Golden Showers. Oh boy. Try explaining this one to your kids. I mean “pussy grabber” was bad enough, but now this.
Christopher Steele, the former MI6 agent who allegedly compiled “the dossier” had to go underground yesterday because he already fears for his life.[1] In the meantime, it’s become clear that Steele is not the only former intelligence officer who had this information. The existence of a compromising Russian dossier on President-elect Donald Trump has been confirmed by multiple sources, according to the BBC.[2]
As the New York Times clearly outlined yesterday, there are some things that we know and some things that we don’t.
Things that we currently know:
- In September 2015, a Washington political research firm, Fusion GPS, began to compile “opposition research” on Donald Trump, for a Republican client.
- Last June, after evidence of Russian hacking of Democratic targets surfaced, Fusion GPS hired a retired British intelligence officer, Christopher Steele, to investigate Mr. Trump’s ties to Russia.
- After it became clear that Mr. Trump would be the Republican nominee, Democratic clients who supported Hillary Clinton began to pay Fusion GPS for this same opposition research.
- Steele, who had long experience in Russia and a network of connections there, compiled dozens of reports detailing what he heard from his contacts.
- The reports contain unsubstantiated claims that Russian officials tried to obtain influence over Mr. Trump by preparing to blackmail him with sex tapes and bribe him with business deals.
- The reports also allege that the Trump campaign met with Russian operatives to discuss the Russians’ hacking and leaking of emails and documents from the Democratic National Committee and from Hillary’s campaign chairman, John Podesta.
- Fusion GPS and Mr. Steele shared the memos first with their clients, and later with the FBI and multiple journalists at The New York Times and elsewhere. The reports also reached a number of members of Congress.
- Last week, when the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency gave a classified report on the Russian hacking, leaking and efforts to influence the presidential election to President Obama, to the Obergropenführer, and to eight congressional leaders.
Things that we don’t currently know:
- Most critically, whether any of the claims in the reports are true. [3]
- What exactly prompted American intelligence officials to pass on a summary of the unvetted claims to President Obama, the Donald and Congress.[4]
Obviously, whether this turns into a major scandal or not is going to depend entirely on whether any of this turns out to be true. It’s going to be very hard to prove whether the Russians have a Trump card or not unless the Russians play that Trump card. And now, with all the rumors out there in advance, that Trump card has effectively been neutered.
But here’s the thing: the American people can understand an old-fashioned sex scandal. Conflicts of interest and the emoluments clause? Who gives a shit? But a golden shower?[5] That’s like semen on a blue dress. That’s like a blow job in the Oval Office. We can visualize that (although frankly, I’d rather not).
In the meantime, the late-night comedians are starting to have a little fun with this, because how can they not? What a way to begin your odyssey as President, Herr Obergropenführer!
Assuming for a moment that there is some truth to the allegations – and that is obviously an assumption that one cannot yet make – it would certainly demonstrate very graphically the degree to which the Russians wanted Trump to be elected over Hillary Clinton, whom Vladimir Putin just hates.
[1] According to the New York Times, “Mr. Steele, 52, was a longstanding officer with MI6, the British equivalent of the C.I.A., serving in Paris and Moscow in the 1990s before retiring. In 2009, he started a private research firm, Orbis Business Intelligence Ltd., with Christopher Burrows, now 58. Mr. Burrows has refused to confirm or deny that Mr. Steele and Orbis wrote the memos that made up the dossier, initially under contract to a Washington firm paid to dig into harmful matters from Mr. Trump’s past.”
[2] During a BBC radio broadcast on Wednesday, reporter Paul Wood “revealed that the former British spy was not the only source” claiming to have knowledge that Russia is possession of sex tapes that could embarrass the president-elect. “The rumors or the allegations or whatever you want to call them have been circulating for a number of months now,” Wood explained. “I saw the report, compiled by the former British intelligence officer, back in October. He is not, and this is the crucial thing, the only source for this.”
[3] Obviously, these kinds of claims are very difficult to verify. American intelligence agencies have not confirmed them, and the Donald is adamant that they are a complete fabrication. In addition, one specific allegation – that the Donald’s lawyer (Michael Cohen) met with a Russian official in Prague in August or September, has been denied by both Mr. Cohen (who says he has never been to Prague) and by Oleg Solodukhin, one of the Russian officials named in the memo.
[4] Officials have said they felt the president-elect should be aware of the memos, which had circulated widely in Washington. But as noted by the NY Times, “putting the summary in a report that went to multiple people in Congress and the executive branch made it very likely that it would be leaked.”
[5] One very interesting detail in the reports is the allegation that the Obergropenführer had the prostitutes he hired urinate on the bed at the Presidential Suite of the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Moscow, because the bed had “previously been slept in by the Obamas” and because the Donald “hated them so much.”