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American Kompromat: How the KGB Cultivated Donald Trump, and Related Tales of Sex, Greed, Power, and Treachery
"American Kompromat tells the story of the unimaginably corrupt, dissolute, and decadent subculture of the most powerful people in the world and how they have orchestrated, obtained, and used kompromat--Russian for compromising information--as leverage to achieve their political goals"--
368 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 21, 2021
666 people are currently reading
1794 people want to read
About the author
Craig Unger
13 books107 followersCraig Unger is an American journalist and writer. His most recent book is The Fall of the House of Bush, about the internal feud in the Bush family and the rise and collusion of the neoconservative and Christian right in Republican party politics, viewing each group's weltanschauung and efforts concerning present and potential future US policy through a distinctly negative prism. His previous work, House of Bush, House of Saud explored the relationship between the Bush family and the House of Saud. Craig Unger's work is featured in Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11. Unger has served as deputy editor of the New York Observer and was editor-in-chief of Boston Magazine. He has written about George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush for The New Yorker, Esquire Magazine and Vanity Fair.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 172 reviews
February 25, 2021
You only had to look at Trump and Putin together to know that something was not right. Trump was plainly terrified. He didn't dare stand up to Putin in any way, and he bent US policy as much as he could to help the Russians. It's just a question of what Putin had on him.
Well, I'm sure that not everything in Unger's book is 100% reliable. It would be remarkable if a clever journalist, even one who's good friends with a high-ranking Russian defector and has a bunch of other interesting contacts, could find cast-iron proof when Mueller and his team didn't. But after reading this, I'm strongly inclined to believe that there were links between Trump, Putin and the late unlamented Jeffrey Epstein.
Some of these links are already generally accepted facts. Epstein clearly had a large, well-functioning pedophile operation where he systematically recruited attractive young girls and supplied them to friends with similar tastes. Epstein and Trump clearly used to hang out a lot together. It's clear that Trump likes young girls and isn't fussy about how he gets to have sex with women he wants. It's clear that Epstein died in extremely mysterious circumstances. When Epstein's associate Ghislaine Maxwell was apprehended, Trump made thinly veiled threats against her on live TV. If the above doesn't make you suspicious, I can only say that I envy you your sweet, trusting nature. You're a nicer person than I am.
Here, I read that it's anything but obvious where Epstein's money came from, and that he videoed a lot of what was going on at his various houses. I had sort of heard that before. But I hadn't heard about the obscure Florida cop who somehow ended up in possession of a large set of Epstein videos, collected when Epstein was raided. Somehow this cop hooked up with a Russian girlfriend that he met on the web, visited Russia, just happened to have lunch with one of Putin's billionaire buddies who just happened also to be one of the cop's Facebook friends, and then a bit later managed to leave the US in a rather complicated way and seek permanent refuge in Russia.
I don't know how to determine whether this story is solid or not. But quite a lot of it comes from generally available sources, and everything fits with Trump's, Putin's and Epstein's known characters. These people really stink.
Well, I'm sure that not everything in Unger's book is 100% reliable. It would be remarkable if a clever journalist, even one who's good friends with a high-ranking Russian defector and has a bunch of other interesting contacts, could find cast-iron proof when Mueller and his team didn't. But after reading this, I'm strongly inclined to believe that there were links between Trump, Putin and the late unlamented Jeffrey Epstein.
Some of these links are already generally accepted facts. Epstein clearly had a large, well-functioning pedophile operation where he systematically recruited attractive young girls and supplied them to friends with similar tastes. Epstein and Trump clearly used to hang out a lot together. It's clear that Trump likes young girls and isn't fussy about how he gets to have sex with women he wants. It's clear that Epstein died in extremely mysterious circumstances. When Epstein's associate Ghislaine Maxwell was apprehended, Trump made thinly veiled threats against her on live TV. If the above doesn't make you suspicious, I can only say that I envy you your sweet, trusting nature. You're a nicer person than I am.
Here, I read that it's anything but obvious where Epstein's money came from, and that he videoed a lot of what was going on at his various houses. I had sort of heard that before. But I hadn't heard about the obscure Florida cop who somehow ended up in possession of a large set of Epstein videos, collected when Epstein was raided. Somehow this cop hooked up with a Russian girlfriend that he met on the web, visited Russia, just happened to have lunch with one of Putin's billionaire buddies who just happened also to be one of the cop's Facebook friends, and then a bit later managed to leave the US in a rather complicated way and seek permanent refuge in Russia.
I don't know how to determine whether this story is solid or not. But quite a lot of it comes from generally available sources, and everything fits with Trump's, Putin's and Epstein's known characters. These people really stink.
August 28, 2021
As other GR reviewers have said, the book is a bit of a grab bag, not all of it substantiated. But the author included a detailed discussion of Opus Dei, which I’ve chosen to focus on here. (Let’s be clear, Opus Dei has no monks, although some members have practiced self-flagellation).
I’ve known my share of Christian fanatics over the years, both Evangelical and Roman Catholic. Graham Greene captures the mentality well…
“Doubt is the heart of the matter. Abolish all doubt, and what's left is not faith, but absolute, heartless conviction. You're certain that you possess the Truth -- inevitably offered with an implied uppercase T -- and this certainty quickly devolves into dogmatism and righteousness, by which I mean a demonstrative, overweening pride in being so very right, in short, the arrogance of fundamentalism.”
This exactly what we are dealing with in Opus Dei.
The author of the book begins his Opus Dei section by recapping the story of one of the biggest traitors in U.S. history, FBI agent, Robert Hanssen. He gave the Soviets, and later the Russians, thousands of pages of classified material that revealed such sensitive national security secrets as the identities of Soviets spying for the U.S., specifics about America’s nuclear operations and the existence of an FBI-built tunnel underneath the Soviet Embassy in Washington. He evaded exposure and arrest in spite of spying from 1979-1981, 1985-1991, and then 1992-2001, when he was finally arrested. He did it for the money and, apparently, out of some warped sense of revenge. Hanssen’s FBI supervisor described him as the “strangest person” he had ever worked with in the FBI, adding that he was a “kind of cipher who was rigid, dour, and a religious zealot.”
Several books have been written about this case, but the author set out to more fully explore Hanssen’s connection to Opus Dei. Hanssen’s wife, Bonnie, and most of her family, the Waucks, are members and her brother, Father John Wauck is a leading evangelist for Opus Dei. When Robert confessed to Bonnie the first time about his spying, she insisted he talk to an Opus Dei priest, Father Robert P. Bucciarelli. The priest told Hanssen to turn himself in. The next day Bucciarelli changed his mind and told Hanssen not to turn himself in, not only because it would be hard on the family, but also bad publicity for Opus Dei. Thus Hanssen ended up free to pursue his treason for 20 more years.
[There’s a Catholic doctrine known as “mental reservation,” which recognizes “the lie of necessity.” It's considered morally justifiable to lie in order to protect the reputation of the institutional church. It was invoked for years to provide cover for pedophile priests. Bottomline: the church is ALWAYS above civil law.]
Members of OD are elite, highly educated and often very wealthy. Their political hub is in DC at the Catholic Information Center, that moved to K Street, just two blocks from the White House in 1998, under the direction of Reverend C. John McCloskey, and in doing so became the closest tabernacle to the White House.
Converts to Opus Dei whom McCloskey had recruited, and in some cases baptized, include former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, Judge Robert H. Bork, Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS), National Economic Council director Larry Kudlow, and Fox News host Laura Ingraham. Josh Hawley is also thought to be a member. It’s certainly reflected in his theology.
McCloskey was forced out of DC in 2002, but the reason did not come out until years later. Sexual assault. The survivor is a devout, Washington-area Catholic who was among the many who received spiritual direction from McCloskey through the Catholic Information Center. She told The Washington Post that McCloskey groped her several times while she was going to pastoral counseling with him to discuss marital troubles and serious depression. Opus Dei paid $977,000 to settle the suit.
McCloskey eventually landed in CA, where he recruited my younger brother. When I investigated McCloskey, he was holing up in a house near the parish church I grew up in the Bay Area. There were about a half dozen young men, acolytes, living with him. They were an awkward bunch. McCloskey was very guarded in our interview and a very strange person.
What the author calls Donald Trump’s Praetorian Guard was headed by William Barr. The theory, clearly expressed in a speech that Barr gave to the Federalist Society in 2019, is that that Article 2 of the Constitution gives the president complete authority over the executive branch, with a wide berth to make war and interpret laws. If fully implemented, the unitary executive theory would allow presidents to take almost any actions they wanted at home or abroad without congressional authorization and would allow them to resist any attempts by Congress to implement oversight or constraints. giving the White House virtually unlimited power. If that sounds like dictatorship, that’s exactly what Barr wanted.
Meanwhile, Barr’s religious zealotry led him to go so far as to call for the end of secular democracy and to be replaced by God’s law.
Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, addressed the question of Opus Dei’s role in the Trump administration…
“Opus Dei Catholics were there, first and foremost, to reverse Roe v. Wade. They believe everyone should be Catholic, and that this kind of authoritarianism, a kind of tyranny, is what’s necessary to get this country back in order again. And what do they mean by ‘back in order again’? They mean white, male, with the wife following along behind, as the Bible says she should.”
In this way, Opus Dei worked with the Federalist Society to gain control of the Supreme Court, boasting seven current or former associate justices: Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, and Donald Trump’s most recent Supreme Court appointee, Amy Coney Barrett, who had clerked for the late associate justice Antonin Scalia, also a member of the Federalist Society. Before Barrett’s hearing, questioners were warned by Lindsey Graham not to bring up her religion, even though it’s central to her ideology.
=====
More details on McCloskey…
https://www.chicagotribune.com/ct-cat...
====
More on Barr and Trump’s Praetorian Guard. Funny, no mention by Barr of the international pedophile scandal when he speaks of “decay.”
https://www.thenation.com/article/arc...
===
Pope JP II, the main perp. The Devil himself was his most devout acolyte….
https://medium.com/@theacropolitan/fa...
I’ve known my share of Christian fanatics over the years, both Evangelical and Roman Catholic. Graham Greene captures the mentality well…
“Doubt is the heart of the matter. Abolish all doubt, and what's left is not faith, but absolute, heartless conviction. You're certain that you possess the Truth -- inevitably offered with an implied uppercase T -- and this certainty quickly devolves into dogmatism and righteousness, by which I mean a demonstrative, overweening pride in being so very right, in short, the arrogance of fundamentalism.”
This exactly what we are dealing with in Opus Dei.
