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Ladybbird · 30-01-21, 07:08

‘The Perfect Target' : Russia Cultivated TRUMP as Asset for 40 Years – ex-KGB Spy

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

The Guardian Washington, 30 JAN 2021.

Donald Trump’s election win in 2016 was welcomed by Moscow. Photograph: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

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 émigré 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 by KGB talking points and flattered by KGB operatives who floated the idea that he should go into the 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 advert in 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 Mosco

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.”

Ladybbird · 11-06-21, 13:43

TRUMPs' DoJ Secretly Seized House Democrats’ Data in Crackdown on Leaks

The Justice Department under former President Donald Trump seized data from the accounts of at least two members of the House Intelligence Committee in 2018 as part of an aggressive crackdown on leaks related to the Russia investigation and other national security matters.

At least two House members including Adam Schiff targeted in 2018, say officials familiar with the investigation

The Guardian UK, 11 JUN 2021

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif

The records of at least 12 people connected to the House intelligence committee were eventually shared, including Adam Schiff, the panel chairman. Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

The US justice department under Donald Trump seized data from the accounts of at least two members of the House of Representatives intelligence committee in 2018 as part of an aggressive crackdown on leaks related to the Russia investigation and other national security matters, according to a committee official and two people familiar with the investigation.

Prosecutors from the previous president’s DoJ subpoenaed Apple for the data, according to the people, who were granted anonymity to discuss the secret seizures first reported by the New York Times.

The records of at least 12 people connected to the intelligence panel were eventually shared, including the chairman, Adam Schiff, who was then the top Democrat on the committee.

The California Democratic congressman Eric Swalwell was the second member, according to spokeswoman Natalie Edelstein. The records of aides, former aides and family members were also siezed, including one who was a minor, according to the committee official.

Apple informed the committee last month that their records had been shared, but did not give extensive detail. The committee is aware, though, that metadata from the accounts was turned over, the official said.

The records do not contain any other content from the devices, like photos, messages or emails, one of the other people said. The third person said that Apple complied with the subpoena, providing the information to the DoJ, and did not immediately notify the members of Congress or the committee about the disclosure.

While the justice department routinely conducts investigations of leaked information, including classified intelligence, opening such an investigation into members of Congress is extraordinarily rare.

Schiff tweeted: “Trump repeatedly demanded the DoJ go after his political enemies. It’s clear his demands didn’t fall on deaf ears. This baseless investigation, while now closed, is yet another example of Trump’s corrupt weaponization of justice. And how much he imperiled our democracy.”

The Trump administration’s attempt to secretly gain access to data of individual members of Congress and others connected to the panel came as the president was fuming publicly and privately over investigations – in Congress and by the special counsel Robert Mueller – into his campaign’s ties to Russia. Trump called the probes a “witch-hunt”, regularly criticized Schiff and other Democrats on Twitter and repeatedly dismissed as “fake news” leaks he found personally harmful to his agenda. As the investigations swirled around him, he demanded loyalty from a justice department he often regarded as his personal law firm.

The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said in a statement that “these actions appear to be yet another egregious assault on our democracy” waged by the former president.

“The news about the politicization of the Trump administration justice department is harrowing,” she said.

Schiff, now the panel’s chair, also confirmed in a statement on Thursday evening that the DoJ had informed the committee in May that the investigation was closed. Still, he said: “I believe more answers are needed, which is why I believe the inspector general should investigate this and other cases that suggest the weaponization of law enforcement by a corrupt president.”

The justice department told the intelligence panel then that the matter had not transferred to any other entity or investigative body, the committee official said, and the department confirmed that to the committee again on Thursday.

The panel has continued to seek additional information, but the department has not been forthcoming in a timely manner, including on questions such as whether the investigation was properly predicated and whether it only targeted Democrats, the committee official said.

It is unclear why Trump’s justice department would have targeted a minor as part of the investigation. Swalwell, confirming that he was told his records were seized, told CNN on Thursday evening that he was aware a minor was involved and “I believe they were targeted punitively and not for any reason in law.”

