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When I was a kid, occasionally I'd hear conspiracy stories on the radio. The stories of Putin and Trump sound similar. I put together some of the details for myself, to get them straight. Here's some of what we know so far.
Note that Rachel Maddow put this all together. But she made a 30-minute "show" out of it. This is briefer and has some other links.
Vladimir Putin is the Prime Minister of Russia and the wealthiest person in the world. He made his money by stealing Russian industry, especially the Russian oil company, Rosneft, and killing adversaries. Like many say, he's a thug. He runs Russia like the Mafia.
After Russia invaded and annexed the Crimea, the US put sanctions on Russia. Putin was mad at Obama and Hillary about those and wants them lifted- he wants more power and more money. He also wants Poland out of Nato.
Rex Tillerson headed Exxon at the time, since 2006. Tillerson is close to Igor Sechin, the head of Rosnef and a close friend of Putin's. Putin gave Tillerson a medal for all the lucrative business partnerships he brought to Russia. Tillerson complained that the US sanctions were bad for business. Tillerson is now Trump's Secretary of State. (That link also tells about more Trump administration ties to Russia.)
The Trump organization has a long history with Deutsche Bank. "The Trump Organization has debt with Deutsche Bank, which loaned it more than $364m in recent years and more than $3bn since the 1990s."
Deutche Bank was just fined $630 million for laundering Russian money. The Bank of Cyprus was one of the banks it used for the money laundering. Cyprus is well known as being a haven for Russian oligarch money. Deutsche Bank was headed by Josef Ackermann, who just resigned. He is now the head of the Bank of Cyprus.
From this article, Vladimir Strzhalkovsky is the Bank of Cyprus’s former vice chairman, a friend of Putin's and an ex-KGB agent. He owns about 9% of the bank. Dmitry Rybolovlev owns almost 10%, and is one of the two current vice-chairmen of the bank. He is also a friend of Putin's, and is probably the second richest oligarch in Russia.
The largest shareholder in the Cyprus bank is an American billionaire named Wilbur Ross. Trump just appointed Wilbur Ross to be the US Secretary of Commerce.
Trump has a long history with Dmitry Rybolovlev. Ten years ago, Rybolovlev was hiding money from the wife he was divorcing by buying expensive properties. In 2004, Trump bought a Florida mansion for $41 million. In 2008, Trump was having a rough time financially and trying to come up with money to pay one of his loans from Deutsche Bank. Trump raised the money by selling the property to Dmitry Rybolovlev for $95 million. (It has since been demolished and divided into 3 properties to be sold.) Was this simply a gift from Ryboloblev to Trump in exchange for future favors?
Russia has been hacking elections for a while.
Again, from Rachel Maddow: When Sweden was debating whether or not to enter a military partnership with NATO, Swedes started showing up to town halls full of fears sparked by bogus news stories about rogue NATO stockpiles of nuclear weapons and NATO soldiers raping Swedish women, it was almost certainly a Russian disinformation campaign aimed at swaying the vote and keeping Sweden out of NATO.
Paul Manafort became Trump's campaign manager in 2016. Before that, he helped the pro-Putin candidate Yanukovych win in the Ukraine, and then loot the country.
Trump and Manafort said they never worked together till Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. So how did they meet? The suspicion is that Putin wanted them to meet.
Russia didn't just influence America's elections. They were instrumental in setting up Trump to run, and have filled his cabinet with pro-Russian people.
Remember, Trump is a narcissist. He has very poor judgement. He thinks anything that benefits him is good, and anything that compliments him is true, even if it's an obvious lie. He's not anti-American, he's just easily manipulated by his Russian friends.
Apparently: There was an amendment proposed to the Republican platform to give weapons to Ukraine. Many were unhappy that Obama hadn't done this.
Putin does not want Ukraine to be given weapons. So Putin's people asked people in Trump's campaign to prevent that amendment from passing. In return, Russia would release Hillary's emails that they hacked to the media.
At the platform meeting there were no real objections to amendments. And then the Ukraine amendment came up. Suddenly, Trump's people objected strongly. Republicans remember this because it was so different. The amendment failed.
Three days later Russia released Hillary's emails.
Then there's the 35-page US intelligence dossier that says the Russians collected information on Trump to blackmail him, if necessary. An intelligence official told the New Yorker, "They are continuing to chase down stuff from the dossier, and, at its core, a lot of it is bearing out."
Was Trump's whole presidential run Putin's idea?
This article notes that Dmitry Rybolovlev keeps flying into the same cities as Trump at the same time.
Pure speculation: Trump says the money to invest in America's infrastructure is going to come from a public-private partnership. Much of that money will be laundered money from Russia. Putin and his friends are expanding their mafia empire to America.
It's time to impeach Trump and put in someone competent.