[Does Trump’s goal appear to be, to paraphrase Ron DeSantis, to
“Make America Russia?” ]
[[link removed]]

HOW MUCH DAMAGE HAS THE TRUMP-PUTIN COLLUSION INFLICTED ON AMERICA?
 
[[link removed]]


 

Thom Hartmann
June 14, 2023
The Hartmann Report
[[link removed]]


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_ Does Trump’s goal appear to be, to paraphrase Ron DeSantis, to
“Make America Russia?” _

, Image by hafteh7 from Pixabay

 

If Trump shared American secrets with Putin, our intelligence agencies
are not going to call a press conference to let us all know.
Similarly, short of a trial for treason, it’s extremely unlikely
such an allegation — even if true — will show up in a court of
law.

Lawyers, judges, and juries just don’t have the security clearances
necessary, so the documents brought to court are almost certainly not
among the very most sensitive: they’re just enough to get a
conviction.

As former FBI general counsel Andrew Weissman told MSNBC yesterday:

“[There] is a subset of the secret or top secret documents
[[link removed]] that I think that's
something we will not see more of because that is probably the
intelligence community saying there are things so sensitive we do not
want you to use that in court. The material in the indictment is
shocking. You can imagine what was left out.”

And Attorney General Merrick Garland himself said
[[link removed]]:

“We do not do our investigations in public. This is the most
wide-ranging investigation and the most important investigation that
the Justice Department has ever entered into.”

That would be more important than Russian spies Robert Hanssen (life
without parole), Aldrich Ames (life without parole), or Ethel and
Julius Rosenberg (death penalty)?

The current case in Florida is limited to Trump stealing sensitive
documents and sharing them on two publicly known occasions (and
didn’t even reference other known acts like Kid Rock’s allegation
[[link removed]] that
Trump showed him Top Secret maps in the White House: this was
apparently a regular thing for Trump).

That said, you can bet your bottom dollar that the FBI and other
agencies are working as hard as they can to contain the damage done by
Trump’s leaving documents that could cause “grave damage” to
America in public places where spies could simply waltz in and take
cell-phone pictures of them by attending a wedding or paying $200,000
for essentially unlimited access Club membership.

BUT WHAT IF IT GOES BEYOND THAT? WHAT IF PUTIN HAS OWNED HIM FOR
YEARS?

From Russian oligarchs laundering money through his operations —
real estate is the most common device
[[link removed]] used
worldwide for money laundering — to keeping him alive in his most
difficult times, like those multiple bankruptcies in the 1990s when he
almost lost everything?

OR PERHAPS BLACKMAILING HIM?

What if Putin got him the presidency, and he knows if America found
out for sure it would destroy him?

WHICH BEGS THE QUESTION: EXACTLY HOW MUCH DAMAGE MIGHT TRUMP HAVE
ALREADY DONE TO OUR NATION, AND WHAT DOES HE HAVE PLANNED IF HE WINS A
SECOND TERM?

In 2019 _The Washington Post _revealed that, throughout his
presidency, Donald Trump was having _secret_ phone conversations
with Russia’s President Putin (over 20
[[link removed]] have
been identified so far, including one just days before
[[link removed]] the
2020 election).

The _Moscow Project_ from the American Progress Action
Fund documents [[link removed]] more than 270 known
contacts between Russia-linked operatives and members of the Trump
campaign and transition team, as well as at least 38 known meetings
just leading up to the 2016 election. 

THE MANAGER OF HIS 2016 CAMPAIGN, PAUL MANAFORT — WHO WAS PREVIOUSLY
PAID TENS OF MILLIONS BY VLADIMIR PUTIN’S PEOPLE TO INSTALL A
PRO-PUTIN PUPPET AS UKRAINE’S PRESIDENT IN 2010 — HAS ADMITTED
[[link removed]] THAT
HE WAS REGULARLY FEEDING SECRET INSIDE-CAMPAIGN STRATEGY AND POLLING
INFORMATION TO RUSSIAN INTELLIGENCE VIA THE OLIGARCH WHO TYPICALLY
PAID HIM ON THEIR BEHALF.

THROUGHOUT THE CAMPAIGN, HE LET THEM KNOW WHERE TRUMP NEEDED HELP, AND
WHEN.

Trump pardoned Manafort, which got him out of prison. He’s still
fabulously rich from his work for Russia.

AS _THE NEW YORK TIMES _NOTED
[[link removed]] IN
2020:

“[I]nvestigators found enough there to declare that Mr. Manafort
created ‘a grave counterintelligence threat’ by sharing inside
information about the presidential race with Mr. Kilimnik and the
Russian and [pro-Russian] Ukrainian oligarchs whom he served.”

