Watch: Video shows Trump lying, admits he has a 'relationship' with Vladimir Putin

Throughout the 2016 USelection, Donald Trump has fawned over Vladimir Putin, but has repeatedly denied knowing him personally. But in 2013, Trump was filmed admitting that he does "havea relationship" with Vladimir Putin

Donald Trump has brazenlyrefused torelease his tax returns, falsely saying that anaudit he was underprevented him from doing so. Then his son Donald Trump Jr, an official Trump Team member, gave the real reason--that releasing his tax returns would subject them to public scrutiny.

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Trumpis the firstpresidential candidate in about 40 years to refuse this basic steptowards transparency. Trump has also refused to divest himself from his private businesses before taking on the role of President, saying the business will be kept in the family--that is, it will berun by hischildren, who have already sat in on official meetings with nationalleadersandglobal tech giants.

The prospect of Trumpbeing hopelessly enmeshed in a series ofconflict of interests, and even the fear that his presidency will be unconstitutional from his first day in office, are all too real fears. But because of Trump's secrecy and because this is all so unprecedented, it's hard to sort it out precisely.

But the fears grow each timemore public revelations linkTrump, and the people in his administration,to Russia.

A small sampling of Trump's Russian connections:

Today it was reported that Trump's selection for Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, was once the director of a US-Russian oil company, and personally received rewards from Vladimir Putin. The Guardian reports that Tillerson is "close"to Igor Sechin, a hardliner ex-KGB member who heads Russia's state oil company, Rosneft. Tillerson also has no political experience whatsoever.

Two major US intelligence agencies and the White House have statedexplicitly that they believeRussian hackers intervened in the US election in order tofavour Trump, and that this was personally approved by Vladmir Putin.

Paul Manafort, a former Trump campaign manager, quitduring the election after evidence emerged thathe lobbied for pro-Russian Ukrainian leaderViktor Yanukovych. Manafort initially denied the charge, which he calledpolitical propaganda.Other reports claim Manafort funnelled money so pro-Russian interests could secret lobby Washington without making their influence known.NBC reported in August that Manafort was a key player in multi-million dollar business deals between Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs, one of them for a close Putin ally with alleged ties to organised crime.

Donald Trump's son DonaldJr--who has no experience in politics but was reportedly seeking White House security clearance--told a real estate conference in 2008, "Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets...We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia". The Washington Post published this quote, attributing it to an account of the conference published on the website ofa trade publication,eTurboNews.

While the FBI and CIA are investigatingthe links between Donald Trump and Russia, the Electoral College will not be briefed by these American intelligence agencies before voting on whether or not to make Trump the president Monday.

There will be information connectingTrump toRussia that they, and we, do not know.

(WION)