Craig Unger

“{{w|Vyacheslav Ivankov}} landed at JFK... 1992, just after the fall of the Soviet Union... the most powerful Russian mobster in the United States... oversaw the mob’s growth from a local {{w|extortion}} racket in Brooklyn’s {{w|Brighton Beach}} to a multibilliondollar-a-year criminal organization.”

“As Putin’s ascent began, the Mafia moved into a... strategic position... to compromise... political figures and businessmen in the United States... and exploit... weaknesses... as campaign finance, Washington lobbying... [etc.]”

“As early as 1990... Trump had negative {{w|net worth}}. ...[I]n 1991, the Trump Taj Mahal ...became the first of six ...bankruptcies. ...Later two other Trump casinos ...agreed to pay fines for "willfully failing to report" currency transactions ...and failing to comply with laws ...to prevent {{w|money laundering}}.”

“Cohn, as {{w|consigliere}} for the two biggest crime families in New York, the Genoveses and the Gambinos, was invaluable in helping Trump traverse... contractors... and the like, controlled by the mob.”

“As... Karen Dawisha explains in Putin’s Kleptocracy... [this] made Vladimir Putin the richest man in the world...”

“Russian gangsters became... Putin’s enforcers. {{w|Oleg Kalugin}}... told me, in effect, "the Mafia is one of the branches of the Russian government..." ...Putin’s greatest triumph is his... {{w|Mafia}} state... of, by, and for organized crime.”

“Americans cracked down on organized crime, Putin co-opted...[and] weaponized it.”

“[I]n Russia... scores of people... died mysteriously after investigating the alleged crimes of Putin and his oligarchs.”

“Russian intelligence; hijacked social media and exploited algorithms to make... provocative "fake news" go viral; transformed Facebook into one of the biggest purveyors of Russian propaganda... used... "{{w|alternative facts}}" and... bogus {{w|website}}s that pretended to correct fake news, and... upended the... notion of truth, of reality...”

“Vladimir Putin... waged a shadow... "virtual" war... of {{w|covert operation}}s, disinformation, and cyber warfare.”

“[A]s long as they had money... Trump was listening.”

“Doing business with Trump allowed the {{w|Russian Mafia to}}... to assault America’s most essential democratic institutions...”

“Trump, the Soviets... discovered... was... intoxicated... with boatloads of cash... in dubious transactions...”

“Within... intelligence, assets... include those who... prefer... [a foreign country's] ideology, those who betray... for monetary gain, those... {{w|blackmail}}ed, and... useful idiots who... provide... information through... lapses or blind pursuit of their own agendas.”

“Trump appears to have taken advantage of... weak regulations to sell en masse to the Russians. ...1,300 condos, one-fifth of all Trumpbranded condos sold in the US since the eighties, were... "in secretive, all-cash transactions that enable buyers to avoid legal scrutiny by shielding their finances and identities." ...[T]he total value of these... sales... that match the US Treasury’s criteria for possible {{w|money laundering}}... $1.5 billion... may understate the... dirty money...”

“[[Dissolution of the Soviet Union|[D]isintegration of the Soviet Union]]... opened... hundreds of billions of dollars in flight capital... from oligarchs, wealthy {{w|apparatchik}}s, and mobsters... Trump’s zeal to sell condos, no questions asked, to shell companies meant... Russians could launder vast amounts of money while hiding... personal identities.”

“Russians had begun collaborating with Italian mobsters as early as 1980...”

“Without the {{w|Russian Mafia}}'s move into New York, Donald Trump would not have become president of the United States.”

“Trump SoHo... changed hands in 2014, after a foreclosure sale, but, according to Pro Publica, the Trump Organization still manages and markets the property, for which it pays Trump 5.75 percent of the condo tower’s operating revenues.”

“The Oberlander and Lerner lawsuit... alleged... $250 million of Bayrock’s projected profits as... co-developer of Trump SoHo and three other projects were "to be laundered, untaxed, through a sham Delaware entity to Iceland (and reportedly then Russia), intending to evade up to $100,000,000 of U.S. taxation."”