This Didn’t Start in Alaska: Trump Has Always Been Russia’s Asset
- john raymond
- Aug 20
- 2 min read
The fatal analytic mistake outlets like MidasTouch and even ex-CIA commentators continue to make is treating Trump’s subservience to Russia as a fresh phenomenon, the result of this meeting, this manipulation, this summit.
They narrate a fall—Trump being “fooled,” “trapped,” “turned into a PR man.” The truth is different: Trump has long been aligned with Russian interests—for decades now.
Alaska is not the beginning, but the continuation of a long arc of service.
Evidence of Continuity
1980s–1990s cultivation Trump was courted by Soviet and post-Soviet networks from the moment he began looking for financing outside American banks. Russian money, real estate laundering, and business ties created a dependency structure long before politics entered the picture. This was spotting and developing—classic intelligence tradecraft.
2000s financial lifeline With repeated bankruptcies, Trump Tower and other properties became laundromats for Russian capital. “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of our assets,” Donald Trump Jr. admitted in 2008. This was not hidden; it was structural. Trump’s empire survived on Kremlin-adjacent inflows.
2016 campaign integration By the time of the 2016 election, the Trump campaign was already saturated with Russian influence: Manafort, Kilimnik, Flynn, Papadopoulos, the Trump Tower meeting. The Republican platform was rewritten to soften on Ukraine. These were not mistakes or sudden manipulations; they were operational outcomes of years of cultivation.
Presidency 2017–2020 Helsinki 2018, the withholding of aid to Ukraine, constant attacks on NATO—all confirm the trajectory. Trump governed as though Russian regime security was his priority. The intelligence community noted manipulation in real time, but the deeper continuity—that he was functioning as an asset—was buried beneath “incompetence” framing.
2025 return Alaska did not make Trump a Russian asset. It confirmed that he always was. The performance—the Beast ride, the B-2 flyover, the parroting of lines about “Ukraine blocking peace”—was the flowering of a decades-old relationship, not a new betrayal.
Real Analysis
By ignoring history, places like MidasTouch and even Brennan/Price leave the public with the impression that Trump could “wake up” or “do better” next time. That misframes the stakes. A man compromised for forty years does not suddenly become free of kompromat or financial servitude. He cannot “turn” into an asset at a summit; he is an asset, and always has been.
This is where the Raymond Method clarifies:
Pillar One (Regime Security): Trump’s personal survival has long depended on Russian financial and political backing.
Pillar Two (Asymmetric Warfare): The summit was not about persuasion but about reinforcing the narrative inversion Trump was already primed to deliver.
Pillar Three (Byzantine Traitor-General): Trump is not a victim of manipulation but a collaborator, executing the role of a traitor-general inside the alliance.
Implications
If analysis continues to treat Trump’s subservience as a sudden, situational event, the public will underestimate the permanence of the danger. This is not episodic manipulation but structural capture.
Every meeting with Putin is not a “risk” of Trump being manipulated; it is a guaranteed reinforcement of a relationship that has defined him for decades.
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