Michael, please review your excellent article and correct the typos. I spotted at least three. I understand that your defective keyboard may have contributed to them, and those of us who write without editors or proofreaders can certainly relate. However, some readers may seize on these errors as an opportunity to undermine your credibility. I would hate to see that.
100% agree ....it can undermine credibility and should not happen. The 'bad keyboard' is a true thing as for the last ten days i've been on an old backup macbook while my regular is getting fixed. Not an excuse but I"m getting tripped up by it. Renewe commitment! Thanks!
Thanks. I have mixed feelings. Being super anal about typos is very 'old school' and in a time when we text and email and chatter on keyboads all the time, I think the impact of a typo or two is less than in the old days. That said, the one i put out today was a doozy with so many typos that I do think it was capable of undermining the message. After all I'm basically putting myself out there as a meticulous, trained investigator and intelligence operator who worked in environments where even a small mistake could result in someone getting killed.....so one would think I should be capable of not posting a long post filled with typos. I get it. Still,, it's nice to hear someone say nah, 'typos do not undermine credabilitee" . ;-)
i get the gist there and if you have a very specific audience that you are speaking to then i guess it fits the bill. i would just offer that you are missing an even larger audience due to this silly grammatical thing. if your audience is to appease those who read that in depth article and simply want the world to know they found three typos, you are playing an outdated game. if the point is to educate and possibly inspire readers to action or to make some sliver of a change of thought, then typo away and dismiss the stuffy attitudes just looking to prop up their own ego of grammar nazis (side note: my autism probably fuels this. i was a decent writer, just got based with the grammar stuff. then i married an english teacher!).
so consider this a sloppy critique by a newbie writer on substack, but just offering two cents for an audience consisting anyone under the age of 40.
(can the user who commented on your typos please count all of mine. yes, i am aware it is 2025 and you can literally take 5 seconds to copy and paste into ai for perfect instant proofreading….but it’s kinda the point. human error is what defines us, what will make our writing stand out from the bots that are already dominating this platform).
and holy shit! i just had a dialogue with a former cia agent? wft? all because i spelled a couple words wrong…
LOL maybe typos fall into 'keeping it real' ..... honestly I've seen my own attitude toward typos become pretty relaxed --as in, the only thing worse than a gammar Nazi is a typo Nazi.....but still, on this blog I'm writing i a space where it probably matters more than if i were riting about whether jujutsu kaisen is better than one piece. I'm on team one piece.
Elias, I understand your point. I normally wouldn’t call out minor typos, but as Michael presents himself as an authority on an important topic, I felt it mattered. His typos were small but made the piece seem less professional, so I thought correcting them was necessary.
I’m not part of the under-40 crowd—double that number, and you’ll find my generation. For people my age, typos can make a real difference, which is why I spoke up. I’m sorry if that offended you.
If Substack had a way to contact writers privately, I would have reached out that way instead. I understand they just introduced private messaging the same day I commented.
And for you, Michael, I appreciate both your writing and your attitude. Please continue informing us.
It’s too bad that every American does not recognize the danger of uncorked Capitalism/pure love of $$$$. This gluttony is pointed out as a serious sin in the Bible.
One other distinction — you hear the term ‘agent’ and ‘asset’ used a lot. This is more of an English language distinction than a Russian language one, but it’s important when assessing what may or may not have happened with Trump. An agent, as outlined above, would generally ge a recruited, controlled ‘asset’ — whereas other ‘assets’ might not necessarily be a fully controlled agent. A ‘confidetial contact’, for example, would be an ‘asset’ ut not an ‘agent.’ This may sound lie splitting hairs but it’s important to an understanding of the Trump/KGB story to have these distinctions in mind.
You may not be aware of it, but I wrote about this at great length in American Kompromat. With the help of former KGB officer Yuri Shvets, I was able to go back to 1980 when Semion Kislin, a spotter agent for the KGB, induced Trump to buy hundreds of TVs for the Grand Hyatt from a KGB front, thereby initiating their recruitment of Trump as an asset. My conclusion is that Trump is an asset.
