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

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TexasScientist
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The perfect target': Russia cultivated Trump as asset for 40 years ex-KGB spy

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/29/trump-russia-asset-claims-former-kgb-spy-new-book

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.

Unger describes how 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.

Three years later Trump opened his first big property development, the Grand Hyatt New York hotel near Grand Central station. Trump bought 200 television sets for the hotel from Semyon Kislin, a Soviet migr who co-owned Joy-Lud electronics on Fifth Avenue

According to Shvets, Joy-Lud was controlled by the KGB and Kislin worked as a so-called "spotter agent" who identified Trump, a young businessman on the rise, as a potential asset. Kislin denies that he had a relationship 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 United States 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."

Soon after he returned to the US, Trump began exploring a run for the Republican nomination for president and even held a campaign rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. On 1 September, he took out a full-page advertin the New York Times, Washington Post and Boston Globe headlined: "There's nothing wrong with America's Foreign Defense Policy that a little backbone can't cure."

The ad offered some highly unorthodox opinions in Ronald Reagan's cold war America, accusing ally Japan of exploiting the US and expressing scepticism about US participation in Nato. It took the form of an open letter to the American people "on why America should stop paying to defend countries that can afford to defend themselves".

The bizarre intervention was cause for astonishment and jubilation in Russia. A few days later Shvets, who had returned home by now, was at the headquarters of the KGB's first chief directorate in Yasenevo when he received a cable celebrating the ad as a successful "active measure" executed by a new KGB asset.
"It was unprecedented. I am pretty well familiar with KGB active measures starting in the early 70s and 80s, and then afterwards with Russia active measures, and I haven't heard anything like that or anything similar until Trump became the president of this country because it was just silly. It was hard to believe that somebody would publish it under his name and that it will impress real serious people in the west but it did and, finally, this guy became the president."

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."

Unger, the author of seven books and a former contributing editor for Vanity Fair magazine, said of Trump: "He was an asset. It was not this grand, ingenious plan that we're going to develop this guy and 40 years later he'll be president. At the time it started, which was around 1980, the Russians were trying to recruit like crazy and going after dozens and dozens of people."

"Trump was the perfect target in a lot of ways: his vanity, narcissism made him a natural target to recruit. He was cultivated over a 40-year period, right up through his election."


Mothra
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Trump is no longer president. Time to move on.

Don't worry. As a "Republican," you'll have plenty of things to complain about the next 4 years.
Limited IQ Redneck in PU
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This cant be true


Can it?
OsoCoreyell
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TexasScientist said:


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

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/29/trump-russia-asset-claims-former-kgb-spy-new-book

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.

Unger describes how 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.

Three years later Trump opened his first big property development, the Grand Hyatt New York hotel near Grand Central station. Trump bought 200 television sets for the hotel from Semyon Kislin, a Soviet migr who co-owned Joy-Lud electronics on Fifth Avenue

According to Shvets, Joy-Lud was controlled by the KGB and Kislin worked as a so-called "spotter agent" who identified Trump, a young businessman on the rise, as a potential asset. Kislin denies that he had a relationship 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 United States 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."

Soon after he returned to the US, Trump began exploring a run for the Republican nomination for president and even held a campaign rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. On 1 September, he took out a full-page advertin the New York Times, Washington Post and Boston Globe headlined: "There's nothing wrong with America's Foreign Defense Policy that a little backbone can't cure."

The ad offered some highly unorthodox opinions in Ronald Reagan's cold war America, accusing ally Japan of exploiting the US and expressing scepticism about US participation in Nato. It took the form of an open letter to the American people "on why America should stop paying to defend countries that can afford to defend themselves".

The bizarre intervention was cause for astonishment and jubilation in Russia. A few days later Shvets, who had returned home by now, was at the headquarters of the KGB's first chief directorate in Yasenevo when he received a cable celebrating the ad as a successful "active measure" executed by a new KGB asset.
"It was unprecedented. I am pretty well familiar with KGB active measures starting in the early 70s and 80s, and then afterwards with Russia active measures, and I haven't heard anything like that or anything similar until Trump became the president of this country because it was just silly. It was hard to believe that somebody would publish it under his name and that it will impress real serious people in the west but it did and, finally, this guy became the president."

