Trump and KGB Part 4: Another Look at Trump's 1987 Moscow Trip Seen Against the Backdrop of His Confirmed Massive Financial Losses in 1985-1987

A Former CIA Officer's Careful Assessment of the Trump/KGB story.

Author’s Note: This is the fourth post in the Trump/KGB series. Meanwhile, author Craig Unger has been updating his Trump/KGB Timeline series, and I urge everyone to keep following his updates as well as mine. We've started a dialogue and are likely to end up discussing this together on a “Substack Live” sometime soon. For those unfamiliar, Craig is the author of American Kompromat and House of Trump, House of Putin, which closely track this matter. In this post, I will begin by briefly outlining what Craig has been posting on his Substack before moving on to take a deeper look at Trump’s 1987 Moscow trip and the financial distress he was experiencing at the time.

Craig Unger’s Recent Updates

• The 1970s - The Soviet Union’s Trojan Horse: In this post, Craig describes how, in the 1970s, the Soviet Union, responding to U.S. and international pressure, agreed to allow substantial numbers of Soviet Jews to immigrate to the United States. However, a key feature of this program was that the KGB coercively recruited many of the émigrés. Former KGB Counterintelligence Chief Oleg Kalugin explained:

  “We told [the émigrés], you can go, but you will provide us with information. And they pledged their services to us.”

  This detail is relevant to the Trump/KGB story because, in 1980, Donald Trump reportedly came to the KGB’s attention in New York through “Sam” Kislin, a Soviet Jewish émigré from whom Trump purchased 200 television sets for his Commodore Hotel project..

• 1980 Former Soviet Agent: How Trump Was Lured into the KGB’s Web: This post examines Trump’s 1980 interaction with Sam Kislin, allegedly a spotter agent for the KGB operating within the Soviet-Jewish émigré community in New York. Kislin is said to have brought Trump to the attention of Soviet intelligence. The article cites Yuriy Shvets, a former KGB officer, extensively throughout.

  (MS Comment: One unresolved mystery is why, if the KGB was already receiving updates from the Czech intelligence service about their surveillance of Trump, Kislin’s “spotting” of Trump would have been necessary. However, if Trump was already on their radar but the KGB lacked direct access to him, Kislin might have provided a valuable means of establishing contact. This would involve connecting Trump with a genuine KGB officer—not Kislin himself, but rather someone acting officially on behalf of the service. Unfortunately, there is no concrete evidence yet to confirm more than the following: a) Kislin was reporting to the KGB; b) Kislin sold 200 televisions to Trump for his Commodore Hotel project; c) It is highly probable that Kislin reported his contact with Trump to the KGB; d) It is reasonably probable that the KGB acted on this information.)

• 1984 Trump’s Russian Laundromat: This post focuses on Russian mafioso figure David Bogatin who paid $6M cash (equivalent of $32M today) for a Trump Tower condo in 1984. The article emphasizes how, in the 1980s, many organized crime figures turned to luxury real estate purchases a way to launder criminal proceeds. He makes the point that if somone paid cash to the seller and no bank was involved, there was no real money-trail left for investigators to follow. (MS Comment: Remember, this was the 1980s, not today, when money laundering controls are much stricter) This transaction marks the beginning of Trump’s documented connection to Russian mob figures.

Another Look at the 1987 Trip — Against the Backdrop of Trump’s Unknown (at the time) Financial Duress

As those who have followed the Trump-KGB story know, the likely next major event in the timeline is 1987, when Trump traveled to Moscow on on Intourist sponsored trip to explore the possibility of a Trump Tower in Moscow as well as to look at other investment opportunities.

KGB Officer Alnur Mussayev recently claimed that it was on this trip in 1987 that Trump was recruited and given the code name “Krasnov.” Mussayev’s claims triggered a great deal of speculation — and here on Deeper Look I took a hard look at them in A Deeper Look at a KGB Officer’s Claim that TrumpWas Recuited in Moscow in 1987. In that post I offered the following bottom line assessment of Mussayev’s claims:

Mussayev’s claims are compelling, consistent with other collateral reporting, and fit within a broader pattern of known Soviet intelligence activities. However, they are not conclusive. Even if Trump was ‘recruited’ in 1987, that does not necessarily mean he has remained a recruited asset for the past 40 years. Yet, it does raise the possibility that his relationships with Russian intelligence figures have left him vulnerable to manipulation, even decades later.

There can be no doubt that the KGB had Trump in its recruitment crosshairs when he visited Moscow in 1987, and there also can be no doubt that the Intourist hosting team was acting under the direction of KGB, and had team members who were in fact KGB officers. Trump would have undergone then (if not sooner) a compellng assessment of his personality and any personal ‘vulnerabilities’ (psychological, financial, etc) that might have made him seem attractive as a potential collaborator or recruitment target. All of this has been previously discussed here in our Trump series.

