* * *
The dossier sources allege that, to show disrespect to President Obama and his wife, Michelle, Trump asked a group of women to urinate on the bed in the presidential suite that the Obamas had slept in during a prior official visit to Russia.
At one hotel in former Soviet republic Estonia, according to the New York Times, during the Soviet era “60 of the hotel’s 423 rooms were bugged and reserved for ‘interesting persons’ like foreign businessmen. Guests who were judged vulnerable to blackmail were put in a handful of rooms with holes in the walls through which special cameras would film dalliances with prostitutes. All the prostitutes . . . worked for the K.G.B.”48 In a conversation with FBI director James Comey in early 2017, Trump allegedly said that Putin told him in Moscow in 2013 that “[Russia had] some of the most beautiful hookers in the world.”49 The comment echoes a letter Trump sent to Putin in the months before he went to Moscow, in which Trump had added a postscript indicating that “he looked forward to seeing ‘beautiful’ women during his trip,” according to the Washington Post.50
As noted by CBS’s Stephen Colbert when he traveled to the Ritz to investigate the allegations in the Steele dossier, Trump stayed in the nicest room in the hotel—the presidential suite—while in Moscow. In July 2017, Colbert rented out the room Trump had stayed in and videotaped his discovery of “an unexplained power cable . . . dangling from a section of the bedroom wall that was hidden behind a non-illuminated mirror.”51 Colbert would later recount for Conan O’Brien, on the latter’s show Conan, how “I actually looked behind the mirrors of the presidential suite room where they supposedly had filmed this happening, and there were electrical wires going into a mirror.”52
As for the motivation behind the acts Trump allegedly observed and/or engaged in at the Ritz-Carlton, reports suggest that Trump has hated Obama ever since Obama made fun of him at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in 2011 in front of the most powerful and influential figures in American media. According to a September 2015 article by Adam Gopnik in the New Yorker, “Trump’s humiliation was as absolute, and as visible, as any I have ever seen: his head set in place, like a man in a pillory, he barely moved or altered his expression as wave after wave of laughter struck him. There was not a trace of feigning good humor about him. . . . No head-bobbing or hand-clapping or chin-shaking or sheepish grinning—he sat perfectly still, chin tight, in locked, unmovable rage.”53 According to the Washington Post, “reporters for major news organizations say Trump was so humiliated that it triggered a deep, previously hidden yearning for revenge.”54
* * *
Over the course of the next year there will be reports of witnesses who saw a row in the Ritz-Carlton Moscow lobby between hotel staff and a group of women who wanted to go up to Trump’s room without signing in.
Per Paul Wood—a Russia correspondent for the BBC at the time he filed his report—an American Ritz-Carlton Moscow guest alleged that prostitutes went up to Trump’s room. As Wood wrote in an August 2017 article for the Spectator, “Steele is not the only source [on the Ritz-Carlton Moscow tape]. I heard of Russian kompromat—compromising material—on Trump from two sources months before the Steele dossier came to light. . . . There are . . . reports of witnesses in the hotel who corroborate Steele’s reporting. These include an American who’s said to have seen a row with hotel security over whether the (alleged) hookers would be allowed up to Trump’s suite.”55
Besides the (minimum) two hotel witnesses he referenced, Wood also directly or indirectly received information from intelligence agency contacts who confirmed Steele’s reporting. As Wood wrote for the BBC on January 12, 2017, in an article entitled “Trump ‘Compromising’ Claims: How and Why Did We Get Here?”:
Steele is not the only source for the claim about Russian kompromat on the president-elect. Back in August, a retired spy told me he had been informed of its existence by “the head of an East European intelligence agency.” Later, I used an intermediary to pass some questions to active duty CIA officers dealing with the case file. . . . I got a message back that there was “more than one tape,” “audio and video,” on “more than one date,” in “more than one place”—in the Ritz in Moscow and also in St. Petersburg—and that the material [in the tapes] was “of a sexual nature.”56
Steele’s dossier offers us another person who could corroborate the alleged events of November 8, 2013. According to Steele, a Trump friend described as being in his early forties—either Felix Sater, Russian-born Republican strategist Boris Epshteyn, or (most likely of the three) Sergei Millian—knows that a “pee tape” exists.57 Steele doesn’t allege this witness spoke directly to him about the existence of a tape; rather, he wrote in his dossier that a man in Trump’s 2013 Miss Universe pageant entourage spoke out of turn to a Russian source Steele had reason to trust.