Hi Craig, nice to hear from you. Would love to talk sometime. Yes -- I'm familiar. My conclusion is similar....kind of turns on the definition of 'asset', as oppose to 'agent'. I go into that in some detail. I seem as having becoome a cooperating asset but not a fully recruited agent -- as of 1987 after the trip. Is that similar to your conclusion? Would e interested in discussing the nuances at some point. Very much appreciate your work on this, which is helpful to my understanding of it.
Yes, I think we are pretty much on the same page. Yuri Shvets gave me a fairly detailed account of KGB protocols for recruiting assets. I still have some unanswered questions, of course, but you can see how they cultivated Trump, bit by bit. And yes, as an asset, not an agent.
I’m reading your book now. A great read, very detailed. My question is why wasn’t this shouted from the rooftops at the time of its publication in 2021?
trump sure has been nice to putin: no more cyber warfare, a relaxation of sanctions, compliments galore, and disrespect to Ukraine and its fine president, Zelensky (who dressed a little Churchill--and we sure as hell didn't hear about FDR being upset with Churchill's outfit when he stayed in the White house during the war). I refuse to capitalize trump and putin, btw.
I wish I would have done so back then myself, Sondra. 😀
I have never hated anyone like I hate trumpy boy. Who would ever have thought the republicans would embrace putin??? Mitt Romney, a decent man compared to today's republicans, was sounding the alarm about putin when he ran against Obama (a great man, in my opinion, though not without faults). People scoffed at Romney because, I guess, most folks were caught up in the Al Qaeda zeitgeist, including me, if I’m recollecting correctly. Anyway, I hope you are well in these awful times.
Yup. One wonders if she was pushed. How many in russia have died by exiting a building through a high window-- defenestration. And she could have been killed elsewhere and placed at the bottom of the stairs. It's an open question.
According to pollster Doug Shoen's biography, Trump hired him in 1987 to assess Trump's chances for the next presidential election (NY Post, 2023). Trump did make a brief run and claimed it was to boost his real estate career (biographer Michael D'Antonio). Trump teased a run on Oprah, 1988. This was all discussed briefly on PBS Newshour July 20, 2016. I believe that Trump's 1987-88 effort, like the ad attacking US support of allies, occurred after Trump's return from Moscow. Thanks for your detailed assessment. I look forward to more.
Thanks, Michael for two excellent open-minded articles. I found them extremely educational and thorough. I’m currently writing a related article that will include applying a hypothesis-testing matrix (HTM) to determine the probability that Trump is a Russian agent of some type. The method is described by Morgan Jones, former CIA analyst, in his book “The Thinker’s Toolkit: 14 Powerful Techniques for Problem Solving,” pages 178 to 216.
The basic idea is that HTM works well on complex problems where available evidence is scarce and difficult to evaluate. All potential hypotheses explaining a behavior (such as Trump’s) are the columns. Each row is one piece of evidence. The cells are binary. Is this evidence consistent or inconsistent with the hypothesis? The winning hypothesis is the one that is the least inconsistent with the evidence. A wrinkle I will attempt is using MECE (mutually exclusive collectively exhaustive) to ensure the set of hypotheses is complete and covers all possible hypotheses, at least at a high level. Don’t yet know if an HTM and MECE approach is possible, but will give it a try to help move us all forward.
A very professional approach to the issue and recruitment process. However, I would strongly recommend Mr. Sellers have a second set of eyes on these articles to proofread them. The typos and occasional missing words detract from the message.
It's ironic: Roy Cohn was a communist hunter who, along with Joe McCarthy, ruined a lot of lives. And "at long last had no decency." Now trumpy boy is a communist sympathizer--or put more correctly, a tyrant sympathizer. To quote Bob Dylan from "Oxford Town," "Somebody better investigate soon."
Your articles on the KGB’s interest and cultivation of Trump as an asset are very interesting. I appreciate your insights, based on your experience, and chronological analyses of related events.
But the sad and unforgivable fact is that too many Americans have excused tRump from any accountability and are reflexively pro Putin and against Ukraine. It’s beyond pathetic but here we are. So whether or not he is compromised, a large minority (thank god not the majority) of American voters bought the propaganda and gaslighting BS from the orange rapey felon and intentionally want our government to fail for whatever grievance or motivation compels them to vote “R”.