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."

Unger, the author of seven books and a former contributing editor for Vanity Fair magazine, said of Trump: "He was an asset. It was not this grand, ingenious plan that we're going to develop this guy and 40 years later he'll be president. At the time it started, which was around 1980, the Russians were trying to recruit like crazy and going after dozens and dozens of people."

"Trump was the perfect target in a lot of ways: his vanity, narcissism made him a natural target to recruit. He was cultivated over a 40-year period, right up through his election."



Wow. And you criticize others for believing in nonsense conspiracy theories? Just pathetic.
Porteroso
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imo it's ridiculous. Trump is nowhere near smart enough to pull it off. Russia has a strong interest though, in destabilizing America. And I'm not sure if believe a Russian spy, am I crazy?
STxBear81
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Part of Russia intelligence is making you believe they are when they are not
Oldbear83
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Get help, son.
That which does not kill me, will try again and get nastier
Bearitto
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Mr. Bearitto was banned by the cowardly site owners because he stated that U.S. battleships should not be named after weak victims like Emmett Till, like Robby suggested. Apparently the site owners want a ship named in their honor some day. ;)
ATL Bear
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And people wonder what being manipulated by Russian disinformation looks like.
Canada2017
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' cingue ' has finally revealed another of her socks .
Mothra
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Limited IQ Redneck in PU said:

This cant be true


Can it?
Well, let's not pretend it doesn't fit your narrative. With your severe case of TDS, you swallow this kind of crap down like gin at a sorority party.
Whiskey Pete
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TexasScientist said:


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

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/29/trump-russia-asset-claims-former-kgb-spy-new-book

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.

Unger describes how 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.

Three years later Trump opened his first big property development, the Grand Hyatt New York hotel near Grand Central station. Trump bought 200 television sets for the hotel from Semyon Kislin, a Soviet migr who co-owned Joy-Lud electronics on Fifth Avenue

According to Shvets, Joy-Lud was controlled by the KGB and Kislin worked as a so-called "spotter agent" who identified Trump, a young businessman on the rise, as a potential asset. Kislin denies that he had a relationship 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 United States 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."

Soon after he returned to the US, Trump began exploring a run for the Republican nomination for president and even held a campaign rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. On 1 September, he took out a full-page advertin the New York Times, Washington Post and Boston Globe headlined: "There's nothing wrong with America's Foreign Defense Policy that a little backbone can't cure."

The ad offered some highly unorthodox opinions in Ronald Reagan's cold war America, accusing ally Japan of exploiting the US and expressing scepticism about US participation in Nato. It took the form of an open letter to the American people "on why America should stop paying to defend countries that can afford to defend themselves".

The bizarre intervention was cause for astonishment and jubilation in Russia. A few days later Shvets, who had returned home by now, was at the headquarters of the KGB's first chief directorate in Yasenevo when he received a cable celebrating the ad as a successful "active measure" executed by a new KGB asset.
"It was unprecedented. I am pretty well familiar with KGB active measures starting in the early 70s and 80s, and then afterwards with Russia active measures, and I haven't heard anything like that or anything similar until Trump became the president of this country because it was just silly. It was hard to believe that somebody would publish it under his name and that it will impress real serious people in the west but it did and, finally, this guy became the president."

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."

Unger, the author of seven books and a former contributing editor for Vanity Fair magazine, said of Trump: "He was an asset. It was not this grand, ingenious plan that we're going to develop this guy and 40 years later he'll be president. At the time it started, which was around 1980, the Russians were trying to recruit like crazy and going after dozens and dozens of people."

"Trump was the perfect target in a lot of ways: his vanity, narcissism made him a natural target to recruit. He was cultivated over a 40-year period, right up through his election."



