by Craig Unger
Having already installed the outrageously unqualified John Ratcliffe as director of National Intelligence, Trump now began to decapitate the surveillance state. On November 9, Trump fired Secretary of Defense Mark Esper. The next day, Trump appointed Ezra Cohen-Watnick, a steadfast Trump loyalist, as acting undersecretary of defense for intelligence.
Similarly, in the Justice Department, Attorney General Barr had removed Brad Wiegmann, a well-regarded career public servant, as deputy assistant attorney general and replaced him with Trump loyalist Kellen Dwyer in a position that, some observers believed, gave him power to determine when it is and isn’t appropriate for the Justice Department to make public statements about election interference.50
There were many others. So now, in the intelligence world, as it was in the Justice Department, the most groveling loyal Trump sycophants had the keys to the kingdom. They were now in charge of the kompromat. Who knew what secrets they would uncover about their foes? Who knew how many compromising documents they had begun to shred? Or would they be able to use their power to stay in office?
* * *
—
In June 2015, Trump took his famous escalator ride down to the Trump Tower atrium, where he launched his seemingly improbable presidential campaign. In the ensuing five years, he had, to a considerable extent, turned the country into an American version of Putin’s Mafia state. It wasn’t just that his drive for personal enrichment and power put a stranglehold over democracy as Americans had built and lived it. As an asset who benefited from Russia while a sitting US president, he was also a principal in one of the greatest national security failures in American history. The real damage he had wreaked was just beginning to be understood, as an incoming administration began to prepare to move into the White House.
As to Trump’s fate, that was still unclear. Having lost the election, he would be in serious legal jeopardy, potentially facing numerous civil and criminal charges, once he left the White House. Still, at various times, he vowed he would run again in 2024. More than seventy-three million people had voted for him. More than any candidate in history save Joe Biden. And, at this writing, there was still Trump’s slow-motion coup, what appeared to be the last gasps of his attempts to block the certification of the vote in key states that Biden had won.
In the end, it would be some time before Americans got to the bottom of exactly how damaged their country was. Trump had been so compromised, for so long, that the treasured things Americans had were not yet clear.
But president or not, Donald Trump was still the Republican Party. He was still a beneficiary of kompromat’s power, and at risk from its danger. He had made it clear that he intended to remain a powerful political force. He was not going away.
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov (left), Donald Trump, and Russian ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak met in the Oval Office at the White House on May 10, 2017. Trump told the Russians that he had just fired “real nut job” FBI director James Comey, who had begun investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election. No American journalists were allowed to record the meeting—just one photographer from TASS, the Russian news agency that has frequently provided cover for Russian intelligence agents. (Alexander Shcherbak/TASS/Getty Images)
President Donald Trump met with Russian president Vladimir Putin in Helsinki on July 16, 2018, and stunned observers when he sided with Putin over the FBI, which had concluded Russia had attacked America’s 2016 elections. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images)
Donald Trump’s obsession with nuclear arms and his insistence he could negotiate between Ronald Reagan and the Russians provided an opening for the KGB to cultivate Trump. (Courtesy of the Ronald Reagan Library)
(Above left) In July 1987, Trump is seen here with first wife, Ivana, at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg during his first trip to the Soviet Union. According to Yuri Shvets (right), a former major in the KGB, Trump’s trip was initiated and set up by the KGB, which oversaw the entire trip. (Maxim Blokhin/TASS/Getty Images), (Courtesy of Yuri Shvets)
Semyon Kislin was co-owner of Joy-Lud Electronics, which was allegedly controlled by the KGB and sold hundreds of TVs to Trump more than forty years ago. According to Yuri Shvets, Kislin appeared to be a “spotter agent” who opened the door for the KGB to develop Trump. (Screenshot/Semyon Kislin’s YouTube Channel)
