10 July 2018

What If?

The latest issue of New York magazine has an extremely provocative and tantalizing article (link here) that explores this possibility that the collusion between Russia and Tonald Trump is much deeper than has ever been publicly acknowledged and could trace back as far as the 1980s.

It's a highly intriguing read that's highly recommened, even if I can't quite buy it. Then again, I don't discount it, either. There seem to be too many threads to be sheer coincidence.

If there is something to this, I suspect it's about money. Trump is insatiably greedy. He would put money before country. Russia has long known the way to control Western assets is with ideology, bribes, or extortion. But since the fall of communism, they lost one of those three carrots and now have only bribery and extortion.

Given he's so covetous of wealth, Trump could easily be controlled with money and perhaps a little extortion on the side in the form of kompromat -- damaging evidence that can be used to blackmail someone.

Right now, it's widely known that Trump wants to lift the Western sanctions on Russia. Before the sanctions were imposed, Trump tried to borrow hundreds of millions from Kremlin-owned Russian banks. He undoubtedly will discuss this in his private meeting with Vladimir Putin next week.

So Trump may never have thought of himself as a "spy" or an "asset." But because he's so greedy and his loyalty is only to himself, a spymaster like Putin could easily control someone like Trump by dangling money on the end of a stick.

And whether or not that was actually planned, that's what's happening right now, and it's of no benefit to America or its allies.

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