COMPROMISED

Even Before he Became President, Trump said and did things that gave the Russian intelligence services the means by which to coerce him-either subtly or explicitly-into taking actions that would benefit their country rather than his. The moment Trump said publicly, "I have no business dealings with Russia," he knew he was lying, Putin knew he was lying, and the FBI had reason to believe he was lying. But American citizens didn't know that. The then-presidential candidate's public denial of his business dealings in Russia signaled to Putin that Trump was more interested in maintaining his personal financial interests than in telling the truth to the American people, and that he needed Putin's complicity to maintain the lie. To use an intelligence term that you will be seeing a lot in this book, in this moment Trump became compromised. Book jacket.