Craig Unger
Quotes
[A] malevolent narcissist... at the helm... deliberately infected the nation with a murderous stupidity... of supporters who lived in a cultlike world of paranoid fantasies and magical thinking, blithely spreading... Trumpian hate and lethal disease... weaponized by Russian intelligence via social media, and incorporated into paranoid conspiracies by... extremist cults.
[T]he biggest contributor to ... was Leviev... who had a direct line to Rabbi ... Donald Trump, and... Putin... Leviev would make major real estate transactions with Jared Kushner...
Mogilevich’s plans for globalization continued.... Having set up... YBM Magnex, he... dispatched Dr. Jacob (Yakov) Bogatin... David Bogatin’s brother, to its... Pennsylvania branch to become CEO. ...1998, the FBI raided... In 2003, Mogilevich... Bogatin, and Igor Fisherman... were indicted on... counts for... $150 million stock fraud.
With 's Rabbi leading the way, the Federation... was... providing Putin... a Jewish "umbrella"... to battle ... who... back[ed] candidates opposed to Putin. ...Lazar and Leviev ...promised Putin that they would... "open doors to the corridors of power in Washington."
Bayrock... brought into Donald Trump’s orbit a host of oligarchs and alleged mobsters involved in laundering money, the trafficking of underage women, feeding intelligence to the Russians... [etc.].
"...Trump came to the conclusion that it is better to do business with crooks than with honest people," said ...
With the help of Sater’s father, the firm got protection from the Genovese family, and Sater used an alias.. to launder... proceeds... [A] mob operation... cheating unsuspecting investors out of $40 million.
...Eduard Nektalov ...bought a condo ... directly below ...Kellyanne Conway. ...Nektalov ...related to Lev Leviev ...was being investigated by a Treasury Department ...for mob-connected money laundering. He and his father, Roman Nektalov, had been targeted in Operation Meltdown... that uncovered a scheme through which diamond merchants laundered $8 million in Colombian drug proceeds. ...May 2004 ...a ...man ...fired once in ...Nektalov’s head ...two more ...into his back ...
Fascism was in the air.
Given... control over.. oligarchs was crucial to... power, Putin needed to... keep tabs on... their money... If... the or other forms of flight capital were funding a Trumpbranded project... If oligarchs were buying scores of Trump condos... Putin wanted to know.
As Putin’s ascent began, the Mafia moved into a... strategic position... to compromise... political figures and businessmen in the United States... and exploit... weaknesses... as campaign finance, Washington lobbying... [etc.]
Firtash’s “success was built on remarkable sweetheart deals brokered by associates of... Vladimir Putin, at immense cost to Russian taxpayers."
