Despite President Donald Trump’s repeated refutations to the contrary, the former head of British intelligence service MI6 claims Trump borrowed Russian money in 2008.
Richard Dearlove joined MI6 in 1966 and served as the agency’s head from 1999 to 2004. In a recent interview with Prospect, he claimed that the global financial crisis in 2008 forced Trump to take a Russian loan.
“What lingers for Trump may be what deals – on what terms – he did after the financial crisis of 2008 to borrow Russian money when others in the West apparently would not lend to him.”
Since Dearlove left MI6 in 2004, it’s unclear how he obtained this information. But Robert Amsterdam, a lawyer at an international law firm with experience in Russian affairs, said he was confident that the FBI and other American intelligence services have information linking Trump to Russian financing.
“Trump’s relationship with Russia goes back many, many years. I’m sure the FBI was monitoring it.”
Trump’s business dealings with Russian interests in the U.S. and abroad are well known. But as the New York Times reported last year, a months-long FBI probe into the financial links between Russia and Trump yielded no clear evidence of wrongdoing. And a more recent Reuters report concluded that Russian investments in Trump businesses were not made at the behest of the Russian government.
Dearlove also expressed skepticism at Trump’s recent claim that the Obama administration had Trump Tower bugged or wiretapped with the aid of the National Security Administration and the Government Communications Headquarters – another British intelligence service – during last year’s presidential election.
“This is simply deeply embarrassing – for Trump and the administration, that is. The only possible explanation is that Trump started tweeting without understanding how the NSA-GCHQ relationship actually works.”
FBI Director James Comey likewise rejected the suggestion last month.
Dearlove, though, considers the rightward tilt of European politics – embodied by Recep Erdogan in Turkey, Marine Le Pen in France, Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, and the success of the Brexit vote last year – as more troubling than Trump’s Russian connections.
“For me, the intriguing question is what’s going to happen in the French and the German elections. I don’t think at the moment [Marine] Le Pen will win the French presidency. But let’s say she comes close to winning – whoever beats her is going to have to probably move to the right.”
Featured image via YouTube video.
