We should never, ever forget this October 17, 2015 Donald Trump tweet.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

Link to tweet

Donald J. Trump
?
Russia and the world has already started to respect us again!

2:54 PM - 17 Oct 2015

The tweet contains this Washington Examiner article titled, appropriately "Putin loves Donald Trump":

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/putin-loves-donald-trump

The piece contains this rather interesting profile on Konstantin Rykov, who days after the election, would boast that he ran the social media campaign from Russia using Cambridge Analytica and Wikileaks to get Donald Trump elected:

Donald Trump has said that as president he would get along with Vladimir Putin, and there's evidence that the Republican frontrunner's apparent fondness for the Russian strongman is being reciprocated.

Kremlin mouthpiece Konstantin Rykov said Wednesday in a Twitter post that Trump won the first Democratic presidential debate, held Tuesday in Las Vegas. In that tweet, Rykov linked to a Russian language, pro-Trump website with a Russian domain, www.Trump2016.ru, that he is likely behind. Until a few weeks ago, Rykov's Twitter home page featured Trump and his 2016 campaign slogan, "Make America Great Again."

Western sources who monitor Russian politics told the Washington Examiner that Rykov is a propagandist arm of the Putin government machine. "Rykov is considered to be one of the leading pro-Kremlin bloggers in Russia," said Michael McFaul, the former U.S. ambassador to Russia under President Obama who is now a senior fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution think tank. "As you can see from his Twitter feed, he is very active. And he loves Trump."

Another source described Rykov as a "chief voice and troll for the Kremlin on Twitter."

Rykov is a media entrepreneur who has worked in Russian media and launched technology firms that are connected to the Kremlin. He has been closely associated with the Russian government under Putin and ex-president Dmitry Medvedev, and served briefly in Russia's parliament. Although his social media activities aren't strictly Kremlin-related, sources say he doesn't contradict Putin, and his online commentary on international politics serve as a reliable indicator of the Russian president's opinions and preferences.

Rykov has created a series of websites, similar to Trump2016.ru, or used his Twitter page to post opinions on international politics. He often promotes rightwing political figures; for instance, he has previous promoted the National Front, a French nationalist political party, and its leaders, Jean-Marie Le Pen, and his daughter, Marine Le Pen. Rykov also uses events to draw favorable comparisons to Kremlin policy, such as likening Scotland's independence movement to Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.

It was all so blatantly in your face obvious and braggadocios.

[Angry Dragon]

1. Russian Agent

[Leghorn21]

2. Thats *have* dumbass. nt

[Honeycombe8]

3. This makes me physically ill. Russia set about at least back in 2015 to make Trump King.

Not even President. King. He is made a king, when the checks and balances system is made defunct in some way, like buying off senators and representatives (or doing anything they have to to get loyalty). Trump does his part, using the Ukranian tried and true methodology and slogans (steered by Manafort), and demanding loyalty of all those around him. Then Russia comes in at the end to seal the deal: hacking voting systems in certain districts in certain states that can tilt either way. Oh, and that's after spearing the opposition team illegally.

We now have Russia running part of our government, hand in hand in some cases with our own oligarchy.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

8. Yup. nt

[BlueJac]

4. Traitor!

[Tommy_Carcetti]

5. Yep.

And today's tweets show nothing has changed.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

6. Rykov connected to Cambridge Analytica

Rykov's tweets explicitly mention Cambridge Analytica.

https://medium.com/@ScottMStedman/kremlin-propagandist-boasted-of-his-hacking-efforts-strongly-implied-colluding-with-trump-team-in-a905104965a1

Kremlin Propagandist Boasted of His Hacking Efforts, Strongly Implied Colluding With Trump Team in Facebook Posts
A former Duma deputy with close ties to Putin made the posts less than a week after Donald Trump won the election.

On November 12th 2016, just days after Donald Trump was elected President, a Russian man named Konstantin Rykov posted on Facebook detailing how, “Donald and I decided to free America and make it great again.” In a two part series that reads like a fantasy novel, Rykov illustrated in detail the four year effort to elect Trump.

https://washingtonmonthly.com/2017/11/24/a-trumprussia-confession-in-plain-sight/

A #TrumpRussia Confession in Plain Sight
by Martin Longman November 24, 2017

At about 11:14pm on November 6th, 2012, enough states were called for President Obama that he was declared the winner of the election by NBC News. That was quickly followed up by a similar call on Fox News and finally by CNN. At 11:29pm, Donald Trump blasted out the following defiant tweet:

We can't let this happen. We should march on Washington and stop this travesty. Our nation is totally divided!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2012

Somewhere in Russia, Konstantin Rykov saw Trump’s tweet pop up in his Twitter feed.

Almost exactly four years later, on November 12th, 2016, Mr. Rykov explained what happened next in a pair of Facebook posts.

Also OP's thread from Nov 2017:

https://upload.democraticunderground.com/10029891329

[Tommy_Carcetti]

7. Yup.

And his reference to "the special science department at Cambridge University" appears to be a shout out to Aleksandr Kogan, who developed the app that was inserted into Facebook for CA.

As insane as Rykov's confession sounds on first read, more and more of it looks to be verified as true.