As Russia Overtly Helps Trump Get Elected, Trump Continues to Check in with Vladimir Putin
According to CNN, Bob Woodward’s latest book reveals that Trump has spoken to Vladimir Putin as many as seven times since leaving the Presidency.
In one scene, Woodward recounts a moment at Mar-a-Lago where Trump tells a senior aide to leave the room so “he could have what he said was a private phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin.”
“According to Trump’s aide, there have been multiple phone calls between Trump and Putin, maybe as many as seven in the period since Trump left the White House in 2021,” Woodward writes.
Woodward asked Trump aide Jason Miller whether Trump and Putin had spoken since he left the White House. “Um, ah, not that, ah, not that I’m aware of,” Miller told Woodward.
“I have not heard that they’re talking, so I’d push back on that,” Miller added.
Woodward writes that Biden’s Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines “carefully hedged” when asked about whether there were any post-presidency Trump-Putin calls.
“I would not purport to be aware of all contacts with Putin. I wouldn’t purport to speak to what President Trump may or may not have done,” Haines said, according to Woodward.
According to WaPo’s version of the Woodward story the incident where Trump asked an aide to leave the room happened in early 2024.
This is unsurprising. After all, Trump has repeatedly described speaking to Putin in advance of the Ukraine invasion, including fairly explicitly during the debate with Joe Biden.
When Putin saw that, he said, you know what? I think we’re going to go in and maybe take my – this was his dream. I talked to him about it, his dream. The difference is he never would have invaded Ukraine. Never.
But the confirmation that Trump keeps speaking to Putin is important for several other reasons.
We still don’t know where all the stolen documents are
If Trump was speaking to Putin before the Ukraine investigation and at least as recently as earlier this year, he was speaking to him during the investigation into his stolen documents, during the period when Trump was hiding boxes from his attorney to make sure he could steal documents.
Trump was going back and referring to some of these documents during the period he worked with Putin.
And perhaps most importantly, there were presumably classified documents loaded onto his plane on June 3, 2022 that got flown back to Bedminster, and probably some remained hidden at Mar-a-Lago (the FBI failed to search a room off Trump’s suite).
The FBI has never found the missing classified documents.
Trump was charged with hoarding some of America’s most secret documents in his basement. And during that entire period, he was checking in regularly with the leader of a hostile foreign country, the one who keeps helping him get elected.
Russian staged another operation to help defeat Joe Biden
Last month, Guardian revealed details of an information operation involving George Papadopoulos and Simona Mangiante, one for which she published an interview she did with sanctioned Russian agent Andrii Derkach. Relatedly, they rolled out yet more propaganda about Hunter Biden.
Working alongside contributors for Kremlin state media, the former Donald Trump policy aide George Papadopoulos, his wife, Simona Mangiante, and others have become editorial board members of the website Intelligencer, which is increasingly becoming a source of news for those in the rightwing ecosystem.
The growth of the website, which has not been reported on before, comes at a time when the US is seeking to crack down on Russian influence ahead of the 2024 election. Recently, the justice department charged two members of RT (formerly known as Russia Today) with violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act and money laundering for payments they allegedly made to “recruit unwitting American influencers”. It also placed sanctions on RT’s editor-in-chief, Margarita Simonyan, and nine other employees.
[snip]
Mangiante, his wife, has written several posts for the site about debunked conspiracy theories involving the Bidens and Ukraine. In January, she posted an interview with a former Ukrainian lawmaker, Andrii Derkach, who repeated false claims of bribery about the Biden family in Ukraine. In 2020, the US placed sanctions on Derkach, calling him an active Russian agent; Derkach, who now is running for political office in Russia, previously met with Rudy Giuliani and purported to offer evidence of corruption against the Bidens.
“Intelligencer appears to be one of several [Russia-friendly] operations targeting the upcoming US elections, leveraging a network of far-right figures and disinformation tactics,” Olga Lautman, a senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis, said.
Mangiante, along with fellow board member Igor Lopatonok, appears to have parlayed this work into a new documentary about the Hunter Biden laptop saga called Hunter’s Laptop: Requiem for Ukraine. According to social media posts, the documentary premiered on 5 September at the Trump International hotel in Chicago. Eliason wrote the script, which was filmed by Lopatonok, who has frequently collaborated with Oliver Stone on prior anti-Ukrainian documentaries and fawning films of dictators.
