I don’t think its outlandish to believe Trump - a man notorious for surrounding himself with gadflies and sycophants - would suck up some FSB assets while populating his administration. And a personal meeting with the Russian President would be the perfect opportunity for an intelligence hand-off.
“Donald Trump wrote a list of CIA agents on his arm with a sharpie and showed it to Putin at the meeting” is goofy bullshit. But “someone in Trump’s administration used their proximity to the President to harvest names from unredacted reports and feed them to the Kremlin in exchange for cash/favors/blackmail” is very easy to believe.
Hell, its not too difficult to believe moles existed in Obama, Bush, and Clinton administrations, either (or that the CIA has moles in the Kremlin). These are two of the most sophisticated and well-financed intelligence networks in the world. And guys like Yeltsin and Trump were both gullible rubes with deep mob connections who would be prime targets for this kind of infiltration.
Remember as well, trump’s business ties (the only kind of ties he pays attention to -such as it is) in russia go back forty years. He’s been there a lot. He’s tied into their mafias in more than ten ways. It’s not just vanilla doing-what-putin-wants, it’s a decades-long operation.
Remember as well, trump’s business ties (the only kind of ties he pays attention to -such as it is) in russia go back forty years.
The fixation on the ties as “Russian” are misplaced, as they’re largely via the New York mafia and attendant money laundering banks. I would look more towards the Steve Bannons and Zachary Fuentes’s, were I to be looking for folks leaking to the FSB.
It’s not just vanilla doing-what-putin-wants, it’s a decades-long operation.
Trump pretty famously doesn’t pay well, which means a lot of his staff ultimately need to be on the take in order to make working for Trump profitable. And its not in any way unique to Vlad.
I don’t think its outlandish to believe Trump - a man notorious for surrounding himself with gadflies and sycophants - would suck up some FSB assets while populating his administration. And a personal meeting with the Russian President would be the perfect opportunity for an intelligence hand-off.
“Donald Trump wrote a list of CIA agents on his arm with a sharpie and showed it to Putin at the meeting” is goofy bullshit. But “someone in Trump’s administration used their proximity to the President to harvest names from unredacted reports and feed them to the Kremlin in exchange for cash/favors/blackmail” is very easy to believe.
Hell, its not too difficult to believe moles existed in Obama, Bush, and Clinton administrations, either (or that the CIA has moles in the Kremlin). These are two of the most sophisticated and well-financed intelligence networks in the world. And guys like Yeltsin and Trump were both gullible rubes with deep mob connections who would be prime targets for this kind of infiltration.
Abso-fuckin-lutely, it’s completely believable.
Remember as well, trump’s business ties (the only kind of ties he pays attention to -such as it is) in russia go back forty years. He’s been there a lot. He’s tied into their mafias in more than ten ways. It’s not just vanilla doing-what-putin-wants, it’s a decades-long operation.
The fixation on the ties as “Russian” are misplaced, as they’re largely via the New York mafia and attendant money laundering banks. I would look more towards the Steve Bannons and Zachary Fuentes’s, were I to be looking for folks leaking to the FSB.
Trump pretty famously doesn’t pay well, which means a lot of his staff ultimately need to be on the take in order to make working for Trump profitable. And its not in any way unique to Vlad.