What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[Sheilbh]

Interesting Guardian report:

Kremlin papers appear to show Putin's plot to put Trump in White House
Exclusive: Documents suggest Russia launched secret multi-agency effort to interfere in US democracy
Luke Harding, Julian Borger and Dan Sabbagh
Thu 15 Jul 2021 11.00 BST

Vladimir Putin personally authorised a secret spy agency operation to support a "mentally unstable" Donald Trump in the 2016 US presidential election during a closed session of Russia's national security council, according to what are assessed to be leaked Kremlin documents.

The key meeting took place on 22 January 2016, the papers suggest, with the Russian president, his spy chiefs and senior ministers all present.

They agreed a Trump White House would help secure Moscow's strategic objectives, among them "social turmoil" in the US and a weakening of the American president's negotiating position.

Russia's three spy agencies were ordered to find practical ways to support Trump, in a decree appearing to bear Putin's signature.

By this point Trump was the frontrunner in the Republican party's nomination race. A report prepared by Putin's expert department recommended Moscow use "all possible force" to ensure a Trump victory.

Western intelligence agencies are understood to have been aware of the documents for some months and to have carefully examined them. The papers, seen by the Guardian, seem to represent a serious and highly unusual leak from within the Kremlin.

The Guardian has shown the documents to independent experts who say they appear to be genuine. Incidental details come across as accurate. The overall tone and thrust is said to be consistent with Kremlin security thinking.


Vladimir Putin holds a meeting with permanent members of the security council on 22 January 2016 at the Kremlin. Photograph: Alexei Nikolsky/Russian presidential press service/TASS

The Kremlin responded dismissively. Putin's spokesman Dmitri Peskov said the idea that Russian leaders had met and agreed to support Trump in at the meeting in early 2016 was "a great pulp fiction" when contacted by the Guardian on Thursday morning.

The report – "No 32-04 \ vd" – is classified as secret. It says Trump is the "most promising candidate" from the Kremlin's point of view. The word in Russian is perspektivny.

There is a brief psychological assessment of Trump, who is described as an "impulsive, mentally unstable and unbalanced individual who suffers from an inferiority complex".

There is also apparent confirmation that the Kremlin possesses kompromat, or potentially compromising material, on the future president, collected – the document says – from Trump's earlier "non-official visits to Russian Federation territory".

The paper refers to "certain events" that happened during Trump's trips to Moscow. Security council members are invited to find details in appendix five, at paragraph five, the document states. It is unclear what the appendix contains.

"It is acutely necessary to use all possible force to facilitate his [Trump's] election to the post of US president," the paper says.


This extract from a secret Kremlin document gives details of the Russian operation to help an impulsive and 'mentally unstable' Donald Trump to become US president

This would help bring about Russia's favoured "theoretical political scenario". A Trump win "will definitely lead to the destabilisation of the US's sociopolitical system" and see hidden discontent burst into the open, it predicts.

The Kremlin summit

There is no doubt that the meeting in January 2016 took place – and that it was convened inside the Kremlin.

An official photo of the occasion shows Putin at the head of the table, seated beneath a Russian Federation flag and a two-headed golden eagle. Russia's then prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, attended, together with the veteran foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov.

Also present were Sergei Shoigu, the defence minister in charge of the GRU, Russia's military intelligence agency; Mikhail Fradkov, the then chief of Russia's SVR foreign intelligence service; and Alexander Bortnikov, the boss of the FSB spy agency.Nikolai Patrushev, the FSB's former director, attended too as security council secretary.

According to a press release, the discussion covered the economy and Moldova.

The document seen by the Guardian suggests the security council's real, covert purpose was to discuss the confidential proposals drawn up by the president's analytical service in response to US sanctions against Moscow.

The author appears to be Vladimir Symonenko, the senior official in charge of the Kremlin's expert department – which provides Putin with analytical material and reports, some of them based on foreign intelligence.

