Propaganda and Collusion in the Trump-Russia Affair, Part 8
Yes, there was collusion, and it's not up for dispute
“They are aiming for what the narrative is. And they already know in advance what they’re looking for, whereas a journalist goes into a story and does not know what the truth is. We often find that the thing we expect to find turns out to be completely different!”
—Matt Taibbi, apparently describing how journalists who are not him approach their craft. Excerpt from his testimony before Congress, March 9th, 2023.
It has been a while since the last installment of our Russiagate series. In it, you’ll recall, we concluded our inquiry into Oleg Deripaska, a Russian billionaire who’s central role in Russiagate was largely overlooked.
The only task that remains is to wrap up the series itself, which we will do today.
Before we begin, it is worth reviewing the main findings:
In Part 1, we introduced two prominent Russiagate-skeptics, Matt Taibbi and Aaron Maté. Both have loudly and repeatedly mocked the idea that the Trump campaign colluded with the Kremlin in 2016. Not only do they (correctly) note that federal prosecutors declined to charge any of the alleged conspirators with collusion-related crimes; they maintain that no evidence of any import, criminal or otherwise, ever surfaced at all.
That is a bold claim. It is also wrong.
In Parts 2 and 3, we scrutinized Taibbi & Maté’s pathetically dishonest treatment of one of the scandal’s most explosive revelations: That Paul Manafort, while serving on Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, regularly communicated with alleged Russian spy Konstantin Kilimnik and passed him sensitive internal polling data.
These were damning allegations—all the more so considering they appeared in a bipartisan report by the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee. That report, entitled Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities, was the fifth and final entry of the committee’s investigation into Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election. It was released in August 2020.
For Taibbi and Maté, the disclosure of this claim was most unwelcome. Both had a lot riding on the no-collusion narrative. Only now, it had apparently collapsed. To make matters worse, the report which publicized the charge was coauthored by Trump’s personal minions, all of whom signed off on its findings of fact. This lent it a degree of credibility it would have otherwise lacked.
Still, there was one move our crusading reporters had left. It was a Hail-Mary, to be sure, but they did not exactly have other options. In a last-ditch effort to put the affair to bed, they reached out to interview Kilimnik, the man at its heart.
In addition to being an alleged spy, Kilimnik is also the longtime business partner of Paul Manafort. As specialists in public relations, the two had built a lucrative practice servicing a rogues-gallery of psychopaths and human-rights abusers with reputations in need of sanitizing. Given the nature of their clientele, they naturally had to take certain liberties with the truth.
They are, in other words, professional liars.
Considering who he is, any journalist worth his salt would have treated Kilimnik with a skeptical eye. Not Taibbi and Maté. They had egg on their faces and were desperate for Kilimnik to wipe it off. If that required believing any and all lies he told, then so be it.
In Part 2, we saw how Kilimnik effortlessly lulled them back into their comfortable trance of idiotic contrarianism. We identified numerous lies Kilimnik has publicly aired, including but not limited to ones he relayed to Taibbi and Maté—that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election, that the 2014-21 war in Ukraine’s Donbas region was a mere domestic rebellion, and that Kilimnik’s Ukrainian clients are not the scumbags they are, among other fictions.
But Kilimnik’s biggest lie—one Taibbi and Maté giddily imbibed with nary an effort to verify it—is that he did not have ties to Russian intelligence. Now this is what they needed to hear! If they could scotch-tape together some sort of case, however shabby, that Kilimnik never worked for the Kremlin, it would mean he’s just another guy. That, in turn, would imply that Manafort’s communications with Kilimnik during the campaign were of no more consequence than whatever small-talk he had with his high-priced hair-coiffer.
In Part 3, we dismantled this façade of feigned gullibility, presenting the voluminous evidence our two ostensible reporters twisted or ignored in the course of exonerating Kilimnik of the spy allegations.
Although there is no way to conclusively prove it, the case that Kilimnik is a Russian intelligence officer is quite compelling—whatever Taibbi and Maté would like us to believe. The thing is, it doesn’t even matter. Far more important than Manafort’s dealings with Kilimnik was the relationship both of them had with Deripaska, the Russian billionaire.
Like Kilimnik, Deripaska is a proxy of the Kremlin. Also like Kilimnik, he works to advance Russia’s interests around the world. In contrast to Kilimnik, however, Deripaska has direct access to Russian president Vladimir Putin in addition to billions of dollars in assets he can freely deploy in pursuit of the Kremlin’s aims. This makes him far more influential and dangerous than some run-of-the-mill intelligence officer.