The author of the book begins his Opus Dei section by recapping the story of one of the biggest traitors in U.S. history, FBI agent, Robert Hanssen. He gave the Soviets, and later the Russians, thousands of pages of classified material that revealed such sensitive national security secrets as the identities of Soviets spying for the U.S., specifics about America’s nuclear operations and the existence of an FBI-built tunnel underneath the Soviet Embassy in Washington. He evaded exposure and arrest in spite of spying from 1979-1981, 1985-1991, and then 1992-2001, when he was finally arrested. He did it for the money and, apparently, out of some warped sense of revenge. Hanssen’s FBI supervisor described him as the “strangest person” he had ever worked with in the FBI, adding that he was a “kind of cipher who was rigid, dour, and a religious zealot.”
Several books have been written about this case, but the author set out to more fully explore Hanssen’s connection to Opus Dei. Hanssen’s wife, Bonnie, and most of her family, the Waucks, are members and her brother, Father John Wauck is a leading evangelist for Opus Dei. When Robert confessed to Bonnie the first time about his spying, she insisted he talk to an Opus Dei priest, Father Robert P. Bucciarelli. The priest told Hanssen to turn himself in. The next day Bucciarelli changed his mind and told Hanssen not to turn himself in, not only because it would be hard on the family, but also bad publicity for Opus Dei. Thus Hanssen ended up free to pursue his treason for 20 more years.
[There’s a Catholic doctrine known as “mental reservation,” which recognizes “the lie of necessity.” It's considered morally justifiable to lie in order to protect the reputation of the institutional church. It was invoked for years to provide cover for pedophile priests. Bottomline: the church is ALWAYS above civil law.]
Members of OD are elite, highly educated and often very wealthy. Their political hub is in DC at the Catholic Information Center, that moved to K Street, just two blocks from the White House in 1998, under the direction of Reverend C. John McCloskey, and in doing so became the closest tabernacle to the White House.
Converts to Opus Dei whom McCloskey had recruited, and in some cases baptized, include former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, Judge Robert H. Bork, Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS), National Economic Council director Larry Kudlow, and Fox News host Laura Ingraham. Josh Hawley is also thought to be a member. It’s certainly reflected in his theology.
McCloskey was forced out of DC in 2002, but the reason did not come out until years later. Sexual assault. The survivor is a devout, Washington-area Catholic who was among the many who received spiritual direction from McCloskey through the Catholic Information Center. She told The Washington Post that McCloskey groped her several times while she was going to pastoral counseling with him to discuss marital troubles and serious depression. Opus Dei paid $977,000 to settle the suit.
McCloskey eventually landed in CA, where he recruited my younger brother. When I investigated McCloskey, he was holing up in a house near the parish church I grew up in the Bay Area. There were about a half dozen young men, acolytes, living with him. They were an awkward bunch. McCloskey was very guarded in our interview and a very strange person.
What the author calls Donald Trump’s Praetorian Guard was headed by William Barr. The theory, clearly expressed in a speech that Barr gave to the Federalist Society in 2019, is that that Article 2 of the Constitution gives the president complete authority over the executive branch, with a wide berth to make war and interpret laws. If fully implemented, the unitary executive theory would allow presidents to take almost any actions they wanted at home or abroad without congressional authorization and would allow them to resist any attempts by Congress to implement oversight or constraints. giving the White House virtually unlimited power. If that sounds like dictatorship, that’s exactly what Barr wanted.
Meanwhile, Barr’s religious zealotry led him to go so far as to call for the end of secular democracy and to be replaced by God’s law.
Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, addressed the question of Opus Dei’s role in the Trump administration…
“Opus Dei Catholics were there, first and foremost, to reverse Roe v. Wade. They believe everyone should be Catholic, and that this kind of authoritarianism, a kind of tyranny, is what’s necessary to get this country back in order again. And what do they mean by ‘back in order again’? They mean white, male, with the wife following along behind, as the Bible says she should.”
In this way, Opus Dei worked with the Federalist Society to gain control of the Supreme Court, boasting seven current or former associate justices: Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, and Donald Trump’s most recent Supreme Court appointee, Amy Coney Barrett, who had clerked for the late associate justice Antonin Scalia, also a member of the Federalist Society. Before Barrett’s hearing, questioners were warned by Lindsey Graham not to bring up her religion, even though it’s central to her ideology.
=====
More details on McCloskey…
https://www.chicagotribune.com/ct-cat...
====
More on Barr and Trump’s Praetorian Guard. Funny, no mention by Barr of the international pedophile scandal when he speaks of “decay.”
https://www.thenation.com/article/arc...
===
Pope JP II, the main perp. The Devil himself was his most devout acolyte….
https://medium.com/@theacropolitan/fa...
June 6, 2021
The book has 3 main research subjects: Donald Trump, William Barr/Robert Hanssen, and the Epstein/Maxwell alliance. Author Craig Unger poses that what ties them together is that they either wield Kompromat or they may be controlled by someone who does.
Russia’s process for recruiting agents is defined through the chapters on Donald Trump. The author relies on Yuri Shvits, a defected KGB agent, who gives insight on the tedious process looking for targets and filing reports. Having worked in the KGB (now FSB) he interprets the subtleties by which any FSB agent would surmise that Trump has been recruited. Two of the tells are:
• A Russian Ambassador was so impressed with Trump Tower that said he made an impulsive visit to introduce himself to Trump. A Russian news story immediately followed the visit. Shvits shows how no contact is ever impulsive; all are cleared. This was a preplanned media op.
• Trump Tower Moscow had been dazzled before Trump for 20+ years. It was never going to be built. This was a way to keep Trump eagerly coming back.
There is a lot about loans, deals and finance and how in denigrating NATO, supporting Asad and more, Trump advanced Kremlin priorities. Trump’s Kompromat is that at any time his Russian friends could expose his deeds, with or without sex tapes.
The chapters on Robert Hanssen and William Barr are the weakest. Unger poses that their membership in Opus Dei binds them, and others, to loyalty and promoting authoritarianism. Barr, as Attorney General under President Bush, promoted Hanssen twice, giving him 12 more years to sell secrets to the Soviets after his treachery was known. Barr’s helpfulness to Trump was told in review. The kompromat s here seems to be the membership in Opus Dei, which closely guards its members' identity such that the members do not know whom the other members are.
The most interesting chapters are those on the Maxwell/Epstein relationship. There is a lot of background on the Robert Maxwell, Ghilslaine’s father, who was associated with Epstein. Robert had an amazing career as a publisher, spy, double spy, money launderer and most likely an arms dealer. He may have committed suicide or maybe he was killed. His company was depleted at the time of his death. Perhaps he had looted some of it. Maybe some went to Epstein. Robert Maxwell enjoyed young girls and there is mention of someone in Bulgaria procuring them. There is more detail that I’d seen elsewhere of how a Palm Springs cop wound up with Epstein’s tapes and went to Russia with them.
The last chapter “American Carnage” is essentially browsing material, summing up the Trump administration.
This is a five star book when it gives the background on Trump’s recruitment as an asset, the Maxwell side of the Epstein saga, and the fate of the "Kompromat" produced by Epstein. All the research is good and credible, even in the “let down” chapters.
Russia’s process for recruiting agents is defined through the chapters on Donald Trump. The author relies on Yuri Shvits, a defected KGB agent, who gives insight on the tedious process looking for targets and filing reports. Having worked in the KGB (now FSB) he interprets the subtleties by which any FSB agent would surmise that Trump has been recruited. Two of the tells are:
• A Russian Ambassador was so impressed with Trump Tower that said he made an impulsive visit to introduce himself to Trump. A Russian news story immediately followed the visit. Shvits shows how no contact is ever impulsive; all are cleared. This was a preplanned media op.
• Trump Tower Moscow had been dazzled before Trump for 20+ years. It was never going to be built. This was a way to keep Trump eagerly coming back.
There is a lot about loans, deals and finance and how in denigrating NATO, supporting Asad and more, Trump advanced Kremlin priorities. Trump’s Kompromat is that at any time his Russian friends could expose his deeds, with or without sex tapes.
The chapters on Robert Hanssen and William Barr are the weakest. Unger poses that their membership in Opus Dei binds them, and others, to loyalty and promoting authoritarianism. Barr, as Attorney General under President Bush, promoted Hanssen twice, giving him 12 more years to sell secrets to the Soviets after his treachery was known. Barr’s helpfulness to Trump was told in review. The kompromat s here seems to be the membership in Opus Dei, which closely guards its members' identity such that the members do not know whom the other members are.
The most interesting chapters are those on the Maxwell/Epstein relationship. There is a lot of background on the Robert Maxwell, Ghilslaine’s father, who was associated with Epstein. Robert had an amazing career as a publisher, spy, double spy, money launderer and most likely an arms dealer. He may have committed suicide or maybe he was killed. His company was depleted at the time of his death. Perhaps he had looted some of it. Maybe some went to Epstein. Robert Maxwell enjoyed young girls and there is mention of someone in Bulgaria procuring them. There is more detail that I’d seen elsewhere of how a Palm Springs cop wound up with Epstein’s tapes and went to Russia with them.
The last chapter “American Carnage” is essentially browsing material, summing up the Trump administration.
This is a five star book when it gives the background on Trump’s recruitment as an asset, the Maxwell side of the Epstein saga, and the fate of the "Kompromat" produced by Epstein. All the research is good and credible, even in the “let down” chapters.
Want to read
February 1, 2021TWO WORDS: PEE-PEE TAPE
January 30, 2021
This was book was extremely well researched and well written. I think if I didn't find the subject so repulsive and morally offensive, I would have given it five stars. Every global citizen committed to the Common Good should read this book so they will understand the true horror of what we all just lived through the past four years and why we must seek reforms and put in safeguards to prevent a worse actor taking advantage again.
May 4, 2021
It’s amazing how a book could assert so many well known facts and highly plausible assumptions and, when all is said and done, have zero credibility and wind up with the flavor of a crackpot with a tinfoil hat standing on a rooftop shouting at clouds. That is exactly what Craig Unger accomplished with his book American Kompramat: How the KGB Cultivated Donald Trump, and Related Tales of Sex, Greed, Power, and Treachery
Actually, the book itself is a ripoff the likes of which should make his bogeyman, Donald Trump, proud. My guess is that aside from friends or relatives of the author, 100% or so of buyers made the purchase based on the subtitle and its promise of spectacular new dirt on Donald Trump, the guy about who we thought we all knew all the dirt.
As it turns out, Unger adds little new dirt beyond how Trump bought lots of TVs for his then under-construction Grand Hyatt Hotel from an electronics store run by Soviet emigres who, as it turns out, seems to have had KGB connections. The idea of the dimwitted but infinitely narcissistic sociopath becoming a useful “asset” to a foreign intelligence service is highly plausible. There’s no suggestion that Trump was ever disloyal, though. The book rehashes that which is already well known, that he was coopted by flattery and possibility fear of blackmail for who knows what might have been on tape. Nothing new here.