There is no known parallel to this behavior by any president in
American history — one could argue it easily exceeds Benedict
Arnold’s audacity — and bringing documents to Mar-a-Lago is just
the tip of the iceberg.

_THE WASHINGTON POST_ REPORTED
[[link removed]] LAST
AUGUST THAT TRUMP HAD A HABIT OF CARRYING TOP-SECRET INFORMATION THAT
COULD SEVERELY DAMAGE OUR NATIONAL SECURITY, LEAVING IT IN HOTEL ROOMS
IN _HOSTILE_ NATIONS.

Was he bringing these documents with him to sell? Or just to show to
leaders or oligarchs in those countries to impress them?

TRUMP DOESN’T PUT ALL THAT EFFORT INTO HAULING THINGS AROUND UNLESS
IT’S EXTRAORDINARILY IMPORTANT TO HIS EGO OR HE THINKS HE CAN MAKES
MONEY OFF THEM.

“Boxes of documents even came with Trump on foreign travel,” _The
Post_ noted, “following him to hotel rooms around the world —
including countries considered foreign adversaries of the United
States.”

When Robert Mueller’s team tried to investigate Trump’s ties to
Russia and his possibly sharing sensitive military information with
them, they were stonewalled.

THE MUELLER REPORT IDENTIFIED TEN SPECIFIC INSTANCES OF TRUMP TRYING
TO OBSTRUCT THE INVESTIGATION, INCLUDING OFFERING THE BRIBE OF A
PARDON TO PAUL MANAFORT, ASKING FBI DIRECTOR COMEY TO “GO EASY” ON
GENERAL FLYNN AFTER HIS DINNER WITH PUTIN, AND DIRECTING ATTORNEY
GENERAL JEFF SESSIONS TO LIMIT MUELLER’S ABILITY TO INVESTIGATE
TRUMP’S CONNECTIONS TO RUSSIA.

As the Mueller Report noted:

“The President launched public attacks on the investigation and
individuals involved in it who could possess evidence adverse to the
President, while in private the President engaged in a series of
targeted efforts to control the investigation.

“For instance, the President attempted to remove the Attorney
General; he sought to have Attorney General Sessions un-recuse himself
and limit the investigation; he sought to prevent public disclosure of
information about the June 9, 2016 meeting between Russians and
campaign officials; and he used public forums to attack potential
witnesses who might offer adverse information and to praise witnesses
who declined to cooperate with the government.”

It adds, detailing Trump’s specific _Obstruction of
Justice_ crimes:

“These actions ranged from efforts to remove the Special Counsel and
to reverse the effect of the Attorney General’s recusal; to the
attempted use of official power to limit the scope of the
investigation; to direct and indirect contacts with witnesses with the
potential to influence their testimony.”

There are, after all, credible assertions
[[link removed]] from
American intelligence that when Trump was elected, members of Russian
intelligence and Putin’s inner circle were literally partying in
Moscow, celebrating a victory they believed they made happen.

And apparently Putin and his intelligence operatives had good reason
to be popping the champagne in November, 2016. They were quickly paid
off in a big way.

IN HIS FIRST MONTHS IN OFFICE, TRUMP OUTED AN ISRAELI SPY
[[link removed]] TO
THE RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR IN WHAT HE THOUGHT WAS GOING TO BE A “SECRET
OVAL OFFICE MEETING” (THE RUSSIANS RELEASED THE PHOTO TO THE PRESS),
RESULTING IN MOSAD HAVING TO “BURN” (RELOCATE, CHANGE IDENTITY OF)
THAT SPY.

The undercover agent was apparently working in Syria that year against
the Russians, who were embroiled in the midst of Assad’s Civil War
and indiscriminately bombing Aleppo
[[link removed]] into
rubble.

THAT, IN TURN, PROMPTED THE CIA TO WORRY THAT A LONGTIME AMERICAN SPY
BURIED DEEP IN THE KREMLIN WAS SIMILARLY VULNERABLE TO TRUMP HANDING
HIM OVER TO PUTIN. 

As CNN noted
[[link removed]] (when
the story leaked two years later):

“The source was considered the highest level source for the US
inside the Kremlin, high up in the national security infrastructure,
according to the source familiar with the matter and a former senior
intelligence official.

“According to CNN’s sources, the spy had access to Putin and could
even provide images of documents on the Russian leader’s desk.”