Another Democrat on the intelligence panel, the Illinois representative Mike Quigley, said he did not find it even “remotely surprising” that Trump went after committee members’ records during the Russia investigation.

“From my first days as part of the Russia investigation, I expected that eventually, someone would attempt this – I just wasn’t sure if it would be a hostile government or my own,” Quigley said.

And the Florida congresswoman Val Demings, an impeachment manager in Trump’s first Senate trial, and who is now challenging Republican Florida Senator Marco Rubio for his seat, tweeted: “It is outrageous but not surprising. We have a former president with no regard for the rule of law or for those who enforce the laws. We need to conduct a thorough investigation and hold everybody responsible accountable.”

Ladybbird · 11-06-21, 16:58

UPDATE

30-01-21, 07:08	#1
Ladybbird Join Date: Feb 2011 Posts: 50,517 Thanks: 28,767 Thanked 14,428 Times in 10,234 Posts Awards Showcase Total Awards: 8	TRUMPGATE -DoJ Secretly Seized House Democrats’ Data ‘The Perfect Target' : Russia Cultivated TRUMP as Asset for 40 Years – ex-KGB Spy The KGB ‘played the game as if they were immensely impressed by his personality’, Yuri Shvets, a key source for a new book, tells the Guardian The Guardian Washington, 30 JAN 2021. Donald Trump’s election win in 2016 was welcomed by Moscow. Photograph: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images 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 émigré 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 by KGB talking points and flattered by KGB operatives who floated the idea that he should go into the 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 advert in 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 Mosco 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.” __________________ *6000 PLUS* Cases-He's LOST ALL Heard So Far: TRUMPs Onslaught of Lawyers are 'Hitting a Wall' -Judges & Cases Lining Up Against TRUMP France To Ask For Statue of Liberty Back -No Longer Fits 'Freedom' Under TRUMP.. AND Starmers REVOLTING Betrayal of Britain Will NEVER Be Forgiven TRUMPs' REVENGE -Clear & Present Danger -People Who Worship at The Altar of Trump Will KNEEL, NOT STAND Up to Him PLEASE Click DONATE & Thanks to ALL Members of ...** 1..

