When BuzzFeed broke the media blackout on January 10th and published the Christopher Steele dossier on Donald Trump, the headlines were all focused on the most salacious allegation it contained. It’s worth revisiting that allegation because it’s been mischaracterized from the very beginning.
Steele’s topline allegation was that a “Former top Russian intelligence officer claims FSB has compromised TRUMP [whose] conduct in Moscow has included perverted sexual acts which have been arranged/monitored by the FSB.”
The FSB is the Foreign Security Service of the Russian Federation, which is the rough equivalent of our own CIA. There was quite a bit more detail in the dossier. Specifically, the story went that in 2013 Trump rented the “presidential suite” in the Ritz Carlton hotel in Moscow because he knew that Barack and Michelle Obama had stayed in that room once while visiting Russia. While he has renting the suite, he hired prostitutes to “defile” the bed in which the Obamas had slept by urinating on each other while he watched. Trump distracted from the allegation about his motivation by arguing that he was too much of a germaphobe to allow women to pee on him, but the dossier specifically said that he was not an active participant in the “golden showers.” It did suggest that this was a sexual perversion that Trump was acting out, but the reason given for him instigating this act was less sexual than some kind of twisted revenge (perhaps for getting humiliated by the president at the 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner).
Steele went to some effort to corroborate this explosive story. The part I just related was provided by Source D who was described as “a close associate of Trump who had organized and managed his recent trips to Moscow.” Quite a few people suspect that Source D was Boris Epshteyn who was just forced out of the White House for unspecified reasons and took a job as the “chief political analyst” for the Sinclair Broadcasting Group. That has not been confirmed.
Steele also had a Source E who told him that some Ritz Carlton staff were aware of the Trump/Golden Shower story at the time and subsequently. Source E introduced a Russian intelligence operative to Source F, a female employee at the hotel. Source F also corroborated the story. Finally (as stated at the top) Source B, who was a former high level Russian intelligence office still active in the Kremlin’s inner circles, confirmed that the government had collected enough material on Trump during his visits that they could blackmail him. Specifically, Trump had engaged in questionable sexual activity that was “arranged/monitored” by the FSB.
It was probably unfortunate that so much focus was put on the golden showers part of the dossier because it wasn’t something that could be confirmed. Yes, it’s easy to establish that the rumor went around and that many people at the Ritz Carlton believed that it occurred. It was much harder to confirm that it happened as described or that the Russians had video or audio evidence of it with which to blackmail Trump. The more important part was what Source B was confirming. Regardless of the veracity of the Ritz Carlton story, a high level Russian intelligence source was saying that the FSB had arranged/monitored sexually compromising situations for Trump.
Because the salacious golden showers story led the dossier, reporters and news organizations were reluctant to publish it. The lewdness had the tendency to discredit the entire document since it was outrageous and unconfirmed. But there were plenty of other parts of the dossier that could be falsified or verified. After some efforts to do that, the FBI was satisfied that the dossier was accurate in many respects. They used it to go to the FISA court and obtain a warrant to monitor the activities of Carter Page.
On the right, the reaction to learning that the FBI relied in part on the dossier to get a warrant on Page is to howl in outrage that they used a “fake” and “dodgy” source. On the left, the reaction is to treat this as confirmation that dossier is legit and to use that as an excuse to revisit the formerly discredited golden showers story.
I don’t think either side has it quite right.
The right was way too quick to dismiss the quality of Christopher Steele’s work. He’s a former MI6 officer who worked under diplomatic cover in Moscow and headed the Russia Desk from 2004 to 2009. He has an excellent reputation in the intelligence community. He clearly has sources and he knows how to write intelligence reports. The dossier was never a fake. It wasn’t gospel, either, nor did it purport to be accurate in every respect. But it was based on real sources, many of which were well-placed sources.
The left’s problem is different. The golden showers story may be true or may not be true. The dossier never really alleged it was true. What it said was that a source close to Trump who had managed his trips to Moscow had been telling the story. It said that the rumor was also believed and spread by people on the staff at the hotel. And it said that a highly placed Russian intelligence source did not confirm that story specifically but confirmed that the FSB had blackmail-worthy sexual material on Trump from his visits to Moscow.