THE CIA CONCLUDED THAT THE RISK TRUMP HAD BURNED OR WAS ABOUT TO BURN
OUR SPY INSIDE THE KREMLIN WAS SO GREAT THAT — AT MASSIVE LOSS TO US
INTELLIGENCE ABILITIES THAT MAY EVEN HAVE OTHERWISE HELPED FORESTALL
THE INVASION OF UKRAINE — THEY PULLED OUR SPY OUT OF RUSSIA IN THE
FIRST YEAR OF TRUMP’S PRESIDENCY, 2017
[[link removed]]. 

Similarly, when they met in Helsinki on July 16, 2018, Trump and Putin
talked in private for several hours and Trump ordered his
translators’ notes destroyed;  there is also concern that much of
their conversation was done out of the hearing of the US’s
translator (Putin is fluent
[[link removed]] in
English) who may have been relegated to a distant part of the rather
large empty ballroom in which they met.

_THE WASHINGTON POST_ REPORTED
[[link removed]],
AFTER A LEAK SIX MONTHS LATER, THAT WHEN TRUMP MET PRIVATELY FOR THOSE
TWO HOURS WITH PUTIN THE CIA WENT INTO “PANIC MODE.” A US
INTELLIGENCE OFFICIAL TOLD THE _POST_:

“There was this gasp’ at the CIA’s Langley, Virginia
headquarters. You literally had people in panic mode watching it at
Langley. On all floors. Just shock.”

THREE WEEKS AFTER TRUMP’S JULY 16, 2018 MEETING WITH PUTIN IN
HELSINKI, SENATOR RAND PAUL MADE A SOLO TRIP
[[link removed]] TO
MOSCOW TO PERSONALLY HAND-DELIVER A DOCUMENT OR PACKAGE OF DOCUMENTS
FROM TRUMP TO PUTIN. ITS CONTENTS ARE STILL UNKNOWN, ALTHOUGH PAUL
TOLD THE PRESS IT WAS A “PERSONAL” LETTER OF SOME SORT.

Senator Paul has also consistently taken Trump’s and Putin’s side
with regard to the Ukraine war: he single-handedly blocked
[[link removed]] a
$40 billion military aid package in the Senate. When the FBI searched
Mar-a-Lago, he responded with a call for the repeal of the Espionage
Act
[[link removed]].
He further suggested the FBI may have “planted
[[link removed]]”
Secret documents at Mar-a-Lago.

TEN DAYS AFTER PAUL’S TRIP TO MOSCOW, _THE NEW YORK
TIMES_ REPORTED
[[link removed]] THAT
THE CIA WAS WORRIED BECAUSE THEIR SOURCES INSIDE MOSCOW HAD SUDDENLY
“GONE SILENT”:

“The full reasons the sources have gone silent are not known,”
the _Times_ reported, but Trump having intentionally burned a man
working for the FBI — whose job at that time was to find and reveal
Russian agents involved in or close to the Trump campaign — may also
have had something to do with it.

“[C]urrent and former officials said the exposure of sources inside
the United States has also complicated matters,” noted the _Times_.
“This year, the identity of an F.B.I. informant, Stefan Halper
[[link removed]],
became public after [Trump-loyal MAGA Republican] House lawmakers
sought information on him and the White House allowed the information
to be shared. Mr. Halper, an American academic based in Britain, had
been sent to talk to Trump campaign advisers who were under F.B.I.
scrutiny for their ties to Russia.”

Things were picking up the following year, in 2019, as Putin was
planning his invasion of Ukraine while Trump was preparing for the
2020 election.

In July 2019, Trump had conversations with five foreign leaders during
and just before a presidential visit that month to Mar-a-Lago; they
included Putin and the Emir of Qatar. 

IN ONE OF THOSE CONVERSATIONS, ACCORDING TO A HIGH-LEVEL US
INTELLIGENCE SOURCE, TRUMP “MADE PROMISES” TO A “WORLD LEADER”
THAT WERE SO ALARMING IT PROVOKED A NATIONAL SECURITY SCRAMBLE ACROSS
MULTIPLE AGENCIES.

As _The Washington Post_ noted in an article titled
[[link removed]] “_Trump’s
communications with foreign leader are part of whistleblower complaint
that spurred standoff between spy chief and Congress”_: 

“Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson
determined that the complaint [against Trump] was credible and
troubling enough to be considered a matter of ‘urgent concern,’ a
legal threshold that requires notification of congressional oversight
committees.” 

ON THE LAST DAY OF THAT MONTH, JULY 31, TRUMP HAD ANOTHER PRIVATE
CONVERSATION WITH PUTIN.

