‘It's Komprocated: Trump, Witkoff and Putin on The New Frontline’ — My Latest ‘Hot Type’ Column in Byline
For today’s column in Byline Supplement, I report on how autocrats are now in lock step to erode our ability to parse reality, but that doesn’t mean that facts are extinct
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Remember that time that Steve Witkoff vouched for a Russian mobster, and then said he regretted it — said he was just doing a favor for a mutual acquaintance… Craig Unger does. He recounted the story in a RadPod interview, and I relay it in my latest Hot Type column:
You’ll find an excerpt below.
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Here is an excerpt from this week’s report:
Hot Type: It’s Komprocated —Trump, Witkoff and Putin on The New Frontline
Heidi Siegmund Cuda reports on how autocrats are now in lock step to erode our ability to parse reality
An excerpt from Byline Supplement:
In war, the frontline is a boundary between opposing forces, where the battle is particularly hot. In Ukraine, there are actual military fronts — multiple theaters of operation. Those who choose not to ignore Putin’s war crimes, are aware of this hot war.
At a global level, however, the frontline remains largely invisible, but it’s there — autocrats have bought up most of our communication spaces and the lies and misinformation campaigns they run are shared across global networks in lock step to erode our ability to parse reality.
In this war, it’s autocrats vs the rest of us, and the autocrats are winning. The battlefields are populated with networks of actors paid to simp for the autocrats. A ‘Texas Christian MAGA’ account on Twitter is run from Macedonia; a big ‘US fan account’ of Elon Musk, which might tweet 100 times a day, will operate from Nigeria.
Last week’s location tweak on Musk’s platform revealed what most of us doing this work have known for a decade: platforms are infested with false amplification. This is not surprising news when one considers how hard-working Russians out of St. Petersburg lobbied for Trump, while pretending to be patriotic Americans back in 2016.
Thursday was the fourth annual International Disinformation Awareness Day — but the only way you’d know that is if you read independent media.
The event’s creator, Dietmar Pichler, an advisor on strategic communication against foreign interference and founder of the Disinfo Resilience Network, told Byline Supplement it was born of necessity.
“We can see that an international autocratic information front is forming, supported by local actors, extremists, agents of influence or so called useful idiots, some even from the academic sphere, who parrot the dictators’ talking points,” he said…
The Vienna-based activist, who is also an editor at Inved.eu, said, “Protecting our information space is not only a task for institutions but a responsibility shared by all of us. Every citizen plays a role in building resilience against manipulation and propaganda, no matter if it is overt or subtle.”
In the US, it is no longer subtle, as the past week’s events have revealed.
Regurgitating for the Kremlin
Headlines have been dominated by so-called ‘peace negotiations’ by Trump’s special envoy to Russia, Steve Witkoff. Each point is simply a Putin demand, but to understand why Witkoff is regurgitating for the Kremlin, you have to understand facts.
In multiple interviews, House of Trump, House of Putin author Craig Unger explained to me Witkoff’s ties to the Russian mafia.
“I first came across Witkoff when I was writing House of Trump, House of Putin, and I left him out because it seemed like a loose end, and it’s only connecting now,” Unger said. “But he was in the New York real estate circle. He is a big, big player. He owns the Woolworth Building, which is one of the greatest buildings in the entire country. He owns a lot of other buildings, like The Daily News building, quite a few others. He’s a multi-billionaire. He’s got at least $2 billion dollars.
“But what struck me about him back seven years ago, when I was doing House of Trump, was that there was a bust in Trump Tower of a poker game — $100 million poker game on the 63rd floor. Now this is considered the most desirable apartment in the entire building. It is directly under Donald Trump’s penthouse suite… if that is, you fancy living beneath Donald Trump. I’m not sure everyone does.”
Unger explained that Witkoff was named in a 2013 real estate trade publication, The Real Deal, reporting that Witkoff submitted a recommendation for indicted Russian mobster Anatoly Golubchik several years earlier when Golubchik applied to live in a condominium building at 971 Madison Avenue.
According to indictments in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, Golubchik played a key role in the gambling ring based out of Trump Tower.
“According to Poker News, a trade publication for the gaming industry, Hollywood actors used to attend, and the story behind it was made into a movie called Molly’s Game,” said Unger, who noted the gambling ring was busted in April of 2013.
“More importantly, it was also populated by a number of colleagues of mobster Semion Mogilevich, known as the Brainy Don and one of the most powerful figures in the Russian Mafia,” he said.
Witkoff distanced himself from Golubchik, in a statement to The Real Deal he said he regretted providing a reference for him and said he did it as “a favor to a mutual acquaintance.”
“Now, was that mutual acquaintance Donald Trump?” Unger asked. While writing House of Trump, House of Putin eight years ago, Unger said he asked the White House but received no answer.