LOL

Seriously though, you need help. Your infatuation with Trump isn't healthy.
Jack Bauer
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Seven foreign governments donated to the Clinton foundation while Hillary Clinton was the Secretary of State but Russia, Russia, Russia...
Bearitto
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Mr. Bearitto was banned by the cowardly site owners because he stated that U.S. battleships should not be named after weak victims like Emmett Till, like Robby suggested. Apparently the site owners want a ship named in their honor some day. ;)
Cobretti
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Forest Bueller
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Oldbear83 said:

Get help, son.
Ditto.

Focus on Biden and his executive orders directed by his progressive handlers.
By the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved.
Jack Bauer
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HuMcK
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ATL Bear said:

And people wonder what being manipulated by Russian disinformation looks like.

It looks like the events of 1/6, and the ridiculous Q garbage that has grabbed the GOP by it's short and curlies. Seriously, Putin had to be thrilled to watch the news that day and see what only 4yrs of Trumpism brought to America. Another manifestation of it is the complete denial that it's happening, which seems to be your path of choice.

I don't know if the Russians cultivated Trump for 40yrs, but it should be beyond debate that they worked hard to help him win in 2016 with the DNC hacks and tried again in 2020 with the Hunter Biden stuff. The next logical step after that is to ask "why" Russia, a country that wants us to crash and burn, seems to back Republicans and (especially) Trump so strongly? If we're being honest, we kind of already know why, the answer is: the events of 1/6.
George Truett
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Limited IQ Redneck in PU said:

This cant be true


Can it?
I don't know if the OP is true, but Trump's deference to Putin was concerning. Was it just an admiration for a strong man dictator? Was it financial entanglements with Putin?

I'm hopeful that maybe the Biden Administration will be able to bring some of that to light, but I don't think it should be a priority. Let the state courts torture Trump.

I too want to move on from Trump, but McCarthy's trip to Mara Lago to kiss the ring suggests that we're not going to be able to anytime soon.
Bearitto
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Mr. Bearitto was banned by the cowardly site owners because he stated that U.S. battleships should not be named after weak victims like Emmett Till, like Robby suggested. Apparently the site owners want a ship named in their honor some day. ;)
Bearitto
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Mr. Bearitto was banned by the cowardly site owners because he stated that U.S. battleships should not be named after weak victims like Emmett Till, like Robby suggested. Apparently the site owners want a ship named in their honor some day. ;)
Bearitto
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Mr. Bearitto was banned by the cowardly site owners because he stated that U.S. battleships should not be named after weak victims like Emmett Till, like Robby suggested. Apparently the site owners want a ship named in their honor some day. ;)
Bearitto
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Mr. Bearitto was banned by the cowardly site owners because he stated that U.S. battleships should not be named after weak victims like Emmett Till, like Robby suggested. Apparently the site owners want a ship named in their honor some day. ;)
Bearitto
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Mr. Bearitto was banned by the cowardly site owners because he stated that U.S. battleships should not be named after weak victims like Emmett Till, like Robby suggested. Apparently the site owners want a ship named in their honor some day. ;)
ATL Bear
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HuMcK said:

ATL Bear said:

And people wonder what being manipulated by Russian disinformation looks like.

It looks like the events of 1/6, and the ridiculous Q garbage that has grabbed the GOP by it's short and curlies. Seriously, Putin had to be thrilled to watch the news that day and see what only 4yrs of Trumpism brought to America. Another manifestation of it is the complete denial that it's happening, which seems to be your path of choice.

I don't know if the Russians cultivated Trump for 40yrs, but it should be beyond debate that they worked hard to help him win in 2016 with the DNC hacks and tried again in 2020 with the Hunter Biden stuff. The next logical step after that is to ask "why" Russia, a country that wants us to crash and burn, seems to back Republicans and (especially) Trump so strongly? If we're being honest, we kind of already know why, the answer is: the events of 1/6.
And we have exhibit B. You've been one of the most easily manipulatable ones from the outset.
HuMcK
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ATL Bear said:

HuMcK said:

ATL Bear said:

And people wonder what being manipulated by Russian disinformation looks like.