Another possible corroborator is Aras Agalarov, father of Emin. A Western diplomat in Moscow, speaking to the Daily Mail, observed that “if there are skeletons in Trump’s dealings with Russia, Aras is the man who will know where they are.”58
Just three days after Steele’s dossier was published, NBC News called Steele a “real-life James Bond,” quoting tradecraft expert Nigel West.59
* * *
Multiple active-duty CIA officers responsible for the case file on this incident, speaking to the BBC’s Russia correspondent through an intermediary, say that the recording does indeed exist. BBC reporter Paul Wood reports that at least one allied European intelligence agency has the same information. These officers also tell the BBC that there is at least one other recording of Trump “of a sexual nature” from a different location (St. Petersburg) and a different time. Any such recording would be considered national security–endangering kompromat—potential blackmail material—if it is now in the possession of the Kremlin.
Keith Darden, an international-relations professor at American University who “has studied the Russian use of kompromat,” described to the New Yorker in July 2018 the political environment in Russia as being one where “kompromat is routinely used . . . to curry favor, improve negotiated outcomes, and sway opinion. Intelligence services, businesspeople, and political figures everywhere exploit gossip and damaging information.”60 Darden even coined the term “blackmail state” to describe the “uniquely powerful role” kompromat has in the former Soviet Union and how “pervasive” it is.61 In September 2017, a Russian hotel industry source told the Guardian, “If you are in their field of interest then the FSB will absolutely attempt to carry out surveillance. . . . In the bigger hotels you also definitely have a number of people on the staff who work on the side for the FSB, so they would have had absolutely no problem getting into the room if necessary.”62 Added the source, “I’m pretty sure Trump would have been of a sufficient level to warrant [surveillance]. I’ve seen people of lower levels than him watched [in their hotel rooms] for sure.”
If Trump has been caught up in Russia’s “blackmail state,” the implications for America’s national security are significant. Whether the material is of a personal or financial nature or both, it throws into doubt the authenticity of Trump’s Russia policy—which includes characterizing Putin in glowing terms, refusing to denounce the Russian strongman’s role in the murder of journalists, opposing sanctions on Russia, challenging the authority and viability of NATO in a manner that echoes Kremlin propaganda, advocating Russia’s immediate return to the G7, and remaining open to acknowledging Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE CAMPAIGN BEGINS
2013 to 2015
Summary
NOT LONG AFTER THE 2012 presidential election, the Russians begin preparations for 2016, dispatching two spies to the United States with the goal of infiltrating the right-wing National Rifle Association (NRA) and ultimately creating a back channel between the Kremlin and top leaders in the Republican Party. At the same time, the Kremlin becomes more aggressive in its efforts to reach out to Donald Trump, as
the signs that he is going to run for president are, by mid-2013, unmistakable.
The Kremlin is successful in its plans to infiltrate the NRA, as well as in its efforts to push Trump toward a foreign policy more favorable to Russia, by dangling Moscow land-development deals in front of him. It is unclear as of 2015 whether the Kremlin plans to simply influence NRA brass into contributing a record amount of money to Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign or whether it wants to funnel illegal campaign contributions directly to Trump through the organization. In 2018, Special Counsel Robert Mueller will investigate both possibilities. What will be clear by Election Day is that an unprecedented amount of NRA money was essential to the success of Trump’s presidential run.