Since Biden dropped out, I haven’t really dug into this as much as I might. It can wait. But suffice it to say these links are interesting beyond the most obvious ones. I believe that this ongoing effort targeting Hunter Biden is among the reasons Trump was so sad that Joe Biden dropped out: because Russia had already reloaded the ongoing information operation to work against Joe Biden.
But that’s not the only ongoing Russian operation. As part of the RT operation, for example, Russia was allegedly paying money to Lauren Chen, who also had a role at Turning Point America, the group that was supposed to lead Trump’s turnout operation.
In a warning about Russia’s plan to interfere issued in July, ODNI described that Russia was using “influential US voices” to push Russian support for Trump (and according to a new warning today, also for members of Congress who’ll abandon Ukraine).
“We are beginning to see Russia target specific voter demographics, promote divisive narratives and denigrate specific politicians. Moscow seeks to shape electoral outcomes, undermine electoral integrity and amplify domestic divisions,” the ODNI official said.
“To accomplish this, Moscow is using a variety of approaches to bolster its messaging and lend an air of authenticity to its efforts. This includes outsourcing its efforts to commercial firms to hide its hand and laundering narratives through influential U.S. voices,” the official said.
An influential US voice also mentioned in the RT indictment is Tucker Carlson, fresh off his visit to Vladimir Putin.
American media critics have made themselves tools of Russian disinformation
As it happens, just yesterday, the publisher of the Steele dossier that gave Republicans a way to claim the Russian story was something other than it was, Ben Smith, claimed that the Trump-Russia story is nothing more than “an embarrassment.”
The Trump-Russia story is at this point an embarrassment to everyone. Democrats couldn’t prove the most extensive allegations of plotting or that Russian Facebook ads swung the election. Republicans couldn’t deny that Russia was trying to help Trump, or prove their own more conspiratorial claims that the whole thing was a Hillary Clinton-made “Russia hoax.” At some point, American politics mostly moved on.
What the Russian investigation found is that Trump’s coffee boy, his campaign manager, his National Security Adviser, his personal lawyer, and his rat-fucker all lied to cover up the truth of what happened with Russia in 2016.
And yet because Trump successfully pardoned himself out of legal trouble, people like Ben yawn and say it’s over. And Trump’s successful pushback on the Russian story — assisted by the self-imagined savvy of people like Ben — means that no one has investigated the follow-on in 2020 and this year.
Vladimir Putin’s puppet makes house calls
And that has led the mainstream press to give just passing coverage of critical stories about Trump’s negotiations with Russia and its proxies.
Days before Biden dropped out of the race, I included Viktor Orbán’s trip to Mar-a-Lago among the stories getting ignored as everyone chased Joe Biden old stories.
Now, however, Trump no longer hides that he’s willing to let Putin dismember Ukraine. He welcomed Viktor Orbán’s pitch of a plan to do just that — but there has been no readout from Trump’s side of what happened. Orbán, however, has told other EU nations that Trump will moved for “peace” immediately after being elected — a replay of what Flynn lied to cover up in 2017 — largely by withdrawing US support for Ukraine.
In the past, Trump has gone even further than this, suggesting he’ll do nothing as Putin invades NATO states.
Meanwhile, JD Vance is, if anything, even more pro-Russian than Trump, as are some of the Silicon Valley oligarchs who now back Trump’s campaign since the Vance pick.
Trump’s plan of capitulation to Russia will go a long way to ending the Western rules-based order, the greatest wish of Putin and Xi Jinpeng.
And thus far we know just one of the things that Russia seems to be doing to help Trump’s campaign: detaining WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich until Trump gets elected, just as Iran held onto hostages to help Reagan get elected. Avril Haines recently made clear Russia is planning on helping in other ways as well.
That’s how “Russia Russia Russia” has worked. It’s a shameless lie that Mueller found nothing, a lie built off years of propaganda. Indeed, Trump’s willing acceptance — or, in Rudy’s case, outright solicitation — of Russia’s help to get elected has only gotten more brazen. Yet rather than call Don Jr on his “Russia Russia Russia” lie, reporters simply let the pressing question of whether Trump will end the alliance of democracies in a second term go unasked.
