Shvets discussed the matter with his
superior, who wanted to check it out with headquarters. “And the next day, he
calls me saying, ‘Stand down. He’s being taken care of,’” Shvets told me.
Translation: There was no need to recruit Simes because he was already a
contact of the KGB. Simes currently hosts a political show on Channel One
Russia, a state-controlled channel.
Before long, the Trump-Russia alliance
went full steam ahead. On June 9, 2016, Donald Trump Jr., Jared
Kushner,
and Paul Manafort met with several Russian
operatives including Emin Agalarov and Natalia Veselnitskaya in Trump Tower in
hopes of getting dirt on Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. That July, at the GOP convention in Cleveland, Team
Trump famously weakened the Ukraine plank of the Republican platform, removing
language that called…