But actually, this is a very tiny part of the book. Most of it is a rambling rant on Robert Maxwell, William Barr, Jeffrey Epstein, etc., etc., etc. and how they were supposedly imposing their views through a web of whatever. It’s a conspiracy theorist’s dream. But a lot of it also repeats all the news stories about everything bad Trump and Republicans did, adding nothing new to that which is already widely known.
If this review is starting to sound like it lacks coherence, I get it. That’s because I was unable to discern any coherent thesis in the book as it rambled from one assertion to the next making little overt acknowledgment of the difference between that which is verified by evidence, that which is speculative and that wish rehashes that which every news organization already reported a gazillion times.
By the end of this mess, I’m at the point where I wouldn’t trust Craig Unger to tell me the day of the week.
A bad book is bad enough. A bad book fraudulently marketed — as some sort of new expose on connections between Trump and Russia — is much much worse.
Actually, the book itself is a ripoff the likes of which should make his bogeyman, Donald Trump, proud. My guess is that aside from friends or relatives of the author, 100% or so of buyers made the purchase based on the subtitle and its promise of spectacular new dirt on Donald Trump, the guy about who we thought we all knew all the dirt.
As it turns out, Unger adds little new dirt beyond how Trump bought lots of TVs for his then under-construction Grand Hyatt Hotel from an electronics store run by Soviet emigres who, as it turns out, seems to have had KGB connections. The idea of the dimwitted but infinitely narcissistic sociopath becoming a useful “asset” to a foreign intelligence service is highly plausible. There’s no suggestion that Trump was ever disloyal, though. The book rehashes that which is already well known, that he was coopted by flattery and possibility fear of blackmail for who knows what might have been on tape. Nothing new here.
But actually, this is a very tiny part of the book. Most of it is a rambling rant on Robert Maxwell, William Barr, Jeffrey Epstein, etc., etc., etc. and how they were supposedly imposing their views through a web of whatever. It’s a conspiracy theorist’s dream. But a lot of it also repeats all the news stories about everything bad Trump and Republicans did, adding nothing new to that which is already widely known.
If this review is starting to sound like it lacks coherence, I get it. That’s because I was unable to discern any coherent thesis in the book as it rambled from one assertion to the next making little overt acknowledgment of the difference between that which is verified by evidence, that which is speculative and that wish rehashes that which every news organization already reported a gazillion times.
By the end of this mess, I’m at the point where I wouldn’t trust Craig Unger to tell me the day of the week.
A bad book is bad enough. A bad book fraudulently marketed — as some sort of new expose on connections between Trump and Russia — is much much worse.
March 10, 2021
The world watched in dismay as the greatest democracy in the world imploded from within.
After the class act Presidency of Barack Obama and wife Michelle, the vulgarity and divisive nature of Donald Trump was beyond belief. Divide and conquer seem to be his mantra, divide a nation into chaos just as Hitler did. All that flag waving and parading through the streets was a page from the Nuremberg rally. He honed in on the disenfranchised, the unemployed and downtrodden spruiking like a marketeer that he would make America great again, while all the while the world still thought of America as a great country. The industry and manufacturing as was experienced by the United States years ago as well as others in the Western world will never return to its heyday when someone in Bangladesh, India or North Korea via China has no alternative other than to work long hours for slave wages. The Imperialists always look for the smallest investment for the greatest return.
USA the country who fought for their freedom against the British, gave to the world the mass production of the motor car, so that everyone could have the opportunity to own one, the Wright Brothers, the electric light, the universal bar code, MRI machines, the first country to put a man on the moon, television, mobile phones, the internet could not see the evil in their President, a narcissist, empathy deficient and in the position not for the good of the people or the world but simply for the self status and self gratification. A failed bankrupt bankrolled time and time again by his country's enemy Russia, the question still needs to be asked just what was in the mix for Russia? Trump's dealings with the Russian Mafia and KGB, money laundering dating as far back as 1980 are startling and horrifying. As the book describes, the KGB played the long game with Donald Trump, a man easily maneuvered, by money and flattery.
"To most of the country, he was vulgar and vile, a misogynistic, racist firebrand, a buffoon who knew only his own pecuniary interests and prejudices and would stop at nothing to satiate them….."
"But well before the election, it had become clear that he was far more dangerous than that suggested, that his buffoonery masked real demagoguery, that he was a tyrant who had mesmerized tens of millions…" - American Kompromat by Craig Unger.
https://www.kobo.com/AU/en/ebook/amer...
The read also goes into the life of Jeffrey Epstein and is difficult to take in without being totally disgusted by the decadence, degradation and paedophilia that Epstein and his mates got up to. Donald Trump's connection with this very grubby sexual predator is easy to see as Trump is reported to have said that he was sexually attracted to his own young daughter. So, where did Jeffrey Epstein get his wealth from, considering his poor background? Robert Maxwell reported to have been the biggest criminal thief in British history as things started to close in on Maxwell before his death he is reported to have transferred huge sums of money to Jeffrey Epstein for safekeeping and then he dies? Murder is suspected. Jeffrey Epstein took Ghislaine Maxwell under his wing, for which she gave him his "entrée into Society and British Royalty". At some time Maxwell, Epstein and Trump all had ties with arms dealers like Khashoggi. Epstein is jailed and he too dies, suicide???
This read also devotes a chapter to the Spy Wars,
"1985, the so-called Year of the Spy, enough espionage took place to keep John le Carré busy for decades. It actually started in December 1984,"
CIA agent Aldrich Ames responsible for the deaths of many operatives is serving life in jail without parole, (The Spy and the Traitor by Ben Mcintyre….The life of Oleg Gordievsky reads like every Spy novel ever written and more! refers to Ames…On the other side of the world a rather unremarkable American CIA agent, Aldrich Ames decided to spy against his country, his motivation was greed, he wanted lots of money. He made several efforts to attract Soviet attention. Was this man so unremarkable that they initially ignored him? He alone is responsible for divulging Oleg Gordievsky's name to the KGB.
FBI agent Robert Hanssen is serving fifteen consecutive life terms in prison.
After the class act Presidency of Barack Obama and wife Michelle, the vulgarity and divisive nature of Donald Trump was beyond belief. Divide and conquer seem to be his mantra, divide a nation into chaos just as Hitler did. All that flag waving and parading through the streets was a page from the Nuremberg rally. He honed in on the disenfranchised, the unemployed and downtrodden spruiking like a marketeer that he would make America great again, while all the while the world still thought of America as a great country. The industry and manufacturing as was experienced by the United States years ago as well as others in the Western world will never return to its heyday when someone in Bangladesh, India or North Korea via China has no alternative other than to work long hours for slave wages. The Imperialists always look for the smallest investment for the greatest return.
USA the country who fought for their freedom against the British, gave to the world the mass production of the motor car, so that everyone could have the opportunity to own one, the Wright Brothers, the electric light, the universal bar code, MRI machines, the first country to put a man on the moon, television, mobile phones, the internet could not see the evil in their President, a narcissist, empathy deficient and in the position not for the good of the people or the world but simply for the self status and self gratification. A failed bankrupt bankrolled time and time again by his country's enemy Russia, the question still needs to be asked just what was in the mix for Russia? Trump's dealings with the Russian Mafia and KGB, money laundering dating as far back as 1980 are startling and horrifying. As the book describes, the KGB played the long game with Donald Trump, a man easily maneuvered, by money and flattery.
"To most of the country, he was vulgar and vile, a misogynistic, racist firebrand, a buffoon who knew only his own pecuniary interests and prejudices and would stop at nothing to satiate them….."
"But well before the election, it had become clear that he was far more dangerous than that suggested, that his buffoonery masked real demagoguery, that he was a tyrant who had mesmerized tens of millions…" - American Kompromat by Craig Unger.
https://www.kobo.com/AU/en/ebook/amer...
The read also goes into the life of Jeffrey Epstein and is difficult to take in without being totally disgusted by the decadence, degradation and paedophilia that Epstein and his mates got up to. Donald Trump's connection with this very grubby sexual predator is easy to see as Trump is reported to have said that he was sexually attracted to his own young daughter. So, where did Jeffrey Epstein get his wealth from, considering his poor background? Robert Maxwell reported to have been the biggest criminal thief in British history as things started to close in on Maxwell before his death he is reported to have transferred huge sums of money to Jeffrey Epstein for safekeeping and then he dies? Murder is suspected. Jeffrey Epstein took Ghislaine Maxwell under his wing, for which she gave him his "entrée into Society and British Royalty". At some time Maxwell, Epstein and Trump all had ties with arms dealers like Khashoggi. Epstein is jailed and he too dies, suicide???
This read also devotes a chapter to the Spy Wars,
"1985, the so-called Year of the Spy, enough espionage took place to keep John le Carré busy for decades. It actually started in December 1984,"
CIA agent Aldrich Ames responsible for the deaths of many operatives is serving life in jail without parole, (The Spy and the Traitor by Ben Mcintyre….The life of Oleg Gordievsky reads like every Spy novel ever written and more! refers to Ames…On the other side of the world a rather unremarkable American CIA agent, Aldrich Ames decided to spy against his country, his motivation was greed, he wanted lots of money. He made several efforts to attract Soviet attention. Was this man so unremarkable that they initially ignored him? He alone is responsible for divulging Oleg Gordievsky's name to the KGB.
FBI agent Robert Hanssen is serving fifteen consecutive life terms in prison.
September 9, 2023
Meh, promises much delivers little. Yes Trump is almost certainly in the pocket of Russia its possible that he doesn't even know it himself (maybe he is just being "kind" to Putin ie giving him Syria) but most likely the Russians did play a good game 40 years ago. The problem with the book is that there is nothing here a person who has followed the story has not already watched, heard or read.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgmg2... go straight to the one hour seven minute mark and watch a KGB agent explain the future, from the past.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgmg2... go straight to the one hour seven minute mark and watch a KGB agent explain the future, from the past.
February 14, 2021
Very interesting. Lots of circumstantial evidence to suggest Trump is a Russian asset bc of compromat by the Russians. Can't draw conclusions but they say "where there's smoke, there's fire." Who knows. If the author is right there are vast domestic and international forces invested in preventing the truth from coming out. I'm not a conpiracy theorist, so we'll see if the dotted lines between the facts implicating Trump will become solid. Don't hold your breath for too long.
April 19, 2021
How Trump was spotted and recruited as a KGB "trusted contact", starting in 1980 when he purchased hundreds of televisions from an electronics store in Manhattan run by Russian Jewish emigres working as a "spotter" for the KGB. Also starting around then, Russian oligarchs started coming to Trump to purchase real estate from him, typically through shell companies where the beneficial owner wasn't specified. Then he traveled to Moscow in 1987, nominally to discuss a possible Trump Tower in Moscow. Craig believes that this is when he was recruited as an agent, and given talking points that were included in full-page ads Trump placed in the NY Times, Boston Globe, and Wash post. The points were anti-Nato, anti-Japan, pro-fossil fuel, pro arms control, and covered other positions that the Russians favored. Lots more details including his Czech wife and possible involvement from the Czech KGB station on that.
