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Donald Trump pee tape rumor and kompromat: Scope and Notability

The NOTABILITY requirements of GNG are fully satisfied for this rumor, so it qualifies for a stand-alone article.


 * Scope


 * The scope is the pee tape rumor and national security implications of a president who may be blackmailed. It has a neutral title that accurately reflects the topic and enjoys enormous "common name" support.


 * Anyone, other than a newbie, who nominates this article at MfD or (after publication) AfD is acting in bad faith. GNG is satisfied, period.


 * Any imperfections and errors should be fixed without deletion of the article, per PRESERVE. Any problems can be resolved by simple communication, without MfDs or AfDs.

I hold no illusions that certain editors acting in bad faith won't nominate this for AfD. Of course they will, as they always have done. They demonstrate their NOTHERE attitudes and deliberate refusal to follow GNG. Their usual "I don't like it" arguments will not trump our PAG, and there will, once again, be a "SNOW keep" verdict to keep the article. They should be sanctioned for even trying, per "tendentious".


 * This topic meets all of our General notability guideline's criteria for its own article:


 * "A topic is to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list when it has received  in  that are ."

Did you know?
 * ... that Trump has known about the rumor since he left Moscow in 2013?
 * ... that the rumor did not start with the Steele dossier? The dossier only repeats the original rumor.
 * ... that Trump has repeatedly lied about this? He even dared do it to the Director of the FBI.
 * ... that Trump's lies were so blatant and egregious that they got the Director of the FBI to change from a pee tape skeptic to a maybe peeliever?
 * ... that many other notable people have strong suspicions that the rumor is true?
 * ... that Trump's own actions cause them to think this way?
 * ... that before anyone pinpointed the possible time of the alleged incident, Trump lied very specifically about exactly that time?
 * ... that his actions are considered evidence of his consciousness of guilt?
 * ... that Trump and others have acted as if the tapes were real and actually exist?
 * ... that Michael Cohen has testified about this to Congress in 2019 and revealed many of these facts?
 * ... that Cohen and a group of allies have worked for many years to track down the tapes and stop this rumor? He was willing to pay a lot of money for the tapes. He testified about this.
 * ... that myriad RS, Congressional investigations, and other very reliable sources have written about this and analyzed it?
 * ... that the fact that the actual tape has not been published means the rumor, true or not, remains unproven?
 * ... that the real issues here are kompromat and national security issues, not Trump's alleged sexual proclivities?

And one more:


 * ... that editors should be allowed, without harassment, to do what is allowed here, which is to use their userspace to create articles, including potentially controversial ones?

Trump's extreme notability is inherently tied together with the degree of notability assigned to this rumor. It was deemed serious enough that all four of the top intelligence chiefs agreed that President Obama should be notified about it and that later FBI Director James Comey should privately orient President-elect Donald Trump about it. It has been covered in all mainstream RS and the Mueller report, Horowitz report, United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and other investigations. All types of RS covered it, so GNG is fully satisfied. It is very serious (blackmail of a president), very high profile, sensational, explosive, sexual, and salacious, all elements for a very notable topic. For the purposes of weighing an article's GNG notability, the topic's truth or falsity is an irrelevant consideration for a highly publicized and notable allegation about a public figure like Trump. We are instructed to cover it, and do it properly.

The seriousness of the pee tape rumor also lends to its notability. Gossip and rumors flourish in response to the real or alleged "transgressional acts that start the scandal". Even if the acts are only alleged, the gossip, rumors, and scandal are very real and can have real-world consequences. Trump is a very scandal-prone, very public figure, so his notability helped to make sure this rumor grabbed the public's attention. If it had happened to anyone less notable, it would have been brushed off and received short-lived attention. Much of its notability also stems from the natural human fascination with sex and scandal, and the media immediately satisfied the demand for such information.

This rumor has been described as the "most notorious" of all the dossier's allegations, and this increases its notability.

Several sources have described how Trump is a very good example of the Shakespearean saying "The lady doth protest too much." He seems to incriminate himself because he repeatedly, and unforced, keeps denying it at his campaign events. He very tellingly demonstrates what James Comey described as a "consciousness of guilt" when he repeatedly lied to Comey about exactly the only point in time when the incident could have happened. Trump's lies were specific. His denials told Comey exactly when the alleged deed happened. Normally, only the guilty party knows that information. He is like the child who lies by saying "I didn't take the last cookie." The child just told the parents that there are no more cookies and who ate the last one. Trump's lies told Comey that Trump knew what happened and when it happened.

It is far from the most important allegation, unless true. If true, having a president who is being blackmailed by an enemy nation has enormous ramifications and consequences. Trump does act like a man who is being blackmailed, and the pee tape is far from the only type of salacious material presumably possessed by the Russians.

Even if untrue, some other dossier allegations about the Russian interference were very serious, and the most important were confirmed by the FBI. Trump and his campaign did cooperate in myriad ways with the Russians in their election interference.

It would be great if an investigation got testimony from those who first heard the pee tape rumor back in 20132014 and we learned exactly what version of the story they heard back then. Maybe some author will collect their versions and describe them for us in a book. A script writer could then include the info in the movie version. What we do know is that both Cohen and Rtskhiladze recognized the Steele report's description as a description of the tapes they had been pursuing for years.

Lead
TITLE: Donald Trump pee tape rumor and kompromat There are a few refs in the lead at present, unlike at the Donald Trump article, which has none'''. That may change in the future.'''

The Donald Trump pee tape rumor relates to kompromat, Donald Trump's vulnerability to blackmail by Vladimir Putin and others, and to Trump as a threat to national security. The rumor started in 2013 and is about an alleged "golden showers" incident at the Ritz-Carlton Moscow hotel when Trump stayed there while attending the 2013 Miss Universe pageant the weekend of November 810, 2013. The unproven incident involving prostitutes peeing on a bed, which Trump allegedly orchestrated and watched, was purportedly secretly arranged and recorded by Russian FSB intelligence to be used as kompromat to blackmail Trump. The incident was allegedly inspired by an earlier visit, together with Aras Agalarov and some Russians, to a raunchy Las Vegas nightclub where Trump's "delighted" reaction to a golden showers show was observed by his group. Later, both the Steele dossier and Giorgi Rtskhiladze, independently of each other, implicated Agalarov and his Crocus Group with responsibility, knowledge, and/or possession of compromising tapes of Trump. The Senate Intelligence Committee report implied that Agalarov/Crocus were part of a Russian effort to compromise and gain leverage over Trump.

The rumor, which Moscow prostitutes believe is true, began to spread there shortly after the pageant, and "tales of [Trump's] weird sexual indiscretions" were described as "an 'open secret' in Moscow". Michael Cohen later testified he learned of the rumor "shortly after the Miss Universe 2013 pageant", and he immediately told Trump. He said many others also knew and contacted him. Cohen and other Trump associates began quiet attempts to locate the tape and perform a catch and kill operation to protect Trump. In spite of all these efforts, when FBI Director James Comey and other investigators later told Trump about the Steele dossier's salacious allegation, he dissembled by not revealing he already knew of the old rumor and tapes. The rumor remained unknown to the American public until January 10, 2017, when the Steele dossier was published. During testimony, Trump's bodyguard was unable to provide an alibi for Trump's activities during the early morning hours of November 9, a "five-hour window" of time suspected of being the time of the incident, and the Senate Intelligence Committee found evidence of "additional social activity" in his room then.

Trump has denied the incident and repeatedly lied that he wasn't in Moscow during that night, but the "evidence of the coverup is so plentiful" that many doubt him, even remaining open to the possibility it happened. James Comey, who originally doubted the rumor, came to believe the rumor could be true because he saw Trump's unforced lies as evidence of his "consciousness of guilt". Intelligence agencies assert that Russia possesses more compromising tapes of Trump's sexual behavior from his many trips to Russia. The CIA reportedly views these reports about kompromat as credible. The leaders of U.S. and British intelligence agencies view Trump as under Vladimir Putin's influence, and experienced intelligence personnel view Trump as a Russian "asset" and "agent of influence", someone who uses his position, power, and influence in the interests of an enemy power. They believe this makes him a serious threat to the national security of both nations. The constant threat that Putin could release the pee tape has been proposed as one reason why Trump has never criticized Putin, and the fact that the actual tape has not been published means the rumor, true or not, remains unproven.

The salacious rumor has been widely publicized, documented, and featured in FBI and Special Counsel investigations, Congressional hearings and testimony, books, comedy, lawsuits, Trump's own repeated and unprompted mentions of it, and his lies about the timing of events. The timing of Trump's behavior in public that weekend is well-documented, providing the contextual setting for the allegations of kompromat and potential blackmail, the rumor's complicated history, and claims made about it.

Trump and "golden showers"
Trump has been connected with two different golden showers incidents, and some sources have asserted the first incident in Las Vegas may have inspired the FSB's planning of the alleged incident in Moscow five months later as part of "a Russian effort to gain influence over Trump".

The first incident occurred in June 2013 at a raunchy Las Vegas nightclub, where the group of Russians with Trump could observe him watching a golden showers performance "with delight". Jane Mayer quotes a source close to Steele who commented on the similarity of the two golden showers incidents: "It does suggest that there is some kind of track record here. This behavior was not unheard of in Trump's circle. So in that sense, it adds to the credibility of the dossier." Jonathan Chait describes how the incident at the nightclub shows that "Trump is comfortable with gross sexual behavior and can be blackmailed.   ... He has had a lot of affairs. He has gone to great lengths to keep them quiet — which is to say, he can be blackmailed. And he is not averse to a sexually unconventional milieu."

The second incident allegedly occurred five months later, in early November 2013, in a Moscow hotel suite, and was allegedly "arranged" and "monitored" by the FSB. That incident is the subject of the unproven rumor. Although the rumor predated the Steele dossier by several years, the dossier provides the most detailed description of the rumor, which has been described as the "most notorious" of all the dossier's allegations.

"The Act" nightclub in Las Vegas (June 2013)
On June 15, 2013, five months before the alleged pee tape incident in Moscow, Trump visited Las Vegas and met with Putin-connected oligarch Aras Agalarov, the Azerbaijani businessman who arranged the Trump Tower meeting. He is the owner of Crocus Group and the Crocus entertainment center in the Moscow suburbs, where the Miss Universe pageant was held. He was accompanied by some of his family and a group of Russians. (Persons associated with Crocus Group were later linked to the responsibility for the existence, knowledge, and/or possession of kompromat in the form of "compromising tapes of Trump", otherwise known as the "pee tape". ) The meeting was ostensibly held to convince Trump to hold the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow, for which Agalarov was willing to pay Trump $20 million. Later, Trump got his money, but Agalarov lost about $10 million on the whole affair, a sizable sum, even for a billionaire.

A Lawfare report described how the Senate Intelligence Committee report implied another reason for Agalarov's Las Vegas meeting with Trump: "So the first point to bear in mind is that the Trump Tower meeting was arranged by a Russian oligarch with ties to organized crime and to Putin. The second key point is that the Agalarovs had been cultivating Trump for some time. Trump met the Agalarovs in 2013 through efforts to bring the Miss Universe pageant, which Trump owned, to Moscow. This alone is nothing new. But the report also suggests—without stating outright—that the event, including the involvement and support of the Agalarovs, was likely a Russian effort to gain influence over Trump."

During a dinner with the Agalarov group, Trump's bodyguard, Keith Schiller, approached Rob Goldstone (a music producer and Emin Agalarov's publicist) and asked him if the group had plans after the meal. Goldstone told Schiller that one of Emin's associates "was an investor in a club called The Act and that the group planned to go there. According to Goldstone, Schiller responded by telling Goldstone that 'Mr. Trump wants to come.'"  The club's featured acts, described in detail by Jane Mayer, included simulated sex acts of bestiality, grotesque sadomasochism, and girls simulating urinating on a "professor". The acts were so debauched that a Nevada judge later "ordered the club to scale back on some of its more risque performances", and it closed five months later on October 12, 2013.

The group of nearly 50 guests included Aras Agalarov, his son Emin, Ike Kaveladze, Rob Goldstone, Donald Trump, Michael Cohen, Keith Schiller, and others. Trump also took Miss USA Nana Meriwether, Miss Universe Olivia Culpo, and former Miss Alabama Katherine Webb with him.

They arrived after midnight and stayed "for several hours", "enjoying The Act's performances from the center of the action, on the floor beneath the main stage". Trump was photographed there and, according to Cohen, Trump watched a golden showers performance "with delight". Madeleine Aggeler believes Trump's "delight" at the sight "could be considered a form of urolagnia, which is sexual excitement associated with the sight or thought of urine and/or urination".