In the ’90s, New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who later became President Trump’s lawyer, marched with the future president on Fifth Avenue in the Steuben Day Parade. Semyon Kislin, who allegedly first identified Trump as a potential target for the KGB, had become a major Giuliani supporter. (Evy Mages/NY Daily News Archive/Getty Images)
At left, a mug shot of Robert Hanssen, the FBI agent and Opus Dei member who spied for the Russians, and at right, his brother-in-law Father John Wauck, an Opus Dei priest who also served as a speechwriter for Attorney General William Barr in the administration of George H. W. Bush. (FBI), (Antonello NUSCA/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images)
William Barr just after being sworn in as attorney general in 1991. His religious zealotry merged with his absolutist interpretation of the “unitary executive” to help forge policies that gave President Trump almost dictatorial powers. (Scott Applewhite/AP Images)
Opus Dei founder St. Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer (center) prays with other Opus Dei officials in June 1974. A small number of officials with ties to Opus Dei played key roles in establishing a new Catholic right that gave unbridled power to the presidency. (Opus Dei Archive for Franco Origlia/Getty Images)
Leonard Leo, executive vice president of the Federalist Society, on the steps of the Supreme Court in Washington, DC, March 2017. Leo and the Federalist Society have overseen the selection of hundreds of conservative judges, including those on the Supreme Court. (Mark Peterson/Redux)
The so-called Bouncing Czech, Robert Maxwell (left), shown here with USSR general secretary Leonid Brezhnev, had access to the corridors of power all over the world and often acted as a friend of the KGB, among other intelligence agencies. (Bettmann/Getty Images)
Maxwell, with daughter Ghislaine, in 1984, long before she became an alleged sex trafficker and partner of Jeffrey Epstein. Her father often said she was the favorite of his nine children. (Mirrorpix/Getty Images)
British media mogul Robert Maxwell at the Houses of Parliament in London to take up his seat after being elected MP in 1964. (Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Trump at an event with John Tower, former senator from Texas; veteran broadcaster Mike Wallace (second from right); and media baron Robert Maxwell. Tower became a fixer for Maxwell and opened doors for him in America’s intelligence apparatus.
Immediately after Robert Maxwell’s death in 1991, his daughter Ghislaine Maxwell went to her father’s yacht, Lady Ghislaine, and ordered documents to be shredded.(Matthew Polak/Sygma/Getty Images)
Jean-Luc Brunel, a French model agency boss who allegedly trafficked young girls with Jeffrey Epstein, snuggles up with Ghislaine Maxwell in 1992.
Ghislaine Maxwell dated Jeffrey Epstein and was allegedly a co-conspirator in his sex-trafficking ring that lasted for more than two decades. Here, they attend a benefit in New York in 2005. (Joe Schildhorn/Patrick McMullan/Getty Images)
Donald Trump and his model girlfriend, Melania Knauss, future first lady; financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein; and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, at the Mar-a-Lago, Palm Beach, Florida, February 12, 2000. (Davidoff Studios/Getty Images)
Jeffrey Epstein (left) and Donald Trump were close friends for fifteen years. Here, they pose together at the Mar-a-Lago, Palm Beach, Florida, 1997. (Davidoff Studios/Getty Images)
Jeffrey Epstein with one of his attorneys, former Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz, September 8, 2004. Dershowitz was also accused of sexu
al assault in the Epstein scandal. He denies the accusations and he has countersued. (Rick Friedman/Corbis/Getty Images)
In June 2018, Russian model Svetlana Pozhidaeva attends a swimsuit launch for Sofia Resing in New York. Earlier, she had worked with Jeffrey Epstein, becoming president of a STEM education nonprofit he funded. (Lev Radin/Pacific Press/Alamy)
At right, Anna Malova, the former Miss Russia who was tied to both Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. For a time, she lived in Trump Tower, and also spent time on Epstein’s Little St. James Island. (Richard Corkery/New York Daily News Archive/Getty Images)
Masha Drokova, who briefly worked as Jeffrey Epstein’s publicist and became a rising star in the tech world, started out as a leader of Nashi, a pro-Putin youth group. (AF Archive/Alamy)