YeS! It is all in plain sight. And it is no surprise this Administration has Far-Right obsequious factotums praising Putin and word of a planted asset.
"Learn to keep your mouth shut and be a person of few words.When you open your mouth you will let them know your intelligence level" Trump ain the Oval Office abused Ukranian Pres. Zelinsky verbally. That is how the fish got caught, by opening its mouth.
To some extent, concentration on typos in this instance is akin to re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
A major part of our political difficulties today are caused by those on all sides of the primary controversies who assume 100% credibility concerning issues that are rife with uncertainties. The issue here is not whether or not Trump is actually a Russian asset, but rather the nature of his actions regardless of whatever motivations he may have for doing so.
Michael, it might be worthwhile for you – if done yet – looking into the spy business by the current Russian Czar when he was stationed then in Dresden/East Germany in the 1980s responsible for recruiting assets under a program called LUCH (light beam) as this part of his career gets often not mentioned when covering his ‘formative’ years as a lower-level agent and the potential connections to the subject you are researching here.
Michael, please review your excellent article and correct the typos. I spotted at least three. I understand that your defective keyboard may have contributed to them, and those of us who write without editors or proofreaders can certainly relate. However, some readers may seize on these errors as an opportunity to undermine your credibility. I would hate to see that.
100% agree ....it can undermine credibility and should not happen. The 'bad keyboard' is a true thing as for the last ten days i've been on an old backup macbook while my regular is getting fixed. Not an excuse but I"m getting tripped up by it. Renewe commitment! Thanks!
Agreed. There were many typos . A second set of eyes before release may help. Do keep these essays coming!
typos do not undermine credabilitee.
Thanks. I have mixed feelings. Being super anal about typos is very 'old school' and in a time when we text and email and chatter on keyboads all the time, I think the impact of a typo or two is less than in the old days. That said, the one i put out today was a doozy with so many typos that I do think it was capable of undermining the message. After all I'm basically putting myself out there as a meticulous, trained investigator and intelligence operator who worked in environments where even a small mistake could result in someone getting killed.....so one would think I should be capable of not posting a long post filled with typos. I get it. Still,, it's nice to hear someone say nah, 'typos do not undermine credabilitee" . ;-)
i get the gist there and if you have a very specific audience that you are speaking to then i guess it fits the bill. i would just offer that you are missing an even larger audience due to this silly grammatical thing. if your audience is to appease those who read that in depth article and simply want the world to know they found three typos, you are playing an outdated game. if the point is to educate and possibly inspire readers to action or to make some sliver of a change of thought, then typo away and dismiss the stuffy attitudes just looking to prop up their own ego of grammar nazis (side note: my autism probably fuels this. i was a decent writer, just got based with the grammar stuff. then i married an english teacher!).
so consider this a sloppy critique by a newbie writer on substack, but just offering two cents for an audience consisting anyone under the age of 40.
(can the user who commented on your typos please count all of mine. yes, i am aware it is 2025 and you can literally take 5 seconds to copy and paste into ai for perfect instant proofreading….but it’s kinda the point. human error is what defines us, what will make our writing stand out from the bots that are already dominating this platform).
and holy shit! i just had a dialogue with a former cia agent? wft? all because i spelled a couple words wrong…
LOL maybe typos fall into 'keeping it real' ..... honestly I've seen my own attitude toward typos become pretty relaxed --as in, the only thing worse than a gammar Nazi is a typo Nazi.....but still, on this blog I'm writing i a space where it probably matters more than if i were riting about whether jujutsu kaisen is better than one piece. I'm on team one piece.
Thanks for taking the time to reply to me. I appreciate your spirit and well examined intentions.
Elias, I understand your point. I normally wouldn’t call out minor typos, but as Michael presents himself as an authority on an important topic, I felt it mattered. His typos were small but made the piece seem less professional, so I thought correcting them was necessary.
I’m not part of the under-40 crowd—double that number, and you’ll find my generation. For people my age, typos can make a real difference, which is why I spoke up. I’m sorry if that offended you.
