Trump's decades-long ties to Russian mafia

The following is from a conversation between reporter Sean Illing of Vox.com and journalist-author Craig Unger, whose recent book House of Trump, House of Putin explores the Trump-Russia connection going back decades.

Illing begins his article by calling Unger's new book "an impressive attempt to gather up all the evidence we have of Trump's numerous connections to the Russian mafia and government and lay it all out in a clear, comprehensive narrative. . . .   One of hardest things to accept about the Trump-Russia saga is how transparent it is.   So much of the evidence is hiding in plain sight, and somehow that has made it harder to accept.

"But make no mistake.   Trump's ties to shady Russian figures stretch back decades, and Unger diligently pieces them together in one place.   Although Unger doesn't provide any evidence that Trump gave the Russians anything concrete in return for their help, the case he makes for how much potential leverage the Russians had over Trump is pretty damning.

"I spoke to Unger about what he learned, how he learned it, and why he thinks Russia's use of Trump constitutes 'one of the greatest intelligence operations in history,' as he puts it in the book."

What follows is a lightly edited transcript of the conversation.  It is very long and not full of smoking guns.   But, if you want to understand how the Russians work to infiltrate our business-government system, it's worth reading.

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Sean Illinga:  "I'll ask you straightforwardly:  Do you believe the Russian government successfully targeted and compromised Trump?"

Craig Unger:   "Yes, absolutely.   But let's go back in time, because I think all of this began as a money-laundering operation with the Russian mafia.   It's well know that Trump likes doing business with gangsters, in part because they pay top dollar and loan money when traditional banks won't, so it was a win-win for both sides.

"The key point I want to get across in the book is that the Russian mafia is different than the American mafia, and I think a lot of Americans don't understand this.  In Russia, the mafia is essentially a state actor.   When I interviewed Gen. Oleg Kalugin, who is a former head of counterintelligence in the KGB and had been Vladimir Putin's boss at one point, I asked him about the mafia.  He said, 'Oh, it's part of the KGB.  It's part of the Russian government.'

"And that's essential to the whole premise of the book.   Trump was working with the Russian mafia for more than 30 years.  He was profiting from them.   They rescued him.   They bailed him out.   The took him from being $4 billion in debt to becoming a multibillionaire again, and they fueled his political ambitions, starting more than 30 years ago.   This means Trump was in bed with the Kremlin as well, whether he knew it or not."

Illing:  "Let's dig into this a bit.   You claimed . . . that the Russian mafia has been using Trump-branded real estate to launder money for over three decades.   What evidence do you have to back this up?"

Unger:  "You really have to go back 20 or 30 years to understand who the key Russians were, what role they played in the Russian mafia, and how they related to Trump.

"The very first episode that's been documented, to my knowledge, was in 1984 when David Bogatin -- who is a Russian mobster, convicted gasoline bootlegger, and close ally of Semion Mogilevich, a major Russian mob boss -- met with Trump in Trump Tower right after it opened.  Bogatin came to that meeting prepared to spend $5 million, which is equivalent to about $15 million today.

"Bogatin bought five condos from Trump at that meeting.  Those condos were later seized by the government, which claimed they were used to launder money for the Russian mob."

Illing:  "Okay, to play devil's advocate, can we say definitively that Trump knew who he was dealing with or what he was getting into?   Or did he just naively have his hands out?"

Unger: " Look, I can't prove what was in Trump's head, or what he knew or when he knew it.  But I documented something like 1,300 transactions of this kind with Russian mobsters.   By that, I mean real estate transactions that were all cash purchases made by anonymous shell companies that were quite obviously fronts for criminal money-laundering operations.  And this represents a huge chunk of Trump's real estate activity in the United States, so it's quite hard to argue that he had no idea what was going on."

Illing:  "How did Trump first become a 'person of interest' to the Russians?   Why would they target this fringe celebrity character 30 years ago, long before his ascent to the presidency was even fathomable?"

Unger:  "First of all, the Russians have always wanted to align with certain powerful businessmen, and they have a history of going back to the American businessman Armand Hammer in the 1970s and '80s, whom the Russians allegedly turned into an asset.  But it's not as though they zeroed in on Trump 30 years ago, and only Trump.

"Russia had hundreds of agents and assets in the US, and Gen. Kalugin, the former head of the KGB operations in Russia, told me that America was a paradise for Russian spies and that they had recruited roughly 300 assets and agents in the United States, and Trump was one of them.

