The word of one former KGB spy doesn't move the needle or add much to the story. It's been pretty obvious for a long time that Trump was significantly compromised a long time ago. Trump was the ideal target. /1 https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/1355182634016632835

He was an ethically challenged, none-too-bright businessman with constant money woes, who operated in real estate and casinos. Both of those industries are frequent venues for money laundering. That made him the ideal washing machine for the Russian. He was probably recruited /2

"on principle" by the RIS and opportunistically exploited since. After the fall of the USSR, he very likely came into his own as a money launderer. His political ambitions were a bonus. I've never found the argument that he was under close supervision particularly convincing. /3

While it is clear the Russians had a hold over him, I think he mostly operated as wind-up chaos toy by the Russians. Given Trump's character, they just had to unleash him on the American polity and watch the dumpster fires start. The Russians also brilliantly played the GOP./4

They needed a political backstop for their man, and the boundless greed and lust for power of the GOP made them easy pickings for the Russians. They didn't need to do much, just a nudge here and there. The GOP was arrogant enough to ultimately believe that their total support/5

for a Russia compromised Trump was their idea. In a way it was. Russia didn't have to work too hard to get the GOP to corrupt itself, because it had already been corrupted by years of dirty trick politics. Ultimately they came with 45,000 votes of winning it all. /6

We are foolishly allowing the man who organized a deadly coup to stay free and plot more America destroying mischief. The GOP has become a far-right authoritarian party living on a diet of conspiracy theories, lies, fear. It's all financed by dark money provided /7

by the American elite eager for even more tax cuts and zero oversight. Coup plotters and supporters are walking the halls of Congress right now. The game is not over. /8