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

[ZiprHead]

The KGB ‘played the game as if they were immensely impressed by his personality’, Yuri Shvets, a key source for a new book, tells the Guardian

Donald Trump was cultivated as a Russian asset over 40 years and proved so willing to parrot anti-western propaganda that there were celebrations in Moscow, a former KGB spy has told the Guardian.

Yuri Shvets, posted to Washington by the Soviet Union in the 1980s, compares the former US president to “the Cambridge five”, the British spy ring that passed secrets to Moscow during the second world war and early cold war.

Now 67, Shvets is a key source for American Kompromat, a new book by journalist Craig Unger, whose previous works include House of Trump, House of Putin. The book also explores the former president’s relationship with the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

“This is an example where people were recruited when they were just students and then they rose to important positions; something like that was happening with Trump,” Shvets said by phone on Monday from his home in Virginia.

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’s election win in 2016 was again welcomed by Moscow. Special counsel Robert Mueller did not establish a conspiracy between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians. But the Moscow Project, an initiative of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, found the Trump campaign and transition team had at least 272 known contacts and at least 38 known meetings with Russia-linked operatives.

Shvets, who has carried out his own investigation, said: “For me, the Mueller report was a big disappointment because people expected that it will be a thorough investigation of all ties between Trump and Moscow, when in fact what we got was an investigation of just crime-related issues. There were no counterintelligence aspects of the relationship between Trump and Moscow.”

He added: “This is what basically we decided to correct. So I did my investigation and then got together with Craig. So we believe that his book will pick up where Mueller left off.”

 

[TomC]

"Useful idiot" was the term I remember from my 60s childhood.

Who knew that by the 21st century it would apply to a Republican president.
Tom

ETA ~Who knew, back in the Vietnam War era, that a billionaire Republican president could outperform Hanoi Jane in the role?~

 

[repoman]

It is the Russian Jewish Mafia that Trump has been involved with for a long time.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/04/the-happy-go-lucky-jewish-group-that-connects-trump-and-putin-215007

 

[Derec]

What doesn't fit is Trump championing domestic US oil and gas production. If he was really Russian puppet, you'd think he'd shut down pipelines and ban fracking. You know, what Democrats are trying to do.

 

[Patooka]

What doesn't fit is Trump championing domestic US oil and gas production. If he was really Russian puppet, you'd think he'd shut down pipelines and ban fracking. You know, what Democrats are trying to do.

Last I checked, the only time the US made significant gains in being energy independent was when a black guy was in charge. I heard a rumour he was a Democrat as well. I think the current President was involved in that government as well, if I remember correctly. But please continue with your jihad against indigenous sites and wildlife areas.

 

[barbos]

What doesn't fit is Trump championing domestic US oil and gas production. If he was really Russian puppet, you'd think he'd shut down pipelines and ban fracking. You know, what Democrats are trying to do.

Last I checked, the only time the US made significant gains in being energy dependent was when a black guy was in charge. I heard a rumour he was a Democrat as well. I think the current President was involved in that government as well, if I remember correctly. But please continue with your jihad against indigenous sites and wildlife areas.

Did you mean INdependent?
Derec is not wrong there, If Trump was a reliable Russian puppet he would have stopped illegal war on Russian gas in Europe.

 

[DrZoidberg]

The KGB ‘played the game as if they were immensely impressed by his personality’, Yuri Shvets, a key source for a new book, tells the Guardian

Donald Trump was cultivated as a Russian asset over 40 years and proved so willing to parrot anti-western propaganda that there were celebrations in Moscow, a former KGB spy has told the Guardian.

Yuri Shvets, posted to Washington by the Soviet Union in the 1980s, compares the former US president to “the Cambridge five”, the British spy ring that passed secrets to Moscow during the second world war and early cold war.

