Journalists From The United States

"Given... control over.. oligarchs was crucial to... power, Putin needed to... keep tabs on... their money... If... the or other forms of flight capital were funding a Trumpbranded project... If oligarchs were buying scores of Trump condos... Putin wanted to know."

"[T]he biggest contributor to ... was Leviev... who had a direct line to Rabbi ... Donald Trump, and... Putin... Leviev would make major real estate transactions with Jared Kushner..."

"James Clapper asserted... Trump was... an intelligence "asset" serving... Putin."

"This is how Unger thinks. His previous two books tried to cement the idea that Donald Trump is an asset of Vladimir Putin. Unger’s ' is to point to many different dots and then wonder at how they might connect, even when he can’t connect them himself or when those dots are being served up by deeply unreliable sources, such as a former agent. Suspicion is what matters. He traffics in doubt."

"During the '80s and '90s, we... repeatedly saw... criminals... use condos and high-rises to launder money," says Jonathan Winer... "it was a way of turning dirty money into clean money... and it explained why there are so many high-rises... sold but no one... living in them."

"[I]n September of 1987 Trump takes out a full-page add in ', ' and ' ...full of wacky s about ...America's being taken to the cleaners ...we're being screwed over by NATO ...our allies like Japan are ...not worth it. ...No American politician was talking like this ...or any time since."

"If you're in a relationship with the , they're the boss. You're . ...[T]hey have compromised him, and they are ...an arm of the Russian government. Russia is a ."

"Boris Yeltsin's shift to a market economy was so abrupt that... s and corrupt government officials were able to privatize and loot state-held assets in oil, , s, and banking."

"Sater's ... did not appear to be a deal breaker for Trump. "Donald is happy with me...""

"[T]he public record makes clear that Trump built his business empire in no small part with a lot of dirty money from a lot of dirty Russians—including the dirtiest and most feared of them all."

"In 1984... David Bogatin... former pilot in the ... specialty... shooting down Americans over ... plunked... $6 million to buy... five [Trump Tower] luxury condos. ...According to ... Trump personally attended the closing... Russian mobsters were beginning to invest in high-end real estate... an ideal vehicle to launder money..."

"John Brennan declared Trump... "...in the pocket of Putin" and... on '... he... called Trump’s behavior "treasonous, which is to betray... trust and aid and abet the enemy...""

"Sapir told ' magazine, his customers included the former Soviet minister of s, who granted Sapir rights to distribute tens of thousands of tons of fertilizer and tens of millions of barrels of oil, while pocketing fees... [S]elling oil was impossible without approval."

"[F]low of money from Russia provided Trump with a crucial infusion of financing that helped rescue his empire... "They saved his bacon," says Kenneth McCallion..."

"A Senate investigation... revealed that Bogatin was a leading figure in the Russian mob in New York. His ...ties ...led straight to the top: His brother ran a $150 million stock scam with ..., whom the FBI considers the "boss of bosses" of the ... Mogilevich ...was expanding his multibillion-dollar international criminal syndicate into America."

"Gorbachev has taken over by then, but it's before the real thaw... The Soviet Union crumbled in 1991. This is several years earlier and... Donald Trump has taken out a full-page add in three of the nation's most prestigious newspapers... putting forth s... and the KGB... circulate the... internal memo announcing that as a successful active measure... by their new asset, Donald Trump."

"...35 Trump Towers ...8,000 or 10,000 units. It would be interesting to figure out ...the scale of ...[D]uring the same period, since Putin's been in power ...$1.3 trillion in flight capital from Russia... to launder."

"In Vladimir Putin's regime, business... organized crime and intelligence... can... be used as weapons of the state. ...[O]ne company that potentially questionable Russian money flowed through was Bayrock."

"Vnesheconombank, or VEB... bought $850 million of stock... from Shnaider... $15 million... went into the Trump Toronto project. ...[T]he chairman of VEB’s ...board ...Vladimir Putin."

"[O]ne Trump-branded project after another was beset by corruption, lawsuits... [etc]. Trump licensed Trump Tower Baku to close relatives of ... described in a diplomatic cable as "notoriously corrupt even for Azerbaijan.""

"[[Donald Trump|[H]e]] was a vulgar... vile... misogynistic, racist... buffoon who knew only his own pecuniary interests and prejudices... He was clownish and repellant... his... spectacles amplified by a sycophantic right-wing media."

"[H]e... implemented anti-science... policies that... led to... deaths of hundreds of thousands..."

"[A] malevolent narcissist... at the helm... deliberately infected the nation with a murderous stupidity... of supporters who lived in a cultlike world of paranoid fantasies and magical thinking, blithely spreading... Trumpian hate and lethal disease... weaponized by Russian intelligence via social media, and incorporated into paranoid conspiracies by... extremist cults."

"Deceit was the new norm. ...Trump’s lies from the Washington Posts "Fact Checker" ...passed twenty thousand. ...[N]ow ...anti-science ... Lies that killed..."

"Yeltsin... would... describe Russia as "the biggest in the world.""

"After Vladimir Putin... Russian intelligence effectively joined forces with the country’s mobsters and oligarchs..."

"I would argue Mogilevich... has a direct relationship to Putin... [T]hat's come out in ...WikiLeaks releases... David Bogatin, going back to 1984, was tied to the Mogilevich crime gang, and Mogilevich is tied to Putin."

