From : Stop the GOP – Groupies Of Putin

Tom Speck

Aug 20, 2025

THE GREATEST HEIST: The Cultivation of Donald Trump
It took the KGB 12 years to construct Donald Trump as an asset. This is how they did it.

Donald Trump slipped off his shoes to board Robert Maxwell’s Lady Ghislaine. Everyone had to—Maxwell insisted. He claimed it was about protecting the plush carpeting, but at 6’1″ and 300 pounds, Maxwell enjoyed the power advantage of towering over his guests—a giant among the shoeless, literally looking down on everyone.

The photograph would ricochet through intelligence agencies from Langley to London to Moscow like a tracer round. This was no ordinary cocktail gathering. This was the culmination of one of Maxwell’s biggest coups.

Between 1970 and 1991, the KGB systematically infiltrated Western financial systems, orchestrating history’s largest theft of state assets—$50 billion in Communist Party funds transferred through 7,000+ accounts and 84 companies. As defector Yuri Bezmenov revealed, 85% of KGB work focused on “ideological subversion and economic destabilization” rather than traditional espionage. Maxwell was their crucial Western facilitator, simultaneously serving as George Bush Sr.’s CIA backchannel while taking 15-20% commissions for laundering Soviet assets through his partnership with Semion Mogilevich, the FBI’s future most-wanted Russian crime boss.

But to complete this economic warfare strategy, they needed the perfect American mark—someone who could make Soviet money look like American success, take their cash without questions, and grow prominent enough to normalize corruption.

In 1977, they found him. Or rather, they began constructing him.

By 1989, Trump—standing shoeless on that yacht—was exactly what they had spent twelve years constructing: the ideal American vessel for Soviet money, transformed from a minor New York developer into someone prominent enough to launder billions without anyone asking questions.

The Assessment: “Born to Be Recruited”
Former KGB officer Yuri Shvets told me, “The decision was made by at least ’83, that it’s time to establish a direct contact with Donald Trump from somebody from Russian New York rezidentura.”

The psychological profile that emerged was devastating. Intelligence services worldwide use a framework called MICE—Money, Ideology, Compromise, Ego—to assess potential assets. Trump scored off the charts on three of the four. And the missing one—ideology—actually made him more valuable, not less.

“Extreme vanity.” Trump needed to be seen as successful, brilliant, winning. Recognition was his oxygen. Tell him he was exceptional, and he became remarkably receptive to suggestion.

“Extremely low IQ.” Not academically—operationally. Trump couldn’t see three moves ahead. He couldn’t recognize patterns that intelligence professionals are trained to spot. As Shvets put it: “The guy is not a complicated cookie, his most important characteristics being low intellect coupled with hyperinflated vanity. This combination makes him a dream for an experienced recruiter.”

“Extreme narcissism.” Everything was viewed through the lens of how it affected Trump. Every deal, every relationship, every interaction was measured by how it reflected on him.

“Extreme love to flattery.” The Moscow trip would prove this. Ambassador Dubinin’s daughter Natalia recalled: “Trump melted at once. He is an emotional person, somewhat impulsive. He needs recognition. And, of course, when he gets it he likes it. My father’s visit worked on him like honey on a bee.”

“And greed.” The drive to accumulate, to expand, to build empire after empire. Money was the scorecard, and Trump played to win at any cost.

“You have it all there,” Shvets concluded. “Everything in this guy, everything is out of place, out of proportion. Everything is exaggerated.”

These weren’t just personality traits. They were operational opportunities. And the KGB had spent decades learning how to exploit exactly these characteristics in their targets. In intelligence terms, Trump was a perfect MICE candidate.

1977: The Czech Opening
The cultivation began with a woman who appealed to Trump’s first vulnerability: his need for prestige.

Ivana Zelníčková claimed to be an alternate on the Czechoslovak Olympic ski team. She wasn’t—though Don Jr. would later repeat the story about his mother. When she and Donald Trump wed in April 1977, her Olympic narrative had been carefully messaged and enhanced for Western consumption. Nothing less than an Olympic athlete, and how fitting that the newlyweds would settle in the Olympic Tower at 641 Fifth Avenue.