Seth Abramson, in his book Proof of Collusion, shared the concerns about Trump's vulnerability to blackmail expressed by Lawfare and the Senate Intelligence Committee. He noted that "the Agalarovs couldn't have missed" Trump's enthusiastic reaction at the sight of women peeing, and that his "delighted" reaction "may have informed the activities they wanted prostitutes to perform in front of Trump in his hotel suite in Moscow in November 2013, just 120 days after the risqué performance in Las Vegas". The dossier alleges the incident was "arranged/monitored by the FSB".

Schiller later told the Senate Intelligence Committee that "he had no recollection of going to any club" in Las Vegas. He also repeatedly answered "no recollection" to Committee questions about many things that occurred during the weekend in Moscow when the pee tape incident allegedly occurred.

The Ritz-Carlton Moscow hotel (November 2013)


Trump was in Moscow to attend the 2013 Miss Universe pageant on Saturday evening November 9, but he was also there to network with powerful Russians in Moscow. He had a very busy schedule and was constantly surrounded by people. The night of Friday-Saturday was the only full night he was in Moscow, and the pee tape incident allegedly occurred in the hotel's Presidential Suite early Saturday morning, well after midnight. The next evening he attended the Miss Universe pageant and then drove directly to the airport without going back to his hotel. A full timeline is included below, and the Senate Intelligence Committee report covers "Trump's Travel to Moscow in 2013" on pages 655-662.

The alleged incident
The most detailed description comes from the Steele dossier, and, with its seven Russian sources, it is the dossier allegation with the "most sources attached to it, all of them independent". Later testimony revealed that the dossier's description harmonized with how those who knew the original rumor remembered it. When the dossier was published in January 2017, both Michael Cohen and Giorgi Rtskhiladze, who both knew the original rumor, recognized how the dossier described the tapes they had been chasing for several years.

The rumor alleges that when Trump visited Moscow, he stayed in the Presidential Suite of the Ritz-Carlton hotel where President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama had stayed. There, because he "hated" Obama so much, he employed "a number of prostitutes to perform a 'golden showers' (urination) show in front of him"  in order to defile the bed used by the Obamas four years earlier. The incident is alleged to "have been arranged/monitored by the FSB" and was reportedly recorded by the FSB as kompromat so they could blackmail him.

Below is the dossier's description (bolded for the reader in ¶ 3) within its context:

A "five-hour window" of time


Several writers have examined timelines of the weekend and concluded that November 9 is the date that the alleged golden showers incident would have occurred, with Martin Longman writing: "The incident, if it occurred, would have happened the night before the pageant when he did stay at the hotel."

The night of Friday-Saturday was the only full night Trump was in Moscow, and because the exact time of the alleged golden showers incident is not documented, sources have speculated they might have occurred during the only available time that was not well-documented. Trump had a very busy schedule and was constantly surrounded by people, with one notable exception, and that was during the early Saturday morning hours of November 9, hours described by Rob Goldstone as a "five-hour window" of time.

According to Comey, the time needed for the described incident to occur was minimal, which allowed for other things to also happen during those hours. Comey wryly described his thoughts at one of the times Trump was lying to him: "[Trump said] that he'd never stayed overnight at the hotel, he'd just changed clothes there and went to the Miss Universe pageant.  ... I remember thinking, 'Well, should I say that, 'As I understand the activity sir, it doesn't require an overnight stay. And given that it was allegedly the presidential suite at the Ritz Carlton, I would imagine you could be at a safe distance from the activity-- all these things are bouncing around my head. But instead of saying it, it just led me to think, 'The world's gone crazy."

There are a number of factors that make those hours the most likely time of the alleged incident:


 * During his testimony, Schiller was unable to provide an alibi for Trump's activities the rest of that night: He testified that he "eventually left Trump's hotel room door and could not say for sure what happened during the remainder of the night". Some say this left "open the possibility that the encounter may have occurred after Schiller left".
 * Doubts have been raised by multiple sources about the truthfulness of Schiller's claim that he refused the offer to send five prostitutes "to Trump's hotel room that night", as he was known to aid, not block, Trump's secretive affairs with women.
 * The sincerity of Trump's denials and excuses has been questioned by many commentators, and his long history of lying about uncomfortable truths, including the circumstances surrounding the pee tape rumor, creates a problematic "credibility gap" for him. Comey said these lies reflected Trump's "consciousness of guilt".
 * The Senate Intelligence Committee report notes that "Several items on the hotel room bill may indicate additional social activity following the birthday party."
 * Rob Goldstone "said he was in Trump's company [from the time Trump landed until he departed], except for a five-hour window that Trump was afforded to sleep early Saturday morning". Trump has bragged that under normal conditions he needs little sleep, anywhere from 90 minutes to four hours. In this case, the eight-hour time difference meant that 1:30 a.m., Moscow time, was like 5:30 p.m. in Ashville, a time he would normally be wide awake.
 * Martin Longman wrote: "Did Russian women show up at the Ritz Carlton that night? There are several reasons to believe they did, including that Christopher Steele was able to partially corroborate a rumor that he learned of from a conversation that took place in New York City several years later by having sources talk to staff at the hotel in Moscow. I also think it's interesting that Keith Schiller felt compelled to admit that the offer was made, even if he denied that Trump accepted it."
 * David Geovanis claimed he gave Trump a tour of Moscow, and, according to him, there was partying and possibly blackmailable activity. The exact time for this tour is unknown, but it could have happened anywhere in Moscow, including at the hotel and at this time. (See .)


 * Some other alleged activities could also fit into these hours:

Two other incidents involving Trump and prostitutes allegedly occurred in the hotel that weekend. Because doubts have been raised about Schiller's claim he rejected the offer of prostitutes, these incidents are covered here:

"The Guardian has heard 'there are witnesses to a confrontation in the hotel lobby, when security wanted the girls to sign in and DJT [Donald Trump] objected.  ... [O]ne [witness] is [a] former Trump Organization [employee].    ... ' Over the course of the next year there will be several reports of witnesses who saw a confrontation in the Ritz-Carlton Moscow lobby between hotel staff and a group of women who wanted to go up to Trump's room without signing in. Paul Wood of the BBC, in an article for The Spectator, will say he was told by an unnamed source that a hotel employee and an American tourist saw the row happen." "One of the Marriott executives who was involved in the conversation—previously a manager of the Ritz Carlton Moscow—had clearly seen the video, which allegedly showed Trump in an elevator involved with several women who the discussant implied to be 'hostesses.' The executive who had seen the video had asked the other, more senior, executive what to do with the recording. The former executive said the two discussants then left to continue the conversation in a more private location, and he did not hear anything further."
 * Trump was seen in the lobby with a group of prostitutes who wanted to go up to his room without signing in. Trump was defending them in a loud "row" with hotel security. The confrontation was observed by witnesses. The report of the incident came from an editor at The Guardian:
 * He was also videotaped in a Ritz elevator "involved with several women" described as "hostesses". Shortly after the Miss Universe contest, two Marriott International executives discussed an elevator security camera video.

Possible motivations
Several sources have discussed the possible motivations for Trump's intense hatred of Obama, and thus the alleged choice to defile the bed.

Jaclyn Friedman mentions racist and disrespectful motivations: "It is, of course, scandalous and hella racist that he made a point to defile the bed the Obamas slept in. Indeed, it is important to distinguish the difference between what's going viral and what's in the document. The former is the concept of someone being sexually excited by pee, which is a sexual preference some people have. The document, on the other hand, contains alleged evidence that President-elect Donald Trump intentionally disrespected the President of the United States, and that he did so in a way that is reminiscent of a long controversial wartime tradition that violates military law."

Michael Cohen also asserts that Trump's hatred of Obama is racist and envious: "'His hatred for Barack Obama is plain and simple: he's Black, he went to Harvard Law, he graduated at the top of his class, he's incredibly articulate, he's all the things that Donald Trump wants to be,' Cohen said. 'And he just can't handle it. So what do you do if you're Donald Trump and you can't handle it? You attack it.'"

John Sipher, a foreign policy, intelligence, and national security expert, has pointed out that nothing indicates that Trump did anything other than watch and instruct the prostitutes. Unlike what some sources have alleged, the dossier does not say he was involved in any sexual acts with the prostitutes, nor that they urinated on him. Sipher said that Trump just "sought to denigrate Obama" because he hated him: "[Trump's] policies are almost exclusively about overturning and eradicating anything related to President Obama's tenure', just as ancient rulers 'sought to obliterate the existence of their predecessors.   ... Is it inconceivable that he would get some satisfaction from a private shaming of the former President?"

ABC News traces the bad blood to Trump's constant pushing of baseless Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories (aka "birtherism"). Obama criticized Trump for doing so and later roasted Trump at the 2011 White House Correspondents' dinner.

Jonathan Chait wrote: "We also know Trump harbored a burning resentment of President Obama in the wake of Obama's mocking him at the 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner. And many reports of Trump's decision-making suggest that the strongest consideration in any decision is the chance to defile or destroy something associated with Obama." Chait elaborated on Trump's motivation: "Obama hatred is the lodestar of Trump's often confused policy-making. 'It's his only real position,' a top European diplomat told BuzzFeed last year. 'He will ask: 'Did Obama approve this?' And if the answer is affirmative, he will say: 'We don't.'' Even bizarrely self-defeating actions   ... seem to be motivated by a desire to defile his predecessor's legacy. Getting prostitutes to pee on the bed Obama slept in seems to be very much in character."

Weekend timeline (November 710, 2013)
Because Trump has repeatedly lied by denying he stayed overnight even once on the trip, a detailed, but incomplete, timeline is produced below. Details not directly related to the rumor are also included for situational and background context, as well as evidentiary purposes, as they all bear on Trump's unseemly behavior in public, his denials and lies, and potential kompromat. Trump had a "hectic" schedule, and, with the exception of one "five-hour window" of time, his activities were public, all seen and documented by numerous witnesses and sources, including social media, journalists and their posted videos, his own selfies and tweets, friends and associates, officials, hosts, chauffeurs, police escorts, bodyguards, his translator, and testimony to investigators. Russian intelligence is alleged to have recorded some of his private behavior.

Number of city tours
Both Aras Agalarov and David Geovanis claim to have given him tours to Trump while he was in Moscow. Aras Agalarov said he toured possible building sites with Trump, and David Geovanis indicated his tour with Trump included partying and potentially blackmailable activity.

David Geovanis was cited as saying that "he showed Mr. Trump around Moscow during the Miss Universe pageant in 2013. He did not get into specifics, but intimated that there was partying and that Mr. Trump should be nice to him in light of the information he had."

The exact time for the tour with Geovanis is unknown, but, according to sources for the weekend's events, there were only two known timeslots where it could have happened, either during the early morning "five-hour window" of November 9, when the pee tape incident allegedly occurred, or at some time after the filming of the music video. It could have happened anywhere in Moscow, including at the hotel. It could also have been separate from the tour with Agalarov, or the three men could have been together. Sources do not clarify the issue. The article by Silver and Pismennaya, with their heading of "Moscow Tours", and not saying who gave him the tours, or even if it was the "same tour Trump tweeted about", indicates the possibility of more than one tour.

The tour with Agalarov was after the early morning music video of November 9, well before the Miss Universe contest that evening. "Separately, Aras Agalarov said he showed Trump around Moscow during the trip, inspecting different sites with an eye toward building a Trump Tower together, though it's unclear whether this is the same tour Trump tweeted about."

That afternoon, Trump tweeted that he "was just given a great tour of Moscow", but he did not say who gave him that tour.

Change of rooms?
There are some unexplained questions about Trump's room and a possible room change. Regardless of where he stayed in the hotel, many sources (including the 2013 hotel sources that long predate the June 2016 dossier memo) claim that Trump stayed in the Presidential Suite, and the golden showers incident is alleged to have happened in that suite. It is only after the dossier was published in 2017, that the Ritz Carlton Moscow produced documents indicating Trump did not stay in that suite, even though it was reserved for him and the hotel's employees said he stayed there: "According to documents produced by Ritz Carlton Moscow, Trump was initially booked in the Presidential Suite, but that reservation was later canceled, and Trump was moved to a different room, a Carlton Suite. Despite Trump's scheduled arrival on November 8 being known significantly in advance, his room was reserved, and paid for, for an additional two nights prior to arrival, starting on November 6. The Committee was not able to determine why this advance reservation took place."

The Durham special counsel investigation says: "[T]he Office obtained records from the Ritz Carlton Moscow that reveal that Trump was a guest at the hotel in 2013, but did not stay in the Presidential Suite then or at any other time."

