What the Russians are likely to have (from a honeypot survivor)

[grantcart]

Reasonable deductions based on known Russian practices:

1) The reason that so many intelligence officers are inclined to give weight to the report that the Russians have something on Trump without having seen actual evidence is based on the fact that the Russians are so good at it. Russians are to entrapping people as the Jordan era Chicago Bulls was to basketball.

2) They don’t run a single trap but traps within traps always trying to find a weakness. Like the “Tin Men” dropping a $ 5 bill on the floor they are always searching for each individual’s particular weakness.

3) Taking an objective view of Trump its pretty clear that he has two weaknesses: devotion to his brand and fear of losing Melania. The campaign was initially a brand enhancement exercise and they don’t really hide the fact that his administrations main goal is to advance the Trump brand, which Trump thinks is synonymous to the interests of the United States. Brand enhancement is resistant to blackmail because the “obnoxious frat boy” persona doesn’t hurt him. In the age of Kardashians scandal and salacious video’s can help you generate $ 50 million a year in income.

4) The one thing that does concern him, IMO, is losing Melania and spending the last decades of his life alone. The man doesn’t have a serious circle of real friends. He is not a person who can live alone and he has found someone that accepts him with his obvious faults and creates a haven for him.

5) In order to counter the widely held perception that Russia has the upper hand expect that the summit that is being arranged at lightning speed will have a number of major concessions by the Russians to try and show that they don’t have any advantage over Trump, that Trump is a masterful negotiator and that close Russian/American relations will be great for the US. With such agreement, it will be argued, the US can significantly reduce its contributions to NATO. The real damage to the US will be in the years that follow.

The watersports video probably doesn’t exist or is faked because it doesn’t really match Trump. While he doesn’t have good intellectual discipline he has had good personal discipline in regards to alcohol and drug use (due in large part to the death of his brother at an early age which had a great impact on him). Also people that have that kind of fetish (ala Dick Morris) don’t just do it once but have a habit of doing it over a long period of time.

It is the prospect of losing Melania that is Donald’s biggest fear. He is past the point where it is fun to start over and having a place that you really feel comfortable in is a lot more important at 70 than at 40 and accounts for Trump’s penchant for being home almost every night.

Melania probably has some level of accommodation to overnight trysts but probably would be most upset at another “Melania”, namely someone who has developed an emotionally intimate relationship with Trump over an extended period, especially someone who has higher educational and professional chops that Melania (editing her educational resume on her website reveals a certain degree of vulnerability that she probably has.

An extended relationship with an attractive women with high professional credentials, like a medical doctor from a country close to Slovenia (like the Czech Republic) would be the gold standard of compromising material that would have an effect on DT. It would likely have a seemingly innocent initial contact and the asset would likely voice strong anti Putin sentiments to throw off the target.

Back in 1978 I was one of only 4 Americans in Ho Chi Minh City and had a short exposure to these types of exercises. I went for a single meeting but Air France only arrived and departed on Thursday so I had a 2 hour meeting and 6 days of wondering around. During that time I was able to observe multiple attempts to compromise me, not because I had a particularly sensitive position but simply because they had the people hired and trained and they had to do something.

The seemingly random meeting of a likely working girl was obvious and probably not serious, it was offered so that you would relax your guard and fall for the next one. The first free morning I had there was only one English speaking cab in front of my hotel (there were only 3 hotels in operation at the time). I asked him to suggest some places that would be interesting to go to.

The first was a large shop with lots of fantastic and very valuable antiques. The most famous American to ever live in Thailand had made a major killing after his WWII service in the OSS when he went to China and bought valuable antiques by the boat load. So while the first attempt was for gratuitous sex the second one was for greed. I knew that it was a set up because not only did the owner have a handsome Western style haircut, he also had brand new shoes that could only have come from visiting Hong Kong or Bangkok. The day before I had a meeting with Head Accountant with Air Vietnam and he had come wearing ‘peasant pajamas’ and thongs and it wasn’t for effect either.

My next stop was to a former Seminary that had been converted to a factory making the most terrible beaded curtains that use to be commonly seen in the US in the 50s except these had the most terrible images of Lenin, Marx and Engels. Manufactured for sale in the Soviet Union they were horrible but the cabbie took me around the corner and in one small building and inside it was a gallery of beautiful lacquer paintings that had been made by the Seminary staff that was now unemployed.

