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“The story Unger weaves with those earlier accounts and his original reporting is fresh, illuminating and more alarming than the intelligence channel described in the Steele dossier.”—The Washington PostHouse of Trump, House of Putin offers the first comprehensive investigation into the decades-long relationship among Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and the Russian Mafia that ultimately helped win Trump the White House. It is a chilling story that begins in the 1970s, when Trump made his first splash in the booming, money-drenched world of New York real estate, and ends with Trump’s first inauguration as president of the United States. That moment was the culmination of Vladimir Putin’s long mission to undermine Western democracy, a mission that he and his hand-selected group of oligarchs and Mafia kingpins had ensnared Trump in, starting more than twenty years ago with the massive bailout of a string of sensational Trump hotel and casino failures in Atlantic City. This book confirms the most incredible American paranoias about Russian malevolence. To most, it will be a hair-raising revelation that the Cold War did not end in 1991—that it merely evolved, with Trump’s apartments offering the perfect vehicle for billions of dollars to leave the collapsing Soviet Union. In House of Trump, House of Putin, Craig Unger methodically traces the deep-rooted alliance between the highest echelons of American political operatives and the biggest players in the frightening underworld of the Russian Mafia. He traces Donald Trump’s sordid ascent from foundering real estate tycoon to leader of the free world. He traces Russia’s phoenix like rise from the ashes of the post–Cold War Soviet Union as well as its ceaseless covert efforts to retaliate against the West and reclaim its status as a global superpower. Without Trump, Russia would have lacked a key component in its attempts to return to imperial greatness. Without Russia, Trump would not be president. This essential book is crucial to understanding the real powers at play in the shadows of today’s world. The appearance of key figures in this book—Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen, and Felix Sater to name a few—ring with haunting significance in the wake of Robert Mueller’s report and as others continue to close in on the truth.https://amzn.to/4qjR9JHBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-opperman-report--1198501/support.

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The original and primary activity of the Guardian Angels is "safety patrol", in which members walk the streets or ride public transit. Guardian Angels must be in uniform to represent the organization.As if there wasn't enough violence on the streets of American cities, Curtis Sliwa has been busy inventing some. Sliwa, founder of the New York-based Guardian Angels, recently acknowledged that he faked a half dozen of the crime-stopping interventions for which his security group has gained national attention. Current and former associates of Sliwa say there are even more.Why would a group that claims to work in the public interest stoop to such behavior? Sliwa said he did it to gain publicity and support when the idea for a security force was a new idea, and later when something was needed to keep the Angels' public profile high. With no authority and no credibility beyond what they could win through their own good deeds, the fledgling citizen patrollers started small when they staged their first trick, the return of a stolen wallet. Sliwa has been quoted as saying that a parish priest dreamed this up in 1978. While the priest, who is now retired, told the New York Times that it wasn't his idea, he acknowledged playing along because the young do-gooders needed positive attention.A staged crime is never harmless, however, no matter how noble the motive. In a society beset by violence and the fear of harm, trust is the ultimate victim. It is hard enough for people who live in high-crime areas to conduct normal activities, faced with the constant awareness that they might be mugged _ or worse. Raising that anxiety level by creating artificial victims can only harm the fragile trust that allows community life to continue despite drive-by shootings and other random violence.The Guardian Angels allegedly staged more serious stunts as well, including one in which a group member was soaked with gasoline by two would-be "robbers." Tony Mao, the former Angel who now says he doused himself with gasoline, told the New York Times that the idea came from an actual incident.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-opperman-report--1198501/support.