Political Authors From The United States

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

"... was Bayrock's... man... Sater’s FBI handler described Felix’s father, Michael Sheferovsky... "a... Mogilevich crime syndicate boss." Felix... as a teenager, counted among his friends Michael D. Cohen..."

"With the help of Sater’s father, the firm got protection from the Genovese family, and Sater used an alias.. to launder... proceeds... [A] mob operation... cheating unsuspecting investors out of $40 million."

"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"..."

"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.""

"[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..."

"[[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."

"[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..."

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

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

"[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..."

"In Red Mafiya... Friedman documented how Ivankov organized... a multibillion-dollar criminal enterprise. According to the FBI, he recruited... "combat brigades" of Special Forces veterans from the Soviet war in Afghanistan to run the... and kill... enemies."

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

"[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."

"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."

"James Moody... told Friedman. "...we found out that Ivankov] was living in a luxury condo in ." ...high-level Russian mobsters came to view the future president's properties as a home away from home."

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

"In ...2013 ...police ...rounded up... suspects in... gambling rings... prosecutors called "...world's largest sports book," ...in —including the entire fifty-first floor ...[A] condo ...below one owned by Trump ...served as headquarters for a "sophisticated money-laundering scheme" that moved ...$100 million out of the former Soviet Union ...into ...the United States ...under ...protection of ..."

"[[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 ."

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

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

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

"[[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."

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

"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..."

"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."

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

"[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."

"[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."

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

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

"[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 ..."

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

"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..."

"Americans cracked down on organized crime, Putin co-opted...[and] weaponized it."

"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 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 ."

"As Putin’s ascent began, the Mafia moved into a... strategic position... to compromise... political figures and businessmen in the United States... and exploit... weaknesses... as campaign finance, Washington lobbying... [etc.]"

"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..."

"Strategic relationships... were vital to Mogilevich... to insinuate himself into the... Ukraine energy trade... to siphon... huge sums of money. A key figure... helping... was Dmitry Firtash. ...His most important link... Igor Fisherman... a high-level aide to ... Department of Justice ...identified Firtash ...an "upper-echelon [associate] of Russian organized crime.""

"Firtash’s “success was built on remarkable sweetheart deals brokered by associates of... Vladimir Putin, at immense cost to Russian taxpayers.""

"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..."

"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 came to the conclusion that it is better to do business with crooks than with honest people," said ..."

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