"But it's not just the money laundering.   There was a parallel effort to seduce Trump.   Sometime in 1986, Russia's ambassador to the US, Yuri Dubinin, visited Trump in Trump Tower and told him that his building was 'fabulous' and that he should build one in Moscow, and they arranged for a trip to Moscow.

"According to Gen. Kalugin, that was likely the first step in the process to recruit and compromise Trump.  Kalugin told me he would not be surprised in the least if the Russians have compromising materials on Trump's activities in Moscow, something they were quite good at acquiring."

Illing  "But we still don't have any evidence that such compromising material exists, right?  Did you talk to anyone who has seen it or is sure of its existence.?

Unger:  "No, and I won't say that I'm 100 percent certain that it exists.   I spoke to several people who assured me that it exists, but I could not corroborate those accounts.  I have no idea if they're right or if any tapes will ever emerge.   But in a way, all of that is beside the point.   The real evidence of compromise is already out there, and we're talking about it now."

Illing:  "Speaking of which, tell me about Bayrock Group, a real estate company tht operated in Trump Tower."

Unger:  "Bayrock was a real estate development company located on the 24th floor of Trump Tower.  The founder was a guy named Tevfik Arif and the managing director was Felix Sater, a man with numerous ties to Russian oligarchs and Russian intelligence.  Bayrock proceeded to partner with Trump in 2005 and helped him develop a new business model, which he desperately needed.

"Recall that Trump was $4 billion in debt after his Atlanta City casinos went bankrupt.   He couldn't get a bank loan from anywhere in the West, and Bayrock comes in and Trump partners with other people as well, but Bayrock essentially has a new model that says, 'You don't have to raise any money.  You don't have to do any of the real estate development.  We just want to franchise your name, we'll give you 18 to 25 percent royalties, and we'll effectively do all the work.  And if the Trump Organization gets involved in the management of these buildings, they'll get extra fees for that.

"It was a fabulously lucrative deal for Trump, and the Bayrock associates -- Sater in particular -- were operating out of Trump Tower and constantly flying back and forth to Russia.   And in the book, I detail several channels through which various people at Bayrock have close ties to the Kremlin, and I talk about Sater flying back and forth to Moscow even as late as 2016, hoping to build the Trump Tower there.''

Illing:  "I don't think you say this explicitly in the book, so I'll ask you now:   Is there ny evidence at all that Trump actively sought out Russian money by making clear that his businesses could be used to hide ill-gotten gains?"

Unger:  "That's a difficult question;  I'm not sure he made this crystal clear, and I don't know that he had to.   I mean, just look at how these transactions take place.   Trump doesn't have to say anything.   Trump's organization was desperate for money, they knew the caliber of people they were dealing with, and they were either okay with this or deliberately chose not to do their due diligence.

"You might say this is something other real estate developers do as well, and maybe that's true, but those developers don't become president of the United States."

Illing:  "A few minutes ago you referred to Trump as a Russian 'asset,' and this circles back to the question of whether Trump was actively working with the Russians or whether he may have just been a useful idiot who didn't know he's been potentially compromised.

Unger:  "In the book, I use this term 'asset,' and the difference between an 'asset' and an 'agent' to me is whether or not the person is knowledgeable.  And from my point oif view, it's impossible to prove what was in Trump's mind.  I can't prove that he was actually knowledgeable.  At the same time, if he did this kind of money laundering 1,300 times, it's reasonable to surmise that he was aware of what was happening."

Illing:   "Part of what's so puzzling to me is trying to figure out how money and ideology intersect in all this, if they intersect at all.   In other words, Trump seems much more motivated by money than political ideology, but I keep wondering if his drift into politics was in any way influenced by his financial entanglements."

Unger:  "It's an important question, and it's not clear what the answer is."

     [There is then some back and forth on this question that is inconclusive.  ThenUnger continues:]

"What we do know is that Trump returns from that first trip to Moscow and he takes out full-page ads in the Washington Post, New York Times, and Boston Globe -- and it's fascinating because the ads essentially pushed the same foreign policies that he's pushing today.   They were anti-European, anti-NATO -- basically they were aligned with the Soviet plan to destroy the Western alliance.   And Trump takes out full-page ads in major American newspapers affirming this view.  Maybe that's just what he always believed.   In any case, it's worth noting."

Illing:  "I'm curious about how you collected all of this evidence.  did you go to Russia?   Did you interview most -- or any -- of the people directly involved in these transactions?  Did you compile this information yourself or rely on other sources.?"

