The former head of Kazakhstan’s intelligence service, Alnur Mussayev, recently claimed in a Facebook post that Donald Trump was recruited by the KGB in 1987, when the 40-year-old real-estate mogul first visited Moscow.
The allegation would, if true, be a bombshell. Mussayev provides no documentary evidence —but then how could he? He alleged that Trump’s file is in Vladimir Putin’s hands.
Mussayev isn’t the only ex-KGB officer to have made such an assertion. Several years ago, Yuri Shvets, a former KGB major now resident in Washington, D.C., served as one of the key sources for Craig Unger’s best-selling book, “American Kompromat: How the KGB Cultivated Donald Trump, and Related Tales of Sex, Greed, Power, and Treachery.”
Just after Mussayev made his claim, another ex-KGB officer living in France, Sergei Zhyrnov, categorically endorsed the allegations in an interview with a Ukrainian journalist. According to Zhyrnov, Trump would have been surrounded 24/7 by KGB operatives, including everyone from his cab driver to the maid servicing his hotel room. Zhyrnov said that Trump’s every move would have been recorded and documented, and that he could have been either caught in a “honey trap” (“All foreign-currency prostitutes were KGB — one hundred percent,” he said) or perhaps recorded bribing Moscow city officials in order to promote his idea of building a hotel in the Soviet capital.
None of these former KGB operatives has provided evidence, but the fact that three KGB agents located in different places and speaking at different times agree on the story suggests this possibility should not be dismissed out of hand. If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the first Trump administration and from the initial weeks of the second, it is that everything, including what appears to be impossible, is possible.
Also lending credence to the allegations is the fact that kompromat on Trump would easily, simply and convincingly explain the president’s animus toward NATO, Europe and Ukraine, his admiration of Vladimir Putin and his endorsement of authoritarian rule. One could even invoke “Occam’s razor,” the philosophical principle that claims that simple explanations should be preferred to complex ones.
We could then dispense with contorted explanations that focus on Trump’s mercurial and narcissistic personality on the one hand and American party realignments on the other. Indeed, even if true, these explanations could be accommodated as bells and whistles adorning the central narrative propounded by three KGB agents.
Naturally, Trump and his supporters will bristle. Surely, the three KGB agents are on somebody’s payroll. Who wouldn’t want to discredit the U.S. president? It could be the CIA or FBI, except that these are now firmly in the hands of Trump loyalists. Besides, would they have the ability to buy or coerce residents of Kazakhstan and France? Ditto for other Western intelligence services.
Perhaps it’s Putin? But he surely has no interest in undermining a president who supports his policies toward Ukraine, NATO and Europe.
Somewhat more plausible would be an officer or officers within the Russian intelligence community who oppose Putin and Trump’s designs. This version seems unlikely, but only at first glance, since we know that Putin’s seemingly impregnable regime is actually riven with cracks.
But why would a clandestine opposition make up a story and convince Shvets to spill the beans several years ago? Wouldn’t the dissidents know it’s true?
Perhaps all three ex-KGB agents are simply lying, in the hope of attracting attention and bolstering their fame? A resident of Washington might have this motive, but a Kazakh and Frenchman?
What leads me to think that there might be something to the allegations is the fact that an acquaintance had a very similar experience at just the same time. A left-leaning ladies’ man, he was wined and dined in Moscow for several years in the late 1980s, courted by the ladies — by his round-the-clock interpreter, as well as by a woman who approached him in a department store and invited him home.
We’ll probably never know the truth. But even with no slam-dunk evidence, the allegations should be, to say the least, disturbing, especially for the genuine patriots in the MAGA camp.
Ulfric Stormcloak is a Thalmor agent!
Uhhhh, I mean, Donald Trump is a KGB agent!
If this was true, it would be a spectacular failure of the US intelligence apparatus that he’s not decisively caught and in Guantanamo.
It doesn’t matter if he was recruited or not, he’s effectively acting as one anyway. Musk talks to Putin fairly regularly, and the director of national intelligence is heavily sympathetic to Russia. Honestly, the others should be kicking us out of Five Eyes, there’s no way they should be trusting us.
None of these former KGB operatives has provided evidence, but the fact that three KGB agents located in different places and speaking at different times agree on the story suggests this possibility should not be dismissed out of hand. If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the first Trump administration and from the initial weeks of the second, it is that everything, including what appears to be impossible, is possible.
Back in the 1980s Trump was a rich, obvious narcissist who loved being the center of attention, took pride in his sexual conquests, liked younger girls (and bragged about it) and eastern European women, and was easily flattered and manipulated. In the late 1980s he overreached financially and got himself in trouble, so he would have had big debts. He had dodgy connections in NY and NJ and was prominent in American business circles. He had political ambitions and connections and was famous and influential. And he was visiting Moscow and trying to get some business going over there (why?), so he was ready to take Russian money to fund his ventures.