Now 67, Shvets is a key source for American Kompromat, a new book by journalist Craig Unger, whose previous works include House of Trump, House of Putin. The book also explores the former president’s relationship with the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

“This is an example where people were recruited when they were just students and then they rose to important positions; something like that was happening with Trump,” Shvets said by phone on Monday from his home in Virginia.

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’s election win in 2016 was again welcomed by Moscow. Special counsel Robert Mueller did not establish a conspiracy between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians. But the Moscow Project, an initiative of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, found the Trump campaign and transition team had at least 272 known contacts and at least 38 known meetings with Russia-linked operatives.

Shvets, who has carried out his own investigation, said: “For me, the Mueller report was a big disappointment because people expected that it will be a thorough investigation of all ties between Trump and Moscow, when in fact what we got was an investigation of just crime-related issues. There were no counterintelligence aspects of the relationship between Trump and Moscow.”

He added: “This is what basically we decided to correct. So I did my investigation and then got together with Craig. So we believe that his book will pick up where Mueller left off.”

It's a lot of work for minor gains. So Russia will have Syria as a future ally. Worth noting, Russia annexed the Crimea on Obama's watch and he gave about as little pushback as the Donald in Syria. Was he a KGB agent? Hardly.

Of course the KGB will try to butter up everybody powerful they come into contact with. That doesn't mean anything in the long run. This article is not remarkable in any way and doesn't throw much dirt on Trump.

 

[Patooka]

Did you mean INdependent?
Derec is not wrong there, If Trump was a reliable Russian puppet he would have stopped illegal war on Russian gas in Europe.

Yes. That was a fuckup on my part. Having said that, the words reliable and Trump should never be used except in a cynical context.

 

[barbos]

Did you mean INdependent?
Derec is not wrong there, If Trump was a reliable Russian puppet he would have stopped illegal war on Russian gas in Europe.

Yes. That was a fuckup on my part. Having said that, the words reliable and Trump should never be used except in a cynical context.

Well, I think even KGB back then knew that Trump was a complete POS sociopath they could not rely on.

 

[Elixir]

Did you mean INdependent?
Derec is not wrong there, If Trump was a reliable Russian puppet he would have stopped illegal war on Russian gas in Europe.

Yes. That was a fuckup on my part. Having said that, the words reliable and Trump should never be used except in a cynical context.

Well, I think even KGB back then knew that Trump was a complete POS sociopath they could not rely on.

I think Trump was a "reliable" puppet (he was reliably obeisant, compliant etc.), but not a very effective one for most purposes due to his incompetence. His coup attempt would have succeeded if he hadn't been such a wuss about it, and had gone all in helping to organize and direct the attack on the Capitol and the Congress in real time. If he had led the charge, they could have hung Pence, shot Pelosi and The Squad, and intimidated the surviving members of Congress into surrendering.
But he's a coward, so he watched it on TV instead of risking any of the six hairs on his head.

 

[jab]

The KGB ‘played the game as if they were immensely impressed by his personality’, Yuri Shvets, a key source for a new book, tells the Guardian

It's a lot of work for minor gains. So Russia will have Syria as a future ally. Worth noting, Russia annexed the Crimea on Obama's watch and he gave about as little pushback as the Donald in Syria. Was he a KGB agent? Hardly.

Of course the KGB will try to butter up everybody powerful they come into contact with. That doesn't mean anything in the long run. This article is not remarkable in any way and doesn't throw much dirt on Trump.

They have seriously destablized American democracy and now can hold it up to the world as a "failed" system. They avoided pushback from Hillary Clinton from all sorts of things, including bounties on heads of American military. Oh, and Rump tried hard to rehab Russia's position in the world and to withdraw American military presence in the Middle East.

 

[repoman]

The KGB ‘played the game as if they were immensely impressed by his personality’, Yuri Shvets, a key source for a new book, tells the Guardian

It's a lot of work for minor gains. So Russia will have Syria as a future ally. Worth noting, Russia annexed the Crimea on Obama's watch and he gave about as little pushback as the Donald in Syria. Was he a KGB agent? Hardly.

