ABOUT THE BOOK House of Trump, House of Putin offers the first comprehensive investigation into the decades-long relationship between Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and the Russian Mafia that ultimately helped win Trump the White House. It is a chilling story that begins in the 1970s, when Trump made his first splash in the booming, money-drenched world of New York real estate, and ends with his inauguration as president of the United States. That moment was the culmination of Russia’s long mission to undermine Western democracy, a mission that began more than thirty years ago, when the Russian Mafia first targeted Trump properties to launder money, and led to Putin’s oligarchs and Mafia kingpins rescuing Trump from a string of sensational bankruptcies. In House of Trump, House of Putin, Craig Unger methodically traces the deep- rooted alliance between the highest echelons of American political operatives and the biggest players in the frightening underworld of the Russian Mafia. He traces Donald Trump’s sordid ascent from foundering real-estate tycoon to the highest office in the land. He traces Russia’s phoenix-like rise from the ashes of the post-Cold War Soviet Union, as well as its ceaseless covert efforts to retaliate against the West and reclaim its status as a global superpower. Without Trump, Russia would have lacked a key component in its attempts to return to imperial greatness. Without Russia, Trump would not be president. This essential book is crucial to understanding the real powers at play in the shadows of today’s world. CONTENTS Cover About the Book Title Page Dedication Epigraph CHAPTER ONE: (Virtual) World War III CHAPTER TWO: Trump’s Beautiful Laundrette CHAPTER THREE: Married to the Mob CHAPTER FOUR: Brighton Beach CHAPTER FIVE: Honey Trap CHAPTER SIX: Gangster’s Paradise CHAPTER SEVEN: The Billionaire Boys’ Club CHAPTER EIGHT: Mogilevich’s Big Move CHAPTER NINE: Turn of the Screw CHAPTER TEN: The Money Pipelines CHAPTER ELEVEN: Easy Prey CHAPTER TWELVE: International Man of Mystery CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Bayrock CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Moth, Flame CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Putin’s Revenge CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Blood Money CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: War by Other Means CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: The Battle Is Joined CHAPTER NINETEEN: Back Channels CHAPTER TWENTY: Endgame Picture Section Trump’s Fifty-Nine Russia Connections Acknowledgments Author’s Note to this Edition Notes About the Author Also by Craig Unger Copyright In memory of Paul Klebnikov, Alexander Litvinenko, Sergei Magnitsky, Anna Politkovskaya, and the dozens of other journalists, investigators, and dissidents who lost their lives investigating Putin’s kleptocracy. It’s wonderful that the Iron Curtain is gone, but it was a shield for the West. Now we’ve opened the gates, and this is very dangerous for the world. America is getting Russian criminals. Nobody will have the resources to stop them. You people in the West don’t know our Mafiya yet. You will, you will! —Boris Urov, former chief investigator of major crimes for the Russian attorney general, circa 19931 Russia has never tried to use leverage over me. I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA - NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NO NOTHING! —Donald Trump, January 11, 2017, via Twitter CHAPTER ONE (VIRTUAL) WORLD WAR III AT APPROXIMATELY 9:32 A.M. Moscow time on November 9, 2016, Deputy Vyacheslav Nikonov of the pro-Putin United Russia Party stepped up to the microphone in the Russian State Duma, the Russian equivalent of the House of Representatives, to make a highly unusual announcement. The grandson of Vyacheslav Molotov—the coolly ruthless Stalinist of Molotov cocktail fame—Nikonov had been involved in Soviet and Russian politics for roughly forty years, including serving a stint on Vladimir Putin’s staff. Now, he was about to make a rather simple, understated announcement, that in its way was as historic and incendiary as anything his grandfather had ever done. “Dear friends, respected colleagues!” Nikonov said. “Three minutes ago Hillary Clinton admitted her defeat in US presidential elections and a second ago Trump started his speech as an elected president of the United States of America and I congratulate you on this.”1 Even though Nikonov did not add what many in the Kremlin already knew, his brief statement was greeted by enthusiastic applause. Donald J. Trump had just become Vladimir Putin’s man in the White House. This book tells the story of one of the greatest intelligence operations in history, an undertaking decades in the making, through which the Russian Mafia and Russian intelligence operatives successfully targeted, compromised, and implanted either a willfully ignorant or an inexplicably unaware Russian asset in the White House as the most powerful man on earth. In doing so, without firing a shot, the Russians helped put in power a man who would immediately begin to undermine the Western Alliance, which has been the foundation of American national security for more than seventy years; who would start massive trade wars with America’s longtime allies; fuel right-wing anti-immigrant populism; and assault