The papers indicate that on 14 January 2016 Symonenko circulated a three-page executive summary of his team's conclusions and recommendations.

In a signed order two days later, Putin instructed the then chief of his foreign policy directorate, Alexander Manzhosin, to convene a closed briefing of the national security council.

Its purpose was to further study the document, the order says. Manzhosin was given a deadline of five days to make arrangements.

What was said inside the second-floor Kremlin senate building room is unknown. But the president and his intelligence officials appear to have signed off on a multi-agency plan to interfere in US democracy, framed in terms of justified self-defence.

Various measures are cited that the Kremlin might adopt in response to what it sees as hostile acts from Washington. The paper lays out several American weaknesses. These include a "deepening political gulf between left and right", the US's "media-information" space, and an anti-establishment mood under President Barack Obama.


The 'special part' of a secret Kremlin document setting out measures to cause turmoil and division in America

The paper does not name Hillary Clinton, Trump's 2016 rival. It does suggest employing media resources to undermine leading US political figures.

There are paragraphs on how Russia might insert "media viruses" into American public life, which could become self-sustaining and self-replicating. These would alter mass consciousness, especially in certain groups, it says.

After the meeting, according to a separate leaked document, Putin issued a decree setting up a new and secret interdepartmental commission. Its urgent task was to realise the goals set out in the "special part" of document No 32-04 \ vd.

Members of the new working body were stated to include Shoigu, Fradkov and Bortnikov. Shoigu was named commission chair. The decree – ukaz in Russian – said the group should take practical steps against the US as soon as possible. These were justified on national security grounds and in accordance with a 2010 federal law, 390-FZ, which allows the council to formulate state policy on security matters.

According to the document, each spy agency was given a role. The defence minister was instructed to coordinate the work of subdivisions and services. Shoigu was also responsible for collecting and systematising necessary information and for "preparing measures to act on the information environment of the object" – a command, it seems, to hack sensitive American cyber-targets identified by the SVR.

The SVR was told to gather additional information to support the commission's activities. The FSB was assigned counter-intelligence. Putin approved the apparent document, dated 22 January 2016, which his chancellery stamped.

The measures were effective immediately on Putin's signature, the decree says. The spy chiefs were given just over a week to come back with concrete ideas, to be submitted by 1 February.

Written in bureaucratic language, the papers appear to offer an unprecedented glimpse into the usually hidden world of Russian government decision-making.

Putin has repeatedly denied accusations of interfering in western democracy. The documents seem to contradict this claim. They suggest the president, his spy officers and senior ministers were all intimately involved in one of the most important and audacious espionage operations of the 21st century: a plot to help put the "mentally unstable" Trump in the White House.

The papers appear to set out a route map for what actually happened in 2016.

A matter of weeks after the security council meeting, GRU hackers raided the servers of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and subsequently released thousands of private emails in an attempt to hurt Clinton's election campaign.

The report seen by the Guardian features details redolent of Russian intelligence work, diplomatic sources say. The thumbnail sketch of Trump's personality is characteristic of Kremlin spy agency analysis, which places great emphasis on building up a profile of individuals using both real and cod psychology.

Moscow would gain most from a Republican victory, the paper states. This could lead to a "social explosion" that would in turn weaken the US president, it says. There were international benefits from a Trump win, it stresses. Putin would be able in clandestine fashion to dominate any US-Russia bilateral talks, to deconstruct the White House's negotiating position, and to pursue bold foreign policy initiatives on Russia's behalf, it says.

Other parts of the multi-page report deal with non-Trump themes. It says sanctions imposed by the US after Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea have contributed to domestic tensions. The Kremlin should seek alternative ways of attracting liquidity into the Russian economy, it concludes.

The document recommends the reorientation of trade and hydrocarbon exports towards China. Moscow's focus should be to influence the US and its satellite countries, it says, so they drop sanctions altogether or soften them.