"[[w:Intelligence assessment|[I]ntelligence]] operations are designed to operate within the law... [L]ax regulations... enforcement, and the... nature of counterintelligence, has given the Russians... latitude."

"s are intended to lead toward prosecution; are not. Instead, they... thwart... espionage, or ... Even though... not... about breaking the law... counterintelligence... may... involve issues... far more serious. In this case... Russian interference in... elections. From .... disinformation... Russian assets... groomed for... perhaps decades, and were... in place to... damage... vital American institutions."

"[D]uring the 2016 election cycle, the... FSB... found plenty of ways to subvert America’s elections without breaking the law."

"[T]he Mueller Report... part... dealing with was one... paragraph, saying... the FBI "embedded personnel... did not work on the Special Counsel’s investigation, but... sen[t]... summaries of foreign intelligence and counterintelligence... to FBIHQ and... Field Offices. Those communications and other... not all... contained in this Volume." ...there was no counterintelligence investigation."

"[T]he Mueller probe... regarding criminal activities... led to.. indictment of thirty-four individuals and three companies. Ten men pleaded guilty or were convicted... including... Trump associates... Paul Manafort... Rick Gates... Michael Flynn... George Nader... Roger Stone.... , and... Michael Cohen."

"The FBI concluded... one of Ivankov's partners... was Felix Komarov..."

"According to James Henry... $1.3 trillion in illicit capital has poured out of Russia since the 1990s."

"[A]ccording to the FBI... [] was the key money-laundering contact for the Solntsevskaya Bratva... one of the richest criminal syndicates in the world. ...[R]unning a multibillion-dollar worldwide racket ...drug trafficking and prostitution rings ...accused of selling ...stolen ...ground-to-air missiles and armored troop carriers, to Iran. ..."He uses ...wealth and power ..." the FBI says, "...to influence governments and their economies.""

"According to the FBI... Mogilevich paid a Russian judge to spring... Vyachelsav Kirillovich Ivankov, from a... . ...Ivankov was the enforcer ...torturing ...victims and boasting about ...murders ..."

"The "tower full of oligarchs," ...became a model for Trump’s projects ..."

"[U]ntold millions from the former Soviet Union... wasn’t enough to save Trump from his... failings as a businessman. He owed $4 billion to... 70 banks... [F]ortunately... his... economic crisis coincided... In 1998, Russia defaulted on $40 billion... causing the ruble to plummet and... banks to close... oligarchs and mobsters scrambling to find a safe place... [for] their money. ... ...[c]onstruction got underway in 1999 ...one-third of the units on the ... priciest floors... [were] snatched up ...by individual buyers the former Soviet Union ...or ...companies connected to Russia."

"[E]xamining... deeds, bank records, and court documents... ' concluded... Trump SoHo had "multiple ties to an alleged international money-laundering network.""

"Putin's greatest achievement... weaponized organized crime... effectively a powerful foreign policy tool... [T]hey've compromised... the president of the United States..."

"Vladimir Putin... waged a shadow... "virtual" war... of s, disinformation, and cyber warfare."

"Trump SoHo... changed hands in 2014, after a foreclosure sale, but, according to Pro Publica, the Trump Organization still manages and markets the property, for which it pays Trump 5.75 percent of the condo tower’s operating revenues."

"[Jody] Kriss... alleged that Bayrock was "covertly mob-owned and operated... backed by oligarchs and money they stole from the Russian people... engaged in... financial-institution fraud, tax fraud, partnership fraud, , , , and, on occasion, real estate.""

"Even after he was locked up... in 1996, Ivankov continued to order... s... Witnesses... were forced to take new identities... FBI agents who investigated him ended up on his hit list. The same was true for journalists."

"The suit claimed... the real purpose... in addition to marketing... condos bearing the Trump brand, was "to launder many millions... and evade taxes.""

"[A]ttorneys Frederick Oberlander and Richard Lerner... qui tam suit against Bayrock... charged ...laundering $250 million in profits from Trump SoHo and other projects, and... evading] $100 million in... taxes."

"Bayrock’s relationship with Trump dates... to 2002... Trump was ... licking wounds over his Atlantic City over-expansion a decade earlier, after which he had a more difficult time borrowing money."

"Foreign money, often untraceable, began transforming the high-end real-estate market, and the pools of cash that Bayrock promised appealed to Trump."

"Without the 's move into New York, Donald Trump would not have become president of the United States."

"Craing Unger's... book has... made headlines... because of a charge from an ex- colonel, , that Donald Trump has been a KGB asset for 40 years. ...Unger points out ... ...called Trump an "unwitting agent" ... ...described him "in effect... an intelligence asset"; and ...John Brennan ...said Trump is "wholly in the pocket of Putin". So Shvets' accusation isn’t... surprising. ...[T]he meaning of ...scores of anecdotes ...in these pages—is never fully explained. ...[T]he author ...throw[s] in almost every bit of unconfirmed gossip ever published about everyone from ...Jeffrey Epstein to ...Robert Maxwell. ...[T]hroughout Unger’s book: dozens ...of wild stories and salacious accusations, almost all "too good to check" ...Details ...keep you turning the pages. But Unger’s willingness to include almost anything to titillate makes this book ...unsatisfactory."