Of course the KGB will try to butter up everybody powerful they come into contact with. That doesn't mean anything in the long run. This article is not remarkable in any way and doesn't throw much dirt on Trump.

They have seriously destablized American democracy and now can hold it up to the world as a "failed" system. They avoided pushback from Hillary Clinton from all sorts of things, including bounties on heads of American military. Oh, and Rump tried hard to rehab Russia's position in the world and to withdraw American military presence in the Middle East.

Have you always been in favor of a heavy US presence in the Middle East?

 

[jab]

no--nor has Russia. What's yer point?

 

[barbos]

The KGB ‘played the game as if they were immensely impressed by his personality’, Yuri Shvets, a key source for a new book, tells the Guardian

It's a lot of work for minor gains. So Russia will have Syria as a future ally. Worth noting, Russia annexed the Crimea on Obama's watch and he gave about as little pushback as the Donald in Syria. Was he a KGB agent? Hardly.

Of course the KGB will try to butter up everybody powerful they come into contact with. That doesn't mean anything in the long run. This article is not remarkable in any way and doesn't throw much dirt on Trump.

They have seriously destablized American democracy and now can hold it up to the world as a "failed" system. They avoided pushback from Hillary Clinton from all sorts of things, including bounties on heads of American military. Oh, and Rump tried hard to rehab Russia's position in the world and to withdraw American military presence in the Middle East.

You do realize that bounty story has no evidence behind it whatsoever?
Russian "support" of Trump and Sanders candidacy was just ordinary signaling to neocons like Clinton, nothing more than that. Had Clinton promised better relation with Russia russians would not have supported opposition.
But elections analysts/bean counters calculated that it was favorable for democrats to trash Russia, so they did. Nothing personal, just business.

 

[laughing dog]

What doesn't fit is Trump championing domestic US oil and gas production. If he was really Russian puppet, you'd think he'd shut down pipelines and ban fracking. You know, what Democrats are trying to do.

Trump was first and foremost a MAGA guy not an alleged Russian puppet. Trump was a useful dupe of the Russians but that does not mean he was a puppet.

 

[laughing dog]

They have seriously destablized American democracy and now can hold it up to the world as a "failed" system. They avoided pushback from Hillary Clinton from all sorts of things, including bounties on heads of American military. Oh, and Rump tried hard to rehab Russia's position in the world and to withdraw American military presence in the Middle East.

You do realize that bounty story has no evidence behind it whatsoever?

Not according to the NYT (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/30/us/politics/russian-bounties-afghanistan-intelligence.html

Suspicions of Russian Bounties Were Bolstered by Data on Financial Transfers

Analysts have used other evidence to conclude that the transfers were most likely part of an effort to offer payments to Taliban-linked militants to kill American and coalition troops in Afghanistan.

 

[DrZoidberg]

The KGB ‘played the game as if they were immensely impressed by his personality’, Yuri Shvets, a key source for a new book, tells the Guardian

It's a lot of work for minor gains. So Russia will have Syria as a future ally. Worth noting, Russia annexed the Crimea on Obama's watch and he gave about as little pushback as the Donald in Syria. Was he a KGB agent? Hardly.

Of course the KGB will try to butter up everybody powerful they come into contact with. That doesn't mean anything in the long run. This article is not remarkable in any way and doesn't throw much dirt on Trump.

They have seriously destablized American democracy and now can hold it up to the world as a "failed" system. They avoided pushback from Hillary Clinton from all sorts of things, including bounties on heads of American military. Oh, and Rump tried hard to rehab Russia's position in the world and to withdraw American military presence in the Middle East.

Trump had no part in destabalising American democracy. Facebook did that. Russia figured out how to use Facebook to the benefit first. But they can only do that once. Very quickly culture will adapt and become resilient. Russia won't be able to do it again.