The White House spokespeople told
[[link removed]] Congress
and the press that Trump said that he and Putin discussed
“wildfires” and “trade between the nations.” No droids in this
car…

BUT THE FOLLOWING WEEK, ON AUGUST 2ND, _THE DAILY BEAST’S _BETSY
SWAN REPORTED
[[link removed]] THAT
TRUMP HAD THAT WEEK ASKED THE OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL
INTELLIGENCE FOR A LIST OF _ALL_ ITS EMPLOYEES (INCLUDING ALL OUR
“SPIES”) WHO HAD WORKED THERE MORE THAN 90 DAYS, AND THE REQUEST
HAD INTELLIGENCE OFFICIALS EXPERIENCING “DISQUIET
[[link removed]].”

PERHAPS JUST BY COINCIDENCE, MONTHS AFTER TRUMP LEFT OFFICE WITH CASES
OF CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS, _THE NEW YORK TIMES_ RAN A STORY
[[link removed]] WITH
THE HEADLINE _CAPTURED, KILLED OR COMPROMISED: C.I.A. ADMITS TO
LOSING DOZENS OF INFORMANTS_:

“Top American counterintelligence officials warned every C.I.A.
station and base around the world last week,”
the _Times’_ story’s lede began, “about troubling numbers of
informants recruited from other countries to spy for the United States
being captured or killed, people familiar with the matter said.

“The message, in an unusual top secret cable, said that the
C.I.A.’s counterintelligence mission center had looked at dozens of
cases in the last several years involving foreign informants who had
been killed, arrested or most likely compromised. Although brief, the
cable laid out the specific number of agents executed by rival
intelligence agencies — a closely held detail that
counterintelligence officials typically do not share in such
cables.”

IF IT TURNS OUT THE TRUMP HAS BEEN ACTING AS AN AGENT FOR RUSSIA, HOW
LONG MIGHT THIS HAVE BEEN GOING ON?

Czechoslovakia’s _Státní bezpečnost_ (StB) first started paying
attention to Trump back in 1977, as documented by the German
newspaper _Bild
[[link removed]] _when
the StB’s files were declassified, because Trump married Czech model
Ivana Zelnickova, his first wife, recently buried on his golf course
in New Jersey.

Czechoslovakia at that time was part of the Warsaw Pact with the
Soviet Union, and Ivana and her family had been raised as good
communists. Now that a Czech citizen was married into a wealthy and
prominent American family, the StB saw an opportunity and started
tracking Trump virtually from his engagement.

As 2016
[[link removed]] and 2018
[[link removed]] investigations
by _The Guardian found
[[link removed]]_:

“Ivana’s father, Miloš Zelníček, gave regular information to
the local StB office about his daughter’s visits from the US and on
his celebrity son-in-law’s career in New York. Zelníček was
classified as a ‘conspiratorial’ informer. His relationship with
the StB lasted until the end of the communist regime.”

AN INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING BREAKTHROUGH BY CRAIG UNGER FOR HIS
BOOK _AMERICAN KOMPROMAT
[[link removed]]_ LED
UNGER TO URI SHVETS [[link removed]], A
FORMER KGB SPY WHO’D BEEN POSTED TO WASHINGTON, DC FOR YEARS AS A
CORRESPONDENT FOR THE SOVIET NEWS AGENCY TASS.

Shvets told the story — from his own knowledge — of how Trump and
Ivana visited Moscow in 1987 and were essentially recruited or seduced
by the KGB, a trip
[[link removed]] corroborated
by Luke Harding in his book _Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money,
and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win
[[link removed]]_.

Their trip was coordinated by _Intourist_, the Soviet travel agency
that was a front for the KGB, and the Trumps’ handlers regaled
Donald and Ivana with Soviet talking points, presumably about things
like the horrors of NATO.

The KGB’s psychological profile of Trump had determined he was
vulnerable to flattery and not much of a deep thinker, so they told
him repeatedly how brilliant he was and that he should run for
president in the US.

MUCH TO THE ASTONISHMENT AND JUBILATION OF THE KGB, TRUMP RETURNED
FROM MOSCOW TO THE US TO GIVE A REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN
SPEECH THAT FALL IN PORTSMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE.

He then purchased a large ad
[[link removed]] in _The
New York Times, The Washington Post, _and _The Boston Globe _on
September 1, 1987 that questioned America’s ongoing support of Japan
and NATO, both thorns in the side of the USSR and their Chinese
allies.