If Substack had a way to contact writers privately, I would have reached out that way instead. I understand they just introduced private messaging the same day I commented.
And for you, Michael, I appreciate both your writing and your attitude. Please continue informing us.
Spell check would have caught many of the typos.
It’s too bad that every American does not recognize the danger of uncorked Capitalism/pure love of $$$$. This gluttony is pointed out as a serious sin in the Bible.
They are here:
One other distinction — you hear the term ‘agent’ and ‘asset’ used a lot. This is more of an English language distinction than a Russian language one, but it’s important when assessing what may or may not have happened with Trump. An agent, as outlined above, would generally ge a recruited, controlled ‘asset’ — whereas other ‘assets’ might not necessarily be a fully controlled agent. A ‘confidetial contact’, for example, would be an ‘asset’ ut not an ‘agent.’ This may sound lie splitting hairs but it’s important to an understanding of the Trump/KGB story to have these distinctions in mind.
You may not be aware of it, but I wrote about this at great length in American Kompromat. With the help of former KGB officer Yuri Shvets, I was able to go back to 1980 when Semion Kislin, a spotter agent for the KGB, induced Trump to buy hundreds of TVs for the Grand Hyatt from a KGB front, thereby initiating their recruitment of Trump as an asset. My conclusion is that Trump is an asset.
Hi Craig, nice to hear from you. Would love to talk sometime. Yes -- I'm familiar. My conclusion is similar....kind of turns on the definition of 'asset', as oppose to 'agent'. I go into that in some detail. I seem as having becoome a cooperating asset but not a fully recruited agent -- as of 1987 after the trip. Is that similar to your conclusion? Would e interested in discussing the nuances at some point. Very much appreciate your work on this, which is helpful to my understanding of it.
Sorry bad keyboard... "I see him as having become...."
Yes, I think we are pretty much on the same page. Yuri Shvets gave me a fairly detailed account of KGB protocols for recruiting assets. I still have some unanswered questions, of course, but you can see how they cultivated Trump, bit by bit. And yes, as an asset, not an agent.
I’m reading your book now. A great read, very detailed. My question is why wasn’t this shouted from the rooftops at the time of its publication in 2021?
Great insights Craig. I'll queue up some of your material for this weekend's reading!
Very interesting, thank you for sharing.
MORE PLEASE..
trump sure has been nice to putin: no more cyber warfare, a relaxation of sanctions, compliments galore, and disrespect to Ukraine and its fine president, Zelensky (who dressed a little Churchill--and we sure as hell didn't hear about FDR being upset with Churchill's outfit when he stayed in the White house during the war). I refuse to capitalize trump and putin, btw.
I started writing trump and putin in all lowercase since trumps first term. AI never corrects me now.
I wish I would have done so back then myself, Sondra. 😀
I have never hated anyone like I hate trumpy boy. Who would ever have thought the republicans would embrace putin??? Mitt Romney, a decent man compared to today's republicans, was sounding the alarm about putin when he ran against Obama (a great man, in my opinion, though not without faults). People scoffed at Romney because, I guess, most folks were caught up in the Al Qaeda zeitgeist, including me, if I’m recollecting correctly. Anyway, I hope you are well in these awful times.
Dear LORD I wish Trump was being run by Putin, and not Netanyahu
That would be amazing. Putin is the only world leader I see right now who is a serious person.
Besides Bibi, that is, who is quite literally the enemy of the entire human race.
So yeah, great, Dictator Putin. I would absolutely vote for that right now.
Some wonder how his first wife actually died. Healthy female who fell down stairs and died from blunt force trauma. She knew everything. !!!!
Yup. One wonders if she was pushed. How many in russia have died by exiting a building through a high window-- defenestration. And she could have been killed elsewhere and placed at the bottom of the stairs. It's an open question.
She was a KGB wife 🚩
According to pollster Doug Shoen's biography, Trump hired him in 1987 to assess Trump's chances for the next presidential election (NY Post, 2023). Trump did make a brief run and claimed it was to boost his real estate career (biographer Michael D'Antonio). Trump teased a run on Oprah, 1988. This was all discussed briefly on PBS Newshour July 20, 2016. I believe that Trump's 1987-88 effort, like the ad attacking US support of allies, occurred after Trump's return from Moscow. Thanks for your detailed assessment. I look forward to more.