It is the relationship between Manafort and Deripaska that lies at the center of our story. In Part 4, we examined Manafort’s aborted bid to sell the American presidency to Deripaska while serving on Trump’s campaign. Considering the stakes, it was arguably the single-most pivotal episode of the entire Trump-Russia affair.
During the mid-2000s, Manafort enjoyed a lucrative relationship with Deripaska, helping the latter in his various global pursuits on the Kremlin’s behalf. It ended after a bad business deal left Deripaska convinced that Manafort had stolen money from him. That, dear reader, is not a position in which one wants to find oneself.
On top of it all, Manafort was broke. So, for him, the chance to lead the Trump campaign offered a golden opportunity. Not only would it allow him to repay in political influence what he could not settle in cash; it also promised to reestablish Deripaska as a steady client.
This, in fact, was the very reason Manafort took the Trump job in the first place. We know so because he and Kilimnik admitted to it in communications reproduced in the Senate report. Those same emails show the two partners brainstorming all the ways they might shape a future Trump administration to the benefit of both Deripaska and the Kremlin.
Fortunately for the free world, this nightmare scenario never came to pass. As luck would have it, in August 2016 revelations surfaced which implicated Manafort in a corruption scandal back in Ukraine. Within days, he was out of the Trump campaign.
Had he managed to hang on through November, he would have been in prime position to influence staffing and policy in the incoming administration. Now that he was gone, he had lost most of his leverage. As for Deripaska, Manafort’s departure seriously limited whatever clout he might have wielded in a Trump presidency.
Not only did this constitute a straightforward case of collusion; it was the most potentially catastrophic such incident in the entire Russiagate affair. Still more remarkably, it mostly slipped beneath the public radar. And yet we need not resort to deduction or innuendo to conclude that it took place; the participants acknowledged their culpability in private communications which, thanks to a Republican-led Senate committee, anyone can see.
It is true that nobody in Trump’s orbit was ever prosecuted for conspiring with the Kremlin. It is also irrelevant. Not every counterintelligence disaster both satisfies the elements of a crime and merits the Justice Department’s limited resources—especially if the government can charge the same individuals with more easily-prosecutable offenses.
In the end, we are left with the irrefutable fact that a U.S. presidential campaign tried to mortgage American democracy to its chief foreign adversary. In no conceivable universe would this not be cause for alarm.
Married to the mob, minion to the meddler
Anytime a foreign billionaire tries to corrupt the American political process, it undermines the system’s integrity. That’s especially true when the foreign billionaire in question is Oleg Deripaska.
For starters, he has longstanding and well-documented ties to organized crime. In the 1990s, he took control of the Russian aluminum sector with the help of the Izmailovo mob, a topic we covered in Part 5. In the same installment, we evaluated Deripaska’s claim that this partnership was involuntary, highlighting a number of facts which render it dubious.
More than any relationship he had with organized crime, what made Deripaska’s involvement in Russiagate especially grave was his status as a Kremlin proxy. The story of how he came to serve in such a role formed the subject of Parts 6 and 7.
Part 6 looked at Putin’s rise to power and the dramatic changes it unleashed. In particular, we examined his successful bid to rein in the oligarchs, criminals, regional governors, and rogue state agencies which had run rampant under his predecessor. It was arguably the most consequential development in Russian politics since the Soviet collapse. Without it, a concerted and multi-pronged foreign-interference operation like Russiagate would have been inconceivable. So, for that matter, would Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
In Part 7, we saw how Deripaska navigated this process, shifting seamlessly from an agent of the mob to a surrogate of the Kremlin. We assessed the evidence that it happened and documented the various milestones along the way. Having triumphed over his erstwhile rivals in the criminal underworld, he was now beholden to Putin. Chief among his duties in this regard was helping the Kremlin carry out its various active-measures campaigns around the world. This is what led Deripaska to Paul Manafort and ultimately presaged his effort to suborn the American presidency.
There were other examples of collusion, too
The Manafort-Deripaska affair was hardly the only instance in which Trump or his associates entangled themselves with the Kremlin.
I could have examined the infamous Trump tower meeting. I could have recalled the unbridled enthusiasm with which members of Trump’s inner circle accepted an offer from Kremlin-connected Russian nationals to provide kompromat on Hillary Clinton. I could have explained how, regardless of its lackluster results, the meeting bore the hallmarks of a typical Russian operation aimed at establishing a communication channel with a key intelligence target. I could have noted how the meeting was arranged by the Alagarov family, which has deep ties to the Russian mob, acts on the Kremlin’s behalf, and had spent years cultivating Trump as an intelligence asset. I could have discussed this instance of naked collusion, dangerous naiveté, and callous indifference to U.S. security. But I didn’t.
I could have recounted how, during the 2016 campaign, Trump dispatched his personal lawyer along with a mobbed-up business associate to negotiate with the Kremlin over a planned Trump Tower project in Moscow. I could have also noted how Trump repeatedly and publicly lied about it, thus gifting Russia an opportunity to blackmail him. I could have rehashed this corrupt and bumbling foreign-lobbying effort by a U.S. presidential candidate. But I didn’t.
I could have shed light on a similar fiasco involving Jeff Sessions, Trump’s attorney general. I could have described how Sessions, like Trump, exposed himself to possible Kremlin blackmail when he opted not to disclose his interactions with the Russian ambassador during questioning by the Senate Judiciary Committee. I could have cited this case. But I didn’t.
I could have recapped Jared Kushner’s meeting during the 2016 campaign with representatives of VEB, a Russian state bank which serves as an arm of the Kremlin. I could have mentioned how, according to VEB, they allegedly discussed matters related to Kushner’s family business. I could have addressed this. But I didn’t.
I could have referenced the Trump transition team’s mind-boggling refusal to adhere to the federal government’s recommendations by adopting the bare-minimum security precautions in its dealings with the Russian government. I could have relayed this example. But I didn’t.
I could have revealed the dangerously idiotic effort by Peter Smith, a GOP operative, to obtain Hillary Clinton’s “missing emails” during the 2016 campaign. I could have recited his numerous meetings with Russian nationals who claimed to have them. I could have noted how these meetings took place with the full knowledge and approval of Trump’s team. I could have revealed Smith’s reckless indifference to the possibility that these Russian nationals worked for Russian intelligence. I could have included this little-known story. But I didn’t.
I could have chronicled Trump’s decades-long enmeshment with organized crime figures from the former Soviet Union. I could have surveyed his well-documented history of laundering their money. I could have explained how such criminal groups act as instruments of the Kremlin and how Trump, in dealing with them, opened himself up to Russian blackmail. I could have discussed all of this. But I didn’t.
Every one of these episodes represented a grievous threat to American democracy and national security. Each offered a damning indictment of Donald Trump and his enablers. All revealed a man entirely unworthy of the public trust.
And that’s before we get to Paul Manafort and his gambit to fling open the White House gates to America’s number-one foe. But it was this case I chose to highlight, for three reasons. First, it was much more serious than the others, at least in terms of its potential consequences. Second, it received far less public attention than it deserved. Third, its veracity is beyond dispute.
Shilling and its discontents
Also indisputable is the rank disingenuousness, utter cluelessness, and ethical bankruptcy of Matt Taibbi and Aaron Maté.
In the last part of this series, I observed how anyone who gets into bed with the Kremlin will ultimately face the music:
If you align yourself with Putin’s regime, you will eventually incriminate yourself and become vulnerable as a result. This is a feature of the system’s design and its key mechanism of control. Paul Manafort compromised himself from the moment he went to work for Deripaska and [former Ukrainian president Viktor] Yanukovych, men who, by virtue of their own Kremlin ties, were similarly vulnerable. Even Putin himself is exposed, as the end of his regime or his mere departure from it would spell his personal demise.
As it happens, the same rule applies to Kremlin apologists such as Taibbi and Maté. To be sure, neither will face threats to their freedom or safety. Nor will their livelihoods suffer; both will undoubtedly continue doing a brisk business trafficking nonsense to impressionable conspiracy-theorists.
For Taibbi and Maté, the main casualty is their credibility. Put simply, if you go to bat for autocrats, imperialists, and genocidaires, you will eventually end up embarrassing yourself. The tin-foil hat crowd might think you’re great. But you won’t be taken seriously by serious people.
Taibbi once had a reputation for solid journalism. Maté never did. In all likelihood, both long ago convinced themselves that it’s fine. For most of us, however, such feats of self-delusion lie beyond our capacity.
Future editions of The Detox will have much more to say about the Russia-defense brigade and the myriad personality complexes which power it. It just won’t appear as part of our Russiagate series, which has now come to an end. Thank god for that, because I’m sick of it. And if that’s true of me, I can only imagine what it’s like for the rest of you. So if you’ve made it this far, you have my appreciation.
I might also ask: What is wrong with you?
With that, we now return to our other godforsaken subject: Russia’s war on Ukraine and its sundry apostles.
Other entries in this series:
Propaganda and Collusion in the Trump-Russia Affair, Part 1
Propaganda and Collusion in the Trump-Russia Affair, Part 2
Propaganda and Collusion in the Trump-Russia Affair, Part 3
Propaganda and Collusion in the Trump-Russia Affair, Part 4
Propaganda and Collusion in the Trump-Russia Affair, Part 5
You seem unhinged.
Banana