The article doesn’t address how the timing of the ad relates to the timing of his trip to Russia
Why would it? There’s no hard evidence. The whole point of the image is to show how suspicious the timing is. It would still be suspicious even without the KGB claim.
who booked the trip
We know who booked the trip because it is in The Art of the Deal.
whether InTourist is run by the KG
A former GRU spy and a historian say it was. I didn’t find anything to lead me to believe that it wasn’t but maybe I didn’t look hard enough. It also behaved in a manor consistent with my expectations of a KGB run tourist agency but that’s just vibes.
this image doesn’t do anything but force me to go try and verify these claims on my own.
Unfortunately, in this day and age you should be making an effort to verify everything before you believe it. How much of an effort is going to vary based on how important the thing is to you.
deleted by creator
Why would it? There’s no hard evidence. The whole point of the image is to show how suspicious the timing is. It would still be suspicious even without the KGB claim.
We know who booked the trip because it is in The Art of the Deal.
A former GRU spy and a historian say it was. I didn’t find anything to lead me to believe that it wasn’t but maybe I didn’t look hard enough. It also behaved in a manor consistent with my expectations of a KGB run tourist agency but that’s just vibes.
Unfortunately, in this day and age you should be making an effort to verify everything before you believe it. How much of an effort is going to vary based on how important the thing is to you.
Here’s a couple sources to get you started:
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/19/trump-first-moscow-trip-215842/
https://web.archive.org/web/20190113232410/https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4116&context=edissertations
TBF trump didn’t write this book … or even read it, according to the guy who ghost-wrote it for him.