Staff Reports
Nicolle Wallace of NBC News claimed on Monday that Donald Trump's desire to be the president in 2016 was influenced by the wishes of Vladimir Putin, the Russian president.
According to Wallace, the bloodlust of Putin for Ukraine and Trump's desire to become the president were intertwined from the beginning. She made the revelation during an interview with Mark Mazzetti, a reporter for the New York Times.
According to the article, Paul Manafort, who was a campaign manager for Donald Trump, had ties to a man identified as Konstantin Kilimnik, who is allegedly a Russian agent. They worked together to develop a peace plan that would involve giving the city of Mariupol to separatists in what would be an autonomous region.
During an interview on ABC's This Week in August 2016, Trump stated that the people of Crimea would rather stay with Russia than with Ukraine. The Washington Post also reported that Trump said during a July 26 event that he was open to recognizing the country's annexation of Crimea.
On February 24, Russia launched a massive attack on Ukraine. The city of Mariupol is a vital port city in the country's southwest, which was captured by the Russians earlier this year.
The allegations that Trump's campaign collaborated with Russia to defeat Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election emerged with the help of the Steele Dossier. The FBI was also reportedly monitoring the activities of the Trump campaign based on the information collected from the Dossier. In 2018, James Baker, a former attorney for the FBI, testified before the House Intelligence Committee. He said that he had reviewed the documents used to justify the surveillance warrants.
According to Mazzetti, the investigators were able to establish that former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn had a close relationship with the Russians. He also claimed that the individuals who were involved in the campaign were often on the fringes of foreign policy.
These individuals, according to Mazzetti, were able to influence Trump's thinking even though he was not planning on doing so. He claimed that they were able to create some of his beliefs through their conversations with him.
The preceding is a summary of an article that originally appeared on Daily Caller.
