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Despite Denials, There Is Evidence of Collusion Between the Trump Campaign and the Kremlin
It is a common talking point among Trump supporters that “there is not one shred of evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.” This statement is far from true. In fact, the evidence is quite extensive.
The Kremlin supported the Trump campaign through a broad spectrum of means, including staff, funds, propaganda, black operations, trolls, and thugs. We address each of these in turn.
Staff
Prominent Trump campaign officials who are known to be paid Kremlin agents include Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort, Campaign Energy Advisor Carter Page, and former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.
Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort was formerly chief henchman to Putin-allied Ukrainian dictator Victor Yanukovych. Manafort was also directly involved in the transferring of millions of dollars of such Russian mob funds into US real estate ventures.
Trump Energy Advisor Carter Page is a major investor in the Russian state owned energy company Gazprom. As a Gazprom investor, Page has a personal financial interest in ending Western sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, a move which, along with recognition of the Russian annexation of Crimea, Trump himself said he was considering during the campaign. But it gets worse. Page actually endorsed the Russian invasion of Ukraine, going so far as to compare US support for Ukrainian independence to the killing of black youth by police officers. “The deaths triggered by U.S. government officials in both the former Soviet Union and the streets of America in 2014 share a range of close similarities,” wrote Page in January 2015.
Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn had dinner with Vladimir Putin last year. Such fraternization bore fruit for the Kremlin, as evidenced by the action by Trump operatives to eliminate language in the GOP platform advocating US support for Ukraine’s defense. In exchange for his trip to Moscow, Flynn received $50,000 from Russian state owned TV company RT, a payment which he concealed from federal agents investigating him for purposes of checking his security clearance. Flynn was appointed chairman of the National Security council by President Trump, only to be forced to resign a few weeks later when it was revealed he had lied to Vice President Pence about some of his Kremlin contacts.
Funds
Without a viable business base, Trump could never have mounted his campaign for the Republican nomination, let alone the election. Because his business career has involved a series of swindles against his investors, lenders, vendors, workers, and customers, Trump in recent years has found it difficult to obtain credit from legitimate financial sources. This has opened questions as of how the Trump empire can remain in business. The solution to this mystery is provided, however, by statements made by Trump’s sons. “We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia, Donald Trump Jr. explained in 2008. In 2013, this was further clarified by Eric Trump, who told a reporter: “We don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.” If such confessions of financial dependency require verification, it can no doubt be found in Trump’s tax returns. However, despite pre-election promises to disclose these documents, the President continues to refuse to make them available.
Black Operations
In early July 2016, GRU (Russian military intelligence) hackers broke into the computers at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee, stealing their files. Then, July 22, on the eve of the Democratic National Convention, thousands of emails embarrassing to the Clinton camp drawn from these files were publicly released through WikiLeaks with the clear intention of dividing the Democratic Party and electing Donald Trump President.
Asked about this by the press on July 27, Trump openly proclaimed that he favored such Russian hacking, and he hoped that Putin and company would do more of it to help expose Hillary. This remarkable and potentially felonious statement provoked a firestorm of criticism, so much so that Trump subsequently walked it back – a rare event for the Don – saying that he had been speaking “sarcastically.” The fact, however, that the GRU did actually conduct a black operation inside the United States to assist Trump makes it not so easy to dismiss. Furthermore, it must be noted that the channel used for this and subsequent anti-Clinton operations during the campaign, Wikileaks, is a known Kremlin front.
Propaganda
The Russian state owned propaganda agency Russia Today (RT), which broadcasts internationally, including within the US, was unstinting throughout the nomination and election campaigns in its support for Donald Trump. This support has included not only constant favorable coverage, attacks on opponents, and commentary by talking heads, but personal praise of Donald Trump by Russian dictator Vladimir Putin himself.
Trolls and Thugs
During both the nomination and election campaigns, media websites of all sorts, but most especially conservative ones, were deluged with abusive comments directed against those who refused to adhere to the Trump line. Many of these comments were clearly written by Russian-speaking individuals. Others, perhaps most, were written by American members or adherents of the so-called “Alt-Right,” which also provided critical support for the ground game of the Trump nomination effort. This requires further discussion.
The Alt-Right is part of a Kremlin operation to create pro-Moscow ultranationalist and identarian fifth column movements in the West. The chief composer of the ideological synthesis of communism and fascism that the Kremlin created for this movement, Aleksandr Dugin, endorsed Donald Trump in March 2016. “In Trump we trust,” said Dugin (perhaps proposing the substitution of Trump for God in the American national slogan), as he mobilized the American Alt-Right against Trump’s GOP nomination opponents. It should be noted that the relationship between Dugin and the American Alt-Right is quite direct, as Nina Kouprianova, (pen name “Nina Byzantina”) the former wife of US Alt-Right leader, Richard Spencer, is Dugin’s American translator. Should anyone have further doubts about the Kremlin/Alt-Right links, Spencer and the Alt-Right provided confirmation themselves by holding a rally in Virginia on May 20, in which they chanted “Russia is our friend.”
It should be noted that while Hillary Clinton was the first major Trump opponent to call out the Alt-Right in the course of the campaign, the Alt-Right’s most important effort was directed not so much against her, as Trump’s GOP opponents and NeverTrump dissenters. This was done, as documented by National Review writer David French, through a campaign of terror, including death threats, targeting editors, writers, and others (including French, who at one point contemplated running as a third party conservative candidate against Trump and Clinton, an initiative, which if implemented, could have significantly harmed Trump’s electoral chances). Threats against French also included threats to his wife, which reached such intensity that French found it necessary to post a photograph on Facebook of his wife practicing with an AR-15 to warn off would-be assailants. Other conservatives threatened included NeverTrump supporters Rick Wilson, Erick Erickson, Glenn Beck, Ben Shapiro, Jonah Goldberg, Free the Delegates leader Kendal Unruh, and the editor of one conservative publication who informed me he could no longer carry my articles because of the threats he had received.
We thus see that Kremlin support for Trump’s election was been quite extensive. This support has been reciprocated. Trump has called the Russian dictator “a real leader” and dismissed his many murders of journalists and political opponents at home and abroad as “unproven.” Last January, a British court found that Putin had ordered the murder by Polonium poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, a former FSB agent who revealed that the 1999 apartment buildings bombings in Moscow that Putin used to seize dictatorial power were the work of Putin’s FSB itself. Disturbingly, the billionaire appears be fine with that too. In May 2017, Trump went so far as to invite Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to the White House, where, on his own initiative, he shared top secret classified information.
Donald Trump has also expressed support for Syrian dictator Bashir Assad, who in alliance with Russian and Iranian military forces, is flooding Europe with refugees, thereby stoking the fortunes of the Kremlin-allied ultraright parties operating as part of Dugin’s fascist international. These include the anti-NATO French National Front, whose founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen, also endorsed Trump. The National Front’s current leader, Marine Le Pen also supported the Russian takeover of Crimea, and is being openly bankrolled out of Moscow. In November 2016, Marine Le Pen traveled to New York to visit Trump Tower. According to Trump spokesman Sean Spicer, she did not meet with Trump. Subsequently, however, Trump openly supported her failed attempt to win the French presidency.
In line with his support of Le Pen, during the campaign, Trump supported the gutting of North Atlantic Treaty Organization, an objective that has been Moscow’s number one foreign policy priority since the beginning of the Cold War. He denounced NATO as being “obsolete,” and called for sharply reducing US commitments to the alliance that has been the bulwark of American security since World War II. Not only that, Donald Trump stated that as President, he would not necessarily honor the United States treaty commitment to defend a NATO ally if attacked by Russia. Trump’s frequent statements during the campaign that the United States should confront China also coheres with Kremlin desires, as Russia’s masters have no fonder wish than to see their two major global rivals take each other down.
Finally, it cannot reasonably be asserted that the combination of Kremlin support for Trump and Trump support for the Kremlin was coincidental. In fact, it has now been documented that, despite repeated false statements made by Trump camp spokesmen, there were at least 18 unreported contacts during the campaign between the Kremlin and Trump agents or representatives.
So, in summary, here was the deal: In exchange for Russian-supplied staff, funds, propaganda, trolls, thugs, and black operations support for his nomination and election, Donald Trump aligned himself with an effort to break the western alliance and deliver Europe to Kremlin domination.
Starting as a near-bankrupt dark-horse candidate with three-percent backing, Trump clearly could not have won the GOP nomination without the support of the Kremlin, its organized crime funding networks, and its Alt-Right foot soldiers. As for the election, it is probably true that Hillary Clinton could have beaten him regardless, had her campaign been run competently and had she not embraced the anti-industrial platform that cost her much of the labor vote in what had previously been the Democrats’ “blue wall’ midwestern stronghold.
Be that as it may, it is also true that the Nazis could almost certainly have conquered Norway in 1940 without the help of the treasonous Norwegian Defense Minister Vidkun Quisling. But the fact remains: Quisling was still a traitor.
Anyone who collaborates with a foreign adversary to seize power in the United States would be equally guilty. Republicans should stop trying to pretend that there is no evidence for such collusion, and instead demonstrate their patriotism by helping the nation’s security agencies get to the bottom of this sordid matter.
Here’s a hint to the GOP members of Congress: Vote with the Democrats to subpoena Trump’s tax returns. The truth will set you free.
Published in Politics
He certainly threw enough at the wall, so there must be a pony in there somewhere lined up in a row with the ducks.
So who is writing the formal apology to the ricochet members for this [redacted]? @roblong? @jameslileks? @peterrobinson?
Q.E.D.
I just had to smile when I saw this one.
I’ll write Ya a post using Zubrin’s title creating method to deflect any rebuttals:
“Despite Denials, There Is Evidence NASA Fabricated Those Curved-Earth Pictures”
“Despite Denials, There Is Evidence There Were 13 Shooters At Dealey Plaza”
“Despite Denials, There Is Evidence The Moon Landing Was Staged In Hollywood”
[EDIT]
“Despite Denials, There Is Evidence Zubrin Wrote The Headline”
Russians? I say it was…
And I was in Roswell on Tuesday, so I know what I’m talking about.
I think the best response from the membership on this would be a thorough debunking instead of calling for its removal.
The first Soviet leader Reagan met with was Gorbachev.
No you’re wrong. It is against the law. That’s what the 4th Circuit just held.
Naw, let him speak.
Free speech isn’t just for things we agree with.
It helps to see the “evidence” brought together and realize how delusional they are that those things mean anything at all! No evidence, none, just a bunch of hysterical facts that show nothing even close to collusion between Trump and Russia.
The “evidence” is very much no evidence of anything other than that they will do anything to undermine a free election.
I find it comforting that I read the situation right and there is no there there.
The author is a Ricochet member. Also, the majority of commenters who disagree with him are refuting his post with civil disagreement. That’s the purpose of the website.
I wrote the headline for this piece.
Personally, I am gobsmacked.
That just shows you how tricky Trump’s Russian controllers are. See how you got fooled?
I am responsible for posting this article and see no reason to apologize. If you disagree with his points (as I do), I encourage you to respectfully point out his errors.
@hypatia, this is incredible, no?
Who is your supervisor and can your provide necessary contact information?
This is crap. I can’t post a link about the Berkeley bicycle lock attacker because of swear words printed in the video, but this is acceptable?
No wonder Ricochet members seem so poorly informed.
If I’m not a member and I google around and come to this site and see this on the Main Feed, written by a person with “Contributor” on his avatar, do you think I’d pay to join? It’s not that I think everyone must agree with me. It’s not that I think those who don’t agree with me shouldn’t be allowed to speak. It’s that I question the intent and editorial policies of Ricochet at times. It just makes me heartsick to see this piling on with regard to such a dumb issue. Why add to it all?
I often go to sites with a leftist point of view just to get the view from the other side, and make sure I really believe what I think I believe.
This was the most helpful collection of their points I’ve seen in one place… of course he could have added the silly diagram the WP uses that show Trump with “villains” circling him and lines connecting to Trump… I love that one, it once again, reminds me that Aliens helped build the Pyramids! They have FACTS, I tell you FACTS!
Random things facts. They don’t have to do more than involve both parties to be proof!
The problem of refutation isn’t with the mustering of certain facts, it is the conclusions that are drawn from the particular selections made and facts omitted. That makes for a very large and unwieldy target. And that is precisely why it is constructed as such because then you sidetracked on to “you deny ___ happened?”
For example, Flynn was a late registrant as a foreign agent for Turkey. Now a lot of people will react to the use of a legally correct term “foreign agent” as if they were a spy without understanding what registration requirements there are for meeting with elected or administrative officials to discuss concerns that a foreign government may have with any law, rule or proposed law or rule. Does this mean that Turkey was trying to influence our elections, or that Trump was colluding with Turkey? And you can go on and on with respect to all of the “evidence” that Zubrin musters. These things are not “evidence” — they are un-contextualized or incomplete facts at best.
Two of the three names above!
Just about everyone who has commented is agreeing that the piece is inappropriate on a center right web site. Zubrin says nothing we don’t hear night after night from Rachel Maddow and Co. or the gang at CNN.
They are the best informed people on the internet.
Gee, the Hillsdale Cruise on a luxury cruise line is stopping in St. Petersburg this summer. Does that mean that Dr. Larry Arnn supports Vladimir Putin? Contact is not collusion.
Thank you, and enjoy the remainder of your evening.
Most commenters have refuted the piece, not demanded it be taken down.
How do you feel about “safe places” on college campuses? I don’t like them either, so why would you want that here?
Being wrong, is not the same as being evil.
Zubrin is wrong, let him have his say. Not that he’d give you that courtesy, but this is a mostly safe place… a few lefties will add spice.
The majority are complaining about its existence.