Thread by @ZarinaZabrisky

🔴 #Trump spoke of abandoning #NATO first time in Sept 1987, two months after his first visit to #Moscow on the invitation of Intourist, the Soviet cover for intelligence operations.

He bought full-page ads in the NYT, WaPo, Boston Globe for $94,801.

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Since 1978, Trump has been followed by the Communist secret services.  Ivana Zelníčková, Trump’s first wife, was under the Czechoslovak security service surveillance, the Státní Bezpečnost (StB). Ivana’s father Miloš Zelníček, was also monitored by the StB.  
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The StB formally cooperated with the USSR’s KGB and other Soviet bloc intelligence agencies. 

In 1977, an informant with the cover name “Lubos” reported on Trump’s company.

businessinsider.com/czech-secret-a…

In 1986, Yuri Dubinin, the USSR Ambassador to the US, and his daughter engaged Trump in a conversation about the possibility of building a Moscow hotel in partnership with the Soviet government.

4washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/styl…

Trump traveled to the USSR in 1987 by invitation of the Goskomintourist (Intourist) which worked with:

->the 1st Main Directorate of KGB, (intelligence & the KGB’s foreign operations (recruited visiting foreigners)
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->the 2nd Main Directorate (counterintelligence: surveillance of tourists, diplomats, foreign students, black market dealings involving foreigners, etc.)

Trump stayed at the closely monitored hotels, and negotiated a luxury hotel downtown Moscow with Moscow authorities.

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During the visit, “he met with a lot of the economic and financial advisers in the Politburo,” said Trump’s spokesman Dan Klores at the time. 

washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/styl…

Two months after the visit, in Sept 1987, Trump bought full-page ads in the NYT, WaPo, Boston Globe ($94,801) to push the idea that the US should stop paying to defend countries that can afford to protect themselves.

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https://twitter.com/NYTArchives/status/788932518615650304

On October 21, 1988, a source with the cover name “Milos” reported that Trump was being put under pressure to run for the US presidency. The archives revealed that Trump was supposedly considering a presidential run in the 1996 elections, convinced he would win.

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An unclassified CIA memo “Soviet Efforts to Recruit American Citizens” on Soviet Approaches to U.S. citizens, 1988: “American citizens are high priority targets for recruitment by the Soviet Union’s intelligence services...

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...The Soviets are especially interested in Americans who occupy important positions in the fields of government, military service, business and finance, science and technology, industry, and academic resorts."

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Putin, a KGB agent in Dresden 1985-1990, supervised Stasi, the Eastern German secret police, and studied Dresden residents' applications for visits by relatives from the West, searching for contacts near the US bases of interest.

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In 1995, Trump lost $916 million according to his 1995 income tax returns. In Nov 1996, Howard Lorber and Ben LeBow brought Trump to Moscow and arranged discussions about a joint venture between their Liggett-Ducat tobacco factory, Trump Organization, and the city of Moscow.

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Despite the apparent financial crisis, during the week of Nov 6, 1996, Trump negotiated $300 million in investments in Moscow, and met with two of Moscow’s vice mayors. The city was “very receptive” to the idea of Trump’s developments in Moscow.

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I will stop here on Trump's 30 years of connections with Russia and the KGB/FSB as we are talking specifically about his #NATO quote.

A refresher was in place. All the details and sources here:

15zarinazabrisky.medium.com/trumps-early-c…

ps. Apologies for delays, we are under shelling. #Kherson. The thought that the KGB asset can come to power in the US is scarier than Russian artillery, though. I first published it in 2018 as no publication will do it. In 2019, @BylineTimes did. 🙏bylinetimes.com/2019/11/13/rus…