Will Trump Be Meeting With His Counterpart — Or His Handler?

July 8, 2018 8:11 PM

Will Trump Be Meeting With His Counterpart — Or His Handler? Jonathan Chait at New York magazine sketches out a wholly believable and frankly terrifying big picture of the Putin-Trump relationship.

During the Soviet era, Russian intelligence cast a wide net to gain leverage over influential figures abroad. (The practice continues to this day.) The Russians would lure or entrap not only prominent politicians and cultural leaders, but also people whom they saw as having the potential for gaining prominence in the future. In 1986, Soviet ambassador Yuri Dubinin met Trump in New York, flattered him with praise for his building exploits, and invited him to discuss a building in Moscow. Trump visited Moscow in July 1987. He stayed at the National Hotel, in the Lenin Suite, which certainly would have been bugged. There is not much else in the public record to describe his visit, except Trump’s own recollection in The Art of the Deal that Soviet officials were eager for him to build a hotel there. (It never happened.)

Enjoy.
posted by chasing (1 comment total)

This is the kind of post that would benefit from a note stating whether it is the next official politics megathread or not. I suspect not, since the current one isn’t that full, but since the topic is spot on, some might be confused.
posted by greermahoney at 8:23 PM on July 8, 2018 [1 favorite]