Unger:  "It's stunning what you can find out through public sources.   I did not go to Russia.  I had a source who tipped me off to the name Demion Mogilevich, one of the highest-ranking bosses in the Russian mob, whom I had never heard of before, and that led me to a database online that revealed ownership of homes in the state of New York -- purchases and sales.

"And so I went to Trump properties, and every time I found a Russian name, I would research it, and it was stunning.   I'd often take their name, put in Moghilevich in Google, and it was like hitting the jackpot on a slot machine, time after time after time.

"There were countless people who were indicted for money laundering, or they were gunned down on Sixth Avenue, and there was just a huge percentage who seemed to have criminal histories, and that sort of got me started.   I also had a wonderful research assistant who speaks Russian and she grew up in Brooklyn, and she was a terrific asset and helped break the language barrier for me."

Illing:  "The subtitle of your book is "The Untold Story of Donald Trump and the Russian Mafia," but it's not clear to me which part of the story is new.   What did you uncover here that wasn't previously known?"

Unger:   "The insights I gained from Gen. Kalugin are completely new, but honestly, a lot of what I did was simply compile all this disparate stuff that was out there but had never been pieced together neatly in one place.

"For example, a lot of the Russian-connected stories were published in the crime pages of the New York Post or the New York Daily News, but they were always just straight-ahead crime stories you could see in a tabloid.   There was no sense that this had any geopolitical implications or forces behind it.

"So part of what I tried to do was assemble all of this in a coherent narrative that laid it all out in a comprehensive way.   We have all these seemingly random crime episodes that appeared in tabloids again and again, but it turns out that much of it was connected to a much larger operation, one that ended up ensnaring Trump and the people around him."

Illing:  "Trump is obviously the focus here, but as you mentioned earlier, he's not the only asset targeted by the Russians.   What do we know about Russian efforts to compromise other prominent American figures?"

Unger:   "One of the things I hope this book shows is that there's a new kind of war going on.   It's a global war without bombs or bullets or boots on the ground, and the weapons are information and data and social media and financial transactions.  The Russian mafia is one weapon in this global conflict, and they've been fighting it smartly since the fall of the Soviet Union.

"The Russians start businesses and front companies and commodities firms that appear legitimate but essentially work to advance the interests of the Russian state.   They're very good at getting people entangled financially and then using that leverage to get what they want.   This appears to be what they've done with Trump, and now he's president of the United States."

Illing:  "Maybe the most troubling part of all this is that the Russians simply exploited our own corrupt system.  They studied America's pay-for-play culture, found its weak spots, and very carefully manipulated it.   As long as our system remains unchanged, we should expect this kind of exploitation."

Unger:   "Absolutely.  There's an old saying that sometimes the worst part of the scandal is what's legal, and the Russians, to their credit, studied our system and campaign finance laws, and they exploited it masterfully.   They've used pharmaceutical companies and energy companies and financial institutions to pour money into our politics, and we really have no idea the extent of their influence.

"One thing Vladimir Putin got right was his insistence that American democracy is also corrupt, and I think he's showing us exactly how corrupt it is.   Trump is just the most glaring example, but surely there are others, most of which we know nothing about."

Illing:  "The case you lay out is pretty damning, but I'm left wondering if any of it really matters.   As you said, most of this stuff is hiding in plain sight, and although the special counsel investigation is underway, there's a subset of the country for whom no amount of evidence is enough to persuade them that something wrong has occurred, and Congress has demonstrated its uselessness pretty clearly.   So how do you see all this playing out?"

Unger:  "It's hard to say.   I think we're on a collision course that will either end in impeachment or with Trump reverting to unconstitutional measures to stay in office.  That is simply my opinion.   However this plays out, it's clear that we're in uncharted territory here, and it's hard to see how this ends well for anyone."

-===============-

. . . and then there were no more generals.

President Trump used to brag about "my generals."    That always raised a huff in me, because it conjured in my mind a little boy playing with his toy soldiers and having fantasies of commandeering armies to act on his whims.

Unfortunately, the 72 years old Donald, who actually commands the combined military forces of the United States, is actuating that fantasy refusing to take the advice of his last remaining general about pulling our troops out of Syria, which has led to the resignation letter from Gen. Marris as Secretary of Defense.

First, there were four:   Gen. Michael Flynn as first National Security Adviser, whom President Obama had warned Trump not to hire.  Flynn proved Obama right and actually had to leave because of lying to the FBI.  We subsequently learned that this was not Flynn's only criminal activity. 

