American Kompromat summary

Trump’s dalliances with the Russian mob are, at this point, well known. Throughout the 1970s, Soviet Mafia groups were trickling into New York City, where Trump was building his business. 

The Mafia had devised plenty of schemes for money laundering and stock market manipulation. But those enterprises required funding. With his willingness to look the other way when it came to shady business dealings, Trump was the perfect man to provide.

Jeffrey Epstein began life as somewhat of a nobody. He grew up in working-class Coney Island, where his father worked at a municipal parks department. But by the end of his life, Epstein was fabulously wealthy –⁠ a multimillionaire with homes all over the world. His friends included billionaires, heads of state, celebrities, and royalty.

Epstein also owned a private island in the Caribbean; it was called Little Saint James but sometimes referred to as “Little Saint Jeff’s.” Dozens upon dozens of women and girls were coerced into traveling there and engaging in sexual acts with Epstein and his guests. Unbeknownst to those guests, however, Epstein was allegedly video-recording their activities. Any resulting tapes would contain a massive, lurid collection of kompromat against some of the world’s most powerful men.

The organization known as Opus Dei seems innocent enough from the outside. A Catholic sect, Opus Dei was founded on the idea that people can be holy in their everyday lives through their work, family, and social activities. 

This may sound benign –⁠ but darkness lies beneath the surface. The organization was built upon authoritarian principles, and its founder, Josemaría Escrivá, allied himself with Spain’s Fascist leader, Francisco Franco. Throughout the late 1930s and 40s, Escrivá became a powerful ally to Franco, recruiting new Opus Dei members from Spain’s most powerful, wealthy families and helping them gain positions in government.

How much authority does the Constitution grant to the US president? This was a question that had deeply interested Bill Barr, one of Trump’s attorney generals, since his teenage years. 

He figured he knew the answer. That is to say, Barr believed in an extreme interpretation of the unitary executive. The doctrine is part of the Constitution, but Barr’s version would essentially give presidents unlimited power to act without congressional approval. 

On June 26, 2020, the New York Times released a shocking story. It reported that Russia had been offering bounties to the Taliban in exchange for murdering American troops. 

It was unclear whether any soldiers had actually been killed as part of the program. But something else was clear: by February 2020, intelligence briefings about the program were being included in the President’s Daily Brief. Additionally, the Taliban’s connection to Russia had been a concern since 2017. So what had Trump done about this alarming information? Absolutely nothing.