General Discussion

Trump’s ties to the Russian mafia go back 3 decades

Journalist Craig Unger talks Russia, Trump, and “one of the greatest intelligence operations in history.”

by Sean Illing
Vox, Januar 12, 2019

On November 9, 2016, just a few minutes after Donald Trump was elected president of the United States, a man named Vyacheslav Nikonov approached a microphone in the Russian State Duma (their equivalent of the US House of Representatives) and made a very unusual statement.

“Dear friends, respected colleagues!” Nikonov said. “Three minutes ago, Hillary Clinton admitted her defeat in US presidential elections, and a second ago Trump started his speech as an elected president of the United States of America, and I congratulate you on this.”

Nikonov is a leader in the pro-Putin United Russia Party and, incidentally, the grandson of Vyacheslav Molotov — after whom the “Molotov cocktail” was named. His announcement that day was a clear signal that Trump’s victory was, in fact, a victory for Putin’s Russia.

Longtime journalist Craig Unger opens his new book, House of Trump, House of Putin, with this anecdote. The book is 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.

The book claims to unpack an “untold story,” but it’s not entirely clear how much of it is new. One of the 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.

Snipski...

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 known 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. They 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.

Continueski...

https://www.vox.com/world/2018/9/12/17764132/trump-fbi-russia-new-york-times-craig-unger

The Strange Ties between Semion Mogilevich and Vladimir Putin

by Roman Kupchinsky
Eurasia Daily Monitor, Volume: 6 Issue: 57; March 25, 2009

Excerpt...

The questions surrounding the Putin-Mogilevich relationship – if indeed there is one – are not simply theoretical; the answers touch on the nature of power in the Kremlin; how it functions and which players serve its purposes. Part of the answer can be found in the Kuchma-Derkach dialogue held in Kuchma’s office on February 8, 2000. According to a recording of the conversation made by a member of Kuchma’s security detail, Mykola Melnychenko:

Kuchma: "Have you found Mogilevich?"

Derkach: "I found him."

Kuchma: "So, are you two working now?"

Derkach: "We’re working. We have another meeting tomorrow. He arrives incognito.

Later in the discussion Derkach revealed a few details about Mogilevich.

Derkach: "He’s on good terms with Putin. He and Putin have been in contact since Putin was still in Leningrad."

Kuchma: "I hope we won’t have any problems because of this."

Derkach: "They have their own affairs" (The transcript appears in the forthcoming book by J.V. Koshiw, The Politics of Kuchma – the Melnychenko Recordings August 1999 to September 2000).

A second key to the puzzle lies in the alleged relationship between Firtash and Mogilevich in the Eural Trans Gas and RosUkrEnergo, companies involved in the strategically important transit of natural gas from Central Asia to Ukraine which worked closely with Gazprom, the Russian state-owned gas company apparently controlled by Putin.

Continuesnoshitski...

https://jamestown.org/program/the-strange-ties-between-semion-mogilevich-and-vladimir-putin/