Former deputy sheriff John Mark Dougan claims to have 478 videos from Jeffrey Epstein’s stash. Above, he meets with Pavel Borodin, a member of Putin’s inner circle who had oversight of a vast amount of Russian assets. At right, Dougan poses in Red Square. He is the fourth American to receive asylum in Russia. (Facebook)
Attorney General William P. Barr speaks with reporters at a news conference in Washington, DC, December 19, 1991, flanked by acting principal associate attorney general Robert Mueller. Barr squashed the Mueller Report when it was released, but his friendship with the former special counsel dated back to Barr’s first term as attorney general in 1991. (Barry Thumma/AP Images)
Barr speaks at an April 18, 2019, news conference to discuss Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election. Barr claimed—falsely—that the Mueller Report exonerated Trump. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)
Special Counsel Mueller testifies before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on his findings of Russia’s 2016 US election attack. His report contained evidence of criminal misconduct by the Trump campaign, but it failed to deliver the promised counterintelligence investigation into Donald Trump’s four-decades-long dealings with Russian mobsters and intelligence operatives. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post/Getty Images)
Longtime associates Attorney General William Barr (left) and White House counsel Pat Cipollone, both alumni of Kirkland & Ellis, played key roles in awarding expansive authoritarian powers to Donald Trump. (Alex Brandon/AP Images)
Donald Trump with Attorney General William Barr in the Oval Office on May 28, 2020. (Doug Mills-Pool/Getty Images)
In a defiantly authoritarian act, Donald Trump marches from the White House for a photo-op in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church on June 1, 2020. He had called out federal troops to subdue peaceful protests against racial inequality following the killing of George Floyd by police. (Tom Brenner/Reuters)
Federal officials use tear gas and brutal tactics on peaceful protesters to clear the way for Donald Trump to walk to the church. In the wake of the killing of George Floyd, police officers wearing riot gear push back demonstrators outside of the White House. (JOSE LUIS MAGANA/AFP/Getty Images)
Trump stands in front of St. John’s with US attorney general William Barr, National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien, and White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany after clearing away protesters. (Tom Brenner/Reuters)
Trump walks back to the White House, having made his point that he is willing to use American troops against American citizens on American soil. (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)
Federal agents used crowd control munitions to disperse Black Lives Matter protesters at the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse on Monday, July 20, 2020, in Portland, Oregon. Tactics included kidnapping of protesters by unidentified federal officers in unmarked cars. (Noah Berger/AP Images)
Trump used Portland as a testing ground to deploy these unidentifiable federal agents in major cities as the presidential election approached. (Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)
Hundreds of Black Lives Matter protesters hold their phones aloft in Portland, Oregon, on July 20, 2020. (Noah Berger/AP Images)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book would not have been possible without the help of many people. At Dutton, once again I was privileged to have excellent editing by John Parsley, who oversaw the book from start to finish. I am also grateful to Dutton publisher Christine Ball and president Ivan Held, and a terrific team that treated the project with great professionalism. They include Andrea St. Aubin, Emily Canders, Stephanie Cooper, Tiffany Estreicher, Brent Howard, M. P. Klier, LeeAnn Pemberton, Amanda Walker, Cassidy Sachs, Ryan Richardson, Linda Rosenberg, Susan Schwartz, Dora Mak, Sabila Khan, Leigh Butler, and Chris Lin. I’d also like to thank Penguin Publishing Group president Allison Dobson. My thanks as well to Yuki Hirose for her legal review.
Once again, my literary agent, David Kuhn, did a superb job of shepherding the project from its inception to publication. He, Nate Moscato, and Arlie Johansen at Aevitas were enormously supportive throughout. I’m also deeply indebted to researcher Olga Lautman, with whom I was fortunate to work again and whose language skills and deep knowledge of Russian and Ukrainian politics are invaluable. Similarly, I’d like to thank other members of my team, including fact-checker Ben Kalin, photo researcher Cynthia Carris Alonso, and my friend the photographer James Hamilton for the author’s photo.