TRUMP’S AD LAID IT ON THE LINE
[[link removed]]:

“Why are these nations not paying the United States for the human
lives and billions of dollars we are losing to protect their
interests? ... The world is laughing at America’s politicians as we
protect ships we don’t own, carrying oil we don’t need, destined
for allies who won’t help.”

AS _THE GUARDIAN_ REPORTED IN 2021
[[link removed]]:

“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,’ [Shvets said.] … 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.’”

MEANWHILE, PUTIN WAS MAKING FRIENDS WITH POWERFUL INFLUENCE OVER
AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who flipped his nation into a
strongman neofascist state following an unsuccessful attempted coup in
2016 (he imprisoned and tortured numerous journalists and political
opponents), has been deepening his relationship
[[link removed]] with
Russian President Vladimir Putin ever since that US election year.

IN 2017, ERDOGAN APPARENTLY GAINED ACCESS TO AMERICA’S DEEPEST
SECRETS BY SECRETLY PAYING OFF
[[link removed]] GENERAL
MICHAEL FLYNN EVEN AS FLYNN BECAME TRUMP’S NATIONAL SECURITY
ADVISOR, WHO ALSO HAD AT LEAST ONE SECRET PHONE
[[link removed]] CONVERSATION
WITH RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR SERGEY KISLYAK AFTER FLYNN STARTED WORKING IN
THE WHITE HOUSE.

Flynn pleaded guilty in December of 2017 to “willfully and
knowingly” making “false, fictitious and fraudulent statements”
to the FBI about one of those conversations with Russian Ambassador
Kislyak. Flynn was also an unregistered agent of a foreign government
while working in the White House: he had also taken about a
half-million dollars from Erdogan.

AROUND THE TIME HE WAS LEAVING OFFICE, TRUMP PARDONED FLYNN,
ESSENTIALLY BURYING THE ENTIRE STORY.

The plot thickened when America learned, from a blockbuster
2022 report
[[link removed]] in _Axios_ by
Jonathan Swan, that just before leaving office, back on October 21,
2020, Trump had signed Executive Order 13957
[[link removed]].

IT WOULD ALLOW HIM TO INSTANTLY FIRE AS MANY AS 50,000
SENIOR FEDERAL EMPLOYEES
[[link removed]] ENCOMPASSING
THE CIVIL SERVICE MANAGEMENT OF EVERY GOVERNMENT AGENCY INCLUDING THE
FBI, CIA, NSA, LARGE PARTS OF THE PENTAGON, AND DHS, AND ALLOW TRUMP
TO REPLACE ALL OF THEM WITH NAKEDLY POLITICAL LOYALIST APPOINTEES.

And it wouldn’t stop there. As Donald Moynihan wrote
for _Slate _about this “Schedule F” Executive Order:

“Schedule F would burn down the civil service system. It would be a
government of the lawless leading the incompetent. …

“Government data unfavorable to the administration would be
suppressed or altered. Public statements about what government actors
are actually doing would become rarer and less believable. And
questionable actions by the security forces to target political
enemies and protect friends could become routine.

“Career public employees would be forced to choose between their
oath to the Constitution—in effect, their oath to serve the
public—and keeping their job. They will have their loyalty
questioned based on which political organizations they associated with
in college, or voter registration, or social media activity. Some will
not go along with the program. They will be fired. Or never join the
government in the first place.”

Trump didn’t have the time to push that executive order through the
federal bureaucracy, but it gives us a clear picture of his vision for
a second Trump administration.

FROM CAMPAIGNING TO DESTROY NATO TO OPPOSING AID TO UKRAINE TO
DEMOLISHING THE FREE WORLD’S CONFIDENCE IN AMERICA’S ABILITY TO
KEEP TOP SECRET INFORMATION CONFIDENTIAL, TRUMP’S GOAL APPEARS TO
BE, TO PARAPHRASE RON DESANTIS, TO “MAKE AMERICA RUSSIA.”

After all, it’s not like we’ve never had a rightwing coup attempt
before in this country: wealthy Republican industrialists tried to
kidnap and kill
[[link removed]] President
Franklin Roosevelt 92 years ago and turn America into an
Italian/German-style fascist state “friendly to capitalism.”

Not a single one of those conspirators was ever arrested or tried; why
not try again?

_Thom Hartmann is a NY Times bestselling author 34 books in 17
languages & nation's #1 progressive radio host. Psychotherapist,
international relief worker. Politics, history, spirituality,
psychology, science, anthropology, pre-history, culture, and the
natural world._

 

* Donald Trump
[[link removed]]
* Vladimir Putin
[[link removed]]
* collusion
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