Thoughts About "Kompromat"; or What Do They Have on Him (Them)?

Politics
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I remain a Putin kompromat skeptic, as weird and incomprehensible as everything appears. But this article by Adam Davidson is really interesting: it discusses the broader context or “system” that Trump may have (unwittingly) become a part of years ago, when he sought financing or (possibly) laundered money, or whatever, presuming (with good reason) that he’d never get caught. To me, it seems more plausible, or at least easier to imagine:

A Theory of Trump Kompromat

Ledeneva said that the key to understanding Trump’s interaction with sistema is to look at the people with whom he did business. “Trump never dealt with anybody close to the Kremlin, close to Putin,” she said. “Or even many Russians.” Trump’s business deals, she told me, were with tertiary figures. Sistema is rooted in local, often familial, trust, so it is common to see networks rooted in ethnic or national identity. My own reporting has shown that Trump has worked with many ethnic Turks from Central Asia, such as the Mammadov family, in Azerbaijan; Tevfik Arif, in New York; and Aras and Emin Agalarov, in Moscow. Trump also worked with large numbers of émigrés from the former Soviet Union.

If there truly is damaging kompromat on Trump, it could well be in the hands of Trump’s business partners, or even in those of their rivals. Trump’s Georgian partners, for example, have been in direct conflict with other local business networks over a host of crucial deals involving major telecommunications projects in the country. His Azerbaijani partners were tightly linked to Iranians who were, also, senior officers in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The work of Ledeneva and Darden suggests that Trump’s partners and their rivals would likely have gathered any incriminating information they could find on him, knowing that it might, one day, provide some sort of business leverage—even with no thought that he could, one day, become the most powerful person on Earth.

Ledeneva is skeptical that Putin, years ago, ordered an effort to collect kompromat on Trump. Instead, it is possible that there is kompromat in the hands of several different business groups in the former Soviet Union. Each would have bits and pieces of damaging information and might have found subtle (or not so subtle) ways to communicate that fact to both Trump and Putin. Putin would, likely, have gathered some of that material, but he would have known that he couldn’t get everything.

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Or this:

https://twitter.com/joshscampbell/status/1019777415806009344

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You can find Chait’s original article, or just read this one for a more sensible approach.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/07/10/trump-russia-jonathan-chait-218966

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I read Chait’s piece–a good read. I guess I am more interested in how all this would work on the micro-level. Davidson’s does a little more of that, whether his theory is right or not.

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I really would recommend Nichols piece now that you have read Chait’s. Nichols is much more level headed as to the approach. When you ask how the screws are turned, I think I agree with what Nichols is suggesting, not any direct orders with Putin as Trump’s handler.

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Yes, thanks, this sort of gets at what I’ve been curious about:

But how would such compromising work in practice? Chait’s critics might be watching too much television. This is not an episode of The Americans. No one issues orders, and anyone looking for such evidence is likely to be disappointed. Rather, over time, as relationships grow, favors are asked. Friendships are pressed into service. The key is to induce the target to do what you want without telling him to do it—to be a friend, helping out friends.

Later, there’s no need to receive instruction from a “handler” in the Kremlin. If the president is worried about what the Russians have on him, he may proactively be doing things he believes will keep him in good stead with Putin. A general sense of anxiety could well produce more cooperation than any direct order. This would explain why Trump always seems fearful and defensive whenever the subject of Putin is raised, and why he seems constantly eager to impress the Russian president at every turn.

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This was sort of my position stated earlier in the thread. But I am nowhere near the wordsmith of Nichols, and added in more idle speculation. But the general premise being that it is an unspoken understanding of the results of turning on Putin is what drives Trump’s behavior with regards to Russia.

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i agree

except he’s proven that he likes to cheat on his multiple wives too.