Craig also argues that Opus Dei, the right-wing Catholic secret society that first gained fame with its links to Spain under Franco, is trying to promote a "unitary" (authoritarian) executive in the USA, along with a right-wing judiciary. Opus Dei's ivy league trained enablers like William Barr were key supporters of Trump, and thus indirect bedfellows with the KGB in this support. Barr and allies stopped any meaningful investigation into Trump's Russian ties.
Craig also brings in Robert Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein, fellow travelers with Trump in the filthy rich circles of the 1980s. Evidence suggests that Epstein made his money as a money launderer and that Maxwell was a key client. Maxwell himself laundered vast amounts of Russian mafia cash linked to the KGB.
How credible is this account? According to Craig and his sources, the modus operandi of the KGB and its successors is to not leave a trace that can lead back to them. So how to explain that a book's worth of evidence was left behind? One explanation could be that from March 2016, when the Russians started believing Trump had a chance, that they pulled out all stops and threw caution to the wind to get him elected. Normally, the KGB didn't get involved in election fraud, because it was so likely to be uncovered. In this case, the goal of discrediting democracy was key, and the disclosure of Russian efforts in effect became part of the narrative that democracy wasn't working.
Another question on credibility is Craig's reliance on Yuri Shvets, a former KGB Major that left the KGB and became an American business consultant. The book is filled with lots of sensational material on Trump, Epstein, Maxwell, and other celebrities that come from the full range of sources, mostly anecdotal, and much of only token value to supporting the central argument. The key source material that is of potential new value is from Shvets. One has to assume that he is passing this stuff to Craig with the blessing of the KGB (now FSB), since if this wasn't the case, he would be poisoned, and/or his extended family in Russia would all be threatened. Given this, how should we interpret what he says? The FSB could believe first that Trump is no longer a useful asset, and second that allowing Yuri to disclose the history supports the narrative that American democracy is broken. Alternatively, the FSB may have given Shvets the green light to signal the success of Russian oligarchs in reaching the highest levels of the capitalist world. They are showing off, like their peers Maxwell, Epstein, and Trump. Another possibility is that the FSB is starting to notice that capitalist fame is a slippery slope: Maxwell and Epstein both allegedly murdered, and Trump ending his presidency disgracefully: perhaps the FSB mafia is trying to avoid these fates and thinks it can win friends and protection by supporting progressive investigative journalism. Also, the Russian Mafia/FSB, once a shady partner to the super-rich celebrities of the West, may want to proclaim to the world that is still standing and surprisingly respectable.
Then there's the question: what's the Kompromat (compromising material)? A lot is made of Epstein's alleged CCTV videos of rich men having sex with underage girls. But they have never surfaced. We don't even know if and why they were made in the first place. There are all the shady deals with Trump laundering Russian money that helped pull him out of near bankruptcy more than once, but this is widely known and isn't illegal as long as he can plausibly deny he knew of the beneficial owners of the shell companies investing in his business.
Craig says recruiting Trump as a trusted contact by the KGB/FSB was the greatest intelligence coup against the US government since the Civil War. But what was the benefit to Russia? In the early days, it was perhaps a steady flow of information from an increasingly prominent US businessman, and willingness to promote KGB talking points. The Russians had similar links to Armond Hammer, but he was getting old and then sought a younger, more active player. When Trump became US President, he did lots to praise Putin, support fossil fuels, oppose Nato, put Russian sanctions on hold, remove US opposition to Syria's Assad, and do other things to support Russian interests. One reason why he didn't do more may be that the Russian intervention in the 2016 election came out, and this put Trump in a corner: he couldn't too visibly favor Russia because of this. Yet the doubts that Russia helped to stir in the American electorate about the value of US democracy was the greatest success. 70 million voters voted for Trump and his anti-democratic ways, and that catastrophe will take a long time to repair.
Craig also argues that Opus Dei, the right-wing Catholic secret society that first gained fame with its links to Spain under Franco, is trying to promote a "unitary" (authoritarian) executive in the USA, along with a right-wing judiciary. Opus Dei's ivy league trained enablers like William Barr were key supporters of Trump, and thus indirect bedfellows with the KGB in this support. Barr and allies stopped any meaningful investigation into Trump's Russian ties.
Craig also brings in Robert Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein, fellow travelers with Trump in the filthy rich circles of the 1980s. Evidence suggests that Epstein made his money as a money launderer and that Maxwell was a key client. Maxwell himself laundered vast amounts of Russian mafia cash linked to the KGB.
How credible is this account? According to Craig and his sources, the modus operandi of the KGB and its successors is to not leave a trace that can lead back to them. So how to explain that a book's worth of evidence was left behind? One explanation could be that from March 2016, when the Russians started believing Trump had a chance, that they pulled out all stops and threw caution to the wind to get him elected. Normally, the KGB didn't get involved in election fraud, because it was so likely to be uncovered. In this case, the goal of discrediting democracy was key, and the disclosure of Russian efforts in effect became part of the narrative that democracy wasn't working.
Another question on credibility is Craig's reliance on Yuri Shvets, a former KGB Major that left the KGB and became an American business consultant. The book is filled with lots of sensational material on Trump, Epstein, Maxwell, and other celebrities that come from the full range of sources, mostly anecdotal, and much of only token value to supporting the central argument. The key source material that is of potential new value is from Shvets. One has to assume that he is passing this stuff to Craig with the blessing of the KGB (now FSB), since if this wasn't the case, he would be poisoned, and/or his extended family in Russia would all be threatened. Given this, how should we interpret what he says? The FSB could believe first that Trump is no longer a useful asset, and second that allowing Yuri to disclose the history supports the narrative that American democracy is broken. Alternatively, the FSB may have given Shvets the green light to signal the success of Russian oligarchs in reaching the highest levels of the capitalist world. They are showing off, like their peers Maxwell, Epstein, and Trump. Another possibility is that the FSB is starting to notice that capitalist fame is a slippery slope: Maxwell and Epstein both allegedly murdered, and Trump ending his presidency disgracefully: perhaps the FSB mafia is trying to avoid these fates and thinks it can win friends and protection by supporting progressive investigative journalism. Also, the Russian Mafia/FSB, once a shady partner to the super-rich celebrities of the West, may want to proclaim to the world that is still standing and surprisingly respectable.
Then there's the question: what's the Kompromat (compromising material)? A lot is made of Epstein's alleged CCTV videos of rich men having sex with underage girls. But they have never surfaced. We don't even know if and why they were made in the first place. There are all the shady deals with Trump laundering Russian money that helped pull him out of near bankruptcy more than once, but this is widely known and isn't illegal as long as he can plausibly deny he knew of the beneficial owners of the shell companies investing in his business.
Craig says recruiting Trump as a trusted contact by the KGB/FSB was the greatest intelligence coup against the US government since the Civil War. But what was the benefit to Russia? In the early days, it was perhaps a steady flow of information from an increasingly prominent US businessman, and willingness to promote KGB talking points. The Russians had similar links to Armond Hammer, but he was getting old and then sought a younger, more active player. When Trump became US President, he did lots to praise Putin, support fossil fuels, oppose Nato, put Russian sanctions on hold, remove US opposition to Syria's Assad, and do other things to support Russian interests. One reason why he didn't do more may be that the Russian intervention in the 2016 election came out, and this put Trump in a corner: he couldn't too visibly favor Russia because of this. Yet the doubts that Russia helped to stir in the American electorate about the value of US democracy was the greatest success. 70 million voters voted for Trump and his anti-democratic ways, and that catastrophe will take a long time to repair.
February 3, 2021
Following up on 2018's House of Trump, House of Putin: The Untold Story of Donald Trump and the Russian Mafia, Unger offers up plenty more dirt on Trump in connection to Russian intelligence, Epstein, Opus Dei, and so on. Gotta admit, I almost put the book down just a few pages in. The author didn't do himself any favours with the sensationalist tone he employs in the introductory chapter that sounds entirely too much like tabloid fare or an exceedingly dramatic prosecutor's opening statement. Thankfully, he toned down the rhetoric somewhat in subsequent chapters. Some of his claims are more, some less well-founded. For all that it's been getting a bunch of media attention, there's no disguising the fact that the book's perhaps most explosive claim, namely that Trump has been an asset for the KGB and its successors for the past four decades, rests on little more than speculation by a handful of former intelligence operatives of various origins. It's a compelling tale, but all the evidence Unger has to offer to back it up is circumstancial. In general, there seems to be rather a lot of "could" and "might", frequent occurrences of things "suggesting" or "indicating" something or other, and a whole boatload of "allegedly" and "it's possible", but not all that much based on more than one person's word against that of another. The theories Unger includes here that he does have evidence and corroboration thereof for have already been explored elsewhere. Could everything he claims here be true? Sure. Would what Unger has to back up his story suffice to convict in a court of law? I seriously doubt it.
February 23, 2021
Since Trump was elected, I have read most of the books about his Presidency, trying to understand how it happened, and why nothing could be done to stop it. Of all the books I read, American Kompromat is the most revealing and thorough, covering in detail the decades during which Trump was groomed to become a Russian asset, and right up to his - and the Republican party's - failure to accept his loss to Joe Biden. Craig Unger has had access to many high-level sources, including intelligence officers in the CIA, FBI, and the KGB, thousands of pages of FBI investigations, police investigations, and news articles in English, Russian, and Ukrainian. This book is about more than just Donald Trump. It is about who put Trump in power and kept him there, and about the danger that this may happen again.
February 28, 2021
This was an exhaustive, complicated study wherein the author tries to show that Trump is tied in with Russian cash - as well as possibly beholden to one power or another, probably Russia again, because of Kompromat, or compromising information - as well as bringing into government via appointments to administration positions, a number conservative Catholic lawyers who all belong to a shadowy right-wing religious society called Opus Dei - as well as possibly being tied in to numerous shady figures via his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, who is now of course dead.
One clue leads to another revelation, seemingly. The purchase of television sets from an electronics store near Madison Square may have been some sort of favor to a Russian KGB agent - or associate - who owned the store. Although the author simply offers conjectures or assumptions from the major source of his information about this section of the book, a former KGB agent who defected to the West. It is assumed the electronics store owner was with the KGB somehow because he owned a grocery store in his native Odessa, Ukraine. The story of how Russia basically fell to Russian Mafia, and then Russian oligarch, control is recounted - the reader is informed that many of the current oligarchs were once crime figures in the Russian mafia. The electronics store was said to be the go-to electronics store for Russian diplomats and spooks, who would buy the latest home entertainment systems there before returning to Russia. And so because Trump bought TV sets there for the renovated Grand Hyatt Hotel, he was somehow in with Russians in NYC. Well, that may or may not be true - but drawing that conclusion from a purchase of TV sets is circumstantial, rather far-fetched.