Among those who knew the original 2013 rumor at the time were hotel staff who later spoke to Steele's sources in 2016. They and other 2016 staff contradicted those records the hotel reported to Durham: When Charles Dolan Jr. was given a tour of the Presidential Suite in June 2016, the "staff member informed them that Donald Trump had stayed in the Suite, but did not mention any sexual or salacious activity".

The Agalarovs reserved the Presidential Suite at the Ritz-Carlton hotel, and when someone suggested that Trump could stay at the Intercontinental Hotel, Emin Agalarov demanded compliance with his wish that Trump stay at the Ritz Carlton: "trump will stay at the ritz comply with me", and he "requested that room options be sent to him".

Confounding factors, lies, and doubts
Trump's deceptive reactions to the pee tape rumor have raised more questions in people's minds while answering none,  so many have reacted, analyzed, and written about those questions: If he was innocent, why did he repeatedly lie and, without any prompting, keep bringing up the subject? If he was innocent (and innocent people don't act that way), why did he react that way to the pee tape rumor? Why did he lie so specifically (and complicatedly) about the exact time when the incident could have happened when no one had yet mentioned it? Why did he act guilty? Why did he and his closest allies act as if the pee tape(s) really existed?

Trump's denials, lies, and credibility
Trump has repeatedly denied the pee tape rumor, calling it phony, false, and fake. The sincerity of his denials and excuses has been questioned by many commentators, the "evidence of the coverup is so plentiful", and his long history of lying about uncomfortable truths, including the circumstances surrounding the pee tape rumor, creates a problematic "credibility gap" for him.

Ashley Parker described why Trump's lack of credibility undermines his denials of the "Russia tape": "Trump has cried 'fake news' so frequently that his angry denials have lost their wallop.  ... For the president, the 'fake' modifier frequently refers to news reports that he wishes were not true rather than those that are actually false. And the White House has an enormous credibility gap, with a long record of vociferously denying news reports     ... that are proved true days later.    ... Such incidents have allowed the tantalizing possibility that the Russia tape just might exist to percolate on the fringes of respectability."

Comey's first private meeting with Trump was at Trump Tower after the election, on January 6, 2017, when Comey briefed Trump about "the sensitive material in the Steele reporting". The Mueller report's "Footnote 112" mentions the meeting: "Comey's briefing included the Steele reporting's unverified allegation that the Russians had compromising tapes of the President involving conduct when he was a private citizen during a 2013 trip to Moscow for the Miss Universe Pageant." There is no indication that Trump ever revealed to Comey or other investigators that he already had prior knowledge of the rumor from long before the Steele dossier was written. Instead, the dossier became the distracting focus of his attacks.

Trump addressed the golden showers allegation on January 11, 2017, publicly stating: "Does anyone really believe that story? I'm also very much of a germaphobe, by the way." This contradicted an interview in 2015 when he stated: "'I'm not germaphobic,' he said, when asked if he would kiss babies and shake hands on the campaign trail." Trump "tried to convince Comey that he, a man who allegedly had unprotected sex with a porn star he'd just met, was a 'germaphobe.'" John Sipher clarified how the claim of germaphobia is irrelevant because the dossier does not say the prostitutes pissed on Trump, just on the bed.

Later, Comey met with Trump several times, and Trump repeatedly lied specifically about the time when the incident could have happened, even though no one had mentioned that time. This caused Comey to doubt the sincerity of Trump's denials. Comey said these lies reflected Trump's "consciousness of guilt", leading him to believe the rumor could be true.

Trump's phony alibi and excuses
Trump lied by saying he didn't overnight in Moscow even once, but there is plenty of evidence that he did stay there the night prior to the Miss Universe contest. His lies have been described as obstruction of justice. Trump's fake alibi was easily debunked by flight records, congressional testimony from his bodyguard, his own tweets, photographs, and social media posts.

Bess Levin described Trump's alibi as "a total fabrication" and pointed to how that lie increased the credibility of the pee tape rumor. She described how some have tried to explain why Trump treats Russia with "respect and deference" by pointing to his "business interests" and "obsession with oligarchs", but she points to another possibility: "Others have consistently come back to the idea that Russia has something on the president that he doesn't want to get out. Could it be, say, video evidence that he witnessed Russian prostitutes peeing in a bed once slept in by his predecessor? Reason and logic tells us this cannot be possible   ... and yet, on Monday, a new report nudged the impossible a hair closer in the direction of credibility!"

Josh Marshall makes the point: "In any court, this lie would be entered as evidence of his lack of credibility on the main point. There's zero question he lied about this repeatedly and to multiple people."

Ben Schreckinger noted how "A conscious effort by Trump to mislead the FBI director could lend weight to the allegation [in the dossier] that Trump engaged in compromising activity during the trip that exposed him to Russian government blackmail."

According to Pete Zeidenberg: "It has also likely caught the eye of special counsel Robert Mueller.   ... False statements to Comey about the trip could demonstrate that Trump has 'consciousness of guilt'. That could bolster a legal case against Trump."

List of Trump's repeated and unforced lies to Comey (a phony alibi)

 * He didn't overnight in Moscow even once.
 * "I went there for one day for the Miss Universe contest, I turned around, I went back."
 * Comey described how "Trump said the Moscow trip was so quick that his head never hit a pillow — even for one night.   ... He said he arrived in the morning, did events, then showered and dressed for the pageant at the hotel."
 * Trump told Comey that he "had spoken to people who had been on    ... the trip with him and they had reminded him that he didn't stay over night in Russia for that". Pete Zeidenberg "suggested that investigators could also probe whether Trump had in fact conferred with others who 'reminded' him he did not stay the night in Russia.    ... It's very likely there would be no corroboration for that story, which makes the whole thing look like a big fat lie."

Other excuses and concerns

 * He is a germaphobe.
 * He didn't need the service of prostitutes.
 * He has a beautiful wife.
 * It bothered him if "there's even a one percent chance my wife thinks that's true".
 * He wanted to convince his wife that it wasn't true.
 * He said he assumed he was always being recorded when in Russia, thus implying that he was not vulnerable to blackmail.

Trump overnighted a full night
Trump did overnight in Moscow for one full night, the night the incident allegedly happened.
 * Flight records show Trump stayed overnight in Moscow the full night before the pageant. The next day, he attended the pageant in the evening and then a Miss Universe after-party. He left the party early and, without returning to his hotel, left Moscow early in the morning at 3:58 a.m.
 * In a radio interview, Trump said: "I really loved my weekend, I called it my weekend in Moscow. But I was with the top level people, both oligarchs and generals, and top of the government people."
 * The testimony of Keith Schiller, his longtime bodyguard, confirms he overnighted the night before the pageant.
 * The Senate Intelligence Committee documented that "Several items on the hotel room bill may indicate additional social activity following the birthday party."
 * Rob Goldstone "said he was in Trump's company [from the time Trump landed until he departed], except for a five-hour window that Trump was afforded to sleep early Saturday morning".
 * Thomas Roberts, the host of the pageant, confirmed "that Trump was in Moscow for one full night and at least part of another".
 * Social media posts show he was in Moscow during the early Saturday morning hours of November 9.

Trump's public denials and private lies to Comey


Comey said that Trump, without prompting, "brought up the pee tape on four separate occasions": "For about the fourth time, he argued that the golden showers thing wasn't true." Even though the pee tape allegation never says Trump needed the sexual services of prostitutes, only that he instructed them to defile the bed, he again asked: "Can you imagine me, hookers?" and "whether he seemed like a guy who needed the service of prostitutes".

The Associated Press described the first two denials to Comey: "According to Comey's accounts of his 2017 meetings with the president, Trump said the Moscow trip was so quick that his head never hit a pillow — even for one night. Trump fired Comey on May 9, 2017. The first denial came over dinner at the White House in late January 2017. 'He said he arrived in the morning, did events, then showered and dressed for the pageant at the hotel,' and then left for the event, Comey wrote.  ... On the second occasion in February 2017, Trump 'explained, as he did at our dinner, that he hadn't stayed overnight in Russia during the Miss Universe trip'."

Trump publicly disputed that he had issued such a denial to Comey: "He said I didn't stay there a night. Of course I stayed there. I stayed there a very short period of time but of course I stayed."

In his book A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership, Comey wrote: "In an apparent play for my sympathy, he added that he has a beautiful wife and the whole thing has been very painful for her. He asked what we could do to 'lift the cloud.'" Trump asked him to have the FBI investigate the pee tape rumor "because he wanted to convince his wife that it wasn't true.   ... He brought up what he called the 'golden showers thing'     ... adding that it bothered him." "[Trump said], 'If there's even a one percent chance my wife thinks that's true, that's terrible.' And I remember thinking, how could your wife think there's a one percent chance you were with prostitutes peeing on each other? I'm a flawed human being, but there is literally zero chance that my wife would think that was true. So what kind of marriage to what kind of man does your wife think there's only a 99 percent chance you didn't do that?"

Responding to Trump's request for an FBI investigation of the dossier and the rumor, "Comey said he told Trump that it ultimately was up to the president to decide whether to open a probe but cautioned that doing so could 'create a narrative' that the FBI was investigating him."

James Clapper, who was then the Director of National Intelligence, also received a request from Trump to publicly say the dossier was bogus. Clapper then emailed Comey: "[Trump] asked if I could put out a statement. He would prefer of course that I say the documents are bogus, which, of course, I can't do."

Comey did not know if the "golden showers" rumor was true, but he came to believe it was possible. In a special edition of ABC's "20/20", he told George Stephanopoulos: "I honestly never thought these words would come out of my mouth, but I don't know whether the current president of the United States was with prostitutes peeing on each other in Moscow in 2013. It's possible, but I don't know".

Comey continued: "And then he launched into-- I didn't ask about the business with the prostitutes, but he launched into an explanation as to how I should know that wasn't true and that he remembered now, from talking to friends who had been with him, that he'd never stayed overnight at the hotel, he'd just changed clothes there and went to the Miss Universe pageant.

I don't know whether any of this is true, but this is what he said. And then went right back without staying overnight. And then he said, 'Another reason you know it's not true is I'm a germaphobe. There's no way I'd let people pee on each other around me.' And that he caught me so much by surprise I actually let out an audible laugh and-- 'cause it was just one of those-- I was startled by it.

And-- and I remember thinking, 'Well, should I say that, 'As I understand the activity sir, it doesn't require an overnight stay. And given that it was allegedly the presidential suite at the Ritz Carlton, I would imagine you could be at a safe distance from the activity--'' all these things are bouncing around my head. But instead of saying it, it just led me to think, 'The world's gone crazy.'"

Trump's "nitpicking" response to pee tape allegation
In his 2020 book Compromised: Counterintelligence and the Threat of Donald J. Trump, Peter Strzok, former FBI deputy assistant director of counterintelligence, has analyzed all the ways Trump is compromised, and he has also commented on Trump's weird denial to Comey. Immediately after Comey returned from Trump Tower after informing Trump of the dossier and its salacious allegations, Strzok and other FBI leaders were together, and they discussed Trump's "nitpicking" reaction to Comey's briefing: "For some in the room, Trump's reaction was inconclusive, because he was vague in his response, neither confirming nor denying it when Comey told him. I didn't agree. My experience is that people almost universally react with anger and a flat denial if confronted with a false accusation, particularly an outrageously sleazy one. It seemed telling that Trump was nitpicking over whether he ever paid for sex and not whether the episode took place at all in a hotel room in the heart of Russia. Speaking to those around the table, I likened it to accusing a bank robber of a heist involving a shotgun. Instead of denying involvement in the robbery, I said, the thief says, There was no shotgun. I've never touched a shotgun. (pp. 194-195)"

Trump's activity timeline documents that certain things were either possible or impossible for him to do at certain times, and, instead of just denying he did anything wrong and moving on, as pointed out by Strzok, his consciousness of guilt led him to use nitpicking lies to hide (by omission) something related to that time period from those he was lying to, as noticed by many writers.

Trump is known to use many types of lies, including lies of omission and paltering, which is the selective use of truthful statements in a deceptive manner. "For lies of omission to succeed, the deceiver neglects relevant information that would change a target's mistaken belief. For paltering to succeed, the deceiver not only neglects relevant information, but also fosters a mistaken belief in the target through the artful use of truthful statements."

His lies about the timing in Moscow used an advanced type of lying by using both types at the same time; his lies omitted (by denying) the fact he spent one whole night in Moscow (when the incident allegedly did happen), while paltering by mentioning the fact he spent only part of the next night (when the incident could not have happened).

