Theories abound that the billionaire candidate has the Kremlin in his corner.
Last week, Donald Trump caused an uproar when he threatened the 67-year-old NATO agreement by suggesting that, if elected to the White House, he might not come to the aid of the Baltic States in the event of a Russian invasion. These remarks, coupled with the release of 20,000 e-mails stolen from the Democratic National Committee’s servers, have fueled a conspiracy theory that Russian president Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin are playing an insidious role in trying to elect the next American president.
After the D.N.C. e-mail dump revealed the committee’s favoritism of Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders, a position that forced the resignation of the it’s unpopular chairperson, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Clinton campaign staffer called foul on Russia. “Experts are telling us that Russian state actors broke into the D.N.C., took all these e-mails, and now are leaking them out through these Web sites,” Robby Mook, Clinton’s campaign manager, noted during an interview with ABC’s The Week on Sunday. “It’s troubling that some experts are now telling us that this was done by the Russians for the purpose of helping Donald Trump.” Mook added that this alleged development was particularly concerning given Trump’s apparent espousal of a pro-Russia shift in the G.O.P. platform last week. (The Washington Post has reported that Trump staffers lobbied to change an assurance that the U.S. would provide “lethal defensive weapons” to the Ukraine to a promise of “appropriate assistance,” a markedly weaker stance on Russia than that held by most of Trump’s interventionist, Republican peers. The Trump camp was quick to rebuke the insinuation. “It’s pure obfuscation on the part of the Clinton campaign,” Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign chairman, said in an interview with ABC.
Though the Clinton campaign did not offer up further evidence to prove that the e-mail leak was part of a sinister Russian plot, the comments have thrust the spotlight on the relationship between the G.O.P. nominee, his campaign, and Putin. Indeed, there have long been whispers of such a quiet alliance, particularly after the hiring of Manafort, who is reported to have close ties to the Russian president and worked on behalf of Kremlin interests in the Ukraine. The real estate mogul has also reportedly grown increasingly reliant on Russian investment to fund development deals. The Washington Post reports that Donald Trump Jr. told attendees at a real estate conference in 2008 that, “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets,” and added, “We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.” Of the money coming out of Russia, Talking Points Memo reports most of it “has over the years become increasingly concentrated among oligarchs and sub-garchs close to Vladimir Putin.” Trump Tower in SoHo is one such Russian-backed development project of the New York billionaire, which was hit with a number of lawsuits over claims of fraud. (The lawsuits were all either settled or closed.)
Trump, of course, has never kept secret his admiration for Putin. In 2007, Trump declared that Putin was doing “a great job” of “rebuilding the image of Russia and also rebuilding Russia period.” (In the same interview, notably, he chided President George W. Bush for his leadership.) During an interview with MSNBC’s Morning Joe, last year, the former reality TV star also brushed off allegations that Putin oversaw the deaths of journalists critical of his regime, saying, “He’s running his country, and at least he’s a leader, you know unlike what we have in this country,” Politico reports.
These Russian connections are not, of course, enough to determine in any way whether or not the Kremlin is trying to influence the 2016 presidential election. But Trump’s links to Putin and his desire to “get along with Russia” do present an intimation of his agenda during a putative presidency, especially considering the billionaire’s history of cozying up to dictators in favor of his bottom line.
