The conclusion was astonishing: Russia's President Vladimir Putin had ordered an influence campaign aimed at undermining trust in American democracy and tarnishing Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton's reputation.
"We also assess that Putin and the Russian government developed a clear preference for incoming President Trump," stated the CIA, FBI, and the National Security Agency (NSA) in a report released in January 2017, two weeks before Trump first took office.
Since then, eight years have passed. But despite numerous investigations by American authorities – from the Justice Department and FBI to Congress – Trump's and Putin's relationship remains a mystery. As far as is known, no one knows if Putin "has" something on Trump – a handle or compromising information, what the Russians call "kompromat".
All we have so far are more questions, more evidence, more situations pointing to very serious questions about Donald Trump's relationship with Russia and specifically with Vladimir Putin, said former FBI chief Andrew McCabe to Foreign Policy in October.
None of the questions have ever been answered. Probably because a thorough and legitimate investigation has never been conducted.
"Bad Bromance"
As early as the 1990s, there was talk about Trump's connections to Russia. The real estate mogul's business was going badly – and what saved the ship was investments from wealthy Russians and former Soviets, including oligarchs close to Putin. In 2018, Trump's longtime architect Alan Lapidus told Foreign Policy that "all the money came from Russia".
His involvement with Russia was deeper than he acknowledged, he said about Trump.
The relationship between Trump and Putin is like a "bad bromance" between two alpha males, wrote NBC News in 2016. On, off, on, off. They talk, they don't talk. It's a bit unclear, "complicated".
At that time, it had been three years since Trump first publicly expressed admiration for Putin.
"Do you think Putin will come to the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow in November? If so, he'll be my new best friend?", Trump tweeted then, in 2013.
A year later, also on then-Twitter (now X): "I think Putin will continue to rebuild the Russian empire."
Trump: Putin is Sly
In the years that followed, before Trump was elected President of the United States in 2016, the two men frequently courted each other. Mutual praise flowed via social media and in various interviews.
He's a very flamboyant man, undoubtedly talented, said Putin in 2015.
The relationship is said to have continued to flourish after Trump left the White House in 2021. According to The Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward's book "War" from last year, they spoke with each other at least seven times between 2021 and 2024. On one occasion, Trump allegedly asked an aide to leave the room so he could have a "private phone call" with Putin.
Two days before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, when Putin had just ordered what he himself euphemistically called "peacekeeping forces" to Russian-backed separatist regions in eastern Ukraine, Trump described the Russian leader as "sly" and "smart".
Putin says a large part of Ukraine is now independent. How smart is that? He's going to go in and keep the peace. We could do the same at our southern border, said Trump on the right-wing podcast "The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show".
Rumors about Women
Rumors about Putin's plausible handle on Trump have been long-lived. They involve everything from business loans to secret recordings – to compromising encounters with women in Russian hotel rooms. In a Senate report from 2020, on Russian influence on the 2016 US election, there are several passages about Trump's relationships with women in Moscow.
It is clear that Trump has been obsessed with the idea of building a Trump Tower in Moscow for decades, plans that have yet to be realized. As early as 1987, he described the vision in his book "The Art of the Deal": "A large luxury hotel right across the street from the Kremlin, in partnership with the Soviet government".
It's entirely possible that the "bromance" between Trump and Putin isn't as complicated as one thinks, observers note. Maybe it's simply Trump's admiration for authoritarian leaders – and their money – that speaks. The President has himself said he's positively inclined towards anyone who opens their wallet. As he described his relationship with the Saudis in 2015:
Saudi Arabia, I get along with them all. They buy apartments from me. They spend 40 million (dollars), 50 million. Should I dislike them?