Among the many people who were either interview subjects or gave me assistance, I’d like to thank first and foremost Yuri Shvets for sharing with me so much of his time, his experiences in the KGB, and related expertise. Through many hours of interviews, he always proved an extraordinary, engaging, candid, and courageous subject who has spoken out against Putin, even after the murder of his colleague, Alexander Litvinenko, and the mysterious death of his employer, Boris Berezovsky.
In addition, I’d like to thank Donald Ayer, Neil Barnett, Ari-Ben Menashe, Glenn Carle, Michael Carpenter, David Carr-Brown, Frederick Clarkson, Jeff Dannenberg, Martin Dillon, John Mark Dougan, Edward Jay Epstein, Brian Finnerty, Myron Fuller, Bill Hamilton, Oleg Kalugin, Semyon Kislin, Christopher Mason, Kenneth McCallion, Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, Christina Oxenberg, Richard Painter, Peter Steinfels, Taki Theodoracopulos, Father John Paul Wauck, and Mark Wauck, for their time.
I’m especially indebted to a number of people who asked not to be mentioned, but who nonetheless contributed greatly to the book.
I also want to thank friends and colleagues for generously sharing related materials or contributing much-needed moral support. Anders Aslund, Gabe Benincasa, Sidney Blumenthal, the late Patti Bosworth, Marie Brenner, Jack Bryan, Nina Burleigh, Andy Cohen, Edmundo Desnoes and Felicia Rosshandler, Alan Heilbron and Kerry Malawista, Robert Kaufelt and Nina Planck, Jesse Kornbluth, Todd Gitlin, Ryan Goodman, Steve Halliwell, Scott Horton, Martin Kilian, Michael Mailer, Don and Marji Mendelsohn, Clara Mulberry, Cody Shearer, James Sheldon and Karen Brooks Hopkins, Jeff Stein, Neal Stevens, Paco Underhill, Jonathan Winer and Libby Lewis.
NOTES
CHAPTER ONE: THE MONSTER PLOT
1. Allan Smith, “Trump on Peaceful Transition If He Loses,” NBC News, September 23, 2020.
2. Fintan O’Toole, “Donald Trump Has Destroyed the Country He Promised to Make Great Again,” Irish Times, April 25, 2020.
3. “Fact Checker,” Washington Post, updated August 27, 2020.
4. Michael J. Morell, “I Ran the C.I.A. Now I’m Endorsing Hillary Clinton,” New York Times, August 5, 2016.
5. “The Lead with Jake Tapper,” CNN, August 9, 2016.
6. Christopher Woolf, “Former CIA Chief Calls Trump ‘Moscow’s Useful Idiot,’” PRI’s The World, December 16, 2016.
7. “The Lead with Jake Tapper,” CNN, December 18, 2017.
8. US Central Intelligence Agency, “A Fixation on Moles: James J. Angleton, Anatoliy Golitsyn, and the ‘Monster Plot’; Their Impact on CIA Personnel and Operations,” Studies in Intelligence 55, no. 4 (D
ecember 2011).
9. Author’s interview with Yuri Shvets.
10. Author’s interview with Glenn Carle.
11. Author’s interview with Michael Carpenter.
12. Yuri Felshtinsky, “Who Is Dimitri Simes and Why Is He Trying to Sink Mayflower?,” Gordon, August 22, 2018.
13. Ben Smith, “Nixon’s Name,” Politico, April 19, 2011.
14. Jay Solomon and Benoit Faucon, “Donald Trump Jr. Was Likely Paid at Least $50,000 for Event Held by Hosts Allied with Russia on Syria,” Wall Street Journal, March 2, 2017.
15. Brian Ross, Matthew Mosk, and Rym Momtaz, “For Donald Trump Jr., Lingering Questions About Meeting with Pro-Russia Group,” ABC News, March 2, 2017.