Another factor caught the eye of writers; even though the dossier only says "a number of prostitutes", Trump has put a number on it, thus creating more interest. James Bickerton, a reporter for Newsweek, wrote: "Donald Trump has raised eyebrows online after again denying he engaged in a 'golden shower' with 'four hookers' in a Moscow hotel room, as alleged in the 2016 Steele dossier, even though the document doesn't give a number for those it claims were involved." One respondent said: "I think he just admitted it was '4' hookers." Another wrote: "With 4 hookers? He is giving a lot of detail for someone who knows nothing about it."

Consciousness of guilt
Trump's phony alibi has been described as evidence of his "consciousness of guilt". The New York State Unified Court System discusses false alibis (in the context of "consciousness of guilt") as a form of admissible evidence: "Evidence of post-crime conduct that may in the context of a particular case evince a defendant's consciousness of guilt of the offense with which the defendant is charged is admissible. A consciousness of guilt may, for example, be evinced by a false alibi or explanation for one’s actions, intimidation of a witness, destruction or concealment of evidence or flight."

Jennifer Rubin described how Trump's fake alibi "could be strong evidence of guilt": "We return to the quintessential Trump dilemma: If he is innocent, why does he behave so much like a guilty man?" "An innocent man likely would not insist that the FBI disprove a ludicrous allegation, nor worry that his wife would find it believable.  ... In this case, evidence of the coverup is so plentiful that ordinary people — not unreasonably — will assume guilt. Trump’s penchant for lying, exaggerating, distorting and misremembering in ways that invariably line up with his unfounded assertions might finally do him in."

Several sources have discussed Trump's guilty behavior in relation to the psychology of guilt and how Shakespeare addresses it: Macbeth describes what has been called "consciousness of guilt", and Hamlet mentions how "The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

The sincerity of his denials and excuses has been questioned by many commentators who have described how both of the Shakespearean examples apply to Trump.

Trump "doth protest too much"
Some writers have noted that Trump appears to incriminate himself because he repeatedly, and unforced, keeps mentioning the rumor at his campaign events. This habit of his led Margaret Hartmann, Senior Editor for the Intelligencer, to write an article entitled "Does Trump Want Me to Think He's Into Golden Showers?" She then cited Shakespeare's Hamlet: "Similarly, 'the lady doth protest too much' are words Shakespeare wrote that he probably never thought would be applicable to a national leader accused of urolagnia, but here we are."

Hartmann described how, at an October 2021 National Republican Senatorial Committee retreat, "Trump informed a room full of GOP senators this week that he's not into that sort of thing, although absolutely no one had asked about it." Unprompted, he told them: "I'm not into golden showers. You know the great thing, our great first lady — 'That one,' she said, 'I don't believe that one.'" Among Hartmann's many observations for why he shouldn't say such things, she noted that this "only raises more questions" like "[I]f Melania was so quick to reject this report about her husband’s sexual proclivities, why did he previously raise concerns that she would believe the story?"

Trump did the same thing on November 7, 2022, at a midterm rally in Ohio supporting GOP Senate candidate J. D. Vance, and at a Fort Dodge, Iowa rally on November 18, 2023, leading Megan Sheets, the U.S. Executive Editor for The Independent, to note that the rumor refuses "to go away in part because he keeps bringing it up".

Seth Meyers pointed out the self-incriminating nature of "bringing up the claims so many years after the fact": "Dude, not even Democrats think about the pee tape anymore! But when you come out six years later and deny a story everybody forgot about, I have to think maybe it's true. If someone came up to you at your 20th high school reunion and said, 'By the way, I'm not the one who put the sardines in your locker,' then you just solved that case."

Mentioning Trump's "unprompted denial of the Steele dossier", Stephen Colbert said: "At a donor retreat last week, Trump denied, sans context or prompting, that he enjoys so-called 'golden showers'. 'Um, no one asked you?' Colbert reacted. 'And when no one is bringing up the thing that you famously denied, you shouldn't bring it up either. You don't hear Paul McCartney beginning his concert by saying, 'Hello New York, I did not secretly die in 1966 and get replaced with a lookalike from Canada, eh.'"

Dan Savage, who writes the syndicated relationship and sex-advice column Savage Love, also discussed Trump's habit of repeatedly mentioning and denying the pee tape. In his column for The Stranger, Savage wrote an article entitled "The Pee Tape Is Real *", with an asterisk, where he discussed Trump's denials to Comey, and the dubious nature of those denials, all in the context of Savage's own "specific area of expertise: kinky motherfuckers": "Trump may or may not have been in close proximity. But an appeal to germaphobia does not get one off the urophilia hook—quite the opposite, in fact. A germaphobe is somewhat likelier to be into filthy, gross, or germy things than a non-germaphobe.  ... And a person who is ashamed of their kinks and is in a panic to cover them up is highly likely to point to the very thing that makes their kink so arousing in the first place. Instead of, 'That's not something that turns me on so it's not something I would do,' they say, 'I couldn't be into that because I'm a germaphobe/feminist/proud gay man/powerful dude.' The kinkster subconsciously longs to be exposed—another violation—because deep down we long to be known, to be seen for who and what we really are. But only a few of us are lucky enough to have a special prosecutor to make it happen. So, yeah, the pee tape is real. Trump keeps telling us so himself."

He ended the article by citing Shakespeare and explaining the asterisk with a "* Runner up headline: 'The President of the United States Doth Protest Too Much, Peethinks.'"

Lies about the rumor's origins and effects
The fact that Trump learned of the rumor from Michael Cohen shortly after Trump left the Ritz-Carlton hotel and the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in 2013 did not prevent him from lying about it and claiming the 2016 Steele dossier originated the rumor, and he dissembled by not telling Comey or other investigators that he had known of the rumor since long before the dossier was started.

It was only after the Steele dossier's publication in 2017 that Trump publicly mentioned the rumor and focused his ire on the dossier as if it were the creator of a new rumor. Some other sources did the same. Trump and some sources falsely claim Steele "made-up" the rumor or that it was "born" because of the dossier.

Cohen and Hope Hicks had discussed the old rumor with Trump before the dossier, and her lawyers falsely described the dossier's much later mention of the rumor as "a rumor of a videotape, now known to have originated with the Steele dossier, involving Mr. Trump in Moscow with Russian prostitutes". Trump has unsuccessfully sued Steele's firm, Orbis Business Intelligence, alleging that the dossier's "reports of his alleged sexual activity in Russia were 'false, phoney or made-up'".

Howie Carr, an American conservative radio talk-show host, repeated John Durham's dubious insinuation against Charles Dolan Jr., the source for a different allegation in the dossier, by writing that Dolan "most likely made up the pee-tape story", an unevidenced claim vehemently denied by Dolan.

Sean Hannity, a conservative conspiracy theorist and Fox News host, falsely claimed fewer people voted for Trump in the 2016 election because they heard about the "pee tape" rumor, which he called "election interference", even though it was not public knowledge until 63 days after the election.

Doubts about Schiller's honesty
Keith Schiller, Trump's personal bodyguard for nearly two decades, has been described as "one of Trump's most loyal and trusted aides" and "a constant presence at Trump's side". He also became known as a Trump fixer, i.e., a person who tries to conceal their client's potential scandals, often using questionable, if not illegal, methods. Several women have described how part of his job was to facilitate Trump's affairs with them.

Schiller has said that he refused the offer of five prostitutes, but sources have pointed out that he has a history of lying for Trump and aiding, not blocking, Trump's secretive affairs with women, and they have raised doubts  about whether Schiller's story is true or whether he was lying for Trump.

A Lawfare summary of the final Senate Intelligence Committee report points out how a "conspicuous footnote" in the report that cites Cohen's testimony about Schiller, raises doubts about the honesty of Schiller's story: "While Schiller told the committee that he and Trump laughed off the offer and the liaison never occurred, a conspicuous footnote leads the reader to question whether Schiller is, in fact, telling the truth: 'Cohen has testified that, 'Keith is the ultimate protector, and he was [Trump's] bodyguard, his attache for many, many years. And he was the keeper of Mr. Trump's secrets. So, for example, if he was going to text a female, he would have Keith do it on his phone.' Cohen has also testified that he has seen Schiller lie for Trump.'"

Ashley Feinberg also questions Schiller's denial as he was known to be an intermediary and facilitator of Trump's secretive affairs with women: "According to NBC, Schiller said that he took the offer as a joke and immediately told the man making the proposition, 'We don't do that type of stuff.' Schiller's claim not to do that type of stuff should be considered in the light of the fact that in 2011, adult film star and director Stormy Daniels had told In Touch Weekly that, whenever she needed to contact Trump during the course of their 2006 affair, she'd go through Schiller: 'Keith was always with him. That's how I got in touch with him. I never had Donald's cellphone number. I always used Keith's.'"

Cenk Uygur doubted Schiller's honesty and said: "You have to ask the question: Why would you lie about that if you didn't do the 'golden showers' thing? And then he got his personal security guy to also lie for him, but that lie also exposed what really happened."

Schiller's forgetfulness
Under questioning by the Senate Intelligence Committee, Schiller repeatedly had problems recalling specific events:


 * Las Vegas: "Schiller said he had no recollection of going to any club."
 * Moscow:
 * "Schiller told the Committee he did not recall who picked them up at the airport, or who drove them, or what vehicle they were in, or where they went."
 * "He also did not recall doing any vetting of the transportation entities or arrangements for Donald Trump, or having any communication with the Agalarov's organization to coordinate."
 * "Schiller claimed he had no recollection of the event at Nobu."
 * "Schiller told the Committee he did not know who reserved the hotel rooms, and did not recall being involved in reviewing the hotel selection."
 * "Schiller did not recall taking any security precautions regarding Trump's room other than looking to see that there was no one else in it."
 * "Schiller told the Committee he did not recall how many nights they were in Russia, or what hotel they stayed at."
 * "Schiller told the Committee he had no recollection of a music video being filmed."

He was not alone: "A number of witnesses told the Committee their memories were unclear."

The Senate Committee noted that Schiller's recollection about the offer of five prostitutes was inconsistent and unclear: "It is not clear, based on Schiller's recollection, where or when the offer was made, or by whom." At first, he said the offer was made at a morning meeting, but he later said the offer may have been made at the hotel.

Equivocation by Yulia Alferova
Yulia Alferova (Yulya Klyushina) worked for the Agalarovs and helped "organize Trump's Miss Universe contest". She was also Trump's hostess during the weekend and posted photos of herself and others together with him on her social media accounts. In January 2017, when investigators asked her about the pee tape, she tried to defend him and equivocated about where Trump spent the night: "I am confident that nobody has any video of Trump with prostitutes.   ... See, he came on November 9, worked all day, partied all night, and left. I am not even sure if he spent the night at the Ritz." Like Trump's phony alibi, she left out all of November 8 and the early morning hours of November 9, only mentioning the day and night of the Miss Universe pageant.

The Senate Intelligence Committee report's "Footnote 2510" mentioned her tweets, one shortly after the Miss Universe pageant, showing she had foreknowledge, long before the American public, of Trump's planned presidential run. She promised Russian support for his candidacy: "On January 22, 2014, Klyushina wrote on social media that, 'I'm sure @realDonaldTrump will be great president! We'll support you from Russia! America needs an ambitious leader!'; On January 28, 2015, Klyushina announced on Twitter that Trump would be running for President of the United States. Tweet, @AlferovaYulyaE, January 28, 2015. The Committee has no insight into the nature of Klyushina's knowledge of these matters or what prompted these statements."

This Russian support was later manifested in the "sweeping and systematic" Russian interference in the 2016 elections. The Committee had "significant concerns regarding [Artem] Klyushin" and devoted a whole section to him and his associates: "Artem Klyushin, Konstantin Rykov, and Associates". They were involved in election interference efforts in Ukraine and the United States.

