The Complete Trump-Russia Timeline: 39 Parts, One Conclusion

After ten years on the biggest national security story of our time, I've finished a 39-part probe into how Donald Trump became an asset of Russian intelligence and how they helped make him president.

May 28, 2026

Before you dive in: The complete Timeline is available for free in full for now. However, starting July 1, access will depend on your subscription level. Parts 1–5 will remain free for everyone. Parts 6–20 will remain free for all subscribers (paid and free), and the rest of the 39-part investigation — that is, the final 19 chapters on how Russian intelligence put Trump in the White House — will be available to paid subscribers only. Start at the beginning. Subscribe at any point to keep reading.

It’s done.

After ten years of reporting on the most consequential national security story of our time, I have completed The Trump-Russia Timeline — a 39-part investigation into how the Russians cultivated Donald Trump as an intelligence asset and helped put him in the White House.

That’s right. This is the story of how an asset of Russian intelligence became President of the United States.

This is not a collection of opinion pieces. It is a documented, sourced, chronological record — built from primary sources, congressional testimony, intelligence files, my two books on the subject(House of Trump, House of Putin and American Kompromat), and on-the-record interviews — tracing the relationship between Donald Trump and Russian intelligence from its earliest documented origins through the present day.

Thirty-nine parts. Ten years of reporting. One coherent story.

Part 1: Czech, Mate (1977) The East Bloc First Sets Its Sights on Trump.

Part 2: The Soviet Union’s Trojan Horse Throughout the Decade, the KGB Exploited Unseen Loopholes in American Policies to Carry Out Espionage operations in the US.

Part 3: The Spotter Agent Why did Trump betray Ukraine? The Real Story Behind Trump’s Ties to Russia and How He was Cultivated by the KGB.

Part 4: Former Soviet Agent: How Trump Was Lured into the KGB’s Web(1980) The Operation Begins.

Part 5: Trump’s Russian Laundromat (1984) How David Bogatin Put Down $6 Million for Five Trump Condos. The Laundromat Begins.

You've reached the end of the free preview! Starting July 1, you’ll have to subscribe— free or paid—to continue through Part 20. A paid subscription will give you access to the complete investigation through Part 39.

Part 6: The KGB Sets Its Trap (1985-1986) The Story Behind Trump’s First Visit to the USSR: “Trump Melted Immediately.”

Part 7: Master Negotiator, Man of Peace (1986) Trump Prepares for Moscow.

Part 8: The KGB Reels Him In(1987) Trump’s First Trip to the Soviet Union.

Part 9: The New Manchurian Candidate (1987 Trump Throws His Hat in the Ring. Sort Of.

Part 10: The Gorbachev Fixation (1987) How Trump Lied about Meeting the Soviet Leader.

Part 11: Prying Eyes (1990) How the Czech StB Investigated the Trumps—Thanks to Ivana’s Czech Roots.

Part 12: King Midas in Reverse (the 1990s) Trump’s Bloated Empire Totters—and the Russians Come to His Rescue Again. And Again.

Part 13: And You Thought the Soviet Union was Bad... (the 1990’s) How the Russian Federation—a Newly-Formed Mafia State—Became the Perfect Vehicle to Manipulate Donald Trump.

Part 14: Sex! Lies! Videotape? (1996) Years after his first stab at building a Trump Tower Moscow, Trump Tries Again — and Sinks Deeper into the Seamy World of Russian Kompromat.

Part 15: A Gangster’s Paradise (the late ‘90’s) The Mobsters and Oligarchs Who Helped Put Trump in Power — and Why Trump Is Transforming the US into a Mafia State.

Part 16: The Biggest Grift of All (2000) How Semion Kislin Helped Funnel Russian Flight Capital into Trump Real Estate.

Part 17: Paul Manafort’s Griftapalooza (2004) How Viktor Yanukovych's Fate Previews Trump's Nonstop Grifting.

Part 18: The Franchise (2000-2010) How Trump Reinvented Himself as the Colonel Sanders of Luxury High-Rises — with Russian Help.

Part 19: Moscow! Moscow! Moscow! (2004-2006) Trump's Forty-Year Fantasy of Building Trump Tower Moscow.

Part 20: Trump Markets His Brand in Moscow (2007) Trump Vodka Flopped — but Trump Made Himself a Brand Russians Would Never Forget.

