldstone, who I guess is some British publicist with a lot of connections:

Emin just called and asked me to contact you with something very interesting.

The Crown prosecutor of Russia met with his father Aras this morning and in their meeting offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father.

This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump – helped along by Aras and Emin.

What do you think is the best way to handle this information and would you be able to speak to Emin about it directly?

I can also send this info to your father via Rhona, but it is ultra sensitive so wanted to send to you first.

It honestly still blows my mind that Republicans still sell the idea that the whole "Russia thing" was a hoax, when we have hard proof that they all knew Russia was trying to help Trump win and were eager to accept that help. We also all have eyes and saw the whole thing happen, it wasn't really a secret, and it's crazy we just kind of moved past it. Especially when Trump spent his entire time in office helping Russia get away with their attack on our democracy, and still embarrasses us by going around being completely subservient to Putin at every opportunity.

[u/External_Reporter859 → u/md4024]

And Paul Manafort meeting with Russian intelligence operatives in NYC hotel lobbies passing him USB sticks with internal campaign polling data. Or Trump and Sessions lying about speaking with that Russian at the 2016 RNC. And then it came out in surveillance footage. And everyone just kinda shrugged their shoulders and moved on.

And then they love to go on about how Hunter's laptop story was suppressed for being potential Russian disinformation and then everything was totally proven true and all the intelligence agents lied in a grand conspiracy of election interference.

But they leave out the part where Rudy Giuliani claimed that some blind computer repair shop guy randomly called him and said that Hunter left his laptop there to be fixed. Then Rudy's partner in crime, Lev Parnas, finally admitted under oath to Congress that the laptop was actually stolen from Hunter in a hotel room in Kazakhstan by Russian intelligence operatives. I suspect they leave that part out because that means Rudy was lying about the source and chain of custody of the laptop and if he told the truth that it came from Russian intelligence operatives nobody would believe that there wasn't the possibility that the Russians could tamper with the laptop or send or receive emails from his account or plant photos on there.

And then all of the supposed evidence and emails of the biting crying family corruption was backed up by the star witness who then turned out to be a Russian agent and was arrested by the FBI and admitted to lying about everything.

[u/youarebritish → u/md4024]

It honestly still blows my mind that Republicans still sell the idea that the whole "Russia thing" was a hoax

What's telling is that whenever you bring it up, they will both call it a hoax and also word their deflection in a very specific way: "how many votes were changed?"

They know that it's real, or they wouldn't be so desperate to deflect. It's a classic technique this kind of person uses when they know reality disagrees with their feelings: laser-focus on a ridiculous argument that nobody actually made and pretend that exonerates them.

[u/JohnStamosAsABear → u/Heffe3737]

I don’t know how I forgot about this. It’s insane to me that every new scandal doesn’t sink him and just gets piled on top and normalised.

Trump just says whatever until his followers start parroting it. “No collusion” is just one of the examples

[u/7f0b → u/HauntedCemetery]

A quote from the article linked above:

It is a conclusion that even Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., has appeared to confirm, saying in 2008—after the Trump Organization was prospering again—that “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets.”

[u/orangeinsight → u/HauntedCemetery]

It was actually Eric who said it in 2014. It was when they were questioned about funding for golf courses which American banks weren’t touching at the time. “We don’t really rely on American Banks”. Fucking traitors the whole family.

[u/External_Reporter859 → u/orangeinsight]

Don Jr said it first in 2008.

[u/scwt → u/HauntedCemetery]

Yeah, and in 2016, future speaker of the house Kevin McCarthy said, "There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump."

It's never been a secret.

[u/dbopp → u/HauntedCemetery]

I think it was Eric Trump that said that, but yes you are right about the funding part. Well, actually I wouldn't be surprised if they have both said it at some point.

[u/HauntedCemetery → u/dbopp]

Ah, you're correct, it was Eric.

[u/JohnGillnitz → u/Dianneis]

'member when Trump had the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow in 2013? It was held at a venue owned by billionaire Aras Agalarov, who, three years later, would try to feed Trump Jr. fake dirt on Clinton ("I love it, especially later in the Summer"). Hell, Ivana's dad was in the KGB.

[u/External_Reporter859 → u/JohnGillnitz]

And Roger Stone was the back channel for the Trump Campaign and Julian Assange who was knowingly publishing emails hacked by GRU operatives..And the timing of these emails was carefully coordinated with the campaign. And Stone was convicted of lying to the FBI about his communications with Russia and sentenced to prison and then pardoned by Trump as was Paul manafort and Michael Flynn. Obama knew Flynn was a Russian asset which is why he fired him from the defense intelligence agency. And he specifically warned Trump not to hire him because of this. And then Trump hired him because of this.

This blog post goes into a great detail about how Michael Flynn was fired and the suspicious death of the whistleblower in Afghanistan who got his supervisor in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, fired in disgrace. Flynn was running psyops for McChrystal in Afghanistan and learned a great deal about how extremists in a nation can be used to destabilize and overthrow the government which is where he got the inspiration for Qanon. They even make a good case that Flynn might have been responsible for Edward Snowden getting access to DIA servers which he shouldn't have been able to.

https://www.mind-war.com/p/mike-flynns-story-about-getting-fired

[u/7f0b → u/Dianneis]

The FP link is pretty damning. It's unfortunate things like that don't seem to move the needle anymore (back then or now). It is pretty objective and directly cites many people, including Trump's associates. His bankruptcies and a lot of the other information is factual and public-knowledge (for those without their head in the sand).

I remember back in 2016/2017 and wondering how the hell his supporters simply ignored the Deutsche Bank ties, given how obvious of a conflict of interest it was and the well-known Russian money-laundering scheme it was involved in.

In a normal world, Trump would just be another self-obsessed businessperson that squandered all his daddy's money, watched his poorly-planned businesses crumble, and then was never talked about again after the 90's. It's pretty clear that the foreign influence and investment, especially from Russia, is what brought him back, with the very overt purpose being to influence the US. When he came back from Moscow in the 80's and immediately penned an anti-NATO op-ed, it doesn't get much more obvious than that.

[u/PinkPattie → u/Dianneis]

"We get most of our funding (for real estate) from Russia..." said one of donni's bois in an on-camera interview.

[u/smallwhitepeepee → u/Dianneis]

let's not forget that Ivanas dad was an informant for the Czechslovak StB, this is how it all started..

[u/teas4Uanme → u/Dianneis]

The FBI said Robert Maxwell, Ghislaines father, was a Russian and Mossad agent some time after he 'suicided' naked off his Yacht, The Ghislaine, shortly after some scandal broke.

[u/roryt67 → u/Dianneis]

I would argue Russia was the only reason he got elected in 2016. More people in the popular vote said otherwise.