It brings to mind the rise of Nazism and their clever use of radio. The other political parties saw radio as something uncultured for the riff raff and it was beneath them to use it for campaigning. The Nazis saw things differently and exploited it to their best ability. That only worked once. In the rest of the world all political parties copied Hitler's use of radio and it became the standard and accepted way of doing campaigning. The shame disappeared. The same will of course happen to political Facebook campaigning.

It also brings to mind how Obama was an early adopter of begging for money on-line in Kickstarter-like campaigns. Which gave him an edge in the 2008 election. But everybody does that now. So the Dems lost this edge in the next election.

And USA doesn't face uniquely serious problems for democracy, that any other country doesn't face. The real threat to democracy is the fact that production is increasingly robotocised and high-tech. The uneducated are increasingly become un-employable. They're increasingly fighting over fewer and fewer jobs. The poor are feeling the squeeze and becoming angry, desperate and are losing hope for the future. Which makes them vote for people like Trump. But this is an international problem. USA isn't in any way unique. In Sweden the second bigger political party is today the Sweden Democrats, who are just straight up racists. It is a party founded by Swedish Nazi SS volunteers returning after WW2. It's the same everywhere. Putin isn't guilty of creating this situation.

And it doesn't help that the urban well educated middle-class is ignoring these poor people and don't see the problem. Since the wheels of the economy is spinning faster than ever before they think everything is fine, and care more about gender pronouns and racist statues than the exploding opioid abuse in ghettos. Putin is innocent of even this.

 

[barbos]

DrZoidberg, You assume KGB has not cultivated Mark Zuckerberg

 

[DrZoidberg]

DrZoidberg, You assume KGB has not cultivated Mark Zuckerberg

They cultivate everybody. That's their job. Same with CIA. This is not news and nothing that should shock anybody.

 

[jab]

They have seriously destablized American democracy and now can hold it up to the world as a "failed" system. They avoided pushback from Hillary Clinton from all sorts of things, including bounties on heads of American military. Oh, and Rump tried hard to rehab Russia's position in the world and to withdraw American military presence in the Middle East.

Trump had no part in destabalising American democracy. Facebook did that. Russia figured out how to use Facebook to the benefit first. But they can only do that once. Very quickly culture will adapt and become resilient. Russia won't be able to do it again.

It brings to mind the rise of Nazism and their clever use of radio. The other political parties saw radio as something uncultured for the riff raff and it was beneath them to use it for campaigning. The Nazis saw things differently and exploited it to their best ability. That only worked once. In the rest of the world all political parties copied Hitler's use of radio and it became the standard and accepted way of doing campaigning. The shame disappeared. The same will of course happen to political Facebook campaigning.

It also brings to mind how Obama was an early adopter of begging for money on-line in Kickstarter-like campaigns. Which gave him an edge in the 2008 election. But everybody does that now. So the Dems lost this edge in the next election.

And USA doesn't face uniquely serious problems for democracy, that any other country doesn't face. The real threat to democracy is the fact that production is increasingly robotocised and high-tech. The uneducated are increasingly become un-employable. They're increasingly fighting over fewer and fewer jobs. The poor are feeling the squeeze and becoming angry, desperate and are losing hope for the future. Which makes them vote for people like Trump. But this is an international problem. USA isn't in any way unique. In Sweden the second bigger political party is today the Sweden Democrats, who are just straight up racists. It is a party founded by Swedish Nazi SS volunteers returning after WW2. It's the same everywhere. Putin isn't guilty of creating this situation.

And it doesn't help that the urban well educated middle-class is ignoring these poor people and don't see the problem. Since the wheels of the economy is spinning faster than ever before they think everything is fine, and care more about gender pronouns and racist statues than the exploding opioid abuse in ghettos. Putin is innocent of even this.

Facebook did it--and of course Trump was never never never on Facebook. Nor was he on Twitter.