What Trump didn’t know—what his vanity prevented him from seeing—was that Ivana came from Zlín (then called Gottwaldov after the Stalinist president), where travel to the West required special permissions and often cooperation with intelligence services. She was sending messages back to Prague through her father, Miloš Zelníček, to the StB, Czechoslovakia’s intelligence service.

As Yuri Shvets revealed: “Everybody who wanted to immigrate to America was approached by the KGB with blackmail. Either you signed a handwritten note pledging to cooperate with the KGB, or you don’t go anywhere.”

The vain American real estate developer who believed he’d won an Olympic beauty was actually playing a role in a carefully orchestrated intelligence operation, one he never suspected. The KGB now had eyes inside Trump’s home, his business, his entire world.
1979-1983: The Surveillance Network
In 1980, Trump was nearing completion of the Grand Hyatt, and was looking for a good deal on 200 TVs for guest rooms. He bought them from Joy-Lud Electronics in the Flatiron district.

Joy-Lud’s owner, Semyon Kislin, was connected to the KGB. As Craig Unger noted in American Kompromat, that simple purchase “effectively opened the doors of the KGB to Donald Trump.” But Kislin wasn’t just intelligence—he was part of Semion Mogilevich’s network. Kislin’s brother Benjamin would later be named in federal indictments as part of gasoline bootlegging schemes with Mogilevich associates. The same network that was watching Trump through Joy-Lud would soon be washing Mogilevich’s billions through Trump Tower.

Trump never asked why Russian émigrés kept appearing in his life, why they all knew each other. His operational blindness made him the perfect target. He thought he was building a business network; the KGB was constructing an operational network around him.
1984: The Money Test
In 1984, the KGB moved into the money stage their assessment. David Bogatin arrived at Trump Tower with $6 million cash to buy five condos. Trump personally attended the closing. No questions asked.

Three years later, Bogatin fled the country, and the government seized his units, declaring he had purchased them to “launder money, to shelter and hide assets.”

But Bogatin wasn’t just any money launderer—he was a lieutenant of Semion Mogilevich, the “Brainy Don” of the Russian mafia. Born in Ukraine in 1946 with advanced degrees in economics, fluent in six languages, Mogilevich controlled a vast empire spanning from Budapest to Brighton Beach. The FBI would later call him “the most dangerous mobster in the world.” More crucially, he would become the power behind the Putin presidency.

By 1988, Mogilevich had established Benex International, later at the center of the Bank of New York scandal where $10 billion was laundered. That same year, he incorporated YBM Magnex on the Toronto Stock Exchange—a front company that would defraud investors of $150 million while laundering millions more. Working for YBM Magnex was a young Russian émigré named Felix Sater, who would later become Trump’s business partner.

And crucially, Mogilevich was Robert Maxwell’s business partner. They jointly owned the Bulgarian umbrella company “Toploenergo.” Maxwell’s Pergamon Press was used to launder Mogilevich’s money. The same Maxwell whose yacht Trump would board in 1989.

By 1986, Trump was claiming $410 million in assets. Russian money was flowing into his Tower projects from all directions. The “Money” factor in the MICE framework was firmly established—Trump would take cash from anyone, never asking where it came from.

1987: The Moscow Activation
The path to Moscow began in March 1986 when Soviet Ambassador Yuri Dubinin visited Trump Tower with his daughter Natalia. By autumn, at a luncheon hosted by Leonard Lauder, Trump sat next to Dubinin. Natalia later recalled: “Trump melted at once. He is an emotional person, somewhat impulsive. He needs recognition. And, of course, when he gets it he likes it. My father’s visit worked on him like honey on a bee.”

By January 1987, the formal invitation arrived from Intourist—the Soviet state tourist agency that former GRU officer Viktor Suvorov confirmed was “KGB. They gave permission for people to visit.”

Trump departed for Moscow on Independence Day—July 4, 1987—with Ivana (who spoke Russian) and her assistant Lisa Calandra. The symbolism wasn’t subtle. They put him in Lenin’s suite at the National Hotel—the same corner room where Vladimir Lenin had stayed in 1917, with sweeping views of the Kremlin.

Newsweek’s Moscow bureau chief Joyce Barnathan interviewed Trump in Lenin’s suite. She recalled Trump calling Ivana from the shower: “She comes out in this white robe with her hair up in a towel, looking kind of ticked off.” Trump pointed to peeling paint saying, “This I can’t understand,” then gesturing to the Kremlin view, “But this, is fabulous.”

