American Kompromat

How the KGB Cultivated Donald Trump, and Related Tales of Sex, Greed, Power, and Treachery

By: Craig Unger

Narrated by: Jason Culp

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Kompromat n.—Russian for "compromising information"

This is a story about the dirty secrets of the most powerful people in the world—including Donald Trump.

It is based on exclusive interviews with dozens of high-level sources—intelligence officers in the CIA, FBI, and the KGB, thousands of pages of FBI investigations, police investigations, and news articles in English, Russian, and Ukrainian. American Kompromat shows that from Trump to Jeffrey Epstein, kompromat was used in operations far more sinister than the public could ever imagine.

Among them, the book addresses what may be the single most important unanswered question of the entire Trump era: Is Donald Trump a Russian asset?

The answer, American Kompromat says, is yes, and it supports that conclusion backs with the first richly detailed narrative on how the KGB allegedly first “spotted” Trump as a potential asset, how they cultivated him as an asset, arranged his first trip to Moscow, and pumped him full of KGB talking points that were published in three of America’s most prestigious newspapers.

Among its many revelations, American Kompromat reports for the first time that:

• According to Yuri Shvets, a former major in the KGB, Trump first did business over forty years ago with a Manhattan electronics store co-owned by a Soviet émigré. Trump’s decision to do business there triggered protocols through which the Soviet spy agency began efforts to cultivate Trump as an asset, thus launching a decades-long “relationship” of mutual benefit to Russia and Trump, from real estate to real power.
• Trump’s invitation to Moscow in 1987 was billed as a preliminary scouting trip for a hotel, but according to Shvets, was actually initiated by a high-level KGB official, General Ivan Gromakov. These sorts of trips were usually arranged for "deep development," even if the potential asset was unaware of it.
• Before Trump’s first trip to Moscow, he met with Natalia Dubinina, who worked at the United Nations library in a vital position usually reserved as a cover for KGB operatives.
• In 1987, according to Shvets, the KGB circulated an internal cable hailing the successful execution of an active measure by a newly cultivated American asset who took out full page ads in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Boston Globe promoting policies promoted by the KGB. The ads had been taken out by Donald Trump, who, Shvets said, would become a “special unofficial contact” for the KGB, that is, an intelligence asset.

A number of America’s highest national security officials have said they believe Trump is a Russian asset, but neither the Mueller Report nor the numerous congressional investigations throughout Trump’s presidency pursued that vital question. American Kompromat does.

In addition to exploring Trump’s ties to the KGB, American Kompromat shows that Russian kompromat operations documented the darkest secrets of the most powerful people in the world and transformed those secrets into potent weapons. It also reveals:

• How Jeffrey Epstein and Trump jostled for influence and financial supremacy for years. A college dropout let go from his prep school teaching job, Epstein became a millionaire in part with the help of Ghislaine Maxwell’s father—media tycoon Robert Maxwell, who allegedly served as a Soviet and Israeli spy and likely gave Epstein a sum estimated between $10 and $20 million before his death in 1991.
• How the Jeffrey Epstein-Ghislaine Maxwell sex-trafficking operation provided a source and marketplace for sexual kompromat—dirty secrets of the richest and most powerful men in the world. Epstein knew that a multimillionaire—or future leader—caught committing adultery is nothing compared to getting caught on video in the act with a minor.
• How the Epstein-Maxwell ring helped enable young women with possible ties to Russian intelligence to gain access to the highest levels of Silicon Valley and the worlds of artificial intelligence, supercomputers, and the internet. This, at a time when Vladimir Putin has asserted, “Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere [artificial intelligence] will become the ruler of the world.”
• How Epstein had ties to Russia through sex-trafficking. Epstein partnered with Jean-Luc Brunel, head of MC2 modeling agency and a major sex trafficker, who, in turn, had worked with Peter Listerman, the celebrated procurer, or “matchmaker” as he prefers, for Russian oligarchs.

©2021 Craig Unger (P)2021 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"For the first time a former KGB employee has gone on record to describe Donald Trump's historic relationship with the Kremlin. It's a bombshell that must be looked into." (Robert Baer, former CIA operative and author of See No Evil)

"By compiling decades of Trump’s seedy ties, disturbing and consistent patterns of behavior, and unexplained contacts with Russian officials and criminals, Unger makes a strong case that Trump is probably a compromised trusted contact of Kremlin interests." (John Sipher, Washington Post)

"Craig Unger has just published a wonderful, well-written book. The jewel in the crown is how the KGB cultivated Donald Trump. With assistance of the eminent former KGB officer Yuri Shvets, American Kompromat establishes how it really took place." (Anders Åslund, senior fellow, The Atlantic Council)

Thoroughly enjoyed this book

A point by point narrative of political and cultural events that shaped the last few years, and will no doubt shape the future. For good or ill.

From start to finish, wow!

Comprehensive and exceptionally researched. I've read all the books regarding the former 45th president and this just blew me away.

this is a great book

Craig Unger knocks it out of the park once again. American compromed is awesome Free Will research this is great just like his past books I look forward to Future titles from him

UNBELIEVABLE Book. WOW.

This was a wild and often disturbing history lesson uncovering the history of T-dumps and the KGB. This needs to be read by everyone.

Very fast moving

Logical storyline with verifiable facts shows Trump as a Russian asset and a compromised politician

Excellent for History but Disturbing

I appreciate the facts being laid out so clearly but sometimes it's difficult to handle the truth. The damage to our democracy at the hands of the Ex-President and his supporters will ripple through history like an earthquake that may destroy us all.

Loads to unpack, but it needs a prettier bow to tie it all together.

Imagine someone fifty years from now coming to this book after a book on Nixon‘s failed presidency. Nixon would seem like a competent and angelic force in Washington once this book was plowed through. So much scandal, malfeasance and outright bad stewardship by Trump recounted here. As are the myriad scandals of Barr, Epstein, Pere Maxwell, a bit of Giuliani’s clown car antics and even a taste of how Putin wants to reclaim Soviet, or at least Czarist, glory for his failing state, along with some of the other bad actor stars of American/Soviet espionage scandal fame. But at a time when right wing info channels are so crammed with QAnon gobbly gook, it’s critical for any real, sourced, journalism to make very clear, concrete connections between all the mad capped crimes that are listed in any dissection of the Trump fiasco. Otherwise, you run the risk of sounding conspiracy minded yourself. But the shit pile of The Uber-Unitary Presidency That Flopped is grist enough for anyone to see that Kompromat or not, Trump had no business being President.

Essential Reading

After reading more than a dozen related books and keeping up on events of the day, I cannot think of a better encapsulation of events central to recruiting Trump as an asset of Russia. Unger skillfully details the twisted relationship of Bill Barr and a host of extremist and Russian sympathizers, opposed to American Democracy, often due to their religious beliefs and or supporters of white supremacy.

The book in unique in that it is prophetic of the January 6th Insurrection, yet Unger completed the book before that event. I look forward to his next volume, and hope American Kompromat is widely reported.

We’re doomed!

This orange garbage WAS the Manchurian candidate! Incredibly detailed, sad sad situation for the Red white and boo hoo hoo

Just how convoluted the many players in this whole coup to destroy democracy for the greed of money.

nothing it was the insight I was hoping for and much, much more! stunning really!