It looks like the events of 1/6, and the ridiculous Q garbage that has grabbed the GOP by it's short and curlies. Seriously, Putin had to be thrilled to watch the news that day and see what only 4yrs of Trumpism brought to America. Another manifestation of it is the complete denial that it's happening, which seems to be your path of choice.

I don't know if the Russians cultivated Trump for 40yrs, but it should be beyond debate that they worked hard to help him win in 2016 with the DNC hacks and tried again in 2020 with the Hunter Biden stuff. The next logical step after that is to ask "why" Russia, a country that wants us to crash and burn, seems to back Republicans and (especially) Trump so strongly? If we're being honest, we kind of already know why, the answer is: the events of 1/6.
And we have exhibit B. You've been one of the most easily manipulatable ones from the outset.
Thanks for reinforcing my point above in bold.
ATL Bear
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HuMcK said:

ATL Bear said:

HuMcK said:

ATL Bear said:

And people wonder what being manipulated by Russian disinformation looks like.

It looks like the events of 1/6, and the ridiculous Q garbage that has grabbed the GOP by it's short and curlies. Seriously, Putin had to be thrilled to watch the news that day and see what only 4yrs of Trumpism brought to America. Another manifestation of it is the complete denial that it's happening, which seems to be your path of choice.

I don't know if the Russians cultivated Trump for 40yrs, but it should be beyond debate that they worked hard to help him win in 2016 with the DNC hacks and tried again in 2020 with the Hunter Biden stuff. The next logical step after that is to ask "why" Russia, a country that wants us to crash and burn, seems to back Republicans and (especially) Trump so strongly? If we're being honest, we kind of already know why, the answer is: the events of 1/6.
And we have exhibit B. You've been one of the most easily manipulatable ones from the outset.

So by pointing out that the original sewing of mistrust in our democracy was the belief that the duly elected President of the United States was/is a Russian asset, spending millions to investigate, continuing to propagate that the 2016 election was stolen due to Russians, that we pulled out of Syria due to Russians, that a sex trafficking conspiracy is Russians, that Trump incited a riot because of Russians, etc., ALL of that is somehow denying that people have been influenced by Russian disinformation??? You're under the spell, you just can't see it.
TexasScientist
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OsoCoreyell said:

TexasScientist said:


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

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/29/trump-russia-asset-claims-former-kgb-spy-new-book

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.

Unger describes how 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.

Three years later Trump opened his first big property development, the Grand Hyatt New York hotel near Grand Central station. Trump bought 200 television sets for the hotel from Semyon Kislin, a Soviet migr who co-owned Joy-Lud electronics on Fifth Avenue

According to Shvets, Joy-Lud was controlled by the KGB and Kislin worked as a so-called "spotter agent" who identified Trump, a young businessman on the rise, as a potential asset. Kislin denies that he had a relationship 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 United States 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."

Soon after he returned to the US, Trump began exploring a run for the Republican nomination for president and even held a campaign rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. On 1 September, he took out a full-page advertin the New York Times, Washington Post and Boston Globe headlined: "There's nothing wrong with America's Foreign Defense Policy that a little backbone can't cure."

The ad offered some highly unorthodox opinions in Ronald Reagan's cold war America, accusing ally Japan of exploiting the US and expressing scepticism about US participation in Nato. It took the form of an open letter to the American people "on why America should stop paying to defend countries that can afford to defend themselves".

The bizarre intervention was cause for astonishment and jubilation in Russia. A few days later Shvets, who had returned home by now, was at the headquarters of the KGB's first chief directorate in Yasenevo when he received a cable celebrating the ad as a successful "active measure" executed by a new KGB asset.
"It was unprecedented. I am pretty well familiar with KGB active measures starting in the early 70s and 80s, and then afterwards with Russia active measures, and I haven't heard anything like that or anything similar until Trump became the president of this country because it was just silly. It was hard to believe that somebody would publish it under his name and that it will impress real serious people in the west but it did and, finally, this guy became the president."

