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GELFAND’S WORLD - Is Donald Trump really a Russian agent -- or at least a Russian asset -- as claimed in a story published in the Mirror and republished stateside by Paul Campos? You can read it here. As you will see, the story is thin on hard evidence but curiously strong on plausibility.
Here is the brief summary:
"Donald Trump was recruited by the KGB in 1987 and given the codename “Krasnov”, claims a former Soviet intelligence officer.
"The bombshell allegation was made by Alnur Mussayev, a former Kazakh intelligence chief, in a Facebook post, reports the Mirror. The 71-year-old, who previously headed Kazakhstan’s National Security Committee, said he had served in the 6th Directorate of the KGB in Moscow, which was responsible for counter-intelligence support within the economy."
The allegation is similar to inferences that many journalists, opposition politicians, and intelligence experts have drawn previously. It seems to be the first direct claim by somebody who -- if the claim is to be believed -- had direct inside knowledge. But to dust off the old term going back to the days of Watergate, there doesn't seem to be a "smoking gun" here.
The case comes down to an overseas newspaper quoting what it claims to be a source which claims to have once been an intelligence officer in the old Soviet Union. Will any part of the story be verified? There is a lot of "if" going on here.
So why should we give this story the time of day?
The answer is that this claim is like a scientific theory that suddenly makes all the facts fall into a logical and coherent whole. It is a simple argument that is consistent with everything we have seen of Donald Trump going back to his several trips to Moscow starting in 1987.
It is no great secret that Soviet intelligence worked hard to recruit and control people from the west. One of their most effective tools was known as Kompromat, which was KGB slang for compromising material. The spy novels of the 1960s are full of stories about bugged hotel rooms, beautiful Russian spies working to seduce western businessmen, and the collection of film and video of those who fell into the trap.
If you want to ask whether the Russians developed Kompromat on Donald Trump, the answer is, "How could they not have?" The Russians were actively looking for western business and governmental leaders they could trap, and Donald Trump fit right into the pattern.
So assuming the Russians tried, we can ask, "Did it work?"
There is plenty of evidence out there in the real world. Just look at what Trump has done and said about the Russia-Ukraine war. Look at the steps Trump has taken in his first month to shut down the power and authority of the United States government. And don't forget that Trump is currently taking the classical dictatorial approach of canning all the normal administrators who won their positions through the standard bureaucratic methods but don't bow down to the current leader as a strongman.
The Kompromat story also offers a different and more convincing explanation for all those boxes of secret documents Trump kept in Mar a Lago. If Trump was acting on orders from Russian handlers, it would provide a more believable explanation for why he took such a large risk in intentionally violating the Espionage Act. Again, we are looking at speculation here, a story that may (or may not) eventually be backed up with hard facts.
But there is another way of looking at things. It doesn't really matter whether we will ultimately get to see documents proving a connection between Trump and the Russian secret police. The evidence is here in the real world. He is doing plenty to push the Russian agenda right now. It would be hard to imagine how a Communist agent -- who found himself in the office of President -- would have done anything differently than the current occupant. Even the tariff war and the concocted fight with Canada would fit in a Cold War novel from the 1960s. If the idea is to weaken the ties among the western allies so as to give Russia an advantage, it would be hard to imagine something more effective than the current Trump presidency.
Given all the reasons why conservative Americans would ordinarily be loathe to support someone so prone to supporting Russian aggression, it is a real quandary as to why Trump has so much support. The skeptics among us may conclude that a lot of the cultism attached to Trump has been developed and supported by Russian operatives using the internet. This idea is also nothing new.
Addendum: A little friction begins to develop at the townhalls
We are reading about some of those townhall meetings hosted by Republican congressmen over the past week or so. What's been going on in the Trump-Musk presidency is not universally popular. MAGA supporters who are also federal workers who are now facing layoffs are the least happy. They didn't believe it would happen to them.
In fact, it is reasonable to believe that most Americans -- MAGA supporters and liberals alike -- didn't expect anything like the irrational ferocity of these first weeks. We can predict that Elon Musk will be the most unpopular person in North America soon enough.
Meanwhile, stories about the townhalls are going around. You can read one here, about a woman who tried to speak up at a meeting in Idaho and was dragged out by private security guards. Other townhalls were not quite so demonstratively violent, but there was plenty of blowback over the current administration's approach. People expected large numbers of deportations and cheaper eggs. Right now they are seeing neither.
(Bob Gelfand writes on science, culture, and politics for CityWatch. He can be reached at [email protected])
