Trump was cultivated as a KGB asset for 40 years. Their investment paid off far more than they expected.

This photo of Jeff Flake was taken just after he met with Trump in the Oval Office. The face of defeat in the fight against a mad king.

An article in The Guardian from January 29, 2021 presents the story of Yuri Shvets, a KGB operative in Washington in the 1980s, as told to Craig Unger, a British journalist. Apparently, Donald Trump first came on the radar of the KGB when he married his first wife Ivana in 1977. Her Czech origin allowed the Czech secret service to establish surveillance. From then on, he gradually spiraled into their orbit.

Trump was one of many susceptible Americans who were recruited by the KGB in those days (especially the 70s). Dozens of potentially influential Americans were subjected to charm offensives. Based on their observations, Trump was the perfect target for exploitation as a “useful idiot”.

The end result, as we know, was Trump’s meeting with Putin in Helsinki in July 2018. Here is a Politico article from then cataloging both Republican and Democratic Congresspeople’s shocked reaction to Trump saying that he believed Putin’s denials of the Senate’s investigation showing Putin interfered in the 2016 election. Even Republican Senators were aghast at Trump’s adherence to Putin’s talking points (now they are shocked, shocked that anyone would claim the Russians did anything wrong).

This book, American Kompromat, came out more than four years ago– shortly after Trump left the presidency under a cloud. The assertions in that book are damning: Trump was drawn in by the lies and financial support of the Soviets and the Russians after them. I would like to see someone try to rebut the claims in that book– I find them highly credible.

As we all know, if Joe Biden’s attorney general had actively prosecuted Trump from the start– including an arrest shortly after he left office for inciting to riot on and before January 6, 2021 (surely that at least is a crime?)– things would be different today.

Instead of justice, the Department of Justice is investigating the special counsel who ran out of time trying to prosecute Trump. At the very least, this will cost the former prosecutor for a very expensive lawyer, no prospect of employment for a year, and extreme anxiety over the vindictive nitpicking of a highly motivated Republican acolyte.

We have gradually been drawn into the fever dreams of a psychotic. Donald J Trump is definitely a psychopath, one of the most dangerous mental derangements there is. To paraphrase Apocalypse Now, as the general referred to the mad Colonel Kurz, “And he is still in the field commanding troops”.