A senior Conservative MP has undertaken to explain his comment that we must consider the “possibility” that the US president is a Russian asset.
Graham Stuart, a former Foreign Office minister, initially issued the remark in response to Donald Trump’s decision to pause all military aid to Ukraine. The extraordinary move came as the US administration looked to increase pressure on Volodymyr Zelenskyy to agree to an unconditional ceasefire with Russia.
Commenting on the developments, Stuart posted to X last week: “We have to consider the possibility that president Trump is a Russian asset.
“If so, Trump’s acquisition is the crowning achievement of [Vladimir] Putin’s FSB career — and Europe is on its own.”
Stuart was asked to explain his position during an appearance on BBC One’s Politics Live programme Monday. Pressed on why he issued the comment questioning the US president’s allegiances, he responded: “Because, well, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…”
The Conservative MP added: “What more could [Putin] possibly ask of Trump than what Trump is doing?”
Stuart told the BBC: “What we have got is a president who is making absolutely no demands of the aggressor, the dictator, the man who has subverted Russian society and seeks on a daily basis to subvert our society — as we’ve seen over the years, and yet is making demand after demand and giving insults and abuse to the victim, the sovereign nation of Ukraine, with its heroic president.
“And therefore it’s hard not to have it as a possibility. Of course, there’s absolutely no hard and fast evidence, which is why I say it’s a possibility. [But] you look back to [Russian oligarch] Dimitri Rybolovlev’s purchase for $95 million of that palm beach property in 2008 just when Trump needed it most.
“And you [have] got to ask yourself whether that, or his dealings in the 80s, or indeed his personal deportment — which you can only imagine at certain times, in or outside Russia, might have left him vulnerable to the compromising of a man who is a KGB agent.
“That’s what Putin did for his whole professional career. He sought to subvert people, turn them to his will, and if he was wanting to do that right now, what more could he possibly ask of Trump than what Trump is doing?”
Josh Self is Editor of Politics.co.uk, follow him on Bluesky here.
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Senior Conservative MP says UK must consider possibility ‘Trump is a Russian asset’
Source: Politics