Perfect. Trump’s narcissism wouldn’t let him see the theater.

During the visit, Trump toured “half a dozen potential sites for a hotel, including several near Red Square” and met with “economic and financial advisers in the Politburo.” In Leningrad, they visited the opera house—the photos show Trump beaming, Ivana elegant, both completely unaware they were starring in a KGB production.

As former KGB officer Oleg Kalugin confirmed, it was “a widespread practice for the KGB to hire young women and deploy them as prostitutes to entrap visiting politicians and businessmen.” Former KGB officer Sergei Zhyrnov stated that “Trump would have been surrounded 24/7 by KGB operatives, including everyone from his cab driver to the maid servicing his hotel room. Trump’s every move would have been recorded and documented.”

The “Compromise” factor in MICE was being thoroughly documented.

As Shvets confirmed: “The entire trip was arranged through the KGB by the KGB and on the KGB’s money.” The invitation was “actually initiated by a high-level KGB official, General Ivan Gromakov.”

The KGB likely gave Trump a suggestion while on his trip – and waited to see if it transpired on his return.
Seven weeks after returning, Trump spent $94,801 on full-page newspaper ads calling for America to stop defending its allies—exactly what Soviet strategic interests required. The KGB cabled Moscow celebrating the ads as a successful “active measure” executed by their new asset. Shvets stated: “It was unprecedented. I am pretty well familiar with KGB active measures starting in the early 70s and 80s… I haven’t heard anything like that or anything similar.”

Former Kazakh KGB officer Alnur Mussayev would later state: “Based on my experience of operational work at the KGB-KNB, I can say for sure that Trump belongs to the category of perfectly recruited people.”

Trump thought the ads were his brilliant idea. His narcissism wouldn’t let him see that he’d been influenced by three weeks of carefully orchestrated flattery and suggestion.

By October, Trump was in New Hampshire delivering his first political speech. The Executive Intelligence Review noted on July 24, 1987: “The Soviets are reportedly looking a lot more kindly on a possible presidential bid by Donald Trump.”

The network rewarded him handsomely. In 1988, Trump “purchased” Khashoggi’s 282-foot yacht, the Nabila, for $29 million with zero money down, 100% financed. Trump admitted: “Actually, it was from the Sultan of Brunei because he was security for a loan and a whole complicated thing.” The yacht, renamed Trump Princess, featured 210 telephones, satellite communications, hidden cameras—a floating operations center for conducting business beyond U.S. jurisdiction. This wasn’t a purchase; it was a gift for services rendered.

The Network Converges
By the late 1980s, Trump was surrounded by a social circle that constantly reinforced his self-image.

Jeffrey Epstein had become his friend in 1987—the same year as the Moscow trip. They were, as Steven Hoffenberg testified, along with Tom Barrack, “the three amigos” who were “partying it up on a regular basis” in New York. Epstein knew how to stroke Trump’s ego, how to make him feel like the king of Manhattan.

At Mar-a-Lago parties, where George Houraney recalled Trump and Epstein were the only guests at a “calendar girl” competition with 28 young women. At Victoria’s Secret parties, where Trump and Epstein were photographed together. At the Plaza Hotel, which Trump had acquired with Tom Barrack’s help using the same junk bond structure that would destroy his casinos.

What Trump didn’t understand was that they were all connected. Epstein had been recruited in 1981 by Douglas Leese, an MI6 asset running offshore companies for “money laundering, investment banking, financial fraud.” Adnan Khashoggi had “helped in training Jeffrey Epstein” in arms dealing operations. By 1987, when Epstein launched J.E. Epstein & Co., his first client was Khashoggi—the same Khashoggi running Iran-Contra smuggling operations with Maxwell, moving weapons and money through the same networks that would eventually fund Trump’s operations.

Meanwhile, the real business was happening underneath him at Trump Tower. By the late 1980s, FBI surveillance confirmed Russian mobster Vyacheslav Ivankov—known as “Little Japanese” and Mogilevich’s personal representative in America—”made frequent visits to Trump Taj Mahal.” Ivankov had been serving a 14-year sentence in a Siberian gulag when Mogilevich arranged his early release in 1991 through bribes to Russian judges. He arrived in New York in March 1992 with a mission: establish Mogilevich’s money laundering operations in America. The Trump Tower became his headquarters.