Attempted cover-ups, evasion, and attempts to find the tapes
Sources have alleged that certain people were evasive, lied about, and/or tried to cover-up and spin the news of Trump's alleged activities in Moscow, including what Judge Cooper described as "efforts to suppress tapes involving alleged sexual escapades on the part of the former President". These activities included searching for the tapes, possibly having them, trying to catch and kill them, trying to purchase them, or maybe even publish them. Some of those alleged to have been involved in related activities were Aras Agalarov/Crocus Group, Donald Trump, Michael Cohen, Giorgi Rtskhiladze, Keith Schiller, Hope Hicks, Yulia Alferova, Harvey Levin, David Pecker, Dylan Howard, Hustler magazine, and Penthouse magazine:


 * Aras Agalarov/Crocus Group: Both the dossier and Rtskhiladze, independently of each other, associated responsibility, knowledge, and/or possession of compromising tapes of Trump with Agalarov and his Crocus Group.  Giorgi Rtskhiladze described not merely the matter of possession of the tapes, but the responsibility for their existence, when he "assessed that if compromising material existed, Crocus Group would likely be responsible".
 * Donald Trump: He has repeatedly lied by denying he stayed overnight even once on the trip. The "evidence of the coverup is so plentiful" that many doubt Trump.
 * Michael Cohen: He tried to find and get possession of the tapes.
 * Giorgi Rtskhiladze's contacts with Cohen:
 * "In 2014 or 2015 Cohen asked a friend, Giorgi Rtskhiladze, to find out if the tape was real."
 * "On October 30, 2016, three weeks after Hope Hicks asked him to track down the footage in question, Michael Cohen received a text from Giorgi Rtskhiladze reporting that he had successfully "stopped the flow of some tapes from Russia". Rtskhiladze told investigators that these were compromising tapes of Trump, and Cohen told investigators he had spoken to Trump about the issue."
 * Keith Schiller: His honesty about events in Moscow has been questioned by multiple sources.
 * Hope Hicks: Speaking of the pee tape rumor, she testified that she asked Michael Cohen to learn more and report back to her: "I wanted to make sure that I stayed on top of it before it developed any further, to try to contain it from spiraling out of control." She also testified that she knew of the pee tape three months before the publication of the Steele dossier.
 * Yulia Alferova: She equivocated about the timing of Trump's activities in Moscow and repeated Trump's phony alibi, leaving out a whole day of his stay.
 * Harvey Levin, founder of TMZ: He knew of the pee tape and contacted Cohen about it. Cohen may have had other contact with him: "Hicks had been told that TMZ might have access to the tape, and she knew that Cohen was very close to Harvey Levin, the gossip outlet's founder."
 * David Pecker and Dylan Howard of National Enquirer: They knew of the pee tape and contacted Cohen about it. They are known to perform catch and kill operations, including hush money payments, to help Trump cover up his affairs with Stormy Daniels, Karen McDougal, and possibly others.
 * Hustler magazine: "Before the election, Larry Flynt, publisher of the pornographic magazine Hustler, put up a million dollars for incriminating tape of Mr Trump."
 * Penthouse magazine: Offered "$1 Million For a Trump Piss Tape". Penthouse wrote:
 * "'However, while many media outlets are content running a story based on conjecture and rumor, we at Penthouse are committed to the value of getting the story right rather than getting it first. So we are offering up to $1-million to secure exclusive rights to the FSB tapes documenting Trump’s Russian hotel hijinks. After all, seeing is believing.'"

Trump's vulnerability to blackmail
Trump's lies, actions, and association with certain people "compromised" him, gave the Russians "leverage" over him, and made him vulnerable to blackmail. As a Lawfare report put it: "Trump's personal and business history in Russia provided a significant opportunity for kompromat. Such material was very likely collected. There is less evidence that it was ever deployed, though Trump's mere awareness of his vulnerability gives rise to substantial counterintelligence concerns."

The Senate Intelligence Committee report implied "that the Agalarovs had been cultivating Trump for some time" and were trying to "gain influence over" him.

Trump's behavior makes him vulnerable to blackmail

 * Trump's history as a playboy,  and especially his many divorces and lawsuits, have revealed that he is accustomed to adultery, paying to cover it up, and paying for sex. He even tried to hand cash to Playboy Playmate of the Year Karen McDougal after sex and offered porn star Jessica Drake $10,000 for "her company".
 * Trump's association with David Geovanis makes him "vulnerable to kompromat operations".
 * Trump's behavior shows he is vulnerable to blackmail: "The central thesis of the dossier seems increasingly likely: that Trump's long history of alleged affairs make him uniquely susceptible to blackmail."
 * In the Ritz-Carlton lobby, he was observed with a group of prostitutes. He was loudly defending them from hotel security who were trying to prevent the prostitutes from going up to Trump's room without signing in.
 * In a Ritz-Carlton elevator, he was filmed with some prostitutes.
 * On his last night in Moscow in 2013, he separately accosted, without success, two young women in a very public and physical manner by grabbing them and propositioning them. This became public knowledge long before the dossier.

Central roles of Agalarovs and Goldstone






Aras Agalarov (owner of Crocus Group), his son Emin, and Emin's publicist Rob Goldstone, were in close connection with Trump during times when kompromat on him was allegedly collected, such as their June 2013 visit to "The Act" nightclub in Las Vegas, Trump's weekend in Moscow in November 2013, where Agalarov was his host, and later when Goldstone, acting for Emin, arranged the 2016 Trump Tower meeting. According to Adam Davidson, Trump's mere association with them would compromise him and make him susceptible to blackmail, due to the informal sistema and blat system of corruption under which they operate.

The Agalarovs/Crocus Group controlled much that happened around Trump in Moscow in November 2013. They "designated the security guard", provided a translator, and reserved the Presidential Suite at the Ritz-Carlton hotel for Trump, and, when someone suggested that Trump could stay at the Intercontinental Hotel, Emin Agalarov literally demanded that Trump stay at the Ritz Carlton: "trump will stay at the ritz comply with me", and he "requested that room options be sent to him". Both the dossier and Rtskhiladze, independently of each other, implicated Agalarov and his Crocus Group with responsibility, knowledge, and/or possession of compromising tapes of Trump. Giorgi Rtskhiladze "assessed that if compromising material existed, Crocus Group would likely be responsible".

Rob Goldstone "said he was in Trump's company [from the time Trump landed until he departed], except for a five-hour window that Trump was afforded to sleep early Saturday morning". That was also the available time frame when the pee tape incident allegedly occurred.

In 2016, as part of the Agalarov's and Russia's continued efforts to cultivate Trump and create more kompromat to be used against him, Goldstone and Emin Agalarov arranged another kompromising event involving Trump, the 2016 Trump Tower meeting, which Trump likely knew about before it happened.

Before the meeting, the Russian government falsely said it would share "dirt" on Clinton. In reality, there was no "dirt" on Clinton, and the mention of the word "dirt" was familiar bait to Donald Trump Jr., who knew from George Papadopoulos that the Russian government had promised to help the Trump campaign by releasing "dirt" on Clinton. His response showed he was expecting more of this form of aid. Goldstone emailed Donald Trump Jr. and wrote: "this 'is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump.' Trump Jr. responded in an email: 'If it's what you say I love it." The meeting was really a secret attempt to get Donald Trump to lift the Magnitsky Act sanctions imposed against Russia and certain oligarchs, something Trump was willing to do for Putin.

Acting CIA director John E. McLaughlin explained how Trump's lying about his attempts to get a Trump Tower Moscow deal with Agalarov, and his keeping the Trump Tower meeting in New York secret for nearly a year, compromised Trump and gave Putin "leverage" over him. McLaughlin said the "seeds of blackmail" came from "the Trump Tower meeting on June 9, even if nothing came of it": "If we had never learned of it, Russia would have had in its kit bag an email from [Donald Trump Jr.] saying 'I'd love some dirt on Hillary from Russia.' And could have threatened to reveal it at any time. Those around Trump clearly are naive about all of this."

Frank Figliuzzi, former assistant director for counterintelligence at the FBI, described how Trump's lies about the Trump Tower Moscow deal with Agalarov were "the definition of the Russian word kompromat". Jennifer Rubin wrote that "Russians knew Trump was lying and Trump knew that they knew. That's leverage." Lawfare said those lies "compromised" Trump and gave the Russians "leverage" over him.

In June 2018, Emin put out a music video that clearly alludes to the pee tape and kompromat. It featured "impersonators playing Donald Trump, Ivanka, Jared Kushner, Hillary Clinton, Mark Zuckerberg, and Stormy Daniels, a series of briefcase handoffs, surreptitious meetings, and bikini-clad Miss Universe contestants". Mother Jones described the video as "an over-the-top trolling of the Trump-Russia investigation", whereas Sonam Sheth described it as "trolling Trump over the allegation".

Aras Agalarov
Aras Agalarov is an Azerbaijani businessman, oligarch, and real estate magnate who has close ties to Vladimir Putin, Yuri Chaika (described as the "Master of Kompromat" ), and many forms of organized crime. The Senate Intelligence Committee wrote: "The Agalarovs have significant ties to Russian organized crime and have been closely affiliated with individuals involved in murder, prostitution, weapons trafficking, kidnapping, extortion, narcotics trafficking, money laundering and other significant criminal enterprises. Some of those activities have extended outside of Russia, including to the United States."

The fact that a sitting President had close business ties with such people has been criticized.

Agalarov has many ties to Trump, including financial, and was involved in Trump's plans to build a Trump hotel in Moscow. Michael Cohen was Trump's representative in most of his business dealings with Agalarov in Russia, and the Senate Intelligence Committee wrote that Giorgi Rtskhiladze "warned him twice against working with the Agalarovs, saying they were 'really rough'".

Dossier sources reported that Trump had participated in "sex parties" in St. Petersburg, and that Agalarov "would know most of the details of what the Republican presidential candidate had got up to" in St. Petersburg. Mueller reported how Giorgi Rtskhiladze, independently of the dossier, described how "compromising tapes of Trump" were "rumored to be held by persons associated with the Russian real estate conglomerate Crocus Group" [owned by Agalarov].

Years later, when referring to the alleged pee tape made of Trump with prostitutes in November 2013, Rtskhiladze indicated that the making of such a tape could be the consequence for any indiscretions that occurred around Agalarov/Crocus. Rtskhiladze knew that, as Agalarov was a close associate of Putin and Yuri Chaika, anything improper was likely to be recorded. The Senate Intelligence Committee report notes that Rtskhiladze was the one who "assessed that if compromising material existed, Crocus Group would likely be responsible." The Committee connected the dots by attaching "Footnote 4282" to "Crocus Group would likely be responsible": "4282 Aras Agalarov's associate, Yuri Chaika, the longtime former Prosecutor General of Russia, has a history of utilizing compromising information.  [source ] Most notably, in the late 1990s, Chaika was reportedly involved in the use of a video recording to oust a Russian government official who was investigating corruption in the Russian leadership. The recording, which was made public, showed the official in a compromising situation with two women. Chaika himself replaced the ousted official, who claimed that the tape was falsified. Putin, who was the head of the FSB at the time, 'authenticated' the tape involving the women."

David Geovanis
David Geovanis is a "Moscow-based American businessman with longstanding ties to President Donald Trump". He also "has ties to Kremlin-linked oligarchs, several of whom are sanctioned by the United States. Some of Geovanis's contacts are also associated with Russia's intelligence and security services, and some are involved in Kremlin foreign influence operations."

The Senate Intelligence Committee extensively describes Geovanis and his statements about Trump's alleged sexual activities in Russia, including the following: "Geovanis has claimed that, during Trump's travel to Russia, both in 1996 and 2013, Geovanis was aware of Trump engaging in personal relationships with Russian women. Geovanis has suggested that the Russian government was also likely aware of this information.  ... Geovanis also has a reputation in Moscow for a pattern of conduct regarding women that could make him, and potentially those around him, vulnerable to kompromat operations."

Geovanis implied that Trump had a sexual relationship with "two young Russian women", a story described by the Senate Intelligence Committee ("younger women" and "two beautiful young women"). The Committee also implied that Geovanis may have told that story to Jeffrey Toobin: "There are indications that Geovanis may have also told this story to the press. A February 2018 story in The New Yorker includes an anecdote that closely resembles the one allegedly told by Geovanis."

Geovanis also implied that Trump had a sexual relationship with a former Miss Moscow. Luke Harding and Julian Borger describe how: "Trump 'may have begun a brief relationship with a Russian woman' he met at the Geovanis party. Her name is blacked out. One source of the information is Theodore Liebman, an architect who lived in Moscow and New York in the 1990s, and who traveled to Russia with Trump to the event."

Geovanis intimated that he could blackmail Trump if he was not careful: "[William McFarren said]: To the best of my recollection, Mr. Geovanis said that he showed Mr. Trump around Moscow during the Miss Universe pageant in 2013. He did not get into specifics, but intimated that there was partying and that Mr. Trump should be nice to him in light of the information he had."

It has also been suggested that Putin could blackmail Trump: "Almost a year later, on October 22, 2016, O'Brien sent an invitation email to the group of expatriate businessmen, including Geovanis, regarding the 2016 holiday dinner in Moscow. In that email, O'Brien wrote, 'I keep thinking that VVP [Putin] must have some great material on Donald.'"

