Trump’s reverence for Russia was framed as mere improper behavior instead of what it was: an ominous twist on a long dark-money trail. For decades, Trump had relied on oligarchs and mobsters from the former USSR for support after Wall Street blacklisted him following his bankruptcies in the 1990s.10 The one bank that agreed to take him on—Deutsche Bank—is notorious for facilitating Russian money-laundering.11 But Trump’s illicit dealings went as far back as the mid-1980s—when the first Russian mobsters moved into Trump Tower—and his network of criminal associates has expanded ever since. By
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