Trump’s 1980’s Financial Struggles Were Greater Than Generally Acknowledged

Any counterintelligence investigation (which is what we’re doing here, in essence) looks for clues to the target’s vulnerabilities—and financial distress is a key indicator. Since writing my earlier post on this era in the Trump-KGB story, I’ve done a deeper dive into Trump’s 1980’s financial situation and have concluded that the degree of financial turmoil that he was experiencing in the mid 1980s was greater than is generally understood.

For reference — most of the major Trump financial calamities that have been documented during this general period are from the 90’s, not the 80’s:

• Trump Shuttle (1989-1992) - Failed airline venture that lost millions before being sold off.

• Taj Mahal Casino (Opened 1990, bankruptcy 1991) - Over-leveraged and failed to generate sufficient revenue, leading to bankruptcy.

• Plaza Hotel (1988 purchase) - Another over-leveraged deal that ended up in bankruptcy proceedings.

These are all fairly well known. But less well known is the degree of financial instability that was part of Trump’s situation in the 1980’s, particularly before and at the time of his 1987 Moscow trip.

Trump’s Financial Status in 1987

Trump’s financial status in the 1980s was not clearly known until 2019 when the New York Times obtained copies of his IRS transcripts. The transcripts told a different story than the one the public was aware of up until that time. They showed that Trump's core businesses, including casinos, hotels, and retail spaces, had reported huge losses in the years leading up to and including 1987:​

• 1985: Reported losses of $46.1 million.​

• 1986: Reported losses of $68.7 million.​

• 1987: Reported losses of $42.2 million.

At the same time this was happening, Trump in 1987 was saying, for example, to Newsweek: “There is no one my age who has accomplished more”, adding that the ultimate scoreboard was “the unfortunate, obvious one: money.”

When challenged about these losses in 2019 Trump claimed that it was “depreciation” — not actual meaningful financial losses. His team also cast doubt on the IRS records that the Times obtained. Charles H. Harder, Trump’s lawyer at the time, said: “I.R.S. transcripts, particularly before the days of electronic filing, are notoriously inaccurate” and “would not be able to provide a reasonable picture of any taxpayer’s return.”

(MS Comment: While it is important to keep in mind the potential for high net worth/high income earners to manipulate the system, the scale of these losses make it unlikely they were simply tax strategies.)

What Was Actually Going on With Trump’s Businesss in the 1980s?

Retrospective analysis of Trump’s business in the 1980s, undertaken with knowledge of the previously concealed tax losses, shows genuine problems.

1. Overleveraging and Excessive Borrowing

• Trump's ambitious projects were built primarily on debt rather than capital.

• During the mid-1980s, Trump was purchasing high-profile properties and projects, using large loans with little regard for profitability or debt management.

2. Real Estate Market Weakness

• Trump’s investments were heavily concentrated in New York City real estate, which faced downturns in certain sectors during the 1980s.

• Speculative projects that were started in the mid-80s struggled to generate revenue sufficient to cover debt obligations.

3. Loss-Making Casinos

• Trump's early casino investments in Atlantic City were not immediately profitable.

• The Trump Castle Casino (opened 1985) and Trump Plaza Casino (opened 1984) were underperforming even before the much bigger Taj Mahal debacle in 1990..

The bottom line? These IRS loss figures indicate that during 1987, Trump was experiencing substantial financial distress, with his businesses consistently operating at a loss. ​

1987 Moscow Trip and Alleged KGB Recruitment

This brings us back to the 1987 trip and the alleged recruitment. The question before us is — does knowing how badly Trump’s businesses were performing change the assessment of the likelihood he was recruiteed by KGB in 1987?

My response to that question would be — it’s an additional layer of circumstantial evidence that Trump may have been ‘ripe’ for manipulation, but beyond that, without some evidence it was actually used against him - it’s just a potential piece of the puzzle. So it would tend to ‘move the needle’ on the assessment of his vulnerability, but it does not—without other related evidence—change the bottom line assessment.

What type of ‘related evidence’ would change the bottom line assessmnt? The most compelling evidence would be clear indications that the KGB had knowledge at the time of his financial distress. If they knew, it would matter. But did they? This information only became public decades later and there is no indication the KGB had a source inside the IRS or who otherwise would have had access to Trump’s financial situation in any detail. It’s not impossible — just unlikely, and to my knowledge there has never been a claim of such. So on balance I would say no, the KGB likely did not know the full scale and scope of Trump’s financial troubles. (And if evidence to the contrary exists, i would be very interested in learning more about it.)

So where does this leave us?

As of 1987, Trump was clearly on the radar of the KGB; had been under their close ‘control’ during a trip to Moscow; had been cultivated by them — but what was the end pont of that cultivation? Was it recruitment as Alnur Mussayev claims? Or something more nuanced? A “useful willing contact”, perhaps?

In any event, the story does not end in 1987.

To be continued …