Dossier mentions of Trump's vulnerability
The dossier describes Trump's potential vulnerability to blackmail in various ways, including his knowledge of it and how it is conditioned on continued "voluntary" cooperation with the Kremlin:

Each allegation should be read as "Sources allege that" (and then the allegation).


 * ... that Trump was vulnerable to blackmail from Russian authorities for paying bribes and engaging in unorthodox and embarrassing sexual behavior over the years,  and that the authorities were "able to blackmail him if they so wished".   (Reports 80, 95, 97, 113)
 * ... that the Kremlin had promised Trump they would not use the kompromat collected against him "as leverage, given high levels of voluntary co-operation forthcoming from his team". (Report 97)
 * ... that Trump had explored the real estate sectors in St. Petersburg and Moscow, "but in the end TRUMP had had to settle for the use of extensive sexual services there from local prostitutes rather than business success". (Report 95)
 * ... that witnesses to his "sex parties in the city" had been "'silenced' i.e. bribed or coerced to disappear." (Report 113)
 * ... that Trump had paid bribes in St. Petersburg "to further his [business] interests". (Report 113)
 * ... that Aras Agalarov "would know most of the details of what the Republican presidential candidate had got up to" in St. Petersburg. (Report 113)
 * ... that Trump associates did not fear "the negative media publicity surrounding alleged Russian interference" because it distracted attention from his "business dealings in China and other emerging markets" involving "large bribes and kickbacks" that could be devastating if revealed. (Report 95)
 * ... that "DIVEYKIN discusses release of Russian dossier of 'kompromat' on TRUMP's opponent, Hillary CLINTON, but also hints at Kremlin possession of such material on TRUMP." (Report 94)
 * ... that "However, the Kremlin official close to IVANOV added that s/he believed DIVEYKIN also had hinted (or indicated more strongly) that the Russian leadership also had 'kompromat' on TRUMP which the latter should bear in mind in his dealings with them." (Report 94)
 * ... that "As far as 'kompromat' (compromising information) on TRUMP were concerned, although there was plenty of this, he understood the Kremlin had given its word that it would not be deployed against the Republican presidential candidate given how helpful and co-operative his team had been over several years, and particularly of late." (Report 97)

The Steele dossier describes Trump's vulnerability to blackmail as a key factor that made the Rosneft offer of a large brokerage fee to Carter Page possible. He, as Trump's representative, was offered the brokerage of up to a 19 percent stake in Rosneft. It has been described as a carrot and stick scheme, in which the carrot was the brokerage fee ("in the region of tens and possibly hundreds of millions of dollars"), and the stick was blackmail over purported "damaging material on Trump" held by the Russian leadership.

Compromised national security vs salacious acts
While the media has tended to focus on the sexual nature of the alleged scandalous incident, others have focused on how national security was compromised by the far more serious scandal and kompromat Trump created when he allegedly "intentionally disrespected the President of the United States" and became blackmailable.

Vera Papisova wrote: "If allegations are true, and the Russian government does have compromising financial and personal information about Donald Trump, then we should be more concerned about whether or not this will have an effect on his foreign policy — and not laughing at his sexual preferences."

Jaclyn Friedman points out the "big scandal": "People are so focused on the 'scandalous' sex act that they're missing the treason. The big scandal here, which is getting lost in all the pointing and laughing, is that, if these allegations are true, he's compromised U.S. sovereignty by being either blackmailed or blackmailable by Russia."

Paul Wood, BBC journalist, wrote: "The significance of these allegations is that, if true, the president-elect of the United States would be vulnerable to blackmail by the Russians. I understand the CIA believes it is credible that the Kremlin has such kompromat - or compromising material - on the next US commander in chief."

On the subject of kompromat, Bruce Ohr testified to the House Judiciary and Oversight committees that on July 30, 2016, Steele told him that "Russian intelligence believed 'they had Trump over a barrel'    ... [a] broader sentiment [that] is echoed in Steele's dossier". Paul Wood described the source as "another Danchenko contact, a 'former senior intelligence officer now a Kremlin official'. This was later said to be no less than a former head of Russia's foreign intelligence services. This source did not talk specifically about the 'pee tape' but, Danchenko told Steele, he said they had sexual kompromat on Trump going back years. 'We've got him over a barrel.'"

Cultivation, compromise, kompromat, and blackmail
Trump appears vulnerable to at least three types of kompromat (compromising material): those of a sexual, financial, and corrupt practices nature. These vulnerabilities go back many years, far before his 2015–2016 presidential campaign. The Russians and their allied intelligence agencies appear to have tried to collect kompromat on him for at least 40 years.

According to former KGB major Yuri Shvets, Russia has been trying to cultivate Trump as a Russian intelligence "asset", not an actual "agent" (spy), for many years. He became the target of a joint KGB and Czech intelligence services spying operation after he married Czech model Ivana Zelnickova and has been cultivated as an "asset" since 1977: "Russian intelligence gained an interest in Trump as far back as 1977, viewing Trump as an exploitable target." Shvets describes why "Trump was the ideal target for Soviet recruitment. 'He was the perfect combination of extremes: Extreme vanity, extremely low IQ, extreme vulnerability to flattery, and of course, extremely greedy.'" Trump was just one of many targeted by the KGB: "The Russians were trying to recruit like crazy and going after dozens and dozens of people." This time it paid off, and the KGB celebrated its success.

Three years later, Trump finished his first large building project, the Grand Hyatt New York hotel, furnishing it with "hundreds of televisions from a Russian immigrant who was a KGB spotter and who highlighted him as a potential asset, being an up-and-coming businessman". "Then, in 1987, Trump and Ivana visited Moscow and St Petersburg for the first time. Shvets said he was fed KGB talking points and flattered by KGB operatives who floated the idea that he should go into politics." Shvets compared the young Trump to the Cambridge Five, where early recruitment bore fruit for Russia much later.

"For the KGB, it was a charm offensive. They had collected a lot of information on his personality so they knew who he was personally. The feeling was that he was extremely vulnerable intellectually, and psychologically, and he was prone to flattery. This is what they exploited. They played the game as if they were immensely impressed by his personality and believed this is the guy who should be the president of the United States one day: it is people like him who could change the world. They fed him these so-called active measures soundbites and it happened. So it was a big achievement for the KGB active measures at the time."

He was "groomed by the Russians to pursue a political career", and after he returned to the United States, he began to seek the Republican nomination for president. He also began publishing unorthodox and anti-American sentiments. Trump was not viewed as an actual spy but as an asset who is a "useful idiot". Kyle Cunliffe, a lecturer in intelligence studies, puts it this way: "We're talking about Trump being a self-interested businessman who's happy to do a favour if it works to his own best interests – and that includes staying out of jail.  ... Simply put, an agent is a partner for life, whereas an asset is a friend with benefits. And, most likely, if Trump has been one of the two, it's the latter."

The Senate Intelligence Committee looked at Trump's potentially blackmailable activities in Russia in the mid–1990s: "Two decades before he ran for president, Donald J. Trump traveled to Russia, where he scouted properties, was wined and dined and, of greatest significance to Senate intelligence investigators, met a woman who was a former Miss Moscow. A Trump associate, Robert Curran, who was interviewed by the Senate investigators, said he believed Mr. Trump may have had a romantic relationship with the woman. On the same trip, another Trump associate, Leon D. Black, told investigators that he and Mr. Trump “might have been in a strip club together.” Another witness said that Mr. Trump may have been with other women in Moscow and later brought them along to a meeting with the mayor. Mr. Trump was married to Marla Maples at the time."

The Committee also investigated the threats of kompromat about Trump that "emerged in 2016", as well as those that "predated both Steele's memos and the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign": "Russia has a longstanding practice of collecting compromising information to attempt to influence or coerce prominent individuals, posing a potential counterintelligence threat. Allegations that the Russian government had compromising information on then-candidate Trump emerged in 2016, and were more fully made public in early 2017, through memos produced by Christopher Steele. Separate but related allegations, which were not public, in some cases predated both Steele's memos and the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. Collectively, the allegations raised a potential counterintelligence concern, that Russia might use compromising information to influence the then-presidential candidate's positions on relations with Russia. The Committee sought, in a limited way, to understand the Russian government's alleged collection of such information, not only because of the threat of a potential foreign influence operation, but also to explore the possibility of a misinformation operation targeting the integrity of the U.S. political process."

A Lawfare summary of the Committee's final report on Russian interference in the 2016 elections examined its "findings regarding reports of 'kompromat' of a sexual nature that may have been collected on Donald Trump during his various visits to Moscow" and found they were "significantly redacted. The blacked-out portions include a fuller description of the threat posed by Russian intelligence services' collection of kompromat."

While the Committee investigated the possibility of Russian kompromat on Trump, much of the discussion was redacted in the public version of the report, and witnesses were less than cooperative; Schiller could "not recall" many events where he was present as Trump's bodyguard. He could not remember ever being at "The Act" nightclub in Las Vegas or anything about the Moscow trip, not even the name of the hotel or whether they stayed there. He was not the only one with "memory issues": "A number of witnesses told the Committee their memories were unclear." Ultimately, the Committee "did not establish" that Russia had kompromat on Trump.

On September 5, 2017, in a Russian state TV broadcast, Russian politician Nikita Isaev (Isayev) confirmed the Kremlin had kompromat on Trump. He was the leader of the far-right New Russia Movement, and he called for retaliation against the Trump administration over its closure of several Russian diplomatic compounds across the U.S. As retaliation, he threatened the release of unspecified kompromat on Trump held by the Russian government. Isaev said: "Let's hit Trump with our Kompromat!" Host: "Do we have it?" Isaev: "Of course we have it!"

Becoming an "asset" and "agent of influence"
Intelligence agencies may create an asset by compromising the person, and this is done by keeping track of their lies, indiscretions, and potential sexual scandals. Any of these can be used as kompromat to gain leverage over the asset, enabling them to be pressured in many ways: "President Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen says that Trump repeatedly lied during the campaign when he denied have any deals or anything to do with Russia. Others knew as well, presumably — his daughter and son-in-law who worked on the project, Felix Sater who reached out to the Russian and — this is key — the Russians. If you believe Cohen, then Russians knew Trump was lying and Trump knew that they knew. That's leverage. Former FBI official Frank Figliuzzi explains: 'At any time, Vladimir Putin could use — or perhaps he already has used — knowledge of Trump's deceit to pressure Trump on everything from sanctions to public statements to policy on Ukraine.'"

Trump's lies about his business projects in Russia created the necessary conditions for Trump to be compromised: "As candidate and again as president, Trump lied about his business ties with Russia." Peter Strzok explains the consequences of those lies: "The moment Trump said publicly, 'I have no business dealings with Russia,' he knew he was lying. Putin knew he was lying, and the FBI had reason to believe he was lying. But American citizens didn't know that. The then-presidential candidate's public denial of his business dealings in Russia signaled to Putin that Trump was more interested in maintaining his personal financial interests than in telling the truth to the American people, and that he needed Putin's complicity to maintain the lie. To use an intelligence term that you will be seeing a lot in this book, in this moment Trump became compromised. Trump's compromising behavior did not begin or end with the lie about his business interests in Russia. The list was long and alarming.  ... All these actions made Trump vulnerable to coercion by Russia, and now he was behaving in a way that suggested he was indeed being manipulated by our adversary. The dilemma for us was, what was the Bureau going to do about it?"

Former FBI special agent Clint Watts says that "Trump handed Putin 'a window of opportunity should he choose to use it to discredit President Trump at any time President Trump doesn't do what President Putin likes.'" Former acting CIA director John McLaughlin described how the "seeds of blackmail" can come from "ongoing business negotiations" and "the Trump Tower meeting on June 9, even if nothing came of it".

Lawfare described how Trump's lies about the Trump Tower meeting gave the Russians "leverage" over him and "compromised" him: "This was a lie, and for those quick to dismiss the notion that Donald Trump was to any degree compromised by the Russians, consider the lie for a moment. Trump made these comments publicly in a high-stakes situation. He knew when he did so that they were untrue. The Russians also knew they were untrue. And Trump also knew that the Russians knew that they were untrue. The only people who didn’t know they were untrue were the American public. This creates leverage, because Trump also knew at some level that the Russians could expose his lie in a high-stakes situation at any point. Such knowledge creates counterintelligence risk for the simple reason that it creates a powerful incentive on the part of the candidate not to cross the party with leverage."

Jennifer Rubin, columnist for The Washington Post, wrote: "Senator Adam Schiff 'raises the possibility that this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to President Trump's financial dealings with Russia. If true, and especially if Trump was engaged in money laundering that might violate U.S. laws (something yet to be proven), Schiff says 'Russians would be well aware of it,' and could hold (or be holding) that over Trump's head.'"

