Thread by @P_Kallioniemi

In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce an American politician, media personality and businessman, Donald Trump. He's best-known for serving as the 45th president of the US, and for promoting pro-Kremlin viewpoints regarding Putin and the Russo-Ukrainian war.

1/23

After becoming the president of his father's real estate ventures in early 70s, he started expanding its operations aggressively by building hotels, casinos and whatnot. Trump's businesses have been involved in over 4000 legal actions,and he's filed for bankruptcy six times.
2/23

While studying in college during the Vietnam War era, Trump deferred draft four times. After his graduation, he was diagnosed with bone spurs, thus avoiding going to the war. This diagnosis allegedly made by a podiatrist, Dr. Larry Braunstein, who rented his office from...
3/23

...Donald's father, Fred Trump. Dr. Braunstein’s daughters later said that they "know it [the diagnosis] was a favor" to Donald's father.

Yuri Shvets, a former Soviet intelligence officer who worked as a Major in the KGB from 1980 to 1990, and as a resident spy in DC...

4/23

..between 1985 and 1987, has stated that Trump "was cultivated as a Russian asset over 40 years & proved so willing to parrot anti-western propaganda that there were celebrations in Moscow." According to Shvets, KGB considered Trump as "extremely vulnerable intellectually,..
5/23

...and psychologically," and also vulnerable to flattery. Based on Journalist Craig Unger's book "American Kompromat", Trump first appeared on the KGB's radar in 1977 when he married Ivana Zelnickova.

When Trump visited Moscow and St. Petersburg, he was flattered by...

6/23

...the KGB operatives, also floating the idea that Trump should get into politics. Soon after returning from this trip, Trump started looking into possible presidential run in the Republican party and ran a full-page ad on NYT criticizing US foreign policy.

7/23

Trump has had a lot of business interests in Russia. He had undertaken a project to build a Trump skyscraper in Moscow. This idea came to be during his visit to Moscow in 1987, and was later pushed by Felix Sater, a Russian-born businessman with mob connections.

8/23

In 2008 he sold a Palm Beach mansion to Russian oligarch, Dmitry Rybolovlev for 95 million USD, while four years prior he only paid 41 million USD for the estate.

Even though the Mueller report didn't conclude conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russians, an...

9/23

...initiative called Moscow Project found 272 known contacts and 38 known meetings between the Trump team and Russia-linked operatives.

And there's no doubt about Russian influence in the US 2016 presidential election. Days before Trump became president in 2017,the Obama..
10/23

...administration released an Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) which assessed that "Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic...
11/23

...process, denigrate Secretary [Hillary] Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency." Trump ignored these reports, and in 2017, he said that he had spoken with Putin about forming a cyber unit with Russia to fight "election hacking".

12/23

So how did Donald help Russia and Putin? First of all, he "watered down" the toughest penalties the U.S. had imposed on Russian entities after Putin annexed Crimea in 2014. He even questioned the sanctions altogether, stating that "why would anybody have sanctions if...

13/23

...somebody’s doing some really great things?" He also supported Russia's return to the G7 and eased sanctions on Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska.

In 2017, Trump revealed highly classified information to foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and to the Russian ambassador...

14/23

...Sergey Kislyak. US media was not allowed in this meeting, but there was a Russian photographer present.

On many occasions, Trump has praised Putin, calling him a "genius" and "savvy" after Putin invaded Ukraine. He's said that Putin has done "a really great job...

15/23

...outsmarting our country."

In 2019, he temporarily froze US aid worth 391 million USD for Ukraine. The Trump administration had previously stalled sales of Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine in fear of angering Russia and Putin.

16/23

Trump also hired Paul Manafort, who had spent a good decade promoting pro-Russian politics in Ukraine, to run his 2016 presidential campaign. He was later sentenced to over 7 years in prison. One of his crimes was evading taxes on the 60 million USD he made in Ukraine.

17/23

Before leaving his presidency, Trump pardoned five people who were convicted as a result of investigations on the Russian interference in the 2016 US elections, including Michael Flynn, Roger Stone and Paul Manafort. He also pardoned GOP strategist Jesse Benton, who was...
18/23

...sentenced again in Feb 2023, for funneling Russian money into the Trump campaign.

Trump's style of politics is almost wholly based on lies. Actually, after becoming the President, Trump's lying became so common that the Washington Post started tracking the factuality..
19/23

...of his statements with their fact-checking department: by Jan 2021, Trump had lied over 30 000 times during his term as the President. You can read my previous thread on this type of "post-truth politics" here:

https://twitter.com/P_Kallioniemi/status/1646440679369744385

20/23

Recently Trump was hit with yet another set of charges, this time federal. An investigation found out that he held classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort. He even discussed over classified war plan documents with people who had no security clearance.

21/23

Lately he's been trying to pin the blame on his aide Walt Nauta. There are at least 7 cases between 2017-2023 where US citizens have been sentenced under the Espionage Act to prison time for storing classified documents at home.

22/23

What would Trump's presidency mean to Ukraine? Even though the support from US has been strongly bipartisan, he could have some veto power over military and humanitarian aid. Also, the sanctions against Russia could be eased or even lifted. Either way, Ukraine will prevail.
23/23

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CORRECTION TO TWEET 22/23:

This Trump's Truth Social post regarding Walt Nauta is allegedly a fake.

Confirmation here:

https://twitter.com/Shayan86/status/1669071521137000448?t=eEkYmK8iOOW2HOFylq6jag&s=19