Editors From The United States

"Trump would not... put up a ... penny, but... get 18 percent of... profits... for licensing... as Bayrock financed and developed... Trump... SoHo."

"The Oberlander and Lerner lawsuit... alleged... $250 million of Bayrock’s projected profits as... co-developer of Trump SoHo and three other projects were "to be laundered, untaxed, through a sham Delaware entity to Iceland (and reportedly then Russia), intending to evade up to $100,000,000 of U.S. taxation.""

"[[Dissolution of the Soviet Union|[D]isintegration of the Soviet Union]]... opened... hundreds of billions of dollars in flight capital... from oligarchs, wealthy s, and mobsters... Trump’s zeal to sell condos, no questions asked, to shell companies meant... Russians could launder vast amounts of money while hiding... personal identities."

"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..."

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

"Doing business with Trump allowed the ... to assault America’s most essential democratic institutions..."

"Russian intelligence; hijacked social media and exploited algorithms to make... provocative "fake news" go viral; transformed Facebook into one of the biggest purveyors of Russian propaganda... used... "" and... bogus s that pretended to correct fake news, and... upended the... notion of truth, of reality..."

"[I]n Russia... scores of people... died mysteriously after investigating the alleged crimes of Putin and his oligarchs."

"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."

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

"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."

"Mogilevich’s plans for globalization continued.... Having set up... YBM Magnex, he... dispatched Dr. Jacob (Yakov) Bogatin... David Bogatin’s brother, to its... Pennsylvania branch to become CEO. ...1998, the FBI raided... In 2003, Mogilevich... Bogatin, and Igor Fisherman... were indicted on... counts for... $150 million stock fraud."

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

"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.]"

"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..."

"[[w:1999 Russian apartment bombings|[H]einous bombings]] that killed... three hundred... were likely the product of a "" operation that enabled Putin to consolidate power, much as Adolf Hitler did after the ."

"[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..."

"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."

"[[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."

"[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..."

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

"Fascism was in the air."

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

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

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

"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...""

"[T]his is in a critical time in terms of American foreign policy. The Shah of Iran, long an American puppet, has just been overthrown, and when he was in charge... the entire West had access to Iranian oil reserves at very reasonable prices. So suddenly...Iran... went from being a very close ally and friend of both America and Israel to an enemy... as it became an Islamist theocracy."

"If Iraq had... taken over Iran and all its oil... the combined oil resources... in one hostile country... would have been terrible for the entire West... So there were... national interests in both countries... wanting... Iran armed. Jimmy Carter... didn't want to give weapons to a hostile foreign power that had just ceased American hostages, and it was seen as being a horrible... thing to do. But Willian Casey, who was campaign manager of the Reagan Bush campaign, and Israel were far more cynical, and they put in motion a secret plan to do this."

"David Bogatin comes in. He has 5 million dollars in cash... meets personally with Donald Trump and... says, "I'll take five condos." 5 million... back then is... about 15 million today. ...Trump doesn't ask ...questions. He takes the money ...The two predicates for are all cash transactions with an anonymous enterprise... Trump did this repeatedly... The State of New York attorney general... said this was money laundering... There were at least 1300 similar cases... Trump condos sold under similar conditions that could pass for money laundering. ...That's a pattern!"

"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."

"[T]his was a critical moment in American history. It was... a watershed... the start of the so-called Reagan Revolution... the birth of American conservatism... [W]hat I show is, they got into office thanks to a treasonous, that d an American presidential election..."

"One reason it was so explosive... Israel did not want it known that it was participating in a that would an American presidential election, especially because America is Israel's biggest patron."

"He is invited to the Soviet Union and the... trip is overseen by the . ...Ivan Gromakov ...initiates the invitation. It goes through the Soviet ambassador ...to Trump and he's flown in by ...a subsidiary of the KGB ...It makes sure that you're fully monitored ...All the while, Trump, according to Yuri, is being force fed talking points by the , and that leads... to his exploratory run for the presidency... for the 1988 nomination."