The more compelling theory is that Trump following his multiple business bankruptcies, could not obtain credit to stay in business since he was a poor credit risk. Instead he turned to shady sources of financing, and that included Russian mafia figures. The Russian mafia figures by now were oligarchs, but all were tied in with Putin, a former KGB man, and the KGB had previously ¨recruited¨ Trump when Trump visited Russia to obtain permission to build a hotel in Moscow. The hotel was the ¨dangle¨ that the KGB used to entice Trump, possibly fill his head with KGB talking points, regarding objectives of Russia foreign policy with respect to the US, NATO, etc. - and then, when Trump began suffering business difficulties, the Russians saw the ideal opportunity to swoop in and rescue Trump financially, thus binding him more closely to them. This all supposedly happened before the fall of communism in Russia - but Trump was never a left-wing sort of person. So why would he play ball with the KGB? It is true that by the time Trump was on the ropes financially, Gorbachev was trying to reform Russian communism and was inviting foreign investments - analogous to the reforms then underway in China with joint ventures etc. So it isn´t that far-fetched that Trump might have seen a hotel in Moscow as his next flashy, spectacular move to grab global attention and push his brand - even into the heart of the communist East. Was playing ball with the KGB - adopting their talking points - part of the deal? The author seems to think Trump adopted certain KGB talking points, because he purchased full-page ads in three prominent US newspapers calling for NATO allies to pay their fair share of costs, and driving a wedge between the US and NATO was an objective of the Russian gov, so it would have been one of the talking points the KGB might have fed into Trump. The author thinks Trump was in fact fed talking points and then regurgitated them in the three ads. It is also possible Trump came to his own conclusions, and perhaps was trying to once again grab headlines by publicizing views that were (and still are) considered outlandish, or anti-establishment. There is no proof of KGB conversations or any sort of KGB contract or deal with Trump, in exchange for the Russian financing of his businesses, presented. The author states that Putin provided $2 billion to Trump at that time, but there is no proof presented. Now that Trump´s financial records are available to the NY attorney general, however, there may be some new information about loans from Russian entities (and if to the tune of multi million or billion dollar loans, there´s no question but that they were in effect payments, perhaps purchases even of a stake in his business). The author draws a number of conclusions from rather flimsy information - the gist of his investigation is that Trump was turned into a Russian asset (or some level of Russian intelligence cooperator) because he needed the money, because no-one else would loan him money to continue his business. Meanwhile, the Russians had already identified Trump as a businessman they could possibly cultivate at some point, even before he started having problems with his businesses. They analyzed his personality and concluded he might be suitable - high-profile, many high-level connections etc. - perhaps even as a replacement for the aging Armand Hammer. However, Hammer was wildly different than Trump; smarter and more tactful. Trump was no replacement for Hammer. But Trump might be useful in other ways at some future time the KGB thought, so says the author. So they kept an eye on him, and when he needed money, they were there to help him. We shall never know if any of this is actually true unless bank records show transfers of large sums of money from Russia probably laundered through Deutsche Bank or Alfa Bank to Trump. Such records if they do exist, have not yet come to light.
There is an extensive section on Epstein - interesting in that it explains how Epstein rose to great wealth, was helped socially by his association with Ghislaine Maxwell, why Maxwell might gravitate to Epstein, etc. It´s all quite interesting and the point of this section of the book is to show that Trump, who was friends with Epstein for a number of years, might have unwittingly been recorded or photographed in compromising situations, such as with underage girls, at Epstein´s island property, or his Upper East side mansion etc. Ms. Maxwell´s father supposedly worked with the KGB, but also helped British and Israeli intelligence. Is it possible that Epstein was selling the compromising information to various intelligence services? Or was it all simply seized by the FBI when Epstein was arrested? Epstein cannot flip and confess because he died in jail - a death that that the author states may not have been suicide. The author reviews the chain of events that led up to the suicide, and it seems there were a lot of odd occurrences that evening, such as the guards not looking in on him every half hour as they were supposed to, and other strange things, such as his body being removed from the premises immediately to a hospital, and the scene of the suicide never being photographed.
There is also the section on Trump´s final year in office - with the election seemingly slipping away from him as covid spread and the economy crashed. At the time the book was written, the Capitol riot had not yet occurred - of course neither had Trump´s second impeachment. The author repeatedly condemns Trump for his incessant lying, ridiculous Tweets, and so forth but does note that he received more votes in 2020 than any other candidate in history except of course Biden.
To conclude: I have always figured Trump probably accepted money at some point from Russia, at least looked the other way when Russian oligarchs laundered money through the purchase of Trump properties. The author claims that Putin re-floated the Trump business empire to the tune of two billion dollars, but offers no proof, other than the fact that Trump was suddenly back in business despite not being able to obtain credit from any US bank. He then went into a business partnership with two Russians who were former Russian Mafia figures, who provided funding for the Trump Soho development. As stated above, I figured Trump made a deal with Russia to get funding once his businesses were kaput in the bankruptcies - but we shall never really know for certain unless there is an audit going back 20 years or so, that could prove that money was transferred to Trump from Putin. If Russia has kompromat on Trump that the KGB either directly obtained when Trump stayed in Russia, or that they may have purchased from Epstein - there is no way of knowing. As for Trump the politician, the author gives him credit for nothing, since he sees Trump as a divisive, bombastic, lying wannabe dictator and that severely negative assessment doesn´t permit allowing that Trump may have actually accomplished some positive things in the four years he served as president, such as advancing criminal justice reform, commuting the sentences of a number of nonviolent offenders who had been sentenced under extremely unjust sentencing guidelines, reforming the VA, and many other initiatives. Rather the many negatives of Trump´s term in office are highlighted: The cronyism, the appointment of unqualified loyalists to fill intelligence spots in the administration, and so forth. The veil of partisan rage because Trump violated so many norms, and effectively tore the country apart, prevents Mr. Unger, as it has prevented many journalists, from objectively considering Trump - the rage blinds these writers to anything Trump may have done that was actually positive. The author says the election of Trump represented the most serious failure of US national security ever - since it put a Russian asset into the office of POTUS. However, we have to believe that Trump really is a Russian asset in order to accept that statement. And we need more proof - more than the purchase of TV sets, or ads in newspapers. That Trump´s campaign coordinated with Russia to win the ´16 election, or at least accepted the help, and didn´t decline or report it - is I think a fact, although the Mueller report said there was no collusion or coordination, it did say there was obstruction of justice. If there was obstruction of justice - there must have been a reason to hide certain things. So that aspect of Trump´s relationship with Russia remains murky and is quite suspicious. I agree with Mr. Unger that Trump ally former US AG Barr no doubt shaped the report so as to make it look that it exonerated Trump´s campaign. However, I think Trump would have won in ´16 even without the Russian ¨help" because people obviously wanted a radical change. The popularity of Sanders and Trump proved that.
Anyway, I would recommend the book to anyone who wishes to read about some new information that may shed some light on the complicated Trump relationship with Russia, along with an interesting narrative on Robert Maxwell, Ghislaine´s once wealthy but finally broke father, and the story of how Epstein got to be so rich, and conjectures about the source of his money etc. This is one of the better of the Trump exposes (although I have not read them all) since it is carefully researched and also compiled new information from the aforementioned ex-KGB agent about how Russian intelligence has operated in the USA, their objectives both before and after the fall of communism in Russia, and so forth. It certainly riveted my attention - more so because it is so topical.
Here are a few quotes from the book:
¨...how deeply Trump was indebted to the Russian Mafia, because he had made a fortune laundering millions of dollars from former Soviets through his real estate.¨
¨Deeply insecure intellectually, highly suggestible, exceedingly susceptible to flattery, Trump was anxious to acquire some real intellectual validation. In that regard, the KGB would be more than happy to humor him."
¨In [Robert] Maxwell´s case, as in Trump´s, money laundering was a major part of the game."
¨In Washington, K Street lobbyists had created a lucrative cottage industry by fashioning ingenious loopholes in legislation that served powerful corporate interests --Big Oil, Big Pharma, and the like.¨
¨In October 2019, Barr told students at Notre Dame Law School....:¨This is not decay,¨ Barr said.... ¨This is organized destruction. Secularists and their allies among the ´progressives´ have marshaled all the forces of mass communications, popular culture, the entertainment industry, and academia in an unremitting assault on religion and traditional values.¨
One clue leads to another revelation, seemingly. The purchase of television sets from an electronics store near Madison Square may have been some sort of favor to a Russian KGB agent - or associate - who owned the store. Although the author simply offers conjectures or assumptions from the major source of his information about this section of the book, a former KGB agent who defected to the West. It is assumed the electronics store owner was with the KGB somehow because he owned a grocery store in his native Odessa, Ukraine. The story of how Russia basically fell to Russian Mafia, and then Russian oligarch, control is recounted - the reader is informed that many of the current oligarchs were once crime figures in the Russian mafia. The electronics store was said to be the go-to electronics store for Russian diplomats and spooks, who would buy the latest home entertainment systems there before returning to Russia. And so because Trump bought TV sets there for the renovated Grand Hyatt Hotel, he was somehow in with Russians in NYC. Well, that may or may not be true - but drawing that conclusion from a purchase of TV sets is circumstantial, rather far-fetched.
