2 April 2025

ALAN HAYES

 

IN his first administration, Trump, and his clown-car full of buffoons, looked like fools – sanity had left the room. Yet Trump is still just as incompetent as before, even more so, sliding across the room on a discarded banana skin, heading for the closest open manhole to fall into. Or is there something more sinister at play? Something that is designed to hand the crown of world power to the real definitive lunatic?

 

Although the second Trump incarnation is in many ways a different creature from version 1.0, there is still that madness, the ‘rat cunning’, and a bone-deep propensity for farce that predominates every nuance of his character. But the nagging question doesn’t go away: “is Trump barking mad or is someone else pulling the strings?” No so far-fetched, considering Trump told NBC News two days ago that he was “not joking” about a third term in office and suggested there were “methods” to circumvent the two-term limit laid out in the Constitution.

 

Trump has repeatedly spoken about the possibility that he could serve a third term as president, an idea that many have dismissed as his usual, less-than-half-serious bluster. But in the call to NBC News, Trump was adamant that he could wrangle his way into an unconstitutional third term in office.

 

“A lot of people want me to do it,” Trump said, later adding “I'm not joking,” when asked if he wanted another term. During the interview, Trump speculated about ways he could secure a third term, including potentially having Vice President JD Vance run for office before passing the role back to Trump.

 

Given the fact, as previously reported by the Grapevine, that some 56 percent of those who voted for Trump wished they hadn't, and that number has grown exponentially, Trump is taking another trip into fantasy land and again no doubt lying about how Americans really feel - nothing new there.

 

The American constitution prevents a third presidential term, yet Der Führer Trump, is determined to become absolute ruler.

 

For those who may not know, "Der Führer" translates to "the leader" in German and was the title used by Adolf Hitler to define his role as the absolute leader of Nazi Germany.

 

But closer to home - Australians' fear of Trump has only escalated. It has been reported that 60 percent of Australians believe Donald Trump’s reelection has been bad for Australia, while the US sits significantly higher (17%) than Russia (4%) in Aussie minds as a potential threat to Australia.

 

To get to the root of the Trump dilemma however, and conspiracy theories are not on the agenda, the Grapevine dug deep and fact checked the Trumpian animal.

 

It seemed that in both Trump versions, 1.0 and 2.0, there has always been a somewhat unusual, if not unhealthy, association with the Kremlin, in particular Putin over the past 20 odd years – although he denies it. But there is evidence to suggest otherwise.

 

So, what are the roots to the alleged nefarious Kremlin/Trump alliance?

 

It is known that Russian whistle-blowers alleged that Russia began grooming Trump as an asset as far back as 1977 and was recruited by the KGB in 1987. They further alleged that it was part of an ongoing and widespread Russian operation to compromise American businessmen and politicians. These accusations got new legs with the 26 January 2021, publication of the book "American Kompromat" by journalist Craig Unger. In the book, Unger cites ex-KGB officer Yuri Shvets in making the case that Trump's relationship with the Russian government started decades before he became president.

 

Shvets made a number of allegations stemming from his time working for the KGB, stating that Russian intelligence gained an interest in Trump because they viewed him as an exploitable target.

 

"The feeling was that he was extremely vulnerable intellectually, and psychologically, and he was prone to flattery," Shvets said.

 

The Russian informant also alleged that Russia advanced their progress when Trump's multiple business failures resulted in the fact that no legitimate banks would extend him credit – alleging that Deutsch Bank stepped in with laundered Russian rubles.

 

There is little doubt too, that Putin waged a multi-level level campaign to install Trump into the White House in 2016, which was variously reported in the international media - although there was a flurry of denials.

 

Although the Mueller Report, which was officially titled Report on the Investigation Into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election, downplayed the investigations and was whitewashed by the former Attorney General Bill Barr, definitely established a Russian connection, as did the subsequent Republican-lead Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Russian interference. The report concluded that Russia had meddled extensively in the election through hacking and disinformation operations.

 

Nevertheless, such accusations continued to circulate, in part due to Trump's own actions in his last days in office, which included downplaying or even contradicting his own administration's revelations that Russia was the likely culprit behind a major hack of U.S. government agency computer systems.