Both of Trump's sons have "admitted that Russians supplied the Trump Organization much of its capital needs", and Trump's former architect, Alan Lapidus, has described how Trump's "involvement with Russia was deeper than he's acknowledged". He helped Trump survey property in Russia in 1997, yet, to his consternation, Trump later "kept protesting that he knew nothing about Russia and hadn't tried to do much business there". Lapidus said: "The quid pro quo has to be in there somewhere.   ... Trump could not get money here. He found Russia, and the Russians gave him a lot of money. He has got to be doing a quid pro quo. It's just logical. It's just too much money."

Rubin cites The Moscow Project's description of Trump's relationship with Russia. In the context of heavy investments by Russians in Trump's properties and "a president under several investigations for his connections to the Kremlin": "Russia's outsize role in Trump's reemergence from financial tribulations that nearly destroyed his real estate empire merit additional attention. What emerges is the story of a man indebted to Russia through the oligarchs that President Vladimir Putin helped create and now controls."

Robert Mueller testified that Russia had blackmail on Trump due to financial factors because he lied about negotiating with Russia for a Trump Tower deal in Moscow. He "repeated five times in one press conference, Mr. Mueller, in 2016, 'I have nothing to do with Russia.'" Those repeated false statements made him vulnerable to blackmail: "Any undisclosed foreign arrangements would raise red flags about candidates for national office, making them vulnerable to blackmail by others privy to those secrets. Russians call such nuggets of damaging information 'kompromat,' a concept that's become familiar enough to enter the international lexicon."

Right after the dossier was published, the BBC's Paul Wood described four sources for claims of possible Trump–Russia blackmail: "the head of an East European intelligence agency"; "an intelligence agency of one of the Baltic States"; "active duty CIA officers dealing with the case file"; and Christopher Steele ("a former British intelligence agent").

Max Boot has listed "18 reasons Trump could be a Russian asset". He mentioned the dossier when he described more "evidence of Trump's subservience to Putin", and he tied it to new government confirmations of rumors about Trump's alleged indiscretions in Russia: "The Senate Intelligence Committee offered some provocative new nuggets, including suggestions that Trump might have engaged in dalliances with Russian women during visits to Moscow that left him open to blackmail. This is the first confirmation from any branch of the U.S. government that rumors of Russian kompromat on Trump — a central feature of the infamous Steele Dossier — may have some basis in fact."

Tim Weiner wrote that experienced intelligence personnel, such as "veteran American spies, spymasters, and spy-catchers", including Leon Panetta, have described Trump as an "agent of influence", someone who uses his position, power, and influence in the interests of an enemy power: "Leon Panetta, who ran the CIA and the Pentagon under President Obama, has no doubt about it. He told me that, by any definition, 'Trump, for all intents and purposes, acts as an agent of influence of Russia.'  ... [Many] veteran American spies, spymasters, and spy-catchers    ... concur with Panetta. But they have other theories as well. There's the useful idiot scenario. Or maybe it's money: the Russians might have kompromat—compromising information—about Trump's finances. And some think it might be worse than that."

John R. Schindler says of former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper that "Nobody knows the IC better than Clapper." Then he describes Clapper's description of Putin's influence over Trump as "The most jaw-dropping statement ever uttered about any American president by any serious commentator.": "I think this past weekend is illustrative of what a great case officer Vladimir Putin is. He knows how to handle an asset, and that's what he's doing with the president.  ... You have to remember Putin's background. He's a KGB officer. That's what they do. They recruit assets. And I think some of that experience and instincts of Putin has come into play here in his managing of a pretty important account for him, if I could use that term, with our president."

Schindler also described Trump as an "agent of influence": "In particular, Trump's flashy 1987 trip to the Soviet Union – an obvious KGB operation to anyone versed in Chekist matters – led to his becoming an apparent agent of influence for Moscow. That is, a conduit for political favors and information, often in exchange for commercial deals of the sort Trump has always prized. Knowing this, the history of the Trump Organization over the last few decades takes on a different coloration."

Trump viewed as under Putin's influence


Many sources, especially from the intelligence community, have stated that Trump acts like a "Russian asset", "agent", "puppet", or "useful idiot" controlled by Putin. While such comments are not limited to describing Trump's actions at the Helsinki summit in 2018, many were triggered by those events.

2018 Helsinki summit
Several leaders and lawyers in the U.S. intelligence community reacted strongly to Trump's performance at the summit. They described it as "subservien[ce] to Putin" and a "fervent defense of Russia's military and cyber aggression around the world, and its violation of international law in Ukraine" which they saw as "harmful to US interests". They also suggested he was either a "Russian asset" or a "useful idiot" for Putin, and that he looked like "Putin's puppet".

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper saw Trump's behavior and wondered "if Russians have something on Trump".

Former CIA director John Brennan, who has accused Trump of "treason", tweeted: "He is wholly in the pocket of Putin."

At the joint press conference, when asked directly about the subject, Putin denied having any kompromat on Trump. Even though Trump was given a "gift from Putin" the weekend of the pageant, Putin asserted "that he did not even know Trump was in Russia for the Miss Universe pageant in 2013 when, according to the Steele dossier, video of Trump was secretly recorded to blackmail him."

After Putin was asked "about the purported existence of a certain racy video clip in his country's possession", Jay Willis noted Putin's strange answer; he could have cleared Trump but did not do so: "He's not saying it exists. But he's also not saying it doesn't exist.   ... What this answer does not include: any straightforward denial that the pee tape exists."

In reaction to Trump's behavior at the summit, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) spoke in the Senate: "Millions of Americans will continue to wonder if the only possible explanation for this dangerous and inexplicable behavior is the possibility—the very real possibility—that President Putin holds damaging information over President Trump."

Natasha Bertrand described how Trump's actions at the Helsinki summit: "led many to conclude that Steele's report was more accurate than not.  ... Trump sided with the Russians over the U.S. intelligence community's assessment that Moscow had waged an all-out attack on the 2016 election.    ... The joint news conference    ... cemented fears among some that Trump was in Putin's pocket and prompted bipartisan backlash.'"

Other comments
Former CIA director Michael V. Hayden said Trump was a "polezni durak" - a "useful fool" who is "manipulated by Moscow".

During the final presidential debate, Hillary Clinton said Putin "would rather have a puppet as president of the United States".

Paul Wood, referring to descriptions of Trump by Hillary Clinton and Michael Morell, wrote that both "agent" and "puppet" "imply some measure of influence or control by Moscow".

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi questioned Trump's loyalty to America when she asked him: "[Why do] all roads lead to Putin?"

Former acting CIA director Michael Morell has written: "In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation."

John Sipher, a former member of the CIA's Senior Intelligence Service, considers Trump a Russian agent in a limited sense. He starts by saying Trump is not an agent in the traditional sense, and later says he is "an agent of a foreign power": "I think it is entirely plausible that Mr. Trump is somehow compromised by his personal and financial dealings with Russia and Russians, but I do not think he is an 'agent' in the sense that intelligence professionals use the term. Let me explain.  ... Based on the U.S. definition of an agent, it is unlikely that President Trump is a recruited and controlled source of the Russian intelligence services. To a professional he is a nightmare. Yes, he is a cauldron of potentially exploitable vulnerabilities.    ... He clearly crossed a line and can be objectively labeled an agent of a foreign power in the standard definition of the word. From the Russian perspective, it is a win-win even if the relationship doesn’t meet the cloak-and-dagger definition of a wholly clandestine espionage agent."

Peter Strzok has analyzed Trump's life, leading him to believe Trump was and is "compromised" and thus, wittingly or unwittingly, indebted to Putin. Strzok describes the many things Trump did and said before and during his presidency that made him vulnerable to blackmail and pressure from foreign adversaries. Strzok posits the question: "When a president appears to favor personal and Russian interests over those of our nation, has he become a national security threat?"

Ynet, an Israeli online news site, reported on January 12, 2017, that U.S. intelligence advised Israeli intelligence officers to be cautious about sharing information with the incoming Trump administration until the possibility of Russian influence over Trump, suggested by Steele's report, has been fully investigated.

Adam Davidson, a staff writer at The New Yorker, has described "sistema", the system of kompromat and constant fear that affects the actions of people from Russia and other nations in that part of the world, even when they work in the United States. Anyone who works with them is endangered. Everyone collects kompromat on everyone, even their friends and business partners, so everyone exists with the threat of even small missteps being used against them, so they try not to antagonize others. Trump is endangered because he has worked with "many ethnic Turks from Central Asia, such as the Mammadov family, in Azerbaijan; Tevfik Arif, in New York; and Aras and Emin Agalarov, in Moscow [and] large numbers of émigrés from the former Soviet Union."

Davidson writes: "If there truly is damaging kompromat on Trump, it could well be in the hands of Trump's business partners, or even in those of their rivals.  ... [They save it] knowing that it might one day provide some sort of business leverage—even with no thought that he could someday become the most powerful person on Earth.    ... Had he never sought the Presidency, he may never have had to come to terms with these decisions. But now he is much like everyone else in sistema. He fears there is kompromat out there—maybe a lot of it—but he doesn't know precisely what it is, who has it, or what might set them off."

Political scientist Keith Darden said that Trump has "never said a bad word about Putin.   ... He's exercised a degree of self-control with respect to Russia that he doesn't with anything else." Darden said: "He is capable of being strategic. He knows there are limits, there are bounds on what he can say and do with respect to Russia."

Richard Dearlove, "The former head of the United Kingdom’s spy agency said a potential second term for former President Trump is a national security threat to his country."

History of rumor awareness
True or not, the rumor became known to at least five groups of people at different time periods. Awareness started among Russians, Cohen, Trump, and a few others around him, but it was unknown to the American public until publication of the Steele dossier in 2017.

In late 2013, shortly after Trump left the 2013 Miss Universe pageant, Muscovites began to hear about compromising tapes of Trump with prostitutes in the Ritz-Carlton hotel, with "tales of [Trump's] weird sexual indiscretions" being described as an "open secret" and "a well-known story" in Moscow, and Moscow prostitutes saying "the 'golden shower' orgy story is true".

The second group were individuals who tried to help Cohen find out if the tapes were real, locate them, and stop them. Cohen was willing to pay a lot for the tapes.

Awareness outside of Russia was limited to a third group, mostly with connections to Cohen and Trump. Cohen testified that "many people" were aware of the rumor, and he mentioned "half a dozen people" who knew and reached out to him. At least twenty named, and many unnamed, people were aware of the "Moscow tape" long before Steele even started his research.

The fourth group's knowledge was related to Steele. In June 2016, after Steele began to receive reports back from his Russian sources, he began to privately share some details with a few journalists,  the FBI Crossfire Hurricane team, and its leaders. Before the election, only two news sources mentioned some allegations that came from dossier reports, but neither mentioned the pee tape rumor. Steele had been in contact with both authors. These were a September 23, 2016, Yahoo! News article by Michael Isikoff that focused on Carter Page, and an article by David Corn on October 31, 2016, a week before the election, in Mother Jones magazine.

The public were the fifth group. They learned of the rumor when the dossier was published on January 10, 2017. Because the dossier's description was the first public description, people were under the mistaken impression Steele invented a new rumor. Cohen's testimony to the House Intelligence Committee on March 6, 2019, made clear that Steele's Russian sources were not inventing a rumor; rather, they were sharing the old rumor from 2013, and Trump and Cohen had known about it the whole time.

Awareness timeline table
Below are listed people who are known to have been aware of the rumor. Some are named and others are mentioned because sources allude to them. The list is roughly in the chronological order of when they were made aware. Some involved in the hunt for the tape(s) were made aware more than once.

Michael Cohen and Giorgi Rtskhiladze


Although Cohen did not accompany Trump to Moscow in 2013, his actions in relation to the pee tape rumor became important elements in the awareness history of what Cohen described as "the infamous pee tape when Mr. Trump was in Moscow for the Miss Universe Pageant": "Michael Cohen has testified that he became aware of allegations about a tape of compromising information in late 2013 or early 2014, shortly after the Miss Universe 2013 pageant and significantly prior to the 2016 U.S. election cycle. The alleged tape related to Trump and prostitutes. Cohen has testified that he discussed the allegations with Trump, who asked Cohen to find out where the allegations were coming from. Trump told Cohen that the allegations were not true."