Trump’s broker Ace Greenberg and Bear Stearns had arranged for Trump to build his casino empire with junk bonds at impossible rates. The Trump Taj Mahal opened in April 1990 with $675 million in bonds at 14% interest—$94.5 million annually just to service the debt. As Hoffenberg testified, Greenberg “swooped in” to give Trump bonds that Bear Stearns controlled, allowing Trump to acquire Atlantic City casinos without spending his own capital.

The math never worked. But profitability wasn’t the only metric. The casinos served multiple functions—entertainment venues, high-roller destinations, and, as court documents would later reveal, facilities that were “repeatedly cited for having inadequate money-laundering controls.”

The violations were systematic: failing to report suspicious transactions, allowing known criminals to gamble millions in cash, not filing currency transaction reports for amounts over $10,000, permitting patrons to exchange millions in gaming chips with each other.

In 2015, the Taj Mahal would be fined $10 million for “willfully violated” anti-money-laundering regulations—the highest penalty ever levied against a casino.

Trump was told he was a casino genius. The reality was more complex—his casinos served purposes beyond traditional gaming revenue.

1989: The Yacht Verification

Which brings us back to Maxwell’s yacht in May 1989.

The New York Post’s society pages captured the scene: Trump, minus Ivana, bragging to anyone who would listen that he “has a much bigger yacht and was happy to compare them with Maxwell.” Around him, the convergence of compromised power.

John Tower, the former senator who’d covered up Iran-Contra and served as Maxwell’s conduit to George H.W. Bush’s CIA, now rewarded with a cushy job at Maxwell’s Macmillan publishing house—he’d be dead in a mysterious plane crash within two years.

Tom Bolan, Roy Cohn’s law partner, representing the bridge between Trump’s dead mentor and the yacht’s owner—Cohn had taught Trump everything about kompromat and leverage, and now his partner stood witness to the student’s verification.

The intelligence-to-finance pipeline was represented by John Lehman, former Navy Secretary now with Paine Webber. Thomas Pickering, the U.N. envoy, provided diplomatic cover. Peter Kalikow owned the New York Post itself—soon to become Maxwell’s takeover target. Mort Janklow, the literary agent who would package Trump’s books, mingled with the caviar crowd.

And also captured in the photos was a young Ghislaine Maxwell, who seemed transfixed by Trump. She wasn’t looking at her father or the other powerful men. Her gaze was fixed on Trump, She would have already understood the role he would play in the network she was being trained to inherit.

The American real estate developer who believed in his own success story, whose competitive nature drove every interaction, whose appetite for deals overrode caution.
The Collapse and the Mystery
The bill came due in 1991-1992. But the collapse was engineered from the start.

Three major properties bankrupt in 18 months:

July 1991: Trump Taj Mahal ($675 million debt)

March 1992: Trump Castle (prepackaged bankruptcy)

November 1992: Plaza Hotel ($550 million debt)

By any normal measure, Trump was finished. And yet within five years, he was claiming a net worth of $450 million, flush with cash, buying the Miss Universe pageant and back on the Forbes richest list. That business boon happened just as Jeffrey Epstein’s Towers Financial collapsed with $450 million vanished.

As Yuri Shvets would later testify: “The whole Trump organization was turned into a big money laundering machine for Russian intelligence community.

The perfect asset never knows they’re an asset. They think their success is their genius. Their recovery is their skill. Their friends are real.

Trump stood barefoot on Maxwell’s yacht in 1989, never understanding that he’d been cultivated since 1977, surveilled since 1979, financially compromised since 1984, activated in 1987, and was now being verified as reliable.

Twelve years of patient cultivation had produced exactly what the KGB needed: an American businessman prominent enough to launder billions without raising suspicions, respectable enough to make Russian money look like legitimate investment, compromised enough to be controlled, and vain enough to never realize he’d been constructed for this purpose.

To this day, he likely still believes every deal was his victory, every recovery his brilliance, every relationship genuine. The perfect asset never knows they’re an asset. That’s what makes them perfect.

Via: Lisa Baker