 

The investigation into the Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, which alleged that it was more than likely Putin had his hooks in Trump via blackmail and Russian oligarchs (very rich businessmen) that were holding Trump’s debt, also questioned the Putin-Trump relationship. Trump has continually denied this relationship, which is at odds with his own public comments.

 

Yet Barr, the man who once was more interested in serving as Trump’s attorney than the nation’s independent top law officer, separated from the White House by an invisible wall, had a change of heart after the 6 January 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

 

Barr’s second tenure as attorney general – reprising a role he once served for that most conventional of Republican presidents, George H.W. Bush – risked going down in history as that of an enabler of an often-lawless inhabitant of the Oval Office. A role where he defended Trump's first election fraud allegations as "lies", “bullshit,” “crazy,” “amateurish” and “total nonsense,” saw him turn into Trump's nemesis.

 

Barr, in recanting his support for Trump, said he was a man that was “detached from reality".

 

Trump knew that his “election lies were false” but used them to incite an unprecedented coup to try to stay in power. “He tried to pressure Justice Department officials to overturn the (2020) election,” Barr said.

 

The Putin-Trump relationship

 

Trump has a history of positive and admiring comments about Putin that have long prompted criticism that he is "soft on Russia". He has called Putin a strong person, and has said of him that he "got along great" with him.

 

In 2013, before he was president, Trump was asked by a MSNBC News journalist, while in Moscow for the Miss Universe pageant, whether he had a relationship with Putin. Trump said: "I do have a relationship and I can tell you that he's very interested in what we're doing here today."

 

Trump’s endearing relationship toward Putin had become obvious and it was apparent that Putin more than likely had objectives he wanted to secure from his alleged asset.

 

What ties Trump-Putin-Exxon-Mobil together?

 

From recent events it is obvious that Vladimir Putin is also a megalomaniac. He murdered, mergered and stole his way into ruling and consolidating the Russian State oil company Rosneft, for his own benefit.

 

Putin’s control of Rosneft enabled him to then sign an agreement with Exxon-Mobile for them to drill in the Russian Arctic, with special patented technology that Mobile owned for the terrain. A separate agreement was then made that gave Rosneft the opportunity to acquire a 25 percent interest in the Point Thompson unit on Alaska's north slope. However, Obama shut down both deals with sanctions, after Russia annexed Crimea and backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, in 2014.

 

The Obama administration in tandem with the European Union introduced an array of economic sanctions on Russian individuals and businesses to counter Putin’s aggression.

 

Putin had originally invaded Crimea and then the Ukraine in 2014, in anticipation of an unfettered route to the sea to ship oil to the global market.

 

Trump wins the 2016 presidential election and immediately appoints Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson, with zero diplomatic experience, as Secretary Of State - allegedly to nudge the dead Exxon-Mobile Arctic deal forward and ease the Obama sanctions. Trump’s windfall – a promised 19% of the Arctic merger oil profits.

 

Records reveal Rosneft did sell off a 19 percent stake in the Arctic deal, with the proceeds now hidden in murky offshore banks, awaiting collection.

 

Trump then appoints retired U.S. army general Michael Flynn as his national security advisor (NSA), who had been warned by the U.S. Department of Defence (DoD) about taking foreign money.

 

During the Trump V1.0 tenure, Flynn hand-delivered a sealed envelope, about a proposed deal from the Kremlin, to the White House – an alleged peace deal, which was suspected to be nothing more than a ruse to lift the Obama sanctions.

 

Not surprisingly, the CIA and FBI learned about Flynn’s shenanigans from wiretaps. They uncovered evidence that Flynn had accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from foreign interests and governments, despite repeated warnings by the U.S. Department of Defence and the justice department that his conduct might be illegal.

 

Flynn accepted US$45,000 from RT, a Kremlin-controlled media organization described by US intelligence agencies as the “Kremlin’s principal international propaganda outlet”,  and US$22,000 from other Russian interests.

 

Flynn resigned from his position as national security advisor in shame, eventually pleading guilty in 2017 to the charges brought against him and admitting that he committed the crime.