So Flynn did not quite fit the bill of what we, the public, imagined was the stability and honor that four generals brought to the White House and to Trump's administration.

Then there was Gen. H.R. McMaster, who replaced Flynn as NSA.   But he and Trump were so far apart in every way that he didn't last long.    They were on totally different wave lengths intellectually, morally, even as two men relating in a work place.  So Trump replaced him with John Bolton -- someone about as different from the brainy McMaster as imaginable.

That left Gen. Michael Kelly who moved over from his first administration job as Secretary of Homeland Security into the White House as Trump's Chief of Staff.    We all thought that, if anyone could impose some discipline on the White House Staff and guide President Trump toward listening to experts' advice, it just might be Kelly.

Didn't work.   Reports of shouting matches in the Oval Office, then reports in recent weeks that Trump and Kelly were barely speaking to each other.   Kelly announced that he would be leaving at the end of the year.    But, guess what?    Trump hasn't found anyone who wants to take the job.    So Kelly is still there with no definite departure date.

Then yesterday, after failing to be able to stop Trump from abruptly announcing the immediate departure of all our troops out of Syria, Sec. of Defense Gen. James Mattis handed in his letter of resignation.   Vox,com refers to Mattis as "the last adult in the room" -- a reference to the reassurance we gave ourselves that Trump did have some "adults" in his administration that we hoped would keep things from going off the rails.

Mattis' letter has also been made public.   Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, speaking along with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, reads some excerpts and recommended that everyone read it.

Mattis is respectful but also firm and moderately candid about the differences in policy between him and Mr. Trump.   But he is also candid about some of the things he has disagreed with Trump on.    Much of it has to do with relations with our allied nations and Mattis' stressing how important maintaining these alliances is.   We can imagine how much he and Trump must have clashed on this subject.

In the Q and A part of the press conference, Pelosi -- in her blunt but gentle way -- got off the best line of the day.    Referring to the people who have left the Trump administration, said that those who were great leaders "left in despair;  others left in disgrace."

Ralph

Follow-up on Mulvaney as Chief of Staff

An article by Nancy Cook in Politico says that Mick Mulvaney will be a very different type Chief of Staff than Gen. John Kelly.    Much less the disciplinarian bringing order and decorum, Mulvaney intends to "let Trump be Trump."

That doesn't mean that he will never try to steer him away from bad decisions;  but he won't try to control, say, the people who have access to him and won't be strict about which staff attend which meetings.  In other words, it seems, he won't be fighting with Jared and Ivanka.

Why Mulvaney is bad choice as Chief of Staff

President Trump has finally settled on Mick Mulvaney as his replacement for John Kelly as White House Chief of Staff.    It's a bad choice.

On paper, if you are a conservative Republican, you might think Mulvaney would be a good choice.    He served six years in the House of Representatives from  South Carolina.   Trump picked him to head up the White House Office of Management and Budget.     He then added on a second job, running -- with intent to dismantle -- the Elizabeth Warren-created Consumer  Financial Protection Bureau.

Now Trump, having been scorned by his first choice for Chief of Staff (CoS) by golden boy Nick Ayers, and having been told by several others, including Steve Mnuchin and Chris Christie that they weren't interested -- he turned to Mulvaney, who has accepted the job as Acting Chief of Staff.    "Acting" was Mulvaney's condition, a sort of conditional condition, it seems.   That presumably means that, if things work out, he'll stay;  but that the path is cleared for him to leave if they can find someone else.

According to inside reports, that is more or less the same condition that Ayers asked for, and it was the reason given for his appointment not being made.   So, on the surface, it would appear that something has changed -- like, perhaps, not being able to find anyone acceptable who would accept the job unconditionally.

Aside from the bad idea of having an Acting Chief of Staff, when the place needs stabilizing, here's why Mulvaney is a bad choice anyway.    According to Chris Whipple, author of a book about White House Chiefs of Staff and the presidents they worked for, the CoS needs, among other multiple talents and skills, to be able to guide the president and to stand up to him to prevent him from making bad decisions.   He (or she) needs to be able to say No to the president in a way that he or she will accept.

As Whipple points out, Mulvaney has already proved he can't or won't do that.    He is an ultra-conservative, having come to Congress as a part of the Tea Party crowd, then became part of what formed as the Freedom Caucus.    That would indicate that he is pro-small government and definitely anti-deficit spending.   As a member of congress, he would have voted against the tax cut for the wealthy that created such a huge deficit in the budget and increased the national debt so hugely.   But, as Trump's budget director, Mulvaney supported the tax cut.