I think the more Steele’s work is corroborated in general, the more we can be sure that he didn’t make things up. So, what’s more credible now is not that the golden showers took place. What’s more credible is that the rumor was real and that it was being related as true by a person very close to Trump who would be in a position to know. And it was possible to establish that people in Moscow at the hotel had heard the same story and believed it.
The thing is, what really matters is the more general question of whether Source B (the former high ranking Russian intelligence office still active in the Kremlin’s inner circles) was telling the truth when he said they had enough material on Trump to blackmail him. If that’s true, the prurient details don’t matter.
O/T but good riddance
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/jason-chaffetz-not-seek-reelection
Translation: “I am going where the real money is. K Street”.
Or, “I have been informed that if I run, some things will come out on me that will be really bad.”
It is apparent that the prurient in anything is always going to get the first and largest amount of ink. Though few will readily admit it, most everyone wants to anonymously peek into the metaphorical bedroom window if there is anything sexual going on. There is a reason that the magazine rack in the checkout line in every grocery store always bleats out sexually charged headlines. And more eyes and ears are what fill the coffers of all the various media entities.
I am still waiting in anticipation for that initial droplet from this steady “DRIP, DRIP, DRIP” we are seeing which reveals the first hint of what the Russians have on Trump. It is going to come out. And when it does, I think all hell is going to break loose as the Trump team, his supporters and all those who have a vested financial interest in Trump all rush out to stick their fingers in the dike to try and keep it from becoming a flood. There are a lot of competing interests involved in all of this. But there will come a time when it is decided somewhere in Russia or in the back rooms of D.C. that it is time to pull the trigger on this, as Trump is either no longer useful to them or is somehow threatening their own interests. Trump is really a very weak fish in a sea of powerful predators. His ignorance, stupidity and hubris convinces him that he’s at the top of the food chain, but in reality he is nothing more than chum in the water for those who are lurking in the shadows.
The Drip Drip Drip of pee pee. PeePee the Frog.
The prurient items tend to get the buzz in the press. Unfortunately they also tend – to the extent that they cannot be confirmed – naysayers a convenient excuse to discount info that might be legitimate. I’m basically agreeing with you – I think some shoes are getting ready to drop.
Very true. Those same thoughts were swirling in my head while I was typing, and I was going to say that, too. But hit “POST” too quickly. Thanks for the addendum!
If it is true that the golden shower incident was his way of seeking revenge on Obama, then he really is a super sick puppy.
It would be incredible if a leering pseudo-billionaire pussy-grabber with a long time predilection for eastern European women DIDN’T partake of the Russian commercial sex worker scene while on “business” there. Of course he did.
But if that’s what the Russians hope to blackmail Der Trumper with, they might want to take into account that if the pussy-grabbing tape had no purchase on the braindead 46% who voted for him, stories of antics with Russian prostitutes surely won’t either.
Trumper: “Locker room talk! Not proud of it!” Imbeciles: “He’s a super-successful biznessman, no one thought he was ethical!”
The fact of the incompetent white electorate can’t be gotten around.
A question provoked purely by the current zeitgeist.
Can you successfully blackmail a person who has absolutely no shame and who has media allies who have absolutely no shame?
Spin out how this continues to be important.
What I see is the right suddenly discovering that the FISA court started surveillance from dossiers with no clearcut probable cause of US lawbreaking. And that instead of it being a court for opening surveillance on foreigners, it becomes a secret court for domestic investigation of American citizens.
And yes the rumors are of one of the weirdest Presidents in a US history not known for many boring Presidents.
The FBI supposedly went to FISA court in connection with Carter Page. The FBI is in the business of investigating organized crime, corruption etc. in the US. Is it prohibited from using a dossier assembled by a British national to do so? I guess I don’t follow your objection.
Two words: COINTELPRO
that’s one word.
That’s what they want you to think.
Article III courts have in camera sessions that can deal with confidentiality and have the power to issue subpoenas and authorize wiretapping of US citizens. Why FISA court?