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."

Unger, the author of seven books and a former contributing editor for Vanity Fair magazine, said of Trump: "He was an asset. It was not this grand, ingenious plan that we're going to develop this guy and 40 years later he'll be president. At the time it started, which was around 1980, the Russians were trying to recruit like crazy and going after dozens and dozens of people."

"Trump was the perfect target in a lot of ways: his vanity, narcissism made him a natural target to recruit. He was cultivated over a 40-year period, right up through his election."



Wow. And you criticize others for believing in nonsense conspiracy theories? Just pathetic.
I didn't say I believed it. I just thought it was interesting and something to consider. I do think Russia would try to exploit Trump to the greatest extent they could: "The feeling was that he was extremely vulnerable intellectually, and psychologically, and he was prone to flattery." The article is not implausible.
OsoCoreyell
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TexasScientist said:

OsoCoreyell said:

TexasScientist said:


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

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/29/trump-russia-asset-claims-former-kgb-spy-new-book

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.

Unger describes how 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.

Three years later Trump opened his first big property development, the Grand Hyatt New York hotel near Grand Central station. Trump bought 200 television sets for the hotel from Semyon Kislin, a Soviet migr who co-owned Joy-Lud electronics on Fifth Avenue

According to Shvets, Joy-Lud was controlled by the KGB and Kislin worked as a so-called "spotter agent" who identified Trump, a young businessman on the rise, as a potential asset. Kislin denies that he had a relationship 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 United States 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."

Soon after he returned to the US, Trump began exploring a run for the Republican nomination for president and even held a campaign rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. On 1 September, he took out a full-page advertin the New York Times, Washington Post and Boston Globe headlined: "There's nothing wrong with America's Foreign Defense Policy that a little backbone can't cure."

The ad offered some highly unorthodox opinions in Ronald Reagan's cold war America, accusing ally Japan of exploiting the US and expressing scepticism about US participation in Nato. It took the form of an open letter to the American people "on why America should stop paying to defend countries that can afford to defend themselves".

The bizarre intervention was cause for astonishment and jubilation in Russia. A few days later Shvets, who had returned home by now, was at the headquarters of the KGB's first chief directorate in Yasenevo when he received a cable celebrating the ad as a successful "active measure" executed by a new KGB asset.
"It was unprecedented. I am pretty well familiar with KGB active measures starting in the early 70s and 80s, and then afterwards with Russia active measures, and I haven't heard anything like that or anything similar until Trump became the president of this country because it was just silly. It was hard to believe that somebody would publish it under his name and that it will impress real serious people in the west but it did and, finally, this guy became the president."

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."

Unger, the author of seven books and a former contributing editor for Vanity Fair magazine, said of Trump: "He was an asset. It was not this grand, ingenious plan that we're going to develop this guy and 40 years later he'll be president. At the time it started, which was around 1980, the Russians were trying to recruit like crazy and going after dozens and dozens of people."

"Trump was the perfect target in a lot of ways: his vanity, narcissism made him a natural target to recruit. He was cultivated over a 40-year period, right up through his election."



Wow. And you criticize others for believing in nonsense conspiracy theories? Just pathetic.
I didn't say I believed it. I just thought it was interesting and something to consider. I do think Russia would try to exploit Trump to the greatest extent they could: "The feeling was that he was extremely vulnerable intellectually, and psychologically, and he was prone to flattery." The article is not implausible.
You've been quite vocal about people that say things just like that. You're a hack. No principles other than that your side must win. You're just the inverse of the Trumpers.
TexasScientist
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Porteroso said:

imo it's ridiculous. Trump is nowhere near smart enough to pull it off. Russia has a strong interest though, in destabilizing America. And I'm not sure if believe a Russian spy, am I crazy?
Quote:

Trump is nowhere near smart enough to pull it off.
Trump not being smart is a requisite. That's why it's not implausible.
contrario
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ATL Bear said:

HuMcK said:

ATL Bear said:

HuMcK said:

ATL Bear said:

And people wonder what being manipulated by Russian disinformation looks like.