11-06-21, 13:43	#2
Ladybbird Join Date: Feb 2011 Posts: 50,517 Thanks: 28,767 Thanked 14,428 Times in 10,234 Posts Awards Showcase Total Awards: 8	Re: TRUMPGATE -DoJ Secretly Seized House Democrats’ Data TRUMPs' DoJ Secretly Seized House Democrats’ Data in Crackdown on Leaks The Justice Department under former President Donald Trump seized data from the accounts of at least two members of the House Intelligence Committee in 2018 as part of an aggressive crackdown on leaks related to the Russia investigation and other national security matters. At least two House members including Adam Schiff targeted in 2018, say officials familiar with the investigation The Guardian UK, 11 JUN 2021 House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif The records of at least 12 people connected to the House intelligence committee were eventually shared, including Adam Schiff, the panel chairman. Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images The US justice department under Donald Trump seized data from the accounts of at least two members of the House of Representatives intelligence committee in 2018 as part of an aggressive crackdown on leaks related to the Russia investigation and other national security matters, according to a committee official and two people familiar with the investigation. Prosecutors from the previous president’s DoJ subpoenaed Apple for the data, according to the people, who were granted anonymity to discuss the secret seizures first reported by the New York Times. The records of at least 12 people connected to the intelligence panel were eventually shared, including the chairman, Adam Schiff, who was then the top Democrat on the committee. The California Democratic congressman Eric Swalwell was the second member, according to spokeswoman Natalie Edelstein. The records of aides, former aides and family members were also siezed, including one who was a minor, according to the committee official. Apple informed the committee last month that their records had been shared, but did not give extensive detail. The committee is aware, though, that metadata from the accounts was turned over, the official said. The records do not contain any other content from the devices, like photos, messages or emails, one of the other people said. The third person said that Apple complied with the subpoena, providing the information to the DoJ, and did not immediately notify the members of Congress or the committee about the disclosure. While the justice department routinely conducts investigations of leaked information, including classified intelligence, opening such an investigation into members of Congress is extraordinarily rare. Schiff tweeted: “Trump repeatedly demanded the DoJ go after his political enemies. It’s clear his demands didn’t fall on deaf ears. This baseless investigation, while now closed, is yet another example of Trump’s corrupt weaponization of justice. And how much he imperiled our democracy.” The Trump administration’s attempt to secretly gain access to data of individual members of Congress and others connected to the panel came as the president was fuming publicly and privately over investigations – in Congress and by the special counsel Robert Mueller – into his campaign’s ties to Russia. Trump called the probes a “witch-hunt”, regularly criticized Schiff and other Democrats on Twitter and repeatedly dismissed as “fake news” leaks he found personally harmful to his agenda. As the investigations swirled around him, he demanded loyalty from a justice department he often regarded as his personal law firm. The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said in a statement that “these actions appear to be yet another egregious assault on our democracy” waged by the former president. “The news about the politicization of the Trump administration justice department is harrowing,” she said. Schiff, now the panel’s chair, also confirmed in a statement on Thursday evening that the DoJ had informed the committee in May that the investigation was closed. Still, he said: “I believe more answers are needed, which is why I believe the inspector general should investigate this and other cases that suggest the weaponization of law enforcement by a corrupt president.” The justice department told the intelligence panel then that the matter had not transferred to any other entity or investigative body, the committee official said, and the department confirmed that to the committee again on Thursday. The panel has continued to seek additional information, but the department has not been forthcoming in a timely manner, including on questions such as whether the investigation was properly predicated and whether it only targeted Democrats, the committee official said. It is unclear why Trump’s justice department would have targeted a minor as part of the investigation. Swalwell, confirming that he was told his records were seized, told CNN on Thursday evening that he was aware a minor was involved and “I believe they were targeted punitively and not for any reason in law.” Another Democrat on the intelligence panel, the Illinois representative Mike Quigley, said he did not find it even “remotely surprising” that Trump went after committee members’ records during the Russia investigation. “From my first days as part of the Russia investigation, I expected that eventually, someone would attempt this – I just wasn’t sure if it would be a hostile government or my own,” Quigley said. And the Florida congresswoman Val Demings, an impeachment manager in Trump’s first Senate trial, and who is now challenging Republican Florida Senator Marco Rubio for his seat, tweeted: “It is outrageous but not surprising. We have a former president with no regard for the rule of law or for those who enforce the laws. We need to conduct a thorough investigation and hold everybody responsible accountable.” __________________ *6000 PLUS* Cases-He's LOST ALL Heard So Far: TRUMPs Onslaught of Lawyers are 'Hitting a Wall' -Judges & Cases Lining Up Against TRUMP France To Ask For Statue of Liberty Back -No Longer Fits 'Freedom' Under TRUMP.. AND Starmers REVOLTING Betrayal of Britain Will NEVER Be Forgiven TRUMPs' REVENGE -Clear & Present Danger -People Who Worship at The Altar of Trump Will KNEEL, NOT STAND Up to Him PLEASE Click DONATE & Thanks to ALL Members of ...** 1..

11-06-21, 16:58	#3
Ladybbird Join Date: Feb 2011 Posts: 50,517 Thanks: 28,767 Thanked 14,428 Times in 10,234 Posts Awards Showcase Total Awards: 8	Re: TRUMPGATE -DoJ Secretly Seized House Democrats’ Data UPDATE __________________ *6000 PLUS* Cases-He's LOST ALL Heard So Far: TRUMPs Onslaught of Lawyers are 'Hitting a Wall' -Judges & Cases Lining Up Against TRUMP France To Ask For Statue of Liberty Back -No Longer Fits 'Freedom' Under TRUMP.. AND Starmers REVOLTING Betrayal of Britain Will NEVER Be Forgiven TRUMPs' REVENGE -Clear & Present Danger -People Who Worship at The Altar of Trump Will KNEEL, NOT STAND Up to Him PLEASE Click DONATE & Thanks to ALL Members of ...** 1..

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