We have so normalized secrecy and star-chamber proceedings over the past four decades that we now see them as routine, not unconstitutional. Oh yes, that quaint piece of paper.
At least COINTELPRO raised a political stink of unconstitutionality when it became known 40 years ago.
One suspects that the FISA court might have looser standards of evidence than an Article III court when it comes to violating constitutional rights.
Okay, maybe I’m missing something here, but the FISA Courts is an ‘Article 3’ court. All federal courts are ‘Article 3’ courts. Last I checked all federal courts are subject to review by the Supreme Court. Hell, the Chief Justice of the SCOTUS is also the chief judge of the FISA courts.
I don’t believe FISA Courts should exist at all, but I can find no Constitutional grounds to say that Congress can’t make them. Unfortunately and fortunately, just because a government apparatus is badly run doesn’t make the underlying Constitutional Power to create said apparatus go away. Competence is fundamentally a political question. And no one wants courts blowing up agencies and the power to create the agencies in the first place because said agencies are not competently run. That would be just surrendering the concept of government to the far right.
Now I don’t agree with a lot of what FISA Courts do, but I understand the supposed rational behind them. Ostensibly FISA Courts are designed to handle a very small and select group of case types handled by judges who have extensive knowledge and specialization of Foreign Intelligence activities where secrecy and compartmentalization are supposed to be key because of fear, often correctly, that non-specialized courts leak information like a sieve and such leaks can endanger the ability of federal agents to do their constitutional duty to catch spies and the people who provide material support.
Now that sounds all well and good in theory. A specialized court system in the same vein as Administrative Courts, Criminal Courts, Civil Courts, Tort Courts, and Patent Courts (Just to name a few of the specialized courts already established.) The actual implementation however has been… abysmal to put it nicely.
“FISA court started surveillance from dossiers with no clearcut probable cause of US lawbreaking…”
So Yates did it with Flynn and Page? Wonder who else?
Evidently…An application for electronic surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act need not show evidence of a crime. But the information obtained through the intercepts can be used to open a criminal investigation and may be used in a prosecution.
All kinds of conventions being overturned.
I’m guessing the requirement is probable cause since that’s the standard in regular surveillance warrants
My, how soon we forget.
Fourth Amendment to the Constitution (Bill of Rights)
And making all sorts of exceptions for “bad guys” is how you lose your own protection under the Constitution.
Wow… the Echo Chamber at work in real time.
TarheelDem, without evidence or anything relating to fact, says that there was “[No] clearcut probable cause of US lawbreaking…” and you take it as gospel and start running with it trying to accuse people of crimes!
It’s made worse by the fact that TarheelDem proves in the above post he doesn’t even have the slightest clue how warrants work!
Being an Agent of a Foreign Government without registration is a fucking crime in the US. Talking to the FSB while being an unregistered Agent of a Foreign Government is very much probable cause that a crime has been or is about to be committed! That goes double if, like Carter Page, the subject of the investigation has already been a participant in an espionage scheme!
Because there is not evidence or fact made public that there was.
You realize that ‘made public’ is not, nor ever in the history of this country, ever been a requirement for a warrant right?
There is nothing in the Constitution that requires warrants to be made public. Sneak and Peak warrants have been issued in some form or another since the founding of the country.
The Founding Fathers had many, many flaws, but the stupidity to require that you have to publicly announce you were getting a search warrant before serving the warrant was not something the did.
The very nature of Law Enforcement means that you aren’t supposed to tip everyone off to the fact you’re looking at anyone/someone for criminal activity before or during the period LE is actively looking.
In other words, just because you don’t know something illegal was going is not reason to believe the Government did not know something illegal was going on.
“Being an Agent of a Foreign Government without registration is a fucking crime in the US.”
Not if you say you are sorry. Two very prominent individuals just recently apologized for their misinterpretations and registered after the fact. Turkey ring any bells?
Get back to me when the first lobbyist from either party is indicted for this “crime!!!! under present conventions.
And who am I accusing of crimes, pray tell?
It’s still a crime, there is just a CYA provision that allows you to disclose after the fact. A provision I think shouldn’t be there. Doesn’t mean it’s not a crime.