Is there anything about that that wouldn’t absolutely scream “recruit this guy” to the KGB? The journalist talks as if this is a bit of an out-there suggestion, but it would actually be very surprising if they hadn’t at least attempted to recruit him. And the KGB wouldn’t do that by asking nicely: they’d find a way to gradually hook you in so you couldn’t say no. There was no shortage of ways to do this with Trump. So they probably at least tried.
And then do we think Trump would have been the kind of guy to make a principled stand, or to be smart enough to recognize what’s happening and not take the bait? He’s exactly the kind of guy who goes with whoever offers him the sweetest deal in the short term. You make him feel like he’s winning, he’s smart and great at business, all the while documenting his every compromising move, and only later does he realize that he’s trapped. But then you say, go back to the USA and continue your life as before. We’ll help you in business and politics, you can have a successful life, everything will be good, and we’ll let you know when you can help us.
So I disagree with the author that this is in any way an implausible suggestion. It seems far more implausible that the KGB would have decided not to try to recruit Trump, or that they would have failed in their attempt. The most likely thing is that Trump was recruited by the KGB, and we know that after the collapse of the USSR he took a lot of money from wealthy Russians, and sold real estate in deals that look a lot like money laundering, to Russians. How plausible is it that none of this was ex-KGB Putin or his allies ensuring that Trump stayed hooked in case he came in useful?
And then we know the Russians helped him in 2016 and everything Trump has done while President has been conspicuously well aligned with Putin’s interests. Is it more likely this is all one big coincidence, or that he is indebted to Russia in a way that gives them a lot of leverage? And what could be better leverage than being able to reveal that they had him all along?
It’s not certain, but I disagree with the author that it even initially looks unlikely or implausible. I’d even say it’s probable that Russia has been playing him for decades.
I almost totally agree, but there are two bits of what you wrote that I’d like to quibble about:
In the late 1980s… he was visiting Moscow and trying to get some business going over there (why?)
Why Trump was interested in Russian business opportunities in the late 1980s should be obvious: the Soviet Union was falling, and an entire economy’s worth of state property was being privatized and sold off cheap to whoever happened to be in the right place at the right time to get themselves a piece. That’s how all the Russian oligarchs were made, including Putin. Of fucking course Trump wanted a slice!
(By the way, does that remind you of anything?)
And then do we think Trump would have been the kind of guy to make a principled stand, or to be smart enough to recognize what’s happening and not take the bait? He’s exactly the kind of guy who goes with whoever offers him the sweetest deal in the short term. You make him feel like he’s winning, he’s smart and great at business, all the while documenting his every compromising move, and only later does he realize that he’s trapped. But then you say, go back to the USA and continue your life as before. We’ll help you in business and politics, you can have a successful life, everything will be good, and we’ll let you know when you can help us.
Speaking of not being smart enough to recognize what’s happening, I disagree with the “only later does he realize that he’s trapped” part. I think it’s possible that he’s so stupid that, to this day, he still doesn’t realize that he’s Putin’s asset. Instead, he might very well still think all the favors and quid-pro-quos he and Putin do is just him being smart and great at business.
To suggest that Trump has ever been coerced into doing their bidding implies that he had either the mental or moral capacity to resist doing it voluntarily, and I don’t think he deserves that much credit!
It’s not really all that new, as an allegation.
I often feel like the world has collective amnesia of the time period between 2017 and 2021.
I’ll bite. What happened?
Asking honestly because 2017-early 2020 is fuzzy and then it’s all weird distorted “COVID” time after (and honestly what feels like a little before) that.
It was in the news a while back that Trump had a Russian Handler and that he was first approached in the late 1980s. There might be more to the story now but it was already known back before the 2020 elections. I would go searching for it, but trying to find old news articles with a search engine causes me actual physical pain.
trying to find old news articles with a search engine causes me actual physical pain
This is a huge problem that people don’t pay attention to, BTW. (Not your pain, but the difficulty in searching for old news.)
Occam’s Razor is right. Since Trump professes to be a businessman, he’ll always do what’s right for his wallet, even betraying any morals he may have had.
What about Occam’s Razor applied on the fact that we’re reading this on Facebook? Is CIA on it as well?
You’re reading this on Facebook? I’m not posting on FB. Fediverse is weird!
We’ll probably never know the truth. But even with no slam-dunk evidence, the allegations should be, to say the least, disturbing, especially for the genuine patriots in the MAGA camp.
A good comedy always ends with a big laugh like that, thanks.
When you understand the scale of USA government power and its military these allegations sound quite ridiculous, it would be like trying to claim that north korea is puppeting china.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010s_global_surveillance_disclosures
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assassinations_by_the_United_States
Rachel Maddow going to edge everyone for the next 4 years on this?