So, it appears that Mulvaney has certain principles -- but, once in Trump's orbit (as his budget director) he turned sycophant and went along with a direct violation of his anti-deficit principle.

That is what makes him not a good choice for Chief of Staff.    Did he even try to talk the president out of such a big deficit hole?    Did he buy the myth Republicans have been peddling for decades, that tax cuts pay for themselves?    Will he even try to tell the president he's being played a fool by Kim Jong Un?    That everyone knows that he (Trump) is Putin's asset?     That Mueller's investigation is not a hoax but rather a mortal danger to his presidency?

I think not.    The only other possibility is that he tried very hard to talk Trump out of the tax cut . . . but failed . . . and neither is good news.

Ralph

Trump at the center of multiple criminal investigations; guilty of some himself.

Remember when President Richard Nixon's White House Counsel, John Dean, told him that there was a cancer growing on his presidency.   Experts agree that the "cancer" Dean was referring to is small compared to what is being revealed of the crimes that Donald Trump is at the center of.

Look at the list of six Trump entities that are currently under federal criminal investigation:

   1.  The Trump Presidential Campaign.   Its one-time chief strategist has been convicted and awaits sentencing.
   2.  The Trump Transition Team.  Its deputy chair pled guilty.
   3.  The Trump Inauguration Committee for possible illegal sources of donations and lack of accountability of spending.   Probable scandal has already caused the chair to resign his position with the RNC.
   4.  The Trump Administration.   Multiple resignations under taint of scandal.
   5.  The Trump Organization.     Lots of questions lurking there about illegal financial matters.
   6.  The Trump Foundation.   Charges pending against Eric and Ivanka on this.

In addition, Trump University was sued by students for fraud, paid a $25 million fine, and shut down.    Trump has also been sued numerous times in connection with his various businesses.    And he is highly suspect now of having engaged in money laundering, bank fraud, and wire fraud involving foreign individuals and, maybe, foreign governments.

His former lawyer (Michael Cohen) has been sentenced to three years in prison.   One campaign strategist (Paul Manafort) has been convicted of crimes and awaits sentencing, as does his first National Security Adviser (Flynn).   The deputy chair of his Transition Team (Gates) pled guilty and made a cooperation plea bargain.  Two of his minor campaign advisers have already served short prison terms.   There have been dozens of staffers and associates that have been interviewed by the FBI or the Mueller team.  Others are probable targets of parts of the investigation (Roger Stone, maybe Jared Kushner, Don Jr., and others).   More indictments undoubtedly will be forthcoming.

And Trump himself, arguably, has committed a crime in ordering his lawyer to make hush money payments to women and covering it up -- felonies as campaign finance violations.    Trump and his lawyer Giuliani have argued at various times:   (1)  that he knew nothing about the payments;   (2)  that he did know, but he did not direct Cohen to make the payments;  (3)  that they were perfectly legal because they had nothing to do with the campaign (not true);  (4)  that even if they were illegal, they were not major crimes that justify impeachment.

But the fact is that Michael Cohen has a tape recording of their discussing one of the payments and how to conceal it;  and he has told prosecutors that Trump directed him to make the payments.   And the fact is that the head of the parent organization of the National Enquirer is cooperating with the investigators about payment to kill the story of another Trump affair -- and there is evidence of Trump being in the room when the details were being discussed.

So there is good evidence to charge Trump with two felonies, just on the campaign finance violations alone.   But that will be small potatoes when Mueller reveals evidence he has of money laundering and financial fraud involving foreign individuals, if not also foreign governments.

So how do we get rid of such a crime-infested president and the corruption he has brought and fostered in his administration?    In addition to his own crimes, three cabinet members have had to resign for abuse of power and financial scandals;  another (Wilbur Ross) is said to be deeply into international money laundering schemes.

Just be patient.   It's all coming out . . . and at an accelerating speed.    I now seriously doubt that Trump will finish his first term.

My hope is for a plea deal, in which they offer him immunity from prosecution in exchange for his resignation.   Yes, part of me wants to see him do some jail time.   But, like President Gerald Ford's reasoning in pardoning Nixon, this country needs to begin to heal right now.    An impeachment fight and subsequent legal battles taking up years would keep us divided and breaking apart for years to come.

The immunity agreement could require that Trump admit to crimes and not just sweep it under the rug.   But it's urgent that we get rid of this cancer -- quickly and thoroughly.

Ralph