It looks like the events of 1/6, and the ridiculous Q garbage that has grabbed the GOP by it's short and curlies. Seriously, Putin had to be thrilled to watch the news that day and see what only 4yrs of Trumpism brought to America. Another manifestation of it is the complete denial that it's happening, which seems to be your path of choice.

I don't know if the Russians cultivated Trump for 40yrs, but it should be beyond debate that they worked hard to help him win in 2016 with the DNC hacks and tried again in 2020 with the Hunter Biden stuff. The next logical step after that is to ask "why" Russia, a country that wants us to crash and burn, seems to back Republicans and (especially) Trump so strongly? If we're being honest, we kind of already know why, the answer is: the events of 1/6.
And we have exhibit B. You've been one of the most easily manipulatable ones from the outset.

So by pointing out that the original sewing of mistrust in our democracy was the belief that the duly elected President of the United States was/is a Russian asset, spending millions to investigate, continuing to propagate that the 2016 election was stolen due to Russians, that we pulled out of Syria due to Russians, that a sex trafficking conspiracy is Russians, that Trump incited a riot because of Russians, etc., ALL of that is somehow denying that people have been influenced by Russian disinformation??? You're under the spell, you just can't see it.
What HuMcK doesn't seem to recognize is that Russia doesn't care about any single party or any single candidate. They just want to create unrest in the US. And the best way they can do that is to target gullible Democrats and make it seem like he was a Russian asset. They will continue to do this to keep the unrest happening. I have no doubt that Russia helped Trump win with spreading disinformation on the internet, but it wasn't because Russia owned Trump, it's because they knows many in America are stupid enough to believe their bs. Case and point are simpletons like HuMcK, GT, 47 and the apparent Russian bot cinque that disappeared as soon as the election was over with.
TexasScientist
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Rawhide said:

TexasScientist said:


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

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/29/trump-russia-asset-claims-former-kgb-spy-new-book

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.

Unger describes how 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.

Three years later Trump opened his first big property development, the Grand Hyatt New York hotel near Grand Central station. Trump bought 200 television sets for the hotel from Semyon Kislin, a Soviet migr who co-owned Joy-Lud electronics on Fifth Avenue

According to Shvets, Joy-Lud was controlled by the KGB and Kislin worked as a so-called "spotter agent" who identified Trump, a young businessman on the rise, as a potential asset. Kislin denies that he had a relationship 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 United States 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."

Soon after he returned to the US, Trump began exploring a run for the Republican nomination for president and even held a campaign rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. On 1 September, he took out a full-page advertin the New York Times, Washington Post and Boston Globe headlined: "There's nothing wrong with America's Foreign Defense Policy that a little backbone can't cure."

The ad offered some highly unorthodox opinions in Ronald Reagan's cold war America, accusing ally Japan of exploiting the US and expressing scepticism about US participation in Nato. It took the form of an open letter to the American people "on why America should stop paying to defend countries that can afford to defend themselves".

The bizarre intervention was cause for astonishment and jubilation in Russia. A few days later Shvets, who had returned home by now, was at the headquarters of the KGB's first chief directorate in Yasenevo when he received a cable celebrating the ad as a successful "active measure" executed by a new KGB asset.
"It was unprecedented. I am pretty well familiar with KGB active measures starting in the early 70s and 80s, and then afterwards with Russia active measures, and I haven't heard anything like that or anything similar until Trump became the president of this country because it was just silly. It was hard to believe that somebody would publish it under his name and that it will impress real serious people in the west but it did and, finally, this guy became the president."

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."

Unger, the author of seven books and a former contributing editor for Vanity Fair magazine, said of Trump: "He was an asset. It was not this grand, ingenious plan that we're going to develop this guy and 40 years later he'll be president. At the time it started, which was around 1980, the Russians were trying to recruit like crazy and going after dozens and dozens of people."