As soon as Trump announces his candidacy on June 16, 2015, at Trump Tower in New York City, he begins lauding Putin, denigrating sanctions on Russia, and harping on the need for better relations with the Kremlin—even as a longtime business partner of his with ties to both the Kremlin and the Russian mafia is trying to help him parlay his pro-Russia foreign policy into a sizable payday in the Russian real estate market. Meanwhile, both Trump and his son Donald Trump Jr. strengthen their bonds with the NRA, which will, in May 2016, issue an unusually early endorsement of Trump—a full six months before Election Day.1
As the Weekly Standard will note in February 2017, “There are many claimants to the honor of having nudged Donald Trump over the top in the presidential election. But the folks with the best case are the National Rifle Association and the consultants who made their TV ads.”2
The Facts
FROM 2013 THROUGH THE END of 2017, Alexander Torshin (Russian name: Aleksandr Porfiryevich Torshin), a Russian politician with ties to Putin’s intelligence services, and Maria Butina, a twentysomething Russian student who will eventually be charged with conspiracy and acting as a foreign agent, seek to infiltrate the NRA as part of a plot to create a back channel between the Kremlin and top leaders in the Republican Party.3 The tripartite plot involves making a social connection with powerful NRA members and GOP operatives; creating a bogus “gun rights” organization in Russia to create sympathy of purpose with American gun owners; and, finally, encouraging the NRA to give generously to one candidate in particular: Donald Trump.4
As related by Rolling Stone in April 2018, Torshin is a member of Putin’s political party with “close ties to Russia’s internal security service, the FSB, which awarded him a medal in 2016.”5 According to the CIA’s former Russian operations chief Steven Hall, “[Putin] decided Mr. Torshin [was] going to be the guy to do it for him”—“it” being, as Rolling Stone phrases it, “exploit[ing] the American gun lobby.”6 That exploitation involves “forg[ing] a quick friendship” between NRA president David Keene and a Russian sister organization to the NRA, despite the fact that, as Hall puts it, “the idea of private gun ownership is anathema to Putin.”7 As Torshin is working on connecting the Kremlin to powerful NRA members and, later on, Republican politicians, prosecutors in Spain—who, according to Bloomberg, refer to Torshin as a Russian mafia “boss”—are investigating him for money laundering.8 In May 2018, Spanish officials, still suspecting Torshin of “involvement in money laundering and organized crime,” will turn over wiretaps from their investigation to the FBI, saying publicly of the recordings—on which Torshin is referred to by Alexander Romanov, a mob-linked former Russian banker, as “El Padrino,” meaning “godfather”—that “Mr. Trump’s son [Donald Trump Jr.] should be concerned.” Prosecutors eventually decide not to charge Torshin, not for lack of evidence but because they do not believe the Kremlin would extradite him to Spain.9
In 2013, the then twenty-four-year-old Maria Butina begins a romantic relationship with the then fifty-four-year-old Paul Erickson, an influential GOP operative and NRA member.10 According to a July 2018 Mother Jones summary of NRA-Russia collusion and subsequent indictments against Butina, Butina was hoping, through Erickson, to establish a back channel between the Kremlin and the Republican leadership.11 In short order, she is cohabiting with Erickson, and Erickson has begun paying many of her expenses through a company established for this exclusive purpose called “Bridges, LLC.”12
By the fall of 2013, Erickson has assisted Butina in getting close to NRA president David Keene; in November, Butina and Torshin host Keene in Moscow.13 In January 2014, Keene publishes an essay by Torshin in the Washington Times, where Keene is editor of the opinion pages. Torshin and Butina “join Keene for meetings” at the 2014 NRA convention in Indianapolis, Indiana, and in the fall of 2014, Erickson travels to Moscow with Butina for a gun-rights event.14
In February 2015, Trump declines to renew his contract with the NBC reality show The Apprentice, confirming something that has been an open secret in GOP circles since 2013—that he plans a run for the presidency.15 The assumption that Trump will seek the White House in 2016 is predicated in part on statements made by Trump to Republican leaders in New York in December 2013, at which point he “predicted he would begin [his presidential run] in 2015.”16 In March 2015, both Trump and Torshin attend the annual NRA conference in Nashville, Tennessee, and have a “jovial exchange,” according to Torshin. Butina is also at the conference and has a “private meeting” with a “political candidate”; it is not known if the candidate was Trump.17 Torshin leaves the 2015 NRA conference considering himself now an “acquaintance” of Trump’s.18 On November 8, 2015, he will tweet from his personal Twitter account, in response to allegations of racism against Trump, “I know Donald Trump (through NRA). [He is] a decent person.”19 In 2017, Torshin will secure an invite to the National Prayer Breakfast and a spot on the president’s schedule afterward for a private audience. According to five sources who spoke to Yahoo News, Trump’s team cancels the post–Prayer Breakfast Trump-Torshin meeting because Torshin is suspected of being a “godfather” in the Russia mafia.20 The White House will later say that no such meeting was ever scheduled.21 Trump will deny having ever met Torshin.22