'Spell-binding' documents

Andrei Soldatov, an expert on Russia's spy agencies and author of The Red Web, said the leaked material "reflects reality". "It's consistent with the procedures of the security services and the security council," he said. "Decisions are always made like that, with advisers providing information to the president and a chain of command."

He added: "The Kremlin micromanages most of these operations. Putin has made it clear to his spies since at least 2015 that nothing can be done independently from him. There is no room for independent action." Putin decided to release stolen DNC emails following a security council meeting in April 2016, Soldatov said, citing his own sources.

Sir Andrew Wood, the UK's former ambassador in Moscow and an associate fellow at the Chatham House thinktank, described the documents as "spell-binding". "They reflect the sort of discussion and recommendations you would expect. There is a complete misunderstanding of the US and China. They are written for a person [Putin] who can't believe he got anything wrong."

Wood added: "There is no sense Russia might have made a mistake by invading Ukraine. The report is fully in line with the sort of thing I would expect in 2016, and even more so now. There is a good deal of paranoia. They believe the US is responsible for everything. This view is deeply dug into the soul of Russia's leaders."

Trump did not respond to a request for comment.

[The Brain]

So the leak

1. consists of real documents or documents made by someone who knows exactly what real documents would look like
2. enhances Putin's prestige as a master manipulator
3. may help keep Trump simmering on the agenda in the US

If only we knew who leaked them...

"There is a complete misunderstanding of the US..."

Yeah. Complete.

[DGuller]

I have to theories as to the leak.  The first one is that it's a deliberate leak by Kremlin now, as a follow-on insult.  Once Trump is played out as a wrecking ball of a president, you further humiliate the country by telling everyone that you've done it.  I'm not sure that makes a whole lot of sense, not least because Trump is still a potentially huge force in the US politics, and he's still useful for all the same reasons. 

My second theory is that this is a re-leak from the US intelligence, and US intelligence might have had this all along, as US intelligence services did have some rather high-placed sources in Russian government at the time.  Maybe they didn't release this memo until now because they didn't want to burn their sources, they didn't think it would play well, they didn't think Trump was as much of a threat as he was until he was elected, and then it was too late, or for some other reason.  Maybe someone concluded that now is the time to drop the hammer on Trump, before he destabilizes the country further, or maybe all the sources that could've been burned have already burned up on their own.

[Syt]

Those who believe (or know) that Trump was aided by the Russians in 2016 will continue to do so.

Those who believe it's a RUSSIA-HOAX will consider the documents fake and not change their position, either.

It mainly fans the flames a bit.

[DGuller]

One other possibility that I forgot to mention is that this may be a deliberate bait, meant to entrap journalists who don't check their sources carefully enough.

[The Minsky Moment]

Let's think about how Putin would like to see American politics play out over the next few years.

He probably doesn't want Trump back in the presidency.  Under Trump, the sanctions regime against Russia was maintained and even expanded, so it was a disappointment on those grounds. Trump was indeed unstable, erratic, and volatile as President, a tendency that increased over time as strong, independent voices in the administration were pushed out over time.  While Trump's instability and ineffectiveness sometimes worked to Russia's advantage, I would expect some hesitancy putting someone like that back at the wheel of a nuclear power.

Having Trump continue to be a significant and highly divisive force in American politics, however, would still be advantageous.

Assuming those two things are true, what Russia would want is to promote a situation where Trump is damaged politically in terms of his ability to get support from the broad coalition needed to win a Presidential election, but in way that causes his core supporters to double down on their support, and foments greater polarization.

As the document leak does all of those things to a "T", I would lean to the deliberate leak hypothesis at this point absent additional evidence.  The remaining question would be whether these are genuine historical documents selectively leaked, or written after the fact to be leaked.

[alfred russel]

Under Trump, the sanctions regime against Russia was maintained and even expanded, so it was a disappointment on those grounds.

Serious question. Does the Russian government want the sanctions regime lifted? My point of view is that they have decided it is working to their advantage.

[The Minsky Moment]

Being able to live with a sanctions regime isn't the same as working to one's advtantage.

[alfred russel]

Being able to live with a sanctions regime isn't the same as working to one's advtantage.

The appeal of super corrupt strongmen is pretty damn limited. They tend to preside over regimes with lower standards of living, and get pushed out of office. The trend among the European parts of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact post communism is clear and Putin is in a minority position. Putin needs a conflict with the west, and he needs a scapegoat for why Russia sucks ass, and the sanctions provide both.

[grumbler]

Being able to live with a sanctions regime isn't the same as working to one's advtantage.

The appeal of super corrupt strongmen is pretty damn limited. They tend to preside over regimes with lower standards of living, and get pushed out of office. The trend among the European parts of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact post communism is clear and Putin is in a minority position. Putin needs a conflict with the west, and he needs a scapegoat for why Russia sucks ass, and the sanctions provide both.

The sanctions are so narrowly targeted that they aren't useful as an explanation for why the average Russian's life sucks.  Access to the internet is too widespread in Russia for Putin to be able to lie about what the sanctions actually involve.

[Barrister]

IF you go back to the 2016 campaign, the meeting at Trump Tower between Don Jr and others from the Trump campaign and a Russian agent Natalia Veselnitskaya.

Veselnitskaya immediately started talking about Russian adoptions.  Russians banned adopting Russian babies to the west in response to the Magnitsky Act sanctions placed on Russia.  She wanted the West to drop those sanctions so Russia could, in turn, drop the adoption ban.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_Tower_meeting


Russia, and in particular Russian oligarchs, would very much like sanctions removed against Russia.  The sanctions make it much more difficult for them to move their money abroad and live abroad (since who would really want to live in Russia if given the choice)?  Not enough for Russia to actually change it's behaviour of course, but if given the choice Russia would like the sanctions dropped ASAP.

[Tonitrus]

I'm kinda suspicious of "leaked" documents, that come up well after the fact, and also appear to accurately predict everything that is thought to be true in the present day.

[DGuller]

The sanctions are so narrowly targeted that they aren't useful as an explanation for why the average Russian's life sucks.  Access to the internet is too widespread in Russia for Putin to be able to lie about what the sanctions actually involve.

You don't need to restrict access to the internet to brainwash people, you just need to get them hooked on the right kind of information with the right emotional triggers, and get them to treat any other kind as lies and propaganda.  I wouldn't be surprised if access to the internet in Russia perpetuates more lies than it debunks or prevents. 

The average Russian on the Internet, as far as I can ascertain, does consider Russia to be under siege by the West, and considers everything coming out of CNN and BBC to be an aggressive propaganda aimed at weakening Russia. (You can spot a Russian troll or their victims by their focus on CNN as if it's 1993; they don't realize how laughable a notion is that in 2021 CNN has the reach to brainwash entire nations).

[The Minsky Moment]

The average Russian on the Internet, as far as I can ascertain, does consider Russia to be under siege by the West, and considers everything coming out of CNN and BBC to be an aggressive propaganda aimed at weakening Russia. (You can spot a Russian troll or their victims by their focus on CNN as if it's 1993; they don't realize how laughable a notion is that in 2021 CNN has the reach to brainwash entire nations).

But the sanctions regime has only marginal effect on that narrative.

[DGuller]

The average Russian on the Internet, as far as I can ascertain, does consider Russia to be under siege by the West, and considers everything coming out of CNN and BBC to be an aggressive propaganda aimed at weakening Russia. (You can spot a Russian troll or their victims by their focus on CNN as if it's 1993; they don't realize how laughable a notion is that in 2021 CNN has the reach to brainwash entire nations).

But the sanctions regime has only marginal effect on that narrative.

Definitely doesn't hurt.  If you ever watch Channel 1 in Russia, here is an advice that will surely save your life:  don't get into a drinking game if the word is "sanctions".