Political Authors From The United States

"...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."

"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 ."

"[H]is first trip to Russia... hoping to build a Trump Tower in Moscow... ...the first ...presidential ambitions surface. ...in '88 ...a full page ad in The New York Times and '... the same kind of foreign policy... since ...president, attacking , attacking NATO... that appears to be in Russia's interest..."

"[A] free-for-all where he's laundering massive amounts of Russian money?"

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Trump appears to have taken advantage of... weak regulations to sell en masse to the Russians. ...1,300 condos, one-fifth of all Trumpbranded condos sold in the US since the eighties, were... "in secretive, all-cash transactions that enable buyers to avoid legal scrutiny by shielding their finances and identities." ...[T]he total value of these... sales... that match the US Treasury’s criteria for possible ... $1.5 billion... may understate the... dirty money..."

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

"Russians had begun collaborating with Italian mobsters as early as 1980..."

"Within... intelligence, assets... include those who... prefer... [a foreign country's] ideology, those who betray... for monetary gain, those... ed, and... useful idiots who... provide... information through... lapses or blind pursuit of their own agendas."

"Trump, the Soviets... discovered... was... intoxicated... with boatloads of cash... in dubious transactions..."

"[A]s long as they had money... Trump was listening."

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

"As... Karen Dawisha explains in Putin’s Kleptocracy... [this] made Vladimir Putin the richest man in the world..."

"Russian gangsters became... Putin’s enforcers. ... told me, in effect, "the Mafia is one of the branches of the Russian government..." ...Putin’s greatest triumph is his... state... of, by, and for organized crime."

"Cohn, as for the two biggest crime families in New York, the Genoveses and the Gambinos, was invaluable in helping Trump traverse... contractors... and the like, controlled by the mob."

"As early as 1990... Trump had negative . ...[I]n 1991, the Trump Taj Mahal ...became the first of six ...bankruptcies. ...Later two other Trump casinos ...agreed to pay fines for "willfully failing to report" currency transactions ...and failing to comply with laws ...to prevent ."

"Ivankov’s mandate from Mogilevich... consolidate the Russian Mafia in the US... form alliances with... other Mafias... bribe politicians....infiltrate governments... [T]he Russians began scrutinizing... vulnerabilities of America’s campaign finance system, the K Street lobbying system, Wall Street... [etc.]"

"Ivankov recruited two brigades... of 250 athletes and... veterans of the Afghan war... to kill his enemies and establish ties..."

"Vladimir Putin... had leapfrogged... to take charge of the Russian secret service... bringing in confederates from ...the , and purging... enemies...[including two counterintelligence Directorates]... charged with investigating high-level economic crimes, which... involved Putin and his allies. ...Putin made sure ...both ...were ...eliminated. Having control over agencies that had the power to investigate you was... indispensible..."

"[A]fter Putin’s appointment... 's newspaper... headlined "Vladimir Putin Became Head of the FSB Unlawfully." ...[T]wo men assaulted him ...shattering his skull ...He died ...[S]ix men... held a... press conference in Moscow. All... had investigated organized crime for the FSB... [T]hey told... journalists... the... unit... had been transformed into a brutal and corrupt criminal enterprise..."

"[T]he Russians knew, real estate was... [an] efficient way to launder billions in flight capital, and Trump’s newest projects were perfectly suited... [e.g.,] Trump World Tower..."

"In 1998... FinCEN... assessed a $477,700 civil penalty against the Trump Taj Mahal... [T]he casino admitted to "willful and repeated" violations, including... ... and record-keeping requirements... 106 violations..."

"Trump had a unique résumé for... a presidential track. ...[T]ies to Russian money stretched... two decades... laundering money, s and real estate were the vehicles of choice..."

"[A]n American businessman... [was] talking to a rich Uzbek cotton trader about the pay-for-play K Street lobbyists in Washington. The Uzbek... "You mean you have firms with highly paid professionals who are paid to bribe congressmen?" He couldn’t get over it. Americans had sanitized corruption, institutionalized it, and made it into part of the white-collar, professional world! Not only was it legal, it was a highly paid profession."

"Russians had billions of dollars from illicit sources... Trump ...in dire need of financing, had ...ideal vehicles for laundering ...real estate ...casinos ...and a history of not asking too many questions ..."

"Trump struck a deal... to attach his name to three high-rises in Sunny Isles Beach ... known as "Little Moscow." ...[A]t least sixty-three buyers with Russian addresses or passports spent $98 million on Trump's properties in South Florida."

"[T]o turn a blind eye to practices that allowed the Russian mob to launder money through his real estate on a massive scale... required a third party... largely staffed, owned, and financed by émigrés from... the former Soviet Union... [on] the twenty-fourth floor of ."

"In the wake of his massive debts and multiple bankruptcies, Wall Street... said no... The banks... said no to Trump. ...But Bayrock ...said yes..."

"Bayrock... brought into Donald Trump’s orbit a host of oligarchs and alleged mobsters involved in laundering money, the trafficking of underage women, feeding intelligence to the Russians... [etc.]."

"Bayrock planned to build the Trump SoHo in New York,.. [and various Trump Projects and properties]. ...[I]ts ...list of strategic partners was topped with... "The Trump Organization"..."

"Bayrock’s leadership... billionaire oligarchs from the former Soviet Union."

"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..."

"With 's Rabbi leading the way, the Federation... was... providing Putin... a Jewish "umbrella"... to battle ... who... back[ed] candidates opposed to Putin. ...Lazar and Leviev ...promised Putin that they would... "open doors to the corridors of power in Washington.""

"... "In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.""

"Michael Hayden... called... Trump "a clear and present danger" to America's... security and "a ," a term... attributed to Vladimir Lenin..."

"[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."

"... described... to me in great detail... the most successful intelligence operation in history... ending... with a Russian asset in the ..."

"[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."

"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."

"What we know about this episode... It's there in the written source material. We just need to do the work of... bringing it to light. ...[T]he book is dedicated to free Russian journalism because it was Russian journalists who followed this story, first and foremost! ...[T]hey wrote this story when there was free journalism. They covered it extensively. They were on Putin's tale from the very beginning. They couldn't write this now, but they were writing it in the 1990s."

"[T]he core of the book starts 1991... I regard it as the most conservative analysis possible, based on extensive interviews, of Putin's involvement in illicit activities in the 90s. His efforts to suppress legal cases... against him, and the rise to power of the group around him."

"The book contains major sections on Bank Rossiya, on the food scandel in Saint Petersburg in the early 90s, on Putin's involvement in the control and emergence of the gambling industry in Saint Petersburg, Putin's involvement as a member of the board of the St. Petersburg Real Estate Holding Company [St. Peterburg Immobilien und Beteiligungs AG]... registered in Germany... investigated by and B&D for its involvement in the laundering of money from the Cali Cartel, ...giving ...a monopoly position to the Tambov gang in the , ...creating and using... money from the mayor's contingency fund through... Twentieth Trust... and the unauthorized use of funds from the mayor's contingency fund in getting an apartment for himself in Saint Petersburg..."

"Money started to flood... in such amounts that they virtually bankrupt the Gorbachev regime first, and then when Yeltsin failed to find the Communist gold, they also significantly handicapped the ability of the Yeltsin regime to succeed."

"Seeing the collapse of communist rule in Eastern Europe after 1989, and the loss of the ruling status of communist parties... the [CPSU] authorized the ... to move money out of the Soviet Union, realizing that if the CPSU lost its ruling status... [i.e.,] access to the state budget without limit, they would need money to live in a . Something that the Polish, East German and Hungarian parties hadn't thought about."

"[T]his was CPSU money safeguarded by the , but when Yeltsin outlawed the CPSU, who did the money belong to? ...[T]o whoever knew what the bank account number was, and this started the scramble for offshore accounts. Kroll International was hired... by Gaidar and Yeltsin. They couldn't find the money."