Viktor Orbán is an absolutely central player in Republican plans, especially those — like Project 2025 — boosted by the Heritage Foundation. But there has been almost no curiosity about what’s behind that.
Another thing that got largely buried was Paul Manafort’s return to Trump’s campaign, even though since he last worked for Trump, it has been confirmed that his efforts resulted in Russian spies obtaining polling and the campaign’s strategy.
Because Trump has so successfully led journalists to be cowed by his “Russia Russia Russia” bullying, none of this has been a central story.
It needs to become one.
How many times has Putin spoken to Actual President Biden since he was inaugurated? I’d wager real money that it’s not more often than he’s spoken with Fake President Trump.
I’m missing something here, or…?
“According to WaPo’s version of the Woodward story this incident to early 2024.”
This makes my blood boil, even more than that time I took ivermectin.
The legality of these calls should matter.
I’m Vlad you weren’t harmed. You should be more careful as to what you Putin your body!
Speaking of Vlad, I’m paler now.
I’d say your response is Beyond the Pale…
But as long as you’re Romanian the building, don’t get defenestrated!
But is it boiling more or less than when someone sneaks up behind you and says “Vice President Joe Lieberman”?
Well…we wound up getting Vice-President Dick Cheney instead of VP Lieberman. Who now supports Harris/Walz. Would Lieberman have done that? Somehow I doubt that.
Punaise has some history with “Short Ride Joe” – his contempt for Joe is rather legendary in these parts. I was seeking to learn where this ranks on the Punaise “zero to Joe Lieberman” scale.
NYT 10/7/2024
“According to a new book by Bob Woodward, Trump secretly sent Vladimir Putin Covid tests in 2020 (during US supply scarcity) & spoke w Putin up to 7 times after leaving office. The disclosures raise new questions about Trump’s relationship with Putin just weeks before the U.S. presidential election.”
JD Vance and his embrace of the “strongman” viewpoint, Putin and Orban centric, grows legs, if you websearch = jd-vance curtis-yarvin
That gets video and text links, e.g. https://newrepublic.com/article/183971/jd-vance-weird-terrifying-techno-authoritarian-ideas — titie, and subtitle:
“Where J.D. Vance Gets His Weird, Terrifying Techno-Authoritarian Ideas
“Yes, Peter Thiel was the senator’s benefactor. But they’re both inspired by an obscure software developer who has some truly frightening thoughts about reordering society”.
One para-
“Yarvin’s disturbing manifestos have earned him influential followers, chief among them: tech billionaire Peter Thiel and his onetime Silicon Valley protégé Senator J.D. Vance, whom the Republican Party just nominated to be Donald Trump’s vice president. If Trump wins the election, there is little doubt that Vance will bring Yarvin’s twisted techno-authoritarianism to the White House, and one can imagine—with horror—what a receptive would-be autocrat like Trump might do with those ideas.”
When learning more of Yarvin, it gets worse. It fits an embrace of Putin imperial rule of Russia. The enlightened despot ideal, to Vance.
Maybe I shouldn’t say it, but I actually really enjoyed reading
those Biden quotes about various people…and that Harris quote at the end … :-)
What again are the rules of when the government is security monitoring foreign traffic, a U.S. party is the other end of a conversation? It gets heard, but does it have to be non-publicized? Kept under wraps? Or must the government back off?
Who translates for the convicted felon Trump? or does Putin speak English well enough? My wife used to joke that the only reason the convicted felon married Ivanna and Melania was because they could translate for him.
Hasn’t Trump’s preference always been to trust solely in Putin’s interpreter? Why should he have altered that preference, especially at a $ cost to himself?
Given his two decades in Soviet and Russian intelligence, including a stint as head of FSB, Putin presumably speaks English. He is fluent in German.
If Trump was alone when speaking with Putin, Putin might have provided a translator. Among other things, that gives Putin twice as long to think between comments. Using only one party’s translator is bad form for several reasons, one of which is that there’s no check on how accurate it is. As a groveling toady, that’s not something Trump would care about.
