Donald Trump was far from the Washington outsider he claimed to be during his run for the White House, according to communist secret service files released by the Czech government.
At the age of 31, Mr Trump had a “personal relationship” with the US president, one informant reported in 1977. He claimed that Mr Trump was “completely tax-exempt for the next 30 years”. By 1988 another source said that Mr Trump, then aged 42, was “under pressure” to run for the White House and intended to stand for the presidency in 1996.
The reports were unearthed by Czech TV in the Prague archives of the StB, the former Czechoslovakian security service, and reproduced in Bild newspaper in Germany yesterday.
StB agents spied on Mr Trump’s first wife, Ivana Zelnickova, a former skier and model in the communist country, as she began her relationship with Mr Trump and after their marriage.
An informant with the cover name of Lubos reported in June 1977 that Ms Zelnickova married a man in Austria in 1968 and worked there at a petrol station. After that, the informant said, she emigrated to Canada and married Mr Trump on April 7, 1977.
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The file gave details of a prenuptial contract that said Mr Trump wanted at least three children. Ivana eventually gave birth to Donald Jr, Ivanka and Eric.
The pair divorced in 1990. Lubos added that Mr Trump’s company was “absolutely safe” economically because it received commissions from the US government. “Another advantage is the personal relationship with the American president and the fact that he is completely tax-exempt for the next 30 years,” the informant wrote. The US president changed in 1977 from Gerald Ford to Jimmy Carter.
On October 21, 1988, a source with the cover name of Milos reported that Mr Trump was being “put under pressure” to run for the US presidency, without saying where the pressure was coming from.
“Another advantage is the personal relationship with the American president and the fact that [Donald Trump] is completely tax-exempt for the next 30 years‘Lubos’, a Czech secret service informant
Milos referred to a visit his wife made to her home country of Czechoslovakia to see her father, Milos Zelnicek, an engineer. The informant said that any false step by her would “have incalculable consequences for her husband’s position, who intends to run for president in 1996”.
In the event, Bill Clinton won a second term in 1996 against the Republican candidate, Bob Dole.
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An StB report, numbered 450/88, claims that Mr Trump donated $10,000 to both the Democrat and Republican election campaigns in 1988. The file reported that Ivana was, correctly as it turned out, convinced that George Bush Sr would win.
Tomas Vilimek, a Czech historian, told Bild that the communist secret police also observed visits by the Trumps’ children to their grandfather.
“An encrypted document from 1979 states that the phone calls between Ivana and her father were to be wiretapped at least once per year,” Mr Vilimek said. “Their mail exchange was monitored. Ivana’s father was registered as a confidant of the StB. However, that does not mean he was an agent. The authorities forced him to talk to them because of his journeys to the US and his daughter. Otherwise, he would not have been allowed to fly.”