Luke Harding (1) (1968–)

Guardian journalist Luke Harding's book is an in-depth look at the Trump family, their dealings with Russia before and during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and the extent to which the Russian government and major financial institutions like Deutsche Bank are involved in worldwide financial corruption and money laundering. Harding does an excellent job at taking the disjointed, murky, and often financially complex pieces of information about what happened and shaping a coherent show more narrative from them. Coherent, and damning, and likely just the tip of the iceberg. It's ever more amazing to me just how viciously the American electorate cut off its own nose in order to spite its face last year—and to think that maybe a century from now, some poor history graduate student will likely be writing a footnote citing video of an American president soliciting a golden shower from Russian prostitutes as part of a dissertation on a presidency that will surely go down in infamy. show less

This is an amazing account of whistle-blower Edward Snowden and his leak of intelligence documents to the press concerning the National Security Agency’s mass surveillance programs conducted against nearly all U.S. citizens, as well as those abroad, even including heads of state of allied countries. This release sparked debates worldwide about the needs for mass surveillance that infringe on our civil liberties and rights to privacy, as well as the need for a free press. Shockingly, the show more country even more zealous than ours in seeing this situation resolved in favor of its intelligence community was Britain, who citizens do not have a Bill of Rights with freedom of speech and the press to protect them from such invasive actions. The claims that all of this is necessary in the fight against terrorism lacks strength when no one can prove that even one terrorist attack has been thwarted due to these practices. As I write this I am in horror that because it is being posted on the Internet, I can be put on some government watch list simply because I commend Snowden for his actions in making us all aware of what our government has been doing to us. Making this worse is the fact that he was forced to seek asylum in Russia of all places because he is safer there! We have much to be ashamed of. I think of Snowden as being similar to Daniel Ellsberg and hope that our government does the responsible thing – enact meaningful curbs on such intelligence gathering with realistic oversight and brings Snowden home to the U.S.A. I can’t wait to see the movie. show less

Radio and TV coverage of the Snowden leaks were spotty. This book helped to fill in the details, background, and what happened since Snowden showed up in Moscow. Snowden himself, and his girlfriend Lindsay Mills, are fleshed out a little more, and I learned why an American would go to British journalists, the Guardian, with the information he had purloined. It turns out the British, specifically their top-secret telecommunications monitoring arm, GCHQ, collaborated with the NSA: “We have show more the brains: they have the money. It’s a collaboration that’s worked very well.” [Sir David Omand, Former GCHQ Director] No shortage of egoism and despotism to go around, then.

Snowden was a right-wing libertarian in early writings on the web as a user he called ‘TheTrueHOOHA’. It was frankly unsettling for me to read/listen to his thinking as a teen, and see his progression to action. To use his words, he would like to be viewed as a patriot who believes in the right to privacy enshrined in the U.S. constitution. When I’d first learned of his leaks, I was startled. Listening to his first interview on TV, I was admiring. After reading this book, I am unsettled.

Luke Harding, a Guardian reporter, outlines the Snowden action for us with a minimum of sensationalism but with some incredulity at the scope of the revelations. And the news is pretty sensational. Harding gives a little background into Snowden’s early development, and his foray into working as a U.S. government contractor specializing in the protection of U.S. government communications. Snowden’s amazed and amazing reach into the lives of others via their private data transfers must vindicate the paranoid. While I have my doubts that any world leader or business executive thought their telecommunications were truly secret, Snowden’s revelations are startling in the scope of the data collection and in the holes in the system, e.g., a relatively low-level contractor had access to the material.

I should probably state from the get-go that I do not fear my government. I grew up in an age where inaction was much more to be expected than action; incompetence and bureaucratic bungling was much more common than overreach. I was not subject to the kind of totalitarian control experienced in Eastern Bloc countries, the Soviet Union, or China, but we have those examples to know it can happen. I believe the president and his minions who claim that the government is not listening to the communications of private citizens. They simply do not have the capacity, nor the interest, to do that. However, they now apparently have the means, and individuals within governments can have a deleterious effect upon the stated objectives of government. Snowden has shown us a place where an individual might have an outsized effect to his purported role.

Knowing just what I know now, if I had to make a judgment on Snowden’s fate, I might say he should go to court congruently with the leadership of the NSA and the GCHQ. I don’t think it would have been possible for him to “go up the chain of command” to protest this data collection. It is ridiculous to contemplate that anyone would have listened to him, given the reaction from our fearless leaders upon learning of his revelations. But I wish things had gone differently…for him and for us.

I listened to the Random House Audio version of this title, very ably read by Nicholas Guy Smith. I had a look at the paper copy as well, and found it concise enough that the momentum never lagged. Since Guardian reporters were the ones that initially broke this story, it is reasonable that they are the ones to write the details of what happened and the follow-up. I can’t imagine there is a person out there who wouldn’t be interested in this topic. Inform yourselves. This is going to be a political topic for some years to come. show less

First, the author, Luke Harding, is a highly respected reporter for The Guardian, and he is an expert on matters involving Russia. He is also the author of a book on the radiation poisoning of Russian exile Alexander Litvinenko in 2006 in London. (Coincidently, Michael Steele as an officer of M16, the British spy agency, was the British official in charge of investigating that murder in which Putin was clearly implicated.)

During the election, Trump's constant promotion of the hacked emails show more and his continuous praise of Putin raised the issue for Harding of whether Trump was being blackmailed. Trump's failure to disclose his financial information, particularly his tax returns, also raised Harding's suspicions--was Trump truly a billionaire, or was he broke and overleveraged, owing millions to overseas banks? Harding decided to investigate.

In December 2016, before the Steele Dossier became publicly known, Harding interviewed Michael Steele. He knew Steele was a Russia expert, but did not know that Steele had already investigated Trump. Harding had two leads. He believed Russia had covertly provided financing to Trump's campaign, but he had no proof. Harding also knew that high-ranking Russians had laundered $20 billion in a scheme to finance political matters abroad. Most of the recipients of this money was unknown. Steele recommended that Harding pursue two avenues of investigation. He advised Harding to "follow the money," i.e. look at the contracts for the hotel and land deals that Trump did, and check their actual values against the proceeds received through loans. Steele also indicated that sex was an interesting line of inquiry.

THE STEELE DOSSIER:

The book goes on to describe Steele's career and qualifications, and discusses how Steele was retained to do research on Trump. Early on, Steele discovered that Russian intelligence had been cultivating Trump for at least five years. As he continued his research, Steele concluded that Russia had compromised Trump sufficiently through his activities in Moscow to be able to blackmail him. (He also discovered that Russia also had compromising material on Hillary.) The dossier documented many meetings between Trump associates and Russian spies in Europe, and concluded that Trump had colluded with Russia regarding the hacking operations.

Notably parts of the dossier were corroborated by the intelligence agencies of several countries other than the U.S. The U.K.'s intelligence agency found a suspicious pattern of activity between Russians and Trump associates in 2015 and 2016. The intelligence agencies of Germany, Australia, Estonia, Sweden, Poland, and possibly the Netherlands and France also supplied U.S. agencies with similar suspicious patterns of activity. U.S. intelligence agencies were cautious and slow to act on this.

Steele personally (as a former intelligence officer) became extremely concerned about the implications of what he was finding, and in September, 2016 he contacted the FBI and shared his findings. Steele says the FBI reaction was one of "shock and horror," but from Steele's viewpoint, it appeared that the FBI was failing to act. Thus, in late September Steele met with a small group of U.S. journalists, hoping this would spur action. He met with journalists again in October. Then, Comey announced that the FBI was reopening its investigation of Hillary Clinton, and Steele's relationship with the FBI broke down. On October 31, journalist David Korn published and article about the existence of the dossier, but did not discuss the details of its findings.

Some Democratic senators knew about the existence of the dossier. Harry Reid had written a letter to Comey in which he stated that the FBI was sitting on "explosive information" about ties between Trump and Russia. After Trump won the election, there was a meeting in Halifax of some international experts. At the meeting, the former U.K. ambassador to Russia Sir Andrew Wood, who was shown the dossier and said he "took it seriously," briefed John McCain about the dossier. McCain sent a senior advisor to London to meet with Steele on November 28, 2016. This advisor again briefed McCain, and McCain obtained a copy of the dossier. On December 8, 2016, McCain met with Comey and gave him a copy of the dossier. (Comey did not let on the McCain that the FBI already had an investigation underway.) This led to both Obama and Trump being briefed about the dossier.

CARTER PAGE

Back in 2013, two Russian spies in the U.S. (one now jailed, the other deported) discussed recruiting Carter Page as an asset (witting or unwitting). Over the years, Page made many trips and had many contacts with Russia. Then, in March 2016 out of the blue Trump named Carter Page as one of his 5 foreign policy advisers.

In July 2016, Page took a trip to Moscow which was preapproved by the Trump campaign. He gave a speech, at which he was introduced as a "celebrated American economist," in which he discussed America's attempts to spread democracy and how disgraceful they were. The dossier states that during this trip, Page met with Igor Sechin, a former spy who is very close to Putin and who from 2004 has been the executive chairman of Rosneft, the Russian oil company. Sechin raised the outlines of a deal whereby if a Trump administration dropped the sanctions there could be an "associated move" in "bilateral energy cooperation." (My question--does this explain the appointment of Rex Tillerson as secretary of state out of the blue?) Sechin also offered the brokerage of up to a 19% interest in Rosneft in return, which would have a value in the 100's of millions of dollars. Page also had a second meeting with a Putin administration official who told him that Russia had compromising material on Hillary, AND ALSO that they had compromising material on Trump, and that Trump should bear that in mind in his dealings with Russia.

In the summer of 2016, the FBI obtained a FISA warrant on Page, which warrant has been since renewed. However, as Page's Russian ties came to the surface, the Trump campaign distanced itself from Page.

In December 2016, after Trump had won, Rosneft announced that it was selling off a 19.5% interest. This raised $10.2 billion Euros. The source of the funding for almost 1/4 of this is unknown. At least one of the partners is a Cayman Island entity with an unknown beneficiary, probably a chain of offshore entities.

PUBLICATION OF DOSSIER

By early January 2017 lots of journalists were aware of the dossier, but since it was unverified, nothing was published. Obama and Trump were briefed in depth, and House and Senate leaders received a pared down briefing. Finally, in mid-January, Buzzfeed went ahead and published the dossier. Just a few hours later, at 1:19 a.m., Trump tweeted FAKE NEWS--A TOTAL POLITICAL WITCHHUNT! A reanimated press began investigating, and behind the scenes, the FBI was corroborating many of the points discussed in the dossier. Of the reaction to his dossier, Steele said he probably wasn't in any physical danger, but he feared for the safety of his sources. (As an aside, it was recently pointed out that in the testimony of Glenn Simpson, whose firm commissioned the dossier, he stated that at least one person has been killed as a result of the release of the dossier,)

THE HACK

The FSB (Russian spy agency) frequently used hackers. The dossier reported on this, and stated that the source for this information was an FSB cyber operative.

On December 16, 2016 at an FSB meeting attended by Colonel Sergei Mikhailov, deputy head of the spy section relating to electronics, some people came in, put a bag over Mikhailov's head, and led him away. Mikhailov's deputy and two others were also arrested.

On December 26, 2016, Oleg Erovinkin was found dead in his car. He was close to Igor Sechin, head of Rosneft, and was also employed by Rosneft. (Steele says Erovinkin was not the source of his information about the Rosneft deal.)

Over the weeks after the election and before the publication of the dossier, several other Russian officials "dropped dead." Sergei Krivov, a consular official in NYC, died under mysterious circumstances on election day. Petr Polshikov of the ministry for Latin America was shot dead in his Moscow apartment in December 2016. Andrey Malanin, the Russian consul in Athens, was found dead in January 2017. Vitaly Churkin, a Russian representative to the UN, who has known Trump since 1986 also mysteriously died.

In December 2016, Obama was conclusively advised that the Russians were behind the hacking and that Putin had personally directed it. He expelled 35 Russian "diplomats" known to be spies, and extended the Russian sanctions. Retaliation was expected from Putin, but none came. Trump praised Putin as "smart" for not taking action.

MICHAEL FLYNN

The dossier states that there was a deliberate effort by Russian operatives to cultivate Flynn. He was fired by Obama in 2014, and first met Trump in August 2015. In December 2015, Flynn traveled to Russia, and sat next to Putin at a dinner. By spring 2016, Flynn was a highly vocal Trump supporter and foreign policy adviser. Despite Obama's advice not to hire Flynn, Trump appointed him National Security Advisor. For 18 days after the Trump White House was advised by the Department of Justice that Flynn was compromised, Flynn remained in his position. He was present during a one hour phone call Trump had with Putin on January 28,2017. Over the months after his firing of Flynn, Trump continued to defend him as a "good guy."

PAUL MANAFORT

Before signing on with Trump in 2016, Manafort had worked in the Ukraine for a decade, primarily with the Russian-backed president (now former president) and for a Russian oligarch. He is also the former partner of Roger Stone. His role in the campaign ended in August 2016 when a ledger from Ukraine showed that he had received more than $12 million. He said he quit because it was a distraction.

The Steele dossier says Manafort was at the center of a conspiracy between the Trump team and Russia. It also states that the Trump team was relatively relaxed for a while about Russia allegations because it diverted attention away from Trump's dealings in China, which involved bribes and kickbacks.

Manafort had also worked for Konstantin Kilimnik, who flew to the US 2 weeks before Manafort became Trump's campaign manager and again in August. There are many emails between Manafort and Kilimnik, one of which discusses notifying Russian oligarch Derispaska of inside information about the campaign, including "private briefings."

COMEY FIRING

On March 17, 2017, Comey for the first time publicly confirmed that there was an FBI investigation of possible Russian collusion. The book covers the whole saga of Trump's various attempts to influence Comey, his ultimate firing of Comey, and the various reasons given for the firing.

COLLUSION

The dossier states that Russia may have opened a file on Trump as early as 1977, when he married Ivanka, who is from a former Communist country. Trump's first trip to Moscow was in 1987, when he was investigating opening a luxury hotel there. The trip was arranged through the Soviet ambassador in NY. It was also in 1987 that Trump for the first time began to talk about running for president. He became friends with Russian oligarch Aras Agalarov and his son Emin during the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. It was Emin who arranged to notorious Trump Tower meeting between Donald Trump Jr. et. al. and several Russians in June 2016. It was just a few days after the Moscow Miss Universe Pageant that Putin awarded the older Agalarov one of Russia's highest civilian honors.

G20 MEETING

In the summer of 2017, at the G20 meeting, Trump met with Putin. At their first meeting, which lasted over two hours, the only people present for the US were Trump and Tillerson. National Security Adviser McMaster was not present, nor were any State Department Russia experts. They agreed to work together to stop cyber-crime. Later, at a formal dinner, Trump left his seat and went over to talk to Putin for over an hour, with only Putin's interpreter privy to the conversation. This discussion was not announced by the White House, but it leaked out, after which Trump said they just talked about "things" which included "adoptions" (code for sanctions).

RUSSIAN CASH

The book details many of the facts about Russians purchasing Trump properties for cash, sometimes for apparently inflated prices. It also goes into the connection between Cyprus banks and Russian money-laundering, noting the fact that the man appointed Secretary of Commerce, Wilbur Ross is a former shareholder/executive of a Cyprus bank. Trump's curious relationship with Felix Sater, who has ties to the Russian mafia is described. In November 2015, Sater wrote to Michael Cohen, Trump's personal attorney, "I will get Putin on this program and we will get Donald elected." Note that during the election, despite Trump's repeated statements that he had no business connections with Russia, Cohen was working on trying to get approval for a Trump Tower Moscow. After the election, Cohen and Sater worked on a "peace plan" for the Ukraine which involved lifting the Russsian sanctions. The plan was delivered to Flynn.

In addition, former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara was investigating cases of NY real estate bought with Magnitsky money. After he was fired, the case was settled for a small fine experts have described as "outrageous."

Then there is the strange case of Trump's Deutsche Bank loans. (Deutsche Bank has admitted and paid substantial fines for Russian money laundering.) In 2005 after his near-bankruptcy, Trump was desperate for financing. He was able to borrow a substantial sum from Deutsche Bank to build the Trump Tower Chicago when no other bank would lend him money. Trump personally guaranteed these loans. During the financial crisis of 2008, Trump defaulted on $330 million of Deutsche Bank loans. The bank sued, and Trump countersued the bank--for $3 billion in damages. He claimed that the financial crisis was a force majeure so he shouldn't have to repay the loan. In addition, since Deutsche Bank was a major financial institution, and was one of the institutions primarily responsible for the economic crisis which had caused him great damages for which he wanted compensation.

This is an important book, and while it was published almost a year ago, it is apparent that the allegations in the Steele dossier continue to be more and more firmly corroborated. The Russian connections are clearly there, although there is not yet (at least in public knowledge) a smoking gun directly connecting Trump. Highly recommended.

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