The more compelling theory is that Trump following his multiple business bankruptcies, could not obtain credit to stay in business since he was a poor credit risk. Instead he turned to shady sources of financing, and that included Russian mafia figures. The Russian mafia figures by now were oligarchs, but all were tied in with Putin, a former KGB man, and the KGB had previously ¨recruited¨ Trump when Trump visited Russia to obtain permission to build a hotel in Moscow. The hotel was the ¨dangle¨ that the KGB used to entice Trump, possibly fill his head with KGB talking points, regarding objectives of Russia foreign policy with respect to the US, NATO, etc. - and then, when Trump began suffering business difficulties, the Russians saw the ideal opportunity to swoop in and rescue Trump financially, thus binding him more closely to them. This all supposedly happened before the fall of communism in Russia - but Trump was never a left-wing sort of person. So why would he play ball with the KGB? It is true that by the time Trump was on the ropes financially, Gorbachev was trying to reform Russian communism and was inviting foreign investments - analogous to the reforms then underway in China with joint ventures etc. So it isn´t that far-fetched that Trump might have seen a hotel in Moscow as his next flashy, spectacular move to grab global attention and push his brand - even into the heart of the communist East. Was playing ball with the KGB - adopting their talking points - part of the deal? The author seems to think Trump adopted certain KGB talking points, because he purchased full-page ads in three prominent US newspapers calling for NATO allies to pay their fair share of costs, and driving a wedge between the US and NATO was an objective of the Russian gov, so it would have been one of the talking points the KGB might have fed into Trump. The author thinks Trump was in fact fed talking points and then regurgitated them in the three ads. It is also possible Trump came to his own conclusions, and perhaps was trying to once again grab headlines by publicizing views that were (and still are) considered outlandish, or anti-establishment. There is no proof of KGB conversations or any sort of KGB contract or deal with Trump, in exchange for the Russian financing of his businesses, presented. The author states that Putin provided $2 billion to Trump at that time, but there is no proof presented. Now that Trump´s financial records are available to the NY attorney general, however, there may be some new information about loans from Russian entities (and if to the tune of multi million or billion dollar loans, there´s no question but that they were in effect payments, perhaps purchases even of a stake in his business). The author draws a number of conclusions from rather flimsy information - the gist of his investigation is that Trump was turned into a Russian asset (or some level of Russian intelligence cooperator) because he needed the money, because no-one else would loan him money to continue his business. Meanwhile, the Russians had already identified Trump as a businessman they could possibly cultivate at some point, even before he started having problems with his businesses. They analyzed his personality and concluded he might be suitable - high-profile, many high-level connections etc. - perhaps even as a replacement for the aging Armand Hammer. However, Hammer was wildly different than Trump; smarter and more tactful. Trump was no replacement for Hammer. But Trump might be useful in other ways at some future time the KGB thought, so says the author. So they kept an eye on him, and when he needed money, they were there to help him. We shall never know if any of this is actually true unless bank records show transfers of large sums of money from Russia probably laundered through Deutsche Bank or Alfa Bank to Trump. Such records if they do exist, have not yet come to light.
There is an extensive section on Epstein - interesting in that it explains how Epstein rose to great wealth, was helped socially by his association with Ghislaine Maxwell, why Maxwell might gravitate to Epstein, etc. It´s all quite interesting and the point of this section of the book is to show that Trump, who was friends with Epstein for a number of years, might have unwittingly been recorded or photographed in compromising situations, such as with underage girls, at Epstein´s island property, or his Upper East side mansion etc. Ms. Maxwell´s father supposedly worked with the KGB, but also helped British and Israeli intelligence. Is it possible that Epstein was selling the compromising information to various intelligence services? Or was it all simply seized by the FBI when Epstein was arrested? Epstein cannot flip and confess because he died in jail - a death that that the author states may not have been suicide. The author reviews the chain of events that led up to the suicide, and it seems there were a lot of odd occurrences that evening, such as the guards not looking in on him every half hour as they were supposed to, and other strange things, such as his body being removed from the premises immediately to a hospital, and the scene of the suicide never being photographed.
There is also the section on Trump´s final year in office - with the election seemingly slipping away from him as covid spread and the economy crashed. At the time the book was written, the Capitol riot had not yet occurred - of course neither had Trump´s second impeachment. The author repeatedly condemns Trump for his incessant lying, ridiculous Tweets, and so forth but does note that he received more votes in 2020 than any other candidate in history except of course Biden.
To conclude: I have always figured Trump probably accepted money at some point from Russia, at least looked the other way when Russian oligarchs laundered money through the purchase of Trump properties. The author claims that Putin re-floated the Trump business empire to the tune of two billion dollars, but offers no proof, other than the fact that Trump was suddenly back in business despite not being able to obtain credit from any US bank. He then went into a business partnership with two Russians who were former Russian Mafia figures, who provided funding for the Trump Soho development. As stated above, I figured Trump made a deal with Russia to get funding once his businesses were kaput in the bankruptcies - but we shall never really know for certain unless there is an audit going back 20 years or so, that could prove that money was transferred to Trump from Putin. If Russia has kompromat on Trump that the KGB either directly obtained when Trump stayed in Russia, or that they may have purchased from Epstein - there is no way of knowing. As for Trump the politician, the author gives him credit for nothing, since he sees Trump as a divisive, bombastic, lying wannabe dictator and that severely negative assessment doesn´t permit allowing that Trump may have actually accomplished some positive things in the four years he served as president, such as advancing criminal justice reform, commuting the sentences of a number of nonviolent offenders who had been sentenced under extremely unjust sentencing guidelines, reforming the VA, and many other initiatives. Rather the many negatives of Trump´s term in office are highlighted: The cronyism, the appointment of unqualified loyalists to fill intelligence spots in the administration, and so forth. The veil of partisan rage because Trump violated so many norms, and effectively tore the country apart, prevents Mr. Unger, as it has prevented many journalists, from objectively considering Trump - the rage blinds these writers to anything Trump may have done that was actually positive. The author says the election of Trump represented the most serious failure of US national security ever - since it put a Russian asset into the office of POTUS. However, we have to believe that Trump really is a Russian asset in order to accept that statement. And we need more proof - more than the purchase of TV sets, or ads in newspapers. That Trump´s campaign coordinated with Russia to win the ´16 election, or at least accepted the help, and didn´t decline or report it - is I think a fact, although the Mueller report said there was no collusion or coordination, it did say there was obstruction of justice. If there was obstruction of justice - there must have been a reason to hide certain things. So that aspect of Trump´s relationship with Russia remains murky and is quite suspicious. I agree with Mr. Unger that Trump ally former US AG Barr no doubt shaped the report so as to make it look that it exonerated Trump´s campaign. However, I think Trump would have won in ´16 even without the Russian ¨help" because people obviously wanted a radical change. The popularity of Sanders and Trump proved that.
Anyway, I would recommend the book to anyone who wishes to read about some new information that may shed some light on the complicated Trump relationship with Russia, along with an interesting narrative on Robert Maxwell, Ghislaine´s once wealthy but finally broke father, and the story of how Epstein got to be so rich, and conjectures about the source of his money etc. This is one of the better of the Trump exposes (although I have not read them all) since it is carefully researched and also compiled new information from the aforementioned ex-KGB agent about how Russian intelligence has operated in the USA, their objectives both before and after the fall of communism in Russia, and so forth. It certainly riveted my attention - more so because it is so topical.
Here are a few quotes from the book:
¨...how deeply Trump was indebted to the Russian Mafia, because he had made a fortune laundering millions of dollars from former Soviets through his real estate.¨
¨Deeply insecure intellectually, highly suggestible, exceedingly susceptible to flattery, Trump was anxious to acquire some real intellectual validation. In that regard, the KGB would be more than happy to humor him."
¨In [Robert] Maxwell´s case, as in Trump´s, money laundering was a major part of the game."
¨In Washington, K Street lobbyists had created a lucrative cottage industry by fashioning ingenious loopholes in legislation that served powerful corporate interests --Big Oil, Big Pharma, and the like.¨
¨In October 2019, Barr told students at Notre Dame Law School....:¨This is not decay,¨ Barr said.... ¨This is organized destruction. Secularists and their allies among the ´progressives´ have marshaled all the forces of mass communications, popular culture, the entertainment industry, and academia in an unremitting assault on religion and traditional values.¨
January 31, 2021
Unger details the history of Trump's long-standing relationship with Russia (notably laundering money for oligarchs through real estate and parroting Russian policy in the American media) followed by all the other people in his sphere before pivoting to Opus Dei and William Barr. The Opus Dei stuff isn't as well documented, but it wouldn't be much of a secret society if it didn't diligently keep secrets. Then Jeffrey Epstein and Robert Maxwell are examined. It sounds amorphous but all these threads intersect at Donald Trump; although the author doesn't establish the sort of over-arching conspiracy favored by fiction, there's much to be disturbed by chronicled here.
February 12, 2023
The main point of Craig Unger's book, "American Kompromat," is a long-held maxim offered by journalist Michael Kinsley:
"The real scandal isn't what's illegal; it's what IS legal."
Sometimes, the most egregious and corrupt wrongdoings are perfectly lawful (like Trump profiting from high priced real estate sales -- selling multi-million dollar NYC and Florida condos to Russian oligarchs and Russian Mafia members who are in cahoots with the kleptocrat, autocrat Putin). The SCANDAL RESULTING FROM these legal transactions is simple: Trump carries a huge IOU to the Russians. This IOU, in turn, means Trump is indebted -- financially, politically, you name it -- to the Russians.
In other words, Trump owes them something and his "personal debt" problem becomes the bigger problem of an American President in debt to Putin, corrupt Russian businessmen, and Russian Mafia figures. Trump's personal problem becomes our problem when our own President is actually a HUGE National Intelligence risk and an extraordinary National Security risk -- something absolutely unprecedented in the history of the United States of America.
In short, Trump is a Russian intelligence asset. Do not be fooled by the Bill Barr "bait and switch" offered to the American public in Barr's summary of the Mueller Report, which examined:
* Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. Election and
* Trump's collusion with Russian intelligence assets, Russian Mobsters, Oligarchs, and other unsavory characters -- with the goal of publicly smearing Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party.
Barr reported only Mueller's conclusions about a criminal case against Trump (there was none) and ignored the national INTELLIGENCE breaches that most probably happened, out of sight, as a result of Trump's cozy business relationships with the Russians.
The Mueller mandate was an INTELLIGENCE BREACH investigation, and any CRIMINAL convictions that resulted were a secondary benefit. However, Barr emphasized ONLY the fact that Trump was not found to have committed any provable CRIMES (in his very public and legal transactions) with Russians. Barr's spin conveniently ignored the INTELLIGENCE findings about how the sum total of all the "legal" Trump activity severely weakened American strategic thinking, intelligence gathering, and policy decisions in favor of Russia.
A damn good book. Trump was and is an existential threat to the American institutions and democracy as we have known them since the time of the Founding Fathers. If you have not yet been, and still are not, outraged by this malfeasance of the first order, then you are not paying attention.
5 Stars
"The real scandal isn't what's illegal; it's what IS legal."
Sometimes, the most egregious and corrupt wrongdoings are perfectly lawful (like Trump profiting from high priced real estate sales -- selling multi-million dollar NYC and Florida condos to Russian oligarchs and Russian Mafia members who are in cahoots with the kleptocrat, autocrat Putin). The SCANDAL RESULTING FROM these legal transactions is simple: Trump carries a huge IOU to the Russians. This IOU, in turn, means Trump is indebted -- financially, politically, you name it -- to the Russians.
In other words, Trump owes them something and his "personal debt" problem becomes the bigger problem of an American President in debt to Putin, corrupt Russian businessmen, and Russian Mafia figures. Trump's personal problem becomes our problem when our own President is actually a HUGE National Intelligence risk and an extraordinary National Security risk -- something absolutely unprecedented in the history of the United States of America.