"Trump was the perfect target in a lot of ways: his vanity, narcissism made him a natural target to recruit. He was cultivated over a 40-year period, right up through his election."



LOL

Seriously though, you need help. Your infatuation with Trump isn't healthy.
I didn't say that I believe it as I answered in a previous post. It is certainly within the realm of plausibility, and everyone on here knows it. It's worthy of consideration.
contrario
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Oh yeah, I forgot TS also.
TexasScientist
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HuMcK said:

ATL Bear said:

And people wonder what being manipulated by Russian disinformation looks like.

It looks like the events of 1/6, and the ridiculous Q garbage that has grabbed the GOP by it's short and curlies. Seriously, Putin had to be thrilled to watch the news that day and see what only 4yrs of Trumpism brought to America. Another manifestation of it is the complete denial that it's happening, which seems to be your path of choice.

I don't know if the Russians cultivated Trump for 40yrs, but it should be beyond debate that they worked hard to help him win in 2016 with the DNC hacks and tried again in 2020 with the Hunter Biden stuff. The next logical step after that is to ask "why" Russia, a country that wants us to crash and burn, seems to back Republicans and (especially) Trump so strongly? If we're being honest, we kind of already know why, the answer is: the events of 1/6.
The Republican Party of Reagan wouldn't be in this position. Four years of Trump and the party is in shambles and played by the Russians. I'd say the Russians have their revenge on Reagan, Republicans and America.
HuMcK
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ATL Bear said:

HuMcK said:

ATL Bear said:

HuMcK said:

ATL Bear said:

And people wonder what being manipulated by Russian disinformation looks like.

It looks like the events of 1/6, and the ridiculous Q garbage that has grabbed the GOP by it's short and curlies. Seriously, Putin had to be thrilled to watch the news that day and see what only 4yrs of Trumpism brought to America. Another manifestation of it is the complete denial that it's happening, which seems to be your path of choice.

I don't know if the Russians cultivated Trump for 40yrs, but it should be beyond debate that they worked hard to help him win in 2016 with the DNC hacks and tried again in 2020 with the Hunter Biden stuff. The next logical step after that is to ask "why" Russia, a country that wants us to crash and burn, seems to back Republicans and (especially) Trump so strongly? If we're being honest, we kind of already know why, the answer is: the events of 1/6.
And we have exhibit B. You've been one of the most easily manipulatable ones from the outset.

So by pointing out that the original sewing of mistrust in our democracy was the belief that the duly elected President of the United States was/is a Russian asset, spending millions to investigate, continuing to propagate that the 2016 election was stolen due to Russians, that we pulled out of Syria due to Russians, that a sex trafficking conspiracy is Russians, that Trump incited a riot because of Russians, etc., ALL of that is somehow denying that people have been influenced by Russian disinformation??? You're under the spell, you just can't see it.
I'm really sorry the facts are inconvenient for your narrative, but this is the real world and facts don't care about your feelings.

The guy's campaign manager had clandestine meetings with a man he knew to be Russian intel, so they could discus election strategy/coordination. That is backed up by criminal filings and admissions of the parties involved, i.e. it is past the point of debate, it is an accepted fact. It doesn't really matter if Trump himself is an asset, because his campaign manager Paul Manafort clearly was, and the Russians clearly supported Trump's candidacy with an espionage campaign that targeted the entire Dem party. Do you acknowledge those facts, or will you continue to dodge by throwing out counter accusations? Did you just decide to up and forget Giuliani dcking around with men the US government has since designated as bona fide Russian intel assets to "investigate" Hunter Biden? You gonna pretend to not remember the exclusively Republican group of politicians that went to Moscow on July 4th of all days to go kiss Putin's ass?

What more could Russia have asked for out of Trump? Trumpists literally attempted an overthrows of the US government a few weeks ago, and you still sit there and act like nothing is going on. Did Trump do that because Putin told him to? Probably not. Is that entirely predictable and destructive behavior exactly why Russia supports Trump to lead America? Yes.
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