Wow. All well cited!
Thanks, Michael for two excellent open-minded articles. I found them extremely educational and thorough. I’m currently writing a related article that will include applying a hypothesis-testing matrix (HTM) to determine the probability that Trump is a Russian agent of some type. The method is described by Morgan Jones, former CIA analyst, in his book “The Thinker’s Toolkit: 14 Powerful Techniques for Problem Solving,” pages 178 to 216.
The basic idea is that HTM works well on complex problems where available evidence is scarce and difficult to evaluate. All potential hypotheses explaining a behavior (such as Trump’s) are the columns. Each row is one piece of evidence. The cells are binary. Is this evidence consistent or inconsistent with the hypothesis? The winning hypothesis is the one that is the least inconsistent with the evidence. A wrinkle I will attempt is using MECE (mutually exclusive collectively exhaustive) to ensure the set of hypotheses is complete and covers all possible hypotheses, at least at a high level. Don’t yet know if an HTM and MECE approach is possible, but will give it a try to help move us all forward.
A very professional approach to the issue and recruitment process. However, I would strongly recommend Mr. Sellers have a second set of eyes on these articles to proofread them. The typos and occasional missing words detract from the message.
A former IC member.
What Putin failed to do in 3 years in Ukraine, he managed to do in 3 weeks in the US
Putin/Russia play a long game - it could be argued that through Trump, Putin has waited patiently for over 30 years.
I’m afraid you are very right. Perhaps it was originally not the plan to get entry in the Oval Office but he Putin had really good cards….
That's a very good analysis, Michael. Keep it coming.
It's ironic: Roy Cohn was a communist hunter who, along with Joe McCarthy, ruined a lot of lives. And "at long last had no decency." Now trumpy boy is a communist sympathizer--or put more correctly, a tyrant sympathizer. To quote Bob Dylan from "Oxford Town," "Somebody better investigate soon."
McCarthyism is back in full force. Khrushchev said our destruction would come about in this way.
Your articles on the KGB’s interest and cultivation of Trump as an asset are very interesting. I appreciate your insights, based on your experience, and chronological analyses of related events.
But the sad and unforgivable fact is that too many Americans have excused tRump from any accountability and are reflexively pro Putin and against Ukraine. It’s beyond pathetic but here we are. So whether or not he is compromised, a large minority (thank god not the majority) of American voters bought the propaganda and gaslighting BS from the orange rapey felon and intentionally want our government to fail for whatever grievance or motivation compels them to vote “R”.
If you are interested, there are several articles from serious media outlets depicting the American Right's fascination with Putin.
Please refrain from epithets.
Yes yes yes. Jeff Merkley, What a GREAT BRAVE well spoken Senator. Trump is pro-Putin and ANTI-AMERICAN and ANTI-American DEMOCRACY.
We are in the middle of a hostile, illegal anti American attempt to destroy the constitutional rights and privileges of 🇺🇸 WE THE PEOPLE
YeS! It is all in plain sight. And it is no surprise this Administration has Far-Right obsequious factotums praising Putin and word of a planted asset.
"Learn to keep your mouth shut and be a person of few words.When you open your mouth you will let them know your intelligence level" Trump ain the Oval Office abused Ukranian Pres. Zelinsky verbally. That is how the fish got caught, by opening its mouth.
To some extent, concentration on typos in this instance is akin to re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
A major part of our political difficulties today are caused by those on all sides of the primary controversies who assume 100% credibility concerning issues that are rife with uncertainties. The issue here is not whether or not Trump is actually a Russian asset, but rather the nature of his actions regardless of whatever motivations he may have for doing so.
Michael, it might be worthwhile for you – if done yet – looking into the spy business by the current Russian Czar when he was stationed then in Dresden/East Germany in the 1980s responsible for recruiting assets under a program called LUCH (light beam) as this part of his career gets often not mentioned when covering his ‘formative’ years as a lower-level agent and the potential connections to the subject you are researching here.