Appearing on several news programs this week, author Craig Unger has an important, well-researched book out, "House of Trump, House of Putin," which details how Russian intelligence -- via the Russian mafia here in the U.S. -- managed to compromise someone who would eventually occupy the Oval Office.
Starting in 1980s, Russian mobster emigres David Bogotin, Michael Markowitz and Lev Persits developed a gasoline tax racket that raked in millions of dollars a year, but lacked the "muscle" to enforce it. Enter the Colombo crime family, who provided the protection in exchange for 75% of the profits, which rose to $1 billion a year before Federal agents busted the scam. While they were raking in millions, the scammers had to find a way to "launder" the profits, and they found a willing partner in corrupt narcissist Donald "Rump" Trump:
“'After seven years in New York, Bogatin had stashed away enough money to buy real estate anywhere he wanted,' Unger wrote. 'For roughly a decade, thousands of Russian Jews like him had been pouring into Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. But Bogatin had his eyes on something more prestigious.'You can read the entire first chapter of Unger's book at the National Memo here. It's chilling and illustrative of how Rump built much of his trashy business on Russian money, supplied by Russian mobsters connected with Russian intelligence services. Imagine their surprise and delight when their 30 plus year investment paid off beyond their wildest imaginations.
Bogatin became fixated on a 'garish' 58-story building that had opened a year before — Trump Tower — and he paid $6 million in cash from his fuel tax scheme for five apartments there.
Unger tracked more than 1,300 similar cash transactions at Trump Tower over the next three decades involving mobsters that ensnared the future president in the closely tied web of Russian spies and mobsters.
'Russian Mafia and Russian intelligence operatives successfully targeted, compromised, and implanted either a willfully ignorant or an inexplicably unaware Russian asset in the White House as the most powerful man on earth,' Unger concludes.
'In doing so, without firing a shot, the Russians helped put in power a man who would immediately begin to undermine the Western Alliance,' he added, 'which has been the foundation of American national security for more than 70 years; who would start massive trade wars with America’s longtime allies; fuel right‐wing anti‐immigrant populism; and assault the rule of law in the United States.'” (our emphasis)