Buying antiques could have been a liability for two reasons because a) they could have been stolen from departing refugees and good foundation for a sensational claim that a UN refugee official was profiting from property stolen from refugees b) many SE Asian countries have prohibitions from exporting antiques (Thailand prohibits exporting antique Buddha figures). Purchasing newly made works of art was safe as long as you could formulate a fictitious explanation of your foreign currency exchanges.

Having a Seminary background I was able to confirm that the person running the gallery was Seminary professor and his threadbare shirt, old beaten sandals and caloric deficient frame signaled that it was not government related and I was likely to see him next in a refugee camp.

There were other attempts but the one that fooled me initially at the time was the woman in her mid twenties who contacted me as I was walking around the district where the hotel was. She only approached me when she couldn’t be seen by anyone else, spoke broken English and her hands trembled. She wanted to sell me a large book of stamps. I don’t think that she was part of a set up and I met with her several times, in public and across a table. After a couple of meetings she told me the police had confiscated her stamps and she had borrowed from loan shark and her tears convinced me that she was afraid. I resisted her attempts to go further.

I was very disciplined and always wondered if I was imaging the dozen different attempts that I thought were made to entrap me, including turning the stamp woman into a tool. The thing is that the 2 officers who followed me both fell into a honey trap and were “compromised” except that we were an operational agency and embarrassing an officer didn’t really help the SRV get access to sensitive information.

For Trump he would have been constantly targeted and the runs on him would include seemingly innocent actors who came to his assistance probably helping him get out of an embarrassing situation in order to create the long term bond to develop much greater avenues to control him. Kind of like the guys who tried to play against Jordon and never figured out how many different ways he had faked them out.

[Nitram]

1. Stong on speculation, weak on evidence. I'd bet on the likelihood that Dump would enjoy such a show.

No reason to go there unless it's true. Consorting with prostitutes would b enough.

[blue cat]

2. Interesting, but who knows?

All guesses. I tend to believe the golden showers story. It doesn't mean that it's his thing. To me it sounded like some kind of fun revenge for him and there were prostitutes offered to him. I believe that there are more tapes that may indicate his fetishes. I don't believe he is that afraid of losing Melania. I think it's all over except for the show. He has been busy cheating on her since their marriage was one month old and talking about pussy grabbing while she was pregnant. He is looking to his future pussy grabbing so he couldn't care less if she stays in New York. I got around when I was younger.

[2naSalit]

3. K&R

[KittyWampus]

4. Sounds like you have led an interesting life. I think you'll be deemed close to prophetic-

regarding Putin giving Trump some successes. Right after the election I think you mentioned Syria. I haven't forgotten your take and think it will come to pass.

[Hekate]

5. Very interesting, grantcart. I always like to get input from you....

....and others with experience.

[zentrum]

6. Don't think he ...

...cares much about losing Melania at all, in the way that's usually meant. They clearly have an arrangement. Her job is to be arm candy in exchange for his wealth.

He's been tom-catting around forever and she knows it.

Of course he doesn't want a divorce right now. But that's her leverage over him. If anything---he's being blackmailed by his wife.

[DonCoquixote]

7. I know the Russians have honey traps down to an art

but honestly, I really don't think that is what they have on Trump. Let's be honest, if his third wife, young enough to be his daughter, has any illusions about the man she married, she is either insane or simply stupid. Trump has actually made it a badge of honor to be such a pig, even here on DU, you had men defending his "locker room talk." If Trump was caught in bed any woman save his daughter, the same good old boys would be patting him on the back and pledging him their votes.

No, let's remember the Putin Trump romance is about money, billions. After all most banks would not lend to Trump, because they knew he would stiff them. The Russian banks did loaned him which allowed him to maintain the illusion of being a brilliant businessman, despite the fact that the guy would going to bankruptcy as easily as he would go into another marriage. Who knows this and put knows how to use this. It sure doesn't help that Pruden is a personal friend of the secretary of state, "T Rex" Tillerson. T Rex is also friends with Rasputin's second-in-command, a fellow named Igor Sachev, whose minor job is controlling all the oil and gas in Russia. He is already told his friend that he looks forward to riding Harley-Davidson's in Texas. Of course that would only happen once the embargo was lifted against Russia but we know that Mr. Trump says about that. the only way that might cause Trump some pain is if we go back three dollar a gallon gasoline, even though that is exactly the Russians need, and sadly a lot of Texans are going to be very happy about that, damn the poor that will not be able to afford groceries, thanks to grocery store chains being able to use trucking expenses as that old reliable excuse.

The real tragedy is outside of ego, there really is no way to make Trump feel ashamed of anything, he is a pure psychopath, in many ways no less dangerous than some of the creepy people we have locked up in super Max prisons.