the rule of law in the United States. In short, at a time at which the United States was confronted with a new form of warfare—hybrid war consisting of cyber warfare, hacking, disinformation, and the like—the United States would have at its helm a man who would leave the country all but defenseless, and otherwise inadvertently do the bidding of the Kremlin. It is a story that is difficult to tell even though, in many ways, Donald Trump’s ties to Russia over the last four decades have been an open secret, hiding in plain sight. One reason they went largely unnoticed for so long may be that aspects of them are so unsettling, so transgressive, that Americans are loath to acknowledge the dark realities staring them in the face. As a result, the exact words for what happened often give way to fierce semantic disputes. Whatever Russia did with regard to the 2016 presidential campaign, was it an assault on America’s sovereignty, or merely meddling? Was it an act of war? Did Russian interference change the results of the 2016 presidential election? Was it treason? Is Donald Trump a traitor? A Russian agent? Or merely a so-called useful idiot who somehow, through willful blindness or colossal ignorance, does not even know how he has been compromised by Russia? President Donald Trump, of course, has denied having anything to do with Russia, having tweeted, ten days before his inauguration, “Russia has never tried to use leverage over me. I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA - NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NO NOTHING!”2 But as this book will show, over the last four decades, President Donald Trump and his associates have had significant ties to at least fifty-nine people who facilitated business between Trump and the Russians, including relationships with dozens who have alleged ties to the Russian Mafia. It will show that President Trump has allowed Trump-branded real estate to be used as a vehicle that likely served to launder enormous amounts of money— perhaps billions of dollars—for the Russian Mafia for more than three decades. It will show that President Trump provided an operational home for oligarchs close to the Kremlin and some of the most powerful figures in the Russian Mafia in Trump Tower—his personal and professional home, the crown jewel of his real estate empire—and other Trump buildings on and off for much of that period. It will show that during this period the Russian Mafia has likely been a de facto state actor serving the Russian Federation in much the same way that American intelligence services serve the United States, and that many of the people connected to Trump had strong ties to the Russian FSB, the state security service that is the successor to the feared KGB. It will show that President Trump has been a person of interest to Soviet and Russian intelligence for more than forty years and was likely the subject of one or more operations that produced kompromat (compromising materials) on him regarding sexual activities. It will show that for decades, Russian operatives, including key figures in the Russian Mafia, studiously examined the weak spots in America’s pay-for-play political culture—from gasoline distribution to Wall Street, from campaign finance to how the K Street lobbyists of Washington ply their trade—and, having done so, hired powerful white-shoe lawyers, lobbyists, accountants, and real estate developers by the score, in an effort to compromise America’s electoral system, legal process, and financial institutions. It will show that President Trump, far from being the only potential “asset” targeted by the Russians, was one of dozens of politicians—most of them Republicans, but some Democrats as well—and businessmen who became indebted to Russia, and that millions of dollars have been flowing from individuals and companies from, or with ties to, Russia to GOP politicians, including Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, for more than twenty years. It will show that the most powerful figures in America’s national security— including two FBI directors, William Sessions and Louis Freeh, and special counsel to the CIA Mitchell Rogovin—ended up working with Russians who had been deemed serious threats to the United States. It will show that President Trump was $4 billion in debt when Russian money came to his rescue and bailed him out, and, as a result, he was and remains deeply indebted to them for reviving his business career and launching his new life in politics. It will show that President Trump partnered with a convicted felon named Felix Sater who allegedly had ties to the Russian mob, and that Trump did not disclose the fact Sater was a criminal and profited from that relationship. And it will show that, now that he is commander in chief of the United States, President Trump, as former director of national intelligence James Clapper put it, is, in effect, an intelligence “asset” serving Russian president Vladimir Putin,3 or, even worse, as Glenn Carle, a former CIA national intelligence officer, told Newsweek, “My assessment is that Trump is actually working directly for the Russians.”4 Then again, maybe James Comey put it best. In January 2017, just a week after Donald Trump was inaugurated, the president invited then–FBI director Comey to the White House for a private dinner. Characterizing Trump as