Cohen's later testimony revealed that "he had been aware of other similar allegations that began shortly after Trump's travel to Moscow in 2013", and many others have also known about the rumor since that time. Cohen acted on Trump's request, and, in "2014 or 2015", he contacted his friend Giorgi Rtskhiladze, "to see if Rtskhiladze could find out if the tape was real". Rtskhiladze was born in the Republic of Georgia and is now a U.S. citizen (since 2017). He is a businessman who partnered with The Trump Organization, and thus Cohen, in its failed building project plans in the former Soviet Union, including plans for a Trump Tower Moscow development in 2015. Most significant coverage of him is in connection with Cohen and Trump.

In October 2015, Sergei Khokhlov, a Russian friend of Rtskhiladze, told Rtskhiladze he overheard two people "discussing sensitive tapes of a Trump visit to Russia". A year later, the Access Hollywood tape became headlines on October 7, 2016. Because of its possibly damaging effects on Trump's reputation and business possibilities in the former Soviet Union, on October 30, 2016, "Rtskhiladze informed Cohen of the alleged tapes in Moscow, and Cohen informed Trump and several others", including Donald Trump Jr. and Schiller. "Cohen has said that there was no additional action taken, and that he had been aware of other similar allegations that began shortly after Trump's travel to Moscow in 2013, none of which Cohen was able to corroborate."

"Stopped the flow of some tapes"
When Rtskhiladze contacted Cohen, he indicated he had acted on the information from Khokhlov (from 2015) and "stopped the flow of some tapes from Russia". Cohen then asked him "Tapes of what?" and Rtskhiladze replied "Not sure of the content but person in Moscow was bragging had tapes from Russia trip." Their communication continued, and Lawfare observed that the goal of these communications "was to run them down and keep them quiet so that Trump could 'make it to' the White House". This happened about a week before the 2016 election and well before the Steele dossier became public knowledge on January 10, 2017.

CNN noted that this episode "occurred months before top intelligence officials, including former FBI Director James Comey, presented Trump with claims of Russian efforts to compromise him that were contained in a dossier prepared by retired British spy Christopher Steele, which CNN has reported took place in January 2017."

"Footnote 112" in Volume 2 of the Mueller Report mentions these communications between Rtskhiladze and Cohen, and the House Intelligence Committee provided the whole exchange in Exhibit 38, reproduced below.

In his 2020 lawsuit against Robert Mueller, Rtskhiladze, unprompted, suggested a way he could have "stopped the flow" of tapes. He also mentioned who might have been in a position to help him do that. This happened when he accused Mueller of "insinuating" how he did it, and which his lawsuit against Mueller denied. Rtskhiladze asserted that "Mueller's report mentioned unverified allegations that a Russian real estate conglomerate, Crocus Group, was in possession of the compromising tapes and insinuated that Rtskhiladze worked with Crocus to prevent its release." In fact, it was Rtskhiladze, not Mueller, who described how "compromising tapes of Trump" were "rumored to be held by persons associated with the Russian real estate conglomerate Crocus Group" (which is owned by Agalarov), and Mueller had not insinuated that "Rtskhiladze worked with Crocus" to stop the tapes.

Judge does not believe Rtskhiladze's changing story
Mueller's office "twice interviewed Rtskhiladze", and his story changed between interviews. "Footnote 112" covers both interviews. In the April 2018 interview, when asked what he meant by "tapes" in his claim to have "stopped the flow" of tapes, he stated that "'tapes' referred to compromising tapes of Trump rumored to be held by persons associated with the Russian real estate conglomerate Crocus Group, which had helped host the 2013 Miss Universe Pageant in Russia." "Footnote 112" "concluded with additional information from a May 2018 interview". His previous story in April changed with the additional claim made in May "that Khokhlov subsequently called and stated that the tapes were fake, but Rtskhiladze said this information was not conveyed to Cohen." (Judge Cooper cast doubt upon the claim of a call from Khokhlov.)

Because Rtskhiladze, per Cohen's request to "find out if the tape was real", had been watching out for the tapes, his initial message to Cohen on October 30, 2016, (that he had "stopped the flow of some tapes") not only implied the tapes were real, not fake, but also that he had found and stopped the tapes at their source (implications later confirmed by Judge Cooper ). It was only much later, in his May 2018 interview, that Rtskhiladze claimed "he was [later] told the tapes were fake", a claim doubted by Judge Cooper.

If Rtskhiladze really had received such a "fake tapes" call by Khokhlov, he would have relayed this information to Cohen and also mentioned it in his April 2018 interview, but he did not do that. Instead, his message in 2016 gave Cohen (and Trump) "the impression that real tapes had existed" all that time. In other words, according to New York Times reporter Madison Malone Kircher, "Team Trump thought they existed, according to the Mueller report." Ruthann Robson also noted Trump's possible belief: "while the Mueller Report casts doubt on the tape's existence, the question of its existence — and the question of whether Trump believed it existed and acted accordingly — implicate national security issues, as well as the issues of obstruction that the Mueller Report raised."

Judge Cooper later said Rtskhiladze "undercut" his claim that the tapes were fake by speaking as if getting secretly recorded could be a real consequence of indiscretions committed around Agalarov/Crocus: "As for Rtskhiladze's professed belief that the tapes were fake, that suggestion is somewhat undercut by Rtskhiladze's statement, only present in the Senate Report, suggesting that the tapes may have been real, and that they were 'what happens when you visit crocus I guess.'"

Cohen's testimony
By the time of Cohen's second deposition by the House Intelligence Committee on March 6, 2019, (which is cited in the Senate Intelligence Committee's report), the "pee tape" was a well-known term. The Committee discussed the Mueller Report's "Footnote 112", the pee tape, and Rtskhiladze's October 30, 2016, texts to Cohen. Cohen's testimony made it clear that (unbeknownst to either of them) Rtskhiladze's texts about the tapes he stopped were about what later became known as the dossier's "pee tape". The day after the Steele dossier was published, and Rtskhiladze read the dossier's description of the alleged pee tape incident in 2013, he wrote an email showing he recognized the dossier's description of the pee tape also described the tapes he stopped in October 2016. Both tapes (which were really the same tapes) were "rumored to be held by Crocus Group". Judge Cooper wrote: "Rtskhiladze's own words as reproduced in the Senate Report show that he, at the very least, suspected in 2017 that the tapes referred to in his texts with Cohen and the tapes mentioned in the Steele Dossier were one and the same."

Under questioning by Representative Jackie Speier, Cohen described the tape stopped by Rtskhiladze as "the infamous pee tape when Mr. Trump was in Moscow for the Miss Universe Pageant". Speier asked: "It wasn't infamous then, was it?" and he replied: "Yes, yes. That the tape - the conversation about the tape has gone back almost a couple months past when they were there for the Miss Universe Pageant that that tape existed." (p. 227) When Speier asked "So you're suggesting you've known about the rumors about this tape for many years before October 30th?" he replied that he had talked to "many people" over the years: "Cohen estimated that, over the course of several years, six different people contacted him regarding the alleged tape. Cohen stated that one individual threatened to release the alleged information if the individual was not paid a large sum of money. Cohen indicated that he would have been willing to pay the individual to suppress the information if it could be verified, but Cohen was never shown any evidence. Cohen has also said that individuals in the media contacted him regarding a tape of Trump.  ... [T]hose individuals included David Pecker, Dylan Howard and Harvey Levin."

Cohen explained that Trump had denied the rumor when they first learned of it shortly after the Miss Universe contest, and he asked Cohen to find its source. Speier noted how that original rumor did not die: "but it persists, and then you're hearing it again on October 30th". When Speier said "It does not become public knowledge until January of 2017, when BuzzFeed releases the Steele dossier." Cohen corrected her and confirmed there was some form of "public knowledge" of the pee tape before the Steele dossier: "That's not really true. There were conversations way before that. TMZ, Harvey Levin called me, said he had heard about the existence of it. You know, other people had heard of the existence of that tape."

Pecker, Howard, and Levin
Michael Cohen testified that "over the course of several years, six different people contacted him regarding the alleged tape.   ... [T]hose individuals included David Pecker, Dylan Howard and Harvey Levin."

David Pecker is an American publishing executive, businessman, and was also the publisher of National Enquirer. In 2018, Pecker became embroiled in controversy regarding his involvement in catch and kill operations to buy exclusive rights to stories that might embarrass his friend Donald Trump, to prevent the stories from becoming public during Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.

Dylan Howard is an entertainment journalist and media executive best known for his work as editor-in-chief of the National Enquirer tabloid between 2014 and 2020, a period in which he and Pecker oversaw a number of scandals involving powerful figures, including Donald Trump.

Harvey Levin is an American television producer, legal analyst, journalist, and former lawyer. He founded the celebrity news website TMZ in 2005, and later briefly served as the host of OBJECTified (2016–present), which aired on the Fox News Channel.

Steele's seven Russian sources
The founders of Fusion GPS said that Steele received the "hotel anecdote" from seven Russian sources. The dossier says the seven sources for the "golden showers" allegation included Sources D and E, and other sources that Howard Blum describes as [Steele's] "alphabet list of assets". Some have been described:


 * 1) "According to Source D, where s/he had been present"
 * 2) The episode was "confirmed by Source E (redacted) who said that s/he and
 * 3) several of the staff were aware of it at the time and subsequently. S/he believed it had happened in 2013. Source E provided an introduction for
 * 4) a company ethnic Russian operative to
 * 5) Source F, a female staffer at the hotel when TRUMP had stayed there, who also confirmed the story."
 * 6) (no description)
 * 7) (no description)

Besides the two sources he named, Paul Wood described some "other sources", including an American, whose stories seem to contradict Trump's bodyguard's assertion that he refused the offer of five prostitutes: "Steele has five other sources for the 'golden showers' story. One is the hotel manager, another a maid. Neither had first-hand information, the manager agreed it might have happened, the maid relayed gossip among the housekeeping staff. One is 'an American' who supposedly saw a row in the hotel reception about whether a group of prostitutes could go up to Trump's suite. This American is not Keith Schiller, Trump's bodyguard, who told a Congressional committee he had 'stopped' five prostitutes from trying to visit Trump. Another source was a friend of Danchenko, described as a Russian with a 'wide social network', who said the story was common knowledge around the Kremlin."

Igor Danchenko
Igor Danchenko worked for Christopher Steele's Orbis Business Intelligence as a major collector (a Primary Sub-source ) of information for the Steele dossier, including traveling to Moscow in early June 2016. When Danchenko first reported back to Steele of his findings in Moscow, he reported that: "the Russians had been targeting and cultivating Trump for years and had even gathered kompromat on him, specifically tales of weird sexual indiscretions that the collector said 'were an open secret' in Moscow. Steele was horrified. 'I thought I had heard and seen everything in my career,' he told associates."

District Judge Anthony Trenga analyzed the question of Steele's sources and acknowledged that Steele had other sources than Danchenko. He countered Special Counsel John Durham's contention "that Danchenko was Steele's primary source of information for the Steele Reports writ large" by noting that Steele used other sources than Danchenko: "Nor is there any evidence that    ... Steele only, or almost entirely, used Danchenko as his source for the Reports."

Trenga described how Danchenko first learned of the rumor: "Danchenko argues that he never told, and there will be no evidence that he told, the FBI that his sources for the Ritz-Carlton allegations were Millian, Dolan, or Kuhlen. Instead, as he told the FBI in a January 25, 2017 interview, he first learned of the Ritz-Carlton Moscow allegations in early June 2016 [in Moscow] when an individual identified as 'I.V.' told him about 'a well-known story' regarding Trump's alleged salacious sexual activity at the hotel, and that he 'reported Trump's unorthodox sexual activity at the Ritz' [to Steele] as 'rumor and speculation' and that he had not been able to confirm the story."

Trenga wrote that "Danchenko told FBI agents that he inquired with staff about the rumors involving Trump's purported sexual activity at the hotel, and that the hotel staff did not deny the veracity of those rumors. Danchenko also told the FBI in that same interview that he passed along to Steele the names of the hotel staff he spoke to." Danchenko said "he found his sources credible but that he took their information with a 'grain of salt'".

The FBI revealed that Danchenko was a very well-connected source whose role went far beyond the Steele dossier. Danchenko worked for the FBI as "an uncommonly valuable" confidential human source for several years after the Steele dossier was published: "Helson testified that Danchenko's reports as a confidential informant were used by the FBI in 25 investigations and 40 intelligence reports during a nearly four-year period from March 2017 to October 2020.  ... Danchenko, the FBI agent said, was considered 'a model' informant and 'reshaped the way the U.S. even perceives threats.' Helson said that none of his previous informants had ever had as many sub-sources as Danchenko and that others at the FBI have continued to ask in recent months for Danchenko's assistance amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine."