Trump’s early Russian mob ties
by Carl Davidson, summarizing part of “House of Trump, House of Putin,” a book by Craig Unger
Among Trump’s first dealings with the Russian mob were with a guy named Semyon Kislin, a dealer in electronics for Russians at the UN and at the Embassy in DC. Trump bought several hundred big screen TVs for his new hotel on 30 days credit which, in itself, was legal and no big deal. But this connection led Trump to one Evsei Argon, the ‘boss of bosses’ of the Russian mob headquartered in Brighton Beach. There Argon operated under the assumed name of Dr. Morton Levin, from a club he co-owned with his young nephew, Michael Cohen, (now infamous as Trump’s life-long ‘fixer’ or ‘personal attorney’ for matters like paying off porn stars, among many, many other things).
Argon/Levin soon stepped on too many toes, and after two failed attempts, was assassinated by other mobsters. Who took his place? Enter Marat Balagula, an ‘intellectual’ among Russian mobsters who want to move up into more white-collar crime, ie, Medicaid fraud, tax scams, money laundering, etc.. He had his eye on the biggest casino of all, Wall Street and Lower Manhattan of the ‘greed is good’ days, and who embodied that more than Donald Trump?
In 1977 Trump married Ivana Zelnickova, A Czech model whose father was being closely watched – and used – by the Czech secret police, and by extension, the KGB. When he came to the US for the wedding, Trump fell under their eye as well. At the same time, Trump decides to get heavy into Russian politics and tries to pass himself off as an arms control expert. His uncle, after all, is an MIT professor who knows about such things. Donald says he can solve the world’s problems with nukes ‘in an hour’ given his magical skills at making deals. He starts name-dropping ‘Ronnie’ as one of his buddies, meaning Reagan.
Trump, after all, had just purchased a powerful DC lobbying firm, Black, Manafort, and Stone (yes, as in Paul Manafort and Roger Stone), an outfit that had played a key role in Reagan’s 1984 landslide victory, and today two of the founders are in Mueller’s crosshairs.
But back in 1986, Yuri Dubinin, the Soviet Ambassador to the UN, and his attractive young daughter Natalia, (pictured here) walked into the lobby of Trump Tower, and went up to the offices of the owner, for an unscheduled visit. Between Natalia’s smiles and the lavish praise and flattery of Yuri for Trump’s amazing taste and skill in the building, Trump’s new political education had begun.
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