 

FBI chief James Comey then briefed selected members of  Congress and Senators about the Flynn affair in a secret, behind closed-doors, meeting at the Capitol. Republicans of course decided to do nothing and Trump fires Comey, under the premise that he was “not able to effectively lead the Bureau", to hush up the FBI's findings.

 

In a twist, which could only come from an irrational mad king’s handbook, Trump, in the dying days of his first presidency, now claims that Flynn was the victim of political persecution and pardons him. This was despite the fact that Flynn had pleaded guilty to taking money from Russia. So, was this magnanimous gesture by Trump nothing more than a gesture to appease his best buddy Putin?

 

The extortion racket

 

Fast forward to Trump enlisting Rudy Giuliani, Lev Parnas and other stooges to extort Ukrainian president Volodymyr  Zelenskyy. They attempted to launch a bogus investigation into Hunter Biden in order to damage his father’s reputation, Trump's rival for the 2021 presidential election, after a failed telephone conversation between the two leaders.

 

Whistle-blower Lt. Col Alexander Vindman, who accused Trump of running a “campaign of bullying, intimidation and retaliation” against him, exposed the details of the notorious 2019 phone call he set up between Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskkyy. He heard Trump attempt to leverage U.S. military aid to the country in return for Zelenskyy launching an investigation into Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, over his position at a Ukrainian gas company.

 

Hunter Biden was no angel, yet he was still vilified by the Trump administration - much of the "dirt" on him was a result of Russian disinformation. A favour from Putin to his U.S. puppet?

 

Zelenskyy, during the phone call, however, quickly realised that he was being ‘conned’ and immediately refused to cooperate with Trump, planting the seeds of Trump’s current hatred of him.

 

Vindman, who remembered the phone call well, was serving on the national security council (NSC), went to see his twin brother, who was the council’s senior ethics official. Closing the door of his brother's office behind him, he told him: “Eugene, if what I’m about to tell you ever becomes public, Donald Trump will be impeached.” It didn't go any further at the time.

 

Biden becomes president, extinguishing Putin's hope of Trump just simply handing over the Ukraine to him - so, he invades the Ukraine.

 

Trump, despite being a convicted rapist, and in total of being convicted of thirty-four U.S. felony charges, with the alleged help of Putin and now with the help of Elon Musk, hoodwinks middle-Americans into believing that he can ‘Make America Great Again’. He wins the 2024 election.

 

Without a pause, Trump begins turning on America’s allies, alienating NATO, and dismantling American Democracy, as well as sanctioning trading partners on goods imported into America.

 

In a combination of greed, blackmail, fear, twisted ideology, opportunism, and sheer evil intent, the entire  Republican Party (the Good Old Party – GOP) is now seen by ever increasing number of Americans, including disillusioned Trump voters, as a Kremlin front.

 

Is this the beginning of the end of the mad king’s reign? This is the same person, whose unpopularity, mishandling of domestic and global affairs and forcible rebuke of a democratic election result shocked the world, now waging war on cultural and racial inclusion and introducing a foreign policy that is brash and with little room for reflection.

 

The mad king has soured relations with Americas closest trading partners and destroyed relationships held in high esteem for decades. The question is: Why? Who wants to be the ultimate winner? If it’s true that Trump was recruited by the KGB, then the answer is clear.

 

Putin on the Trump, not the Ritz

 

Putin said earlier this year that he had always had "pragmatic and trusting" relations with Trump, and voiced support for the latter's false claim that he, not Joe Biden, was the real winner of the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

 

Putin was reported as saying that he and Trump had plenty to talk about, from Ukraine to energy prices.

 

Putin has also spoken admiringly of Trump's courage when a gunman tried to assassinate him last year, saying he behaved like a "real man".

 

So, what does Putin have on Trump? Is it more than just the oligarch rubles? Putin’s charm toward Trump certainly has the fatherly appeal that there’s something more to the relationship. A deep-throat asset, perhaps?

 

Yet it is plain that countries around the world, an Australia is no exception, are tiptoeing in terror of provoking the bully.

Name (First & Last):

Email:

Submitting Form...

The server encountered an error.

Subscription received.

SUBSCRIBE