Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money And How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win
by
Luke Harding

Jill Abramson, the former executive editor of The New York Times, argued that the “gravity of the matter” called for a change in the press’ behavior. Trump meant a new era. And new post-tribal thinking.

Abramson wrote: “Reputable news organizations that have committed resources to original reporting on the Russia story should not compete with one another, they should cooperate and pool information.”

Trump’s Republican colleagues showed little interest in investigating whether the dossier’s allegations were true. So it was left to the media to carry out this civic function. CNN’s Fareed Zakaria noted that in the era of Trump journalism had a renewed elemental purpose. “Our task is simply to keep alive the spirit of U.S. democracy,” he said. p. 74-5

First, [Vladimir Putin press spokesperson Dimtry] Peskov denied the Trump allegations. “This information does not correspond to reality and is no more than fiction,” he said. Then he insisted that the Kremlin “does not engage in collecting compromising material.” Political motives were behind the release—to halt an improvement in the U.S.-Russia relationship, which was currently “degraded,” Peskov said. Adopting Trump’s own phrase, Peskov called the dossier “completely fake.” It wasn’t “worth the paper it was printed on.”

Anyone familiar with Russian espionage could only crack a wry smile at Peskov’s solemn denials. True, nobody outside the FSB could know if the spy agency did indeed have a Trump video. But there was a rich history of the FSB, and its KGB predecessor, collecting compromising material. And on many occasions filming targets when they engaged in sexual activity even if this was with a wife or husband. p. 75-6

Putin was well aware of what his spy service did in the bedroom. Especially when it came to filming targets in the company of what the Russian press calls “girls of easy behavior.”

Back in 1999, Russia’s prosecutor general, Yuri Skuratov, fell out with Boris Yeltsin. Skuratov’s corruption investigations were going down badly with influential people inside the Kremlin, including oligarch Boris Berezovsky. (At this point Berezovsky was at the zenith of his powers, a fixer and backroom player who was deputy head of Yeltsin’s security council.) A government-controlled TV channel release a video of Skuratov in bed with two prostitutes. The video insn’t flattering: it shows a flabby, middle-aged man reclining on a sofa with two blondes. The tie stamp shows that it’s 2:04 a.m.

The episode ended Skuratov’s career. He resigned on health grounds soon afterward. One senior official played a prominent role in the prosecutor’s demise and national humiliation. the official—then the head of the FSB—testified that he believed the video to be genuine. This was Putin. Putin came up with a memorable quote that stuck with the Russian public.

The figure in the film was “a person similar [in appearance] to the Prosecutor General,” Putin said dryly.

Once Putin became president, the FSB continued to film targets in their intimate moments. Covert surveillance was so widespread that UK diplomats arriving to take up posting in Moscow were briefed about the dangers of honey traps.

In the past even illustrious officials had succumbed to them. In 1968 Britain’s ambassador to the Soviet Union, Sir Geoffrey Harrison, had an affair with a maid working at the embassy. The maid, Glaya Ivanova, was a KGB employee, as Sir Geoffrey might have known. The KGB sent him the photos; Harrison told London and was immediately recalled. “I let my defenses drop,” the ambassador admitted.

The attractive young women used to entice Western diplomats had a name—“swallows.” In Soviet times the KGB Second Chief Directorate sent them.

In 2009 James Hudson—the UK’s deputy counsel in Yekaterinburg, the principal city in the Urals—was filmed in a local massage parlor. Like Skuratov, Hudson cut a louche figure on the tape and was wearing a dressing gown. There is a kiss, champagne, explicit bedroom moments with two women. The FSB leaked the video to the tabloid newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, which published it under the playful headline “The Adventures of Mr. Hudson in Russia.” Hudson quietly quit Russia and the UK foreign office.

A month later the FSB caught another apparent victim, this time an American. The same news outlet release video that it said showed the U.S. diplomat Kyle Hatcher calling up a prostitute. the production values are distinctly amateurish. There is cheesy saxophone music. Hatcher allegedly asks Inna, Sonya and Veronica in U.S.-accented Russian: “Will you be free in an hour?” Veronica replies: “In an hour and a half.”

The Russian paper claimed Hatcher was a CIA officer. His official job was to liaise with Russia’s religious communities, including Christians and Muslims, it said, justifying publication on the grounds that Hatcher was something of a hypocrite. The U.S. ambassador John Beyrie said the footage was fake. Beyrie filed a complaint with the Russian foreign ministry.

The FSB’s sex stings hadn’t changed much since the earlier Cold War times. They were carried out for classic secret service reasons: to entrap, recruit, embarrass and blackmail.

Its operatives were able to carry out such operations with relative ease. Hidden cameras were a lot smaller than in the KGB heyday. The picture quality was better too—good enough to broadcast on state TV, if you wanted.

Mostly, victims of sex stings were Russians. In April 2016 the Russian opposition leader Mikhail Kasyanov was filmed from a concealed camera sitting on a dressing table. Kasyanov had been Putin’s prime minister for four years, until he got fired in 2004. He then joined the opposition. Now he was seen stripping off with an aide from the Republican Party of Russia—People’s Freedom Party, Natalia Pelevine. The NTV channel—used for a series of hit jobs on Putin’s critics—screened the footage taken from inside a private Moscow apartment.

It even used the same stiff phrasing that Putin had employed with Skuratov eighteen years earlier. The voiceover intoned” “A person similar in appearance to Mikhail Kasyanov.” p. 77-9

As the comedian John Oliver pointed out, what was happening at dazzling speed resembled not so much Watergate 2 as Stupid Watergate. It was a pastiche version of the original 1970s scandal, replayed by clownish dimwits and brainless plotters. Stupid Watergate was happening more quickly than the original version, even if the ending—impeachment?—seemed uncertain. p. 192

When did the KGB open a file on Donald Trump? We don’t know, but Eastern Bloc security records suggest this may have been as early as 1977. That was the year when Trump married Ivana Zelnickova, a twenty-eight-year-old model from Czechoslovakia. Zelnickova was a citizen of a communist country. She was therefore of interest both to the Czech intelligence service, the StB, and to the FBI and CIA. p. 219

Wherever you looked there was a Russian trace.

Trump’s pick for secretary of state? Rex Tillerson, a figure known and trusted in Moscow, and recipient of the Order of Friendship. National security advisor Michael Flynn, Putin’s dinner companion and a beneficiary of undeclared Russian fees. Campaign manager Paul Manafort, longtime confidant to ex-Soviet oligarchs. Foreign policy adviser? Carter Page, an alleged Moscow asset who gave documents to Putin’s spies. Commerce secretary? Wilbur Ross, an entrepreneur with Russia-connected investments. Personal lawyer? Michael Cohen, who sent emails to Putin’s press secretary. Business partner? Felix Sater, son of a Russian American mafia boss. And other personalities too.

It was almost as if Putin had played a role in naming Trump’s cabinet. p. 326

[Question: Are there any restrictions on presidential pardons? Is the president prohibited from issuing “a pardon for an improper reason or to frustrate justice,” as Harding suggests in his epilogue on page 329?]