In short, Trump is a Russian intelligence asset. Do not be fooled by the Bill Barr "bait and switch" offered to the American public in Barr's summary of the Mueller Report, which examined:
* Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. Election and
* Trump's collusion with Russian intelligence assets, Russian Mobsters, Oligarchs, and other unsavory characters -- with the goal of publicly smearing Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party.
Barr reported only Mueller's conclusions about a criminal case against Trump (there was none) and ignored the national INTELLIGENCE breaches that most probably happened, out of sight, as a result of Trump's cozy business relationships with the Russians.
The Mueller mandate was an INTELLIGENCE BREACH investigation, and any CRIMINAL convictions that resulted were a secondary benefit. However, Barr emphasized ONLY the fact that Trump was not found to have committed any provable CRIMES (in his very public and legal transactions) with Russians. Barr's spin conveniently ignored the INTELLIGENCE findings about how the sum total of all the "legal" Trump activity severely weakened American strategic thinking, intelligence gathering, and policy decisions in favor of Russia.
A damn good book. Trump was and is an existential threat to the American institutions and democracy as we have known them since the time of the Founding Fathers. If you have not yet been, and still are not, outraged by this malfeasance of the first order, then you are not paying attention.
5 Stars
Read
September 27, 2021Really interesting, if not totally frightening look at Trump, who most of us know has been involved in money schemes his entire adult life. His indebtedness to and ownership by Putin is laid out, much already known and some new. While this book has a lot of circumstantial evidence, that evidence rings true in concert with what has been verified.
We're in a bad way here in the US, and Putin has the gritty determination, laser focus, steely stamina and KGB background/mindset that outsmarts most of our so-called leaders. (and that's just the ones who aren't also in Putin's grip.)
Definitely worth a read.
We're in a bad way here in the US, and Putin has the gritty determination, laser focus, steely stamina and KGB background/mindset that outsmarts most of our so-called leaders. (and that's just the ones who aren't also in Putin's grip.)
Definitely worth a read.
May 11, 2021
Deeply researched, documented in depth, and equal parts infuriating and anxiety-provoking.
Donald Trump is, in his essence, without any real essence. He is shallow, empty, venal, mean, and stupid. He has two assets, however. The first is that he was born rich and had great wealth and power given to him from childhood on without having to earn anything. The second is a kind of sociopathic charisma that makes him appealing and persuasive to the true believers of the world. His emptiness allows them to project onto him whatever they want to see.
He has taken those gifts and used them to make himself the instrument of people much smarter and more focused than he is, and in exchange they have maneuvered him into positions of power and influence where he can be more useful to them. The pinnacle of that phenomenon was his becoming president, with the help of the Russian intelligence services, Russian-linked banks, and Russian organized crime. He then dedicated the next four years to doing their bidding.
It's not clear how much of this was knowing on Trump's part, and how much was his being the proverbial useful idiot, but in the end, I don't think that matters much.
The book ends just after the 2020 election, with the note that despite losing, Trump is not going away. When Unger finished writing it the 1/6/2021 terrorist attack on the Capitol by Trump's MAGA supporters, instigated by Trump himself, had not yet taken place. Between the still-unfolding consequences of that sequence of events and the multiple federal, state, and local criminal investigations now moving forward looking into Trump's business and personal finances and alleged crimes, his political career may come to an end between now and the next presidential election after all.
Also, Trump leads an exceedingly unhealthy lifestyle - he is about 100 pounds overweight, eats a lot of fatty hyperprocessed foods full of empty calories, is mostly sedentary (driving from hole to hole on a golf cart and hitting a golf ball isn't much exercise), and makes habits of sleep deprivation and working himself into the kind of rage that makes people worry about his having a stroke or a heart attack. Beyond that, he will be 78 when the 2024 election takes place, Alzheimer's runs in his family, and he has shown increasing signs of mental deterioration over the last few years.
So Donald Trump's political career may end soon after all. However, the damage he has done to the U.S. and our allies at the behest of Putin and his Russian autocracy will take generations to clean up, and the four years he cost the Ameican program to fight global warming are gone beyond recreation.
Worst of all for this country, over half a million Americans died of COVID on his watch, and the relevant experts believe that the majority of those deaths would not have taken place if we'd had a competent, honest president who cared more about the lives of Americans than about his own ambitions.
Donald Trump may just be the worst thing that has ever happened to the United States of America, to western society, and to democracy itself. That sounds hyperbolic, but the history bears it out.
Donald Trump is, in his essence, without any real essence. He is shallow, empty, venal, mean, and stupid. He has two assets, however. The first is that he was born rich and had great wealth and power given to him from childhood on without having to earn anything. The second is a kind of sociopathic charisma that makes him appealing and persuasive to the true believers of the world. His emptiness allows them to project onto him whatever they want to see.
He has taken those gifts and used them to make himself the instrument of people much smarter and more focused than he is, and in exchange they have maneuvered him into positions of power and influence where he can be more useful to them. The pinnacle of that phenomenon was his becoming president, with the help of the Russian intelligence services, Russian-linked banks, and Russian organized crime. He then dedicated the next four years to doing their bidding.
It's not clear how much of this was knowing on Trump's part, and how much was his being the proverbial useful idiot, but in the end, I don't think that matters much.
The book ends just after the 2020 election, with the note that despite losing, Trump is not going away. When Unger finished writing it the 1/6/2021 terrorist attack on the Capitol by Trump's MAGA supporters, instigated by Trump himself, had not yet taken place. Between the still-unfolding consequences of that sequence of events and the multiple federal, state, and local criminal investigations now moving forward looking into Trump's business and personal finances and alleged crimes, his political career may come to an end between now and the next presidential election after all.
Also, Trump leads an exceedingly unhealthy lifestyle - he is about 100 pounds overweight, eats a lot of fatty hyperprocessed foods full of empty calories, is mostly sedentary (driving from hole to hole on a golf cart and hitting a golf ball isn't much exercise), and makes habits of sleep deprivation and working himself into the kind of rage that makes people worry about his having a stroke or a heart attack. Beyond that, he will be 78 when the 2024 election takes place, Alzheimer's runs in his family, and he has shown increasing signs of mental deterioration over the last few years.
So Donald Trump's political career may end soon after all. However, the damage he has done to the U.S. and our allies at the behest of Putin and his Russian autocracy will take generations to clean up, and the four years he cost the Ameican program to fight global warming are gone beyond recreation.
Worst of all for this country, over half a million Americans died of COVID on his watch, and the relevant experts believe that the majority of those deaths would not have taken place if we'd had a competent, honest president who cared more about the lives of Americans than about his own ambitions.
Donald Trump may just be the worst thing that has ever happened to the United States of America, to western society, and to democracy itself. That sounds hyperbolic, but the history bears it out.
February 1, 2021
A compilation of dirty deeds. I read most of the material in the newspapers over the last several years and months. However there was a lot of new material. I especially learned much more about Bill Barr. Good to have these events gathered in one place. Demonstrates many weaknesses of American government system.
A grim and disturbing book but a good read.
A grim and disturbing book but a good read.
February 24, 2021
Excellent book on Trump and his long time “friends”. It covers his interactions with Russians since the 1980s, including people who were in contact with now known and exposed spies. Epstein, Barr, Opus Dei, the Saudis, Khashoggi, are all here. A very convincing book, fact checked and detailed.
February 22, 2021
This book is a detailed catalog of the corruption of former President Donald Trump and his associates dating back to the 1970s. It is also an argument about how that corruption—in combination with Trump’s narcissistic personality—made him vulnerable to Russian influence, and how he ultimately became a Russian asset. It may not be shocking to hear that much of the luxury real estate market in NYC or Moscow boils down to a series of money laundering schemes, or that “it’s a small world” when it comes to the rich and powerful, but it is disturbing to see the evidence. The portion of the book covering how Jeffrey Epstein made his fortune hiding the ill-gotten gains of the world’s elite, while building an elaborate library of incriminating sex tapes—including working with his friend Ghislaine Maxwell to lure countless girls into sex slavery—is, honestly, hard to stomach. But Unger shows how everything ties together. And as the decades went by, the “kompromat” (compromising material that can be used to destroy someone) just kept piling up.
March 5, 2025
Well documented and with a lot of details about what might be the biggest operational success of Russian intelligence services in history. And it explains a lot of what the reelected Trump administration is doing these days to ruin global peace.
April 4, 2025
This is a pretty eye-opening exposé of the very, very long game that Russia, back when it was the Soviet Union and the spy guys were the KGB (now FSB, both bailiwicks of Vladimir Putin), played in getting its hooks into greedy, grifting, short-cutting Donald Tr**p, aka Comrade Krasnov. Craig Unger has done a great deal of research, and it shows. This book is a history of foreign intrigue, beginning with the Russians getting a firm foothold in New York, Brighton Beach, the electronics biz in the '70s in Manhattan, and their manipulation of narcissistic, insecure, and financially needy Donnie. Dangling the never-to-be-realized prospect of
Tr**p Tower Moscow has been a reliable and perpetual lure that the Queens Man cannot resist.
There are a LOT of Russians who appear throughout the decades, but they aren't the only eye-openers. Unger reveals the many tentacles that Opus Dei, the conservative Catholic group/cult, has within the government, the judiciary, and businesses. That group is the hook for a history of America's worst intelligence failure, turncoat-spy-for-Russia FBI agent Robert Hanssen. Hanssen was a full-on double agent; Donnie is a useful contact. Hanssen and his family members are *deep* into Opus Dei.
The OD also has a long-game agenda, and one of its members and fervent adherents is William (Bill) Barr, AG for President George H.W. Bush and for Donnie in Regime 1.0. Barr's commitment to the unitary executive theory of government has a guiding principle for him for decades, and it is seeing terrible fruition now under Regime 2.0.
There is a lot of ink spilled about Donnie's long friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, another Queens boy who was hungry for money and validation. And sex, a lot of sex, with underage girls procured by Ghislaine Maxwell, favorite daughter of very pro-Russia publisher and crook Robert Maxwell. Even though I'd read about these wretched people back in 2018 and before, their stories were pretty stomach-turning. But, the biggie was the massive amount of videotapes found in Epstein's properties pretty clearly for blackmail/"insurance" purposes. And that sort of kompromat is right up Russia's alley.
Reading "American Kompromat" in the first months of 2025 is both unsettling and frustrating, because the book was finished in December 2020, before the January 6 insurrection (although author Unger was concerned about the loser's indicating he'd not relinquish the Oval), Donnie's graceless and determined complaining, headline-grabbing, the theft of classified materials spirited to Mar-a-Money-Laundry, and the lawsuits, both federal and state against him. And then his re-election.