Halfway through and finding this valuable? After July 3, the final 19 parts — covering the Miss Universe pageant, Midnight in Moscow, the 2016 campaign, Russian active measures, and the endgame — will be available to paid subscribers only. Don’t wait—subscribe now!

Part 21: If at First, You Don’t Succeed (2008) Trump Fails Again at Trump Tower Moscow — but Connects with Pavel Fuks, an Oligarch with Alleged Ties to Russian Intelligence.

Part 22: That’s What Friends are For: Inside Dmitry Rybolovlev’s $95 Million Trump Bailout (2008) How a Russian Billionaire Mysteriously Rushed to Trump's Aid When He Needed It Most.

Part 23: Marking Cards and Stacking The Deck (2009)The High-Stakes Poker Game in Trump Tower That Served as a Massive Money-Laundering Operation.

Part 24: Sergei Millian and Donald Trump’s Russian Laundromat (2008) In 2016, The High-Stakes Poker Game in Trump Tower That Served as a Massive Money-Laundering Operation.

Part 25: Trump’s Attempt at a Russian Heavyweight Reality Show That Never Was (2008) A Forgotten Foray into Mixed Martial Arts — and Its Alleged Ties to the Russian Mob.

Part 26: The Trump SoHo: How Donald Trump Became the Colonel Sanders of Real Estate--and Money Laundering (2008) If You’re a Wealthy but Lawless Russian Oligarch and You Need to Launder a Few Million, who Ya Gonna Call? Trump!

Part 27: The Trump Toronto Tower: Another Shadowy Kremlin Funded Project (2011) How Trump Reaped Millions from a Franchise That Left Investors High and Dry.

Part 28: Luffing all the way to the Bank: Trump Ocean Club, Panama (2011) How Trump's Russian Laundromat Switched Its Spin Cycle to Overdrive South of the Border.

Part 29: Trump’s Baku Breakdown (2011) How Ivanka Trump Became the Face of One of the Most Corrupt Trump-Branded Projects of All.

Part 30: Trump’s Russian Laundromat: The South Florida Edition (2003-2010’s) How Russians Gobbled Up Trump Condos in South Florida via All-Cash, Anonymous Transactions.

Part 31: Georgia on his Mind (2011) How Trump Cashed In on Yet Another Flopped Franchise — This Time in Batumi.

Part 32: Missteps on the Steppes of Central Asia (2012) Trump Continues to Ransack the Remnants of the Former Soviet Union. Next Stop: Kazakhstan.

Part 33: Dealer’s Choice: Trump and the Russian Mafia (2013) How the Leader of a $100 Million Money-Laundering Operation Ended Up on the Red Carpet at Miss Universe.

Part 34: From Las Vegas to Moscow: The Miss Universe Pageant and Trump’s Russian Ties (2013) How Trump Won Kremlin Support While Staging a Pageant in Moscow

Part 35: Midnight in Moscow: The Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner Edition (2014) Jared and Ivanka’s under-the-radar trip to Moscow didn’t make headlines, but it played a vital role in solidifying relationships between the Trump family and key oligarchs in Putin’s kleptocracy.

Part 36: The Golden Escalator, the Moscow Deal, and Russian Operatives How Russian Operatives Penetrated Multiple Aspects of Trump's Presidential Campaign.

Part 37: “Russia, If You’re Listening....” How Russian Intelligence Went into Overdrive in Support of Trump in the Summer of 2016.

Part 38: Hackers, Bots, Trolls, and Things How Evidence of Russian Collusion Surfaced — and Was Buried — in the Final Weeks of the 2016 Campaign.

Part 39: Into the Oval Office The Final Post in my Trump-Russia Timeline After 36 Years of Cultivation, Russian Intelligence Finally Put Its Man in the White House. This Is How They Did It.

Remember, the Trump-Russia Timeline is free to all subscribers — for now. But on July 1, Parts 1–39 move behind the paywall. Subscribe today, free or paid, and lock in permanent access.

This series exists because readers like you made it possible. If you’ve found this work valuable — if you’ve shared it, cited it, argued about it, or simply read it and thought: someone needed to do this — then I’d ask you to consider going paid.

After all, investigations like this can’t happen without some support. And there’s more on the way!

Thanks for reading American Kompromat! This post is public so feel free to share it.

And don’t forget my books! For even more complete stories about how Trump became a Russian asset, buy House of Trump, House of Putin, and/or American Kompromat.

And don’t miss my most recent book, Den of Spies!