Below is a repost from five days ago about other russian money-laundering connections.
And Maddow is right about the reasons for the russians to build a blackmail file on Trump. When Putin came to power he made a deal with the oligarchs - they stay out of politics and he won’t re-nationalize all the state resources they stole under yeltsin. But sometimes an oligarch decides to challenge Putin anyway. So Putin needs ways to keep the oligarchs under control. The blackmail file wasn’t about controlling trump, it was about getting him to cooperate with Putin and snitch on the oligarchs he took money from. It was just serendipty for Putin that Trump ended up in the office of the president.
Trump’s russophilia comes from the fact that russian money is primarily responsible for bailing him out of bankruptcy. But the price was more than just standard loan terms, his real-estate business was used to launder oligarch money. It should be no surprise then that he’s in deep with a figure from the russian mob.