We didn’t convict a lot of people for killing Black People during Jim Crow. Didn’t mean it wasn’t a crime, it just meant we were doing a shitty job of enforcement. The big difference is that if something isn’t a crime in the first place then there is never a recourse until the law changes. If something is a crime, but we just aren’t prosecuting people for breaking the law then there is a recourse to change things without having to change the law. In the vast majority of cases, my understanding is that it’s easier to change the enforcement problem than it is to change the law.
And you accused Yates(I presume that’s former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates) of using the FISA courts against Flynn and Page. Considering that you believe FISA courts are unconstitutional, and it is illegal for the government to pursue unconstitutional law enforcement, you accused former Acting AG Yates of a crime.
Well, until they are reviewed by the SC, my opinion of FISA courts is worth spit.
Okay.
What you mean is not literal. Obviously even shameless people don’t want to go to jail or have their children wacked. What you mean is that Trump wouldn’t care if people found out what he did in that hotel room with the pee and the Obamas’ mattress. You’re basically asking us to disbelieve the story because the Russians wouldn’t compromise a person like Trump this way. They’d choose another way. But they compromise everyone as a standard of practice. Whether it works or not is a separate issue.
I just said it’s not that important. What’s important is what the intelligence official claimed, which is that they had him under their control.
You didn’t read the dossier as it pertains to Carter Page, obviously. Also, the FISA Court is not to authorize spying on foreigners. We are allowed to spy on foreigners with no permission from a judge. The exception is when those foreigners are residing or traveling in the United States. So, you want to spy on the Russian ambassador in DC, then you use the FISA Court.
You can also provide evidence to the Court that an American citizen is acting as the agent of a foreign intelligence service, in which case you may get a warrant to treat them as you would a foreign spy on U.S. soil.
Carter Page had already been part of a sting that had arrested a Russian spy. He had willingly passed on documents to the spy but wasn’t necessarily witting about who he was dealing with. Nonetheless, he had been targeted for recruitment and was already on the FBI’s radar. Then they got credible intelligence that he was engaged in corrupt acts to take a financial stake in a foreign gas company in return for a relaxation of sanctions and a soft line on Crimea. Based on that, he had every right to expect that he would be surveilled, and he did suspect it.
The rumors aren’t that weird. Donald Trump is weird.
All This Russia Stuff
Booman,
The points you make here are very well thought out, and I agree with you. I just want to add one thing about this:
“On the right, the reaction to learning that the FBI relied in part on the dossier to get a warrant on Page is to howl in outrage that they used a ‘fake’ and ‘dodgy’ source.”
In all likelihood this was the result intended. It is a very common psyop procedure, when your opponents have seriously damaging information against your side (in this case against Trump, which means against the Russians), to attempt to discredit this legitimate research by introducing into it or associating it with fiction (disinformation). The idea is to create such a hodgepodge of truth and fiction that (with the helpful cooperation of the media) it becomes impossible for the public to tell one from the other.
Because of the salacious nature of such material, it is guaranteed to get lots of attention. For instance, this technique has long been used to protect the Clintons; the fake information (e.g. Clintons murdered Vince Foster; Bill Clinton is the illegitimate son of Winthrop Rockefeller) is snapped up by the RW nutcase media, ultimately to the advantage of the Clintons because it circulates only in the tin-foil sphere, thereby making it seem that ALL damaging criticism against the Clintons must be BS.
In the present instance, concerns about Trump & Co. are so strong among our own intelligence community (who well understand how the game works) that it hasn’t been very successful.
o I wouldn’t be too concerned if the “Golden Showers” story is never substantiated, because very likely it never happened. And as you say, it doesn’t matter, the rest of the stuff is, if less salacious, actually more serious.
It’s no coincidence that Donald Trump is close with Dylan Howard, editor-in-chief of the National Enquirer, or that Trump’s mentor Roy Cohn was a friend and probably financial backer of the Enquirer’s founder Generoso Pope, Jr.
http://www.thewrap.com/national-enquirer-became-trumps-head-cheerleader/
http://archives.cjr.org/review/absolutely_sensational.php