This is a book that deserves a sequel, as the dark times have returned with trademark cruelty and vengeance.
Tr**p Tower Moscow has been a reliable and perpetual lure that the Queens Man cannot resist.
There are a LOT of Russians who appear throughout the decades, but they aren't the only eye-openers. Unger reveals the many tentacles that Opus Dei, the conservative Catholic group/cult, has within the government, the judiciary, and businesses. That group is the hook for a history of America's worst intelligence failure, turncoat-spy-for-Russia FBI agent Robert Hanssen. Hanssen was a full-on double agent; Donnie is a useful contact. Hanssen and his family members are *deep* into Opus Dei.
The OD also has a long-game agenda, and one of its members and fervent adherents is William (Bill) Barr, AG for President George H.W. Bush and for Donnie in Regime 1.0. Barr's commitment to the unitary executive theory of government has a guiding principle for him for decades, and it is seeing terrible fruition now under Regime 2.0.
There is a lot of ink spilled about Donnie's long friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, another Queens boy who was hungry for money and validation. And sex, a lot of sex, with underage girls procured by Ghislaine Maxwell, favorite daughter of very pro-Russia publisher and crook Robert Maxwell. Even though I'd read about these wretched people back in 2018 and before, their stories were pretty stomach-turning. But, the biggie was the massive amount of videotapes found in Epstein's properties pretty clearly for blackmail/"insurance" purposes. And that sort of kompromat is right up Russia's alley.
Reading "American Kompromat" in the first months of 2025 is both unsettling and frustrating, because the book was finished in December 2020, before the January 6 insurrection (although author Unger was concerned about the loser's indicating he'd not relinquish the Oval), Donnie's graceless and determined complaining, headline-grabbing, the theft of classified materials spirited to Mar-a-Money-Laundry, and the lawsuits, both federal and state against him. And then his re-election.
This is a book that deserves a sequel, as the dark times have returned with trademark cruelty and vengeance.
Read
March 2, 2021For the first time a former KGB employee has gone on record to describe Donald Trump's historic relationship with the Kremlin. It's a bombshell that must be looked into.
Robert Baer, Former CIA Operative and Author of See No Evil
Trump's loyalty to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin was deeper and more insidious than merely envying his wealth and power. America has removed Putin's puppet from the White House, but the KGB man who controlled him is still in the Kremlin, eager to repeat the success of his greatest operation: President Trump. Read Craig Unger to understand why the danger to American democracy is far from over.
Garry Kasparov, Chairman of The Renew Democracy Foundation and Author of Winter Is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped
By compiling decades of Trump's seedy ties, disturbing and consistent patterns of behaviour, and unexplained contacts with Russian officials and criminals, Unger makes a strong case that Trump is probably a compromised trusted contact of Kremlin interests.
John Sipher, Washington Post
Craig Unger has just published a wonderful, well-written book. The jewel in the crown is how the KGB cultivated Donald Trump. With assistance of the eminent former KGB officer Yuri Shvets, American Kompromat establishes how it really took place.
Anders Åslund, Senior Fellow of The Atlantic Council
A must-read. The gun's not quite smoking, but the barrel's plenty hot, and there are Russian shell casings all around. STARRED REVIEW
Kirkus Reviews
Unger shows how the most powerful people in the world use kompromat — Russian for compromising information — to further their political goals. Think Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, Russians and Israelis — and ask how they get this information.
Library Journal
Robert Baer, Former CIA Operative and Author of See No Evil
Trump's loyalty to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin was deeper and more insidious than merely envying his wealth and power. America has removed Putin's puppet from the White House, but the KGB man who controlled him is still in the Kremlin, eager to repeat the success of his greatest operation: President Trump. Read Craig Unger to understand why the danger to American democracy is far from over.
Garry Kasparov, Chairman of The Renew Democracy Foundation and Author of Winter Is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped
By compiling decades of Trump's seedy ties, disturbing and consistent patterns of behaviour, and unexplained contacts with Russian officials and criminals, Unger makes a strong case that Trump is probably a compromised trusted contact of Kremlin interests.
John Sipher, Washington Post
Craig Unger has just published a wonderful, well-written book. The jewel in the crown is how the KGB cultivated Donald Trump. With assistance of the eminent former KGB officer Yuri Shvets, American Kompromat establishes how it really took place.
Anders Åslund, Senior Fellow of The Atlantic Council
A must-read. The gun's not quite smoking, but the barrel's plenty hot, and there are Russian shell casings all around. STARRED REVIEW
Kirkus Reviews
Unger shows how the most powerful people in the world use kompromat — Russian for compromising information — to further their political goals. Think Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, Russians and Israelis — and ask how they get this information.
Library Journal
May 17, 2021
(How the KGB cultivated Donald Trump, and Related Tales of Sex, Greed, Power and Treachery.)
It’s right there in the subtitle. This is the first thing I thought about when considering how to review this. Because it does stray from the initial topic quite a bit and may cause the casual reader to wonder “what does this have to do with THAT?” But the scope of the book is broad and paints a picture that we all recognize at this point. But the wrinkle of Trump being recruited as an asset back in the 80’s (one of many) by the KGB and then unwittingly parroting back the whole Soviet/Russian worldview as a platform for a major political party is the kind of thing that was supposed to be exposed by the Mueller Report. As explained in the text, it was all skillfully buried by AG William Barr. Barr gets a lot of time and airplay in this. It does offer a relatively damning summary of Trump’s time in public life, how one can trace back 40 years to see how the former Soviet Union saw promise in this brash young real estate tycoon on the rise, and how his ascent to the top office in the United States would have gone beyond any KGB recruiters’ wildest dreams.
But like a lot of books from the era of Trump, it will convince the initiated and be dismissed by his supporters who may or may not bother to read books. By the very nature of the subject, it can only be hearsay. And the book makes a point about how all the best intelligence operations are done with very few laws broken.
The last chapter sums up the last year of the Trump administration and the attempt to overturn the election. Somewhere Vladimir Putin is smiling.
It’s right there in the subtitle. This is the first thing I thought about when considering how to review this. Because it does stray from the initial topic quite a bit and may cause the casual reader to wonder “what does this have to do with THAT?” But the scope of the book is broad and paints a picture that we all recognize at this point. But the wrinkle of Trump being recruited as an asset back in the 80’s (one of many) by the KGB and then unwittingly parroting back the whole Soviet/Russian worldview as a platform for a major political party is the kind of thing that was supposed to be exposed by the Mueller Report. As explained in the text, it was all skillfully buried by AG William Barr. Barr gets a lot of time and airplay in this. It does offer a relatively damning summary of Trump’s time in public life, how one can trace back 40 years to see how the former Soviet Union saw promise in this brash young real estate tycoon on the rise, and how his ascent to the top office in the United States would have gone beyond any KGB recruiters’ wildest dreams.
But like a lot of books from the era of Trump, it will convince the initiated and be dismissed by his supporters who may or may not bother to read books. By the very nature of the subject, it can only be hearsay. And the book makes a point about how all the best intelligence operations are done with very few laws broken.
The last chapter sums up the last year of the Trump administration and the attempt to overturn the election. Somewhere Vladimir Putin is smiling.
June 10, 2021
I read this book as research for an AI-political thriller I am working on called the Second Scroll.
Written by an extremely credible journalism source with over 30 years of interviews and research, I found dozens of useful data points, insights and revelations that connect the rise of Putin, Epstein, Maxwell and a number of other key American leaders which may explain so many events of the past five years. American Kompromat gave me a rich textural background story that can be based on factual truths.
I am an independent voter, but this was an enlightening read. I would recommend for historians, those in the political journalism and certainly anyone writing political and international thrillers.
Written by an extremely credible journalism source with over 30 years of interviews and research, I found dozens of useful data points, insights and revelations that connect the rise of Putin, Epstein, Maxwell and a number of other key American leaders which may explain so many events of the past five years. American Kompromat gave me a rich textural background story that can be based on factual truths.
I am an independent voter, but this was an enlightening read. I would recommend for historians, those in the political journalism and certainly anyone writing political and international thrillers.
August 4, 2025
Narrated by Jason Culp.
Unger does a great job for laying out a case that at the very least, it was suspect to allow Trump into the White House. There is enough evidence of both his own dealings, and the dealings of people in his inner circle, with the Russian government for it to be suspicious. Unger has gathered many verified claims of these assertions, though I will say he also has plenty of less substantiated information and he does not necessarily separate them.
I wish he had focused more on the Trump of it all. Some of the winding paths through other possible Russian connections (Epstein, Maxwell, Opus Dei) didn't seem to connect as well, and made it harder to remember the main topic- Trump. The connections are interesting, if not well-made.
Unger does a great job for laying out a case that at the very least, it was suspect to allow Trump into the White House. There is enough evidence of both his own dealings, and the dealings of people in his inner circle, with the Russian government for it to be suspicious. Unger has gathered many verified claims of these assertions, though I will say he also has plenty of less substantiated information and he does not necessarily separate them.
I wish he had focused more on the Trump of it all. Some of the winding paths through other possible Russian connections (Epstein, Maxwell, Opus Dei) didn't seem to connect as well, and made it harder to remember the main topic- Trump. The connections are interesting, if not well-made.
July 20, 2022
If a person is looking for a list of all of the questionable and potentially illegal things that Trump did in one handy volume, this is it. In terms of new information, almost everything that wasn't widely reported in the media comes with words like "almost certainly" attached. The book is fairly repetitive, and for anyone who lived through the events, the second half of the book was largely a throwaway.
February 20, 2021
No one will rate his book merely for it's literary values or beautiful prose. This book delves into dates, times, players and details concerning the Trump administration, Opus Dei, the Supreme Court and the shady details of Jeffrey Epstein and of course Trump himself. Very well documented and filled with the entire story of things most people have wondered about. It's frightening how far Russia has made into our government and courts. The entire federal security agencies were damaged by Trump and Russia. A person can make their own judgement as to whether or not Trump was a Russian agent. Reading Unger's book is not an easy read but I highly recommend this book.
January 9, 2023
Clear writing about murky subjects. Just because things are unethical, immoral, unscrupulous, unprincipled, dishonourable, or plainly dishonest; does not always make them illegal... I used to think Kompromat was capital E espionage stuff, but this showed me many shades of grey in the spectrum of this concept. That was really interesting. I discovered a lot of irregularities that exist in plain sight in the current American political and corporate landscapes. I got a good glimpse from perspectives I had not appreciated before. (For example; I had no idea how many Trump administration and Justice Dept employees were from uber law firm Kirkland & Ellis, or just how fishy that looks when you shine a light on specific examples)
April 11, 2021
The book tied together several arcs of reading and listening I've done recently, about Hanssen, the Maxwells, and about Epstein. The footnotes provided some fascinating rabbit holes.
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