"[O]ther people in the started reaching out to him and assessing whether it was worthwhile expending resources... to develop him. That... led... to his being invited by the KGB to the Soviet Union in 1987. ...You can see some of this develop in the newspaper clips during this time. ...In ' and in The New York Times, Trump is starting to present himself as an expert on nuclear weapons. He says that he should be running the nuclear arms limitations talk for Ronald Reagan..."

"[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."

"Yuri... was in headquarters in September... 1987, and the KGB circulated an internal memo celebrating the acquisition of a new asset... and a successful active ...act of propaganda."

"[A]fter... residence in the , people asked... what the Russians had on Trump. ..[I]t’s... simple: They owned him."

"It continues later... in Atlantic City and a company... Bayrock... opened in ... this was money... from enterprises tied to the Russian mob, and the and its successors in the Russian Federation."

"Jimmy Carter's 100 years old and I think it's long past due... for history to be honest to him. He... lost his reelection campaign in 1980 and was... characterized as a weak president who allowed the United States to be humiliated... [W]hat I write about in Den of Spies is a run by the Republicans that sabotaged... Carter's attempts to bring home the hostages... [T]hey... hijacked American foreign policy and I believe it was a treasonous covert operation by the Reagan Bush campaign."

"[W]ith Trump you have a candidate who is very close to Vladimir Putin. He's close to Bibi Netanyahu, and he's close to MBS who gave $2 billion to his nephew... These are serious relationships and they're all players on the world stage, so... will it happen again? ...I don't know ...but ...does anyone think there will be an election with no malfeasance?"

"[T]he Jackson–Vanik Amendment to the allowed the Soviet Union... normal trade relations... General ...saw it as a great opportunity for the . ..."We told [the émigrés] ...you will provide ...information. And they pledged their services..." ...the KGB had leverage on any family left behind. ...And what was their task ..? "To penetrate... Western institutions. Government ...and ...high technology... And some did succeed" ...huge numbers of Russian criminals and KGB spies ...did inundate the United States ...fueling the growth of the and a new generation of KGB assets... one of whom was Donald Trump."

"Kislin... and his partner, ... set up... Joy-Lud Electronics... ultimately controlled by the ... always filled with KGB agents and high-level Soviet dignitaries. ..."The KGB was... paranoid about... bugging...” said Shvets. But since Kislin was... with the KGB, Soviet dignitaries had no such concerns."

"Kislin... came to Trump’s aid after his massive bankruptcies in Atlantic City in the nineties by issuing mortgages for condos in Trump World Tower..."

"[V]ast sums from the 's various s had to be laundered. So in 1984, David Bogatin, a Russian mobster who had scored millions in the Red Daisy gas scam with Balagula, went shopping... at... ... closing, with Donald Trump... in attendance... five condominiums ...$6 million... cash, the equivalent of... $15 million in 2020. According to the New York State attorney general’s office... the Russian Mafia had just laundered money..."

"Trump was a dream for officers looking to develop an asset," Shvets told me. "...with Trump it wasn't just weakness. Everything was excessive. His vanity ...Narcissism ...Greed ...Ignorance, excessive."

", who lived in until his death... helped bail out Trump by funding... Trump SoHo..."

"In terms of his personality," Shvets added, "the guy is not a complicated cookie, his most important characteristics being low intellect coupled with hyperinflated vanity. This combination makes him a dream for an experienced recruiter."

"I had dozens... of hours with... ... a major in the in the 1980s... stationed in Washington D. C. and his colleagues in... New York... were recruiting Donald Trump as an asset..."

"According to... ... [who] recruited spies... you see them pumping him full of talking points, saying "Wow, you have these wonderfully unorthodox views on foreign policy. You should... run for higher office. You should be president. You should make all these views public.""

"Yuri helped Litvinenko assemble and analyze a dossier linking senior officials, including... Putin, to the Tambov organized crime group, which laundered money and facilitated drug trafficking for the Colombian cartel."