Exploring Witkoff’s Ties to the Russian Mob
So Witkoff’s ties to the Russia mob — which of course is directly linked to Russian security services, FSB — should be of keen interest to someone, anyone, in US intelligence, say, the FBI, for example.
But the problem is, US intelligence is now run by a QAnon/Russian propaganda superspreader, FBI Director Kash Patel. His deputy director at the FBI, Dan Bongino, has been banned from YouTube for being a liar.
It makes things komprocated.
Unger remains gobsmacked.
“Witkoff’s had zero diplomatic experience, less than you or I,” he said. “He’s had absolutely zero, but he’s friendly with the Russian mafia, or at least he’s friendly enough to give a recommendation for them, and that says everything. Witkoff has also been a golfing buddy of Trump for decades, and that’s all you need to know — he’s going to be doing whatever Trump wants him to do, and Trump, in turn, is doing what Vladimir Putin wants him to do.”
Komprocations
In leaked transcripts of phone calls Witkoff had with a senior Putin aide, Witkoff is very deferential to Russia, which initiated the war in Ukraine and whose leaders have been charged with myriad war crimes by the International Criminal Court. He also coaches Putin’s aide Yuri Ushakov on how to fluff Trump.
Bloomberg — the media outlet that leaked the transcripts — reported on October 29 that Ushakov had a call with Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s economic advisor, who had just met with Witkoff in Miami.
“Witkoff presented points that came directly from a foreign sanctioned Dmitriev,” geopolitical analyst Monique Camarra told Byline Supplement. “That’s direct foreign interference. That’s been normalised. It would have been considered a crime before Trump.”
Ridiculous Side Shows
And once again, Freezer Face Putin gets in front of a camera, appearing to be ridiculing Trump and the entire so-called ‘peace plan.’ He said it’s impossible to sign any agreement with Ukraine, because it doesn’t have a legitimate government.
“It was just an active measures op to embarrass Trump and the administration,” said Camarra.
Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, co-chairman of the Ukraine Caucus appeared to agree, writing on social media that “these ridiculous side shows and secret meetings need to stop.”
But secret meetings and ridiculous side shows won’t stop, because that is the actual war — you’ll find the highlights on TV in primetime. As a side-show example, Friday’s breaking news was that the US is set to recognise Russia’s control over Crimea and other occupied Ukrainian territories — another appeasement from Trump.
In reality, Russia is broke. More than half of Russia’s regions ran budget deficits in the first nine months of the year, Vedomosti reported Tuesday. And while military spending artificially boosted its economy, it’s widely known that it’s now dependent on a war that it can neither afford to win, nor to lose. Russia is struggling to pay its soldiers, which is a real morale killer.
I find myself thinking of Yevgeny Prigozhin these days. Recalling how the ex-con and military leader, who admitted in 2022 that he interfered in US elections, led a rebellion against the Russian Defence Ministry in June 2023. He said they lied about the war in Ukraine, as he advanced his men toward Moscow. He was shot out of the sky in August 2023, if you can believe anything reported by Russian media.
Before his assasination, Priogozhin had been put in charge of the St. Petersburg operation, the generically named Internet Research Agency, which paid teams of writers to work 24 hours a day to lie to Russians, Ukrainians, Americans, the British — anywhere in the world they were running election interference operations.
Pushkin First, Then the Tanks
And it’s now up to the remaining minds on the opposite side of the international autocratic information front to fight. So we gather our allies. We understand that this front is not just about elections, it’s a war for our minds.
“Ukrainians woke up and accidentally discovered themselves on the battlefield, and this is exactly what is taking place right now with the US, with the collective West, as we call it, is the democracies and the world in general, we are already at war,” Ukrainian historian Tetiana Boriak told me. “We might not know this, we might not wish this. We might not have heard anything about the term ‘cognitive warfare’, but we are already in the war.”
She said the goal is the “elimination of self consciousness, a change of mental civilizational foundation of the enemy’s society,” so they wake up one day and find themselves deprived of sovereignty, under foreign occupation.
She says the Russian mentality is oriented toward the weaponizing of everything that could be used as a weapon…
“As Ukrainians say, about the way Russian culture is used as a weapon: ‘Russian tanks enter after Pushkin.’ Pushkin is the first step, and then you have either missiles or you have Russian tanks.”
And what do those of us on the front have to use as a weapon, aside from the obvious truth? One International Disinformation Awareness Day, started by a guy in Vienna, angry at the assault on the minds of his neighbors.
Pichler dedicated the day “to all the experts, journalists and volunteers who put a lot of effort into tackling this issue despite all the resistance and obstacles.”
Odds stacked against us, we are still here, pulling facts out of our arsenal like they still matter.
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