From the moment Trump formally announces his presidential candidacy on June 16, 2015, he tends to discuss two topics with great regularity: first, how good he will be at “getting along” with the Russians and “making deals” with them; second, how well he knows Vladimir Putin and, moreover, Putin’s perspective on whom he can (and whom he wants to) “make deals” with.23
On July 11, 2015, less than a month after he announces his candidacy, Trump is at a libertarian event in Las Vegas called “FreedomFest” conducting a Q&A session. He calls on a young woman from Russia—Maria Butina—who says she’d like to know Trump’s position on sanctions and also what sort of relationship he would like to have with Putin and Russia if he is elected president.24 The press conference is being recorded. Trump answers her question by saying, “I know Putin, and I’ll tell you what, we get along with Putin. Putin has no respect for President Obama. Big problem. Big problem. . . . I believe I would get along very nicely with Putin. . . . I don’t think you’d need the sanctions. I think that we would get along very, very well. I really believe that.”25 Trump also expresses the view that the United States “has driven [Russia and China] together with the big oil deals that are being made”—the implication being that it would be better for Russian oil to flow westward rather than eastward, and that the anti-Russia policies of the Obama administration have engendered greater Russian-Chinese cooperation.26
Ten days after he says at a televised event that he opposes sanctions on Russia, Trump receives an invitation to come to Moscow from Aras Agalarov. The invitation, communicated by Emin Agalarov’s publicist Rob Goldstone to Trump’s secretary, is ostensibly for Aras’s birthday party in November 2015—but contains a promise that Trump can meet with Putin in person if he comes to the party. Goldstone tells Trump’s secretary that Emin will set up the meeting with Putin if Trump agrees to it.27
Within sixty days of Trump’s telling Butina at FreedomFest that he doesn’t see the need for sanctions on Russia, longtime Trump business partner and Russian mafia-linked fixer F
elix Sater approaches Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen with a new business opportunity.28 Sater has been promising Trump a new Moscow tower deal since 2005 but has been unable to deliver; now, he has a willing investor by the name of Andrei Rozov.29 Sater and Rozov have both been on the executive board of a Moscow real estate company called Mirax Group since 2008, but until Trump announces he is running for president, Rozov betrays no interest in partnering with Trump.30 Now, he agrees to let Sater approach Cohen with the idea. Sater follows a September email proposing the idea to Cohen and Trump with an October email that contains both a signed letter of intent from Rozov and a note from Sater saying that Trump’s agreeing to build a Trump World Tower Moscow would “possibly fix relations between the countries [Russia and the United States].”31 It appears that at least the September communication between Sater and Cohen was kept from everyone at the Trump Organization but Trump; on September 30, 2015, Alan Garten, the chief legal officer of the Trump Organization, tells ABC News that “there’s really no direct relationship” between Sater and the Trump Organization and “I don’t know that he ever brought any deals.”32 The statement is false.
In October 2015—while Cohen is communicating with Sater on a Trump Tower Moscow deal even as his client, Donald Trump, runs for president—Cohen receives yet another offer from Russia (Trump’s third since 2013, at a minimum) to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. The proposal comes from Russian billionaire Sergei Gordeev, whom the Washington Post calls a “Moscow real estate mogul who served through 2010 as a Russian legislator.”33 Gordeev indicates, through an intermediary—“an international financier [Gordeev] had worked with in the past, Giorgi Rtskhiladze,” according to the Post—that the deal he’s offering Trump would involve a “Trump-branded residential development.”34 In October 2015, Gordeev and Rtskhiladze send Cohen a thirteen-page proposal and pictures of the prospective site. Cohen turns down the request only because, as he explains to Rtskhiladze, Trump is already working on a deal for a Trump Tower in Moscow.35
Proof of Collusion Page 9