Remember this? https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/interpreter-marina-gross-notes-trumps-putin-meeting/story?id=60374126
The most important assets the two “immigrant ladies” have in common is: born and raised behind the Iron Curtain.
There are good excuses for tRump to visit the Evil (paper) empire without many red flags rising.
“tRump?” Is that a low-end cut of beef on sale at the local butcher’s or a typo?
echoes of good ol’ bmaz….
The Hunt for Red October surprise?
(Woodward sure knows how time time this kind of disclosure to maximize his benefit, not the public’s)
Absolutely. I have been sitting here furious with Woodward. So. Damn. Selfish.
Surely calls between Putin and Trump are monitored by the US intelligence community?
That’s a great question. I have zero expertise in this but I would presume that the answer must be yes, it’s possible, and if it is I also would assume the president and the veep are aware of the conversations and quite possibly the content.
I doubt it. If on the phone, ok. If on an app….no chance.
I don’t doubt it at all.
First, look at the top blockquote above, from CNN: “Woodward writes that Biden’s Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines “carefully hedged” when asked about whether there were any post-presidency Trump-Putin calls.”
Haines knows good and well that Trump and Putin have spoken. I can’t imagine Trump having anywhere near good enough tradecraft to hide something like this from the Intelligence community.
Second, and more potentially disturbing, I am reasonably sure that Putin knows that the US IC was listening in, and he used his calls to sow division and distrust. If Haynes were to come out and confirm something, it give the Russians clues about our signals intelligence capabilities. Putin could also use the calls to get inside the heads of the US IC, basically bating them into doing/saying something stupid.
Rather than using cutouts and cultivating layer upon layer upon layer of fascist and fascist-curious rightwing media folks, by talking straight to Trump, Putin can mainline his toxic brew right into the political discourse.
And I use the verb “mainline” deliberately. After leaving the WH, Trump likely needed a “I still matter” fix, and needed it more and more as each day passed and each indictment arrived. Nine phone calls seems about right for stringing a junkie along over a couple of years.
The disturbing question that keeps the US IC up at night is this: “How much is Trump willing to pay for getting his fix?” The fear is that it has something to do with what Marcy noted in the post: “The FBI has never found the missing classified documents.”
So by what channel is Trump “talking” to Putin? A plain old phone? So every spook in the world is listening, except I suppose the NSA, CIA and FBI. Or they are listening but what can they do? Is there any other more secure channel available to “talk” to Putin?
It would have been a piece of cake to arrange a secure call on Signal between the two, had Russia – and other countries, like Venezuela – not recently blocked the service. I assume other such options exist. Or one of Putin’s courtiers, like Viktor Orban, left a handy dandy phone at MAL, with Putin’s private number in it.
You’re assuming that Putin is bothered by the NSA et al. listening in. As I noted above, I think Putin would relish that, and use it to his advantage.
I can easily see Trump screaming “campaign interference!” at any story that alleges that he and Putin were talking.
“… the website Intelligencer, which is increasingly becoming a source of news for those in the rightwing ecosystem….”
Awkward / confusing: the political / breaking news / editorial blog of New York Magazine – the journalistic home of esteemed Ed Kilgore, the less esteemed Jonathan Chait, and many others) is called Intelligencer.
“Because Trump has so successfully led journalists to be cowed by his “Russia Russia Russia” bullying, none of this has been a central story. It needs to become one.”
Agreed, but is this possible in today’s environment? The people signing paychecks aren’t about to push against anything that threatens their market share. Trump has been a money-making shiny object. Dangerous for sure, but oh so lucrative when legacy journalism needs money any way it can get it. What hill are such journalists and their corporate bosses willing to die on? Not this one. Not yet. They think they have plenty of time.
ORBAN today:
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/10/08/us/harris-trump-election/eec84381-5d42-578d-a672-866a35db9b0e
Oct. 8, 2024, 2:42 p.m. ET Jenny Gross
This posting/piece by EW is critically important!
The Trump & Putin Helsinki press conference enabled anyone who could fog a mirror to see for themselves that Putin controlled Trump.
Fiona Hill saw it in person. She was aghast.
Like the Raymond Shaw character in the film Manchurian Candidate, Trump is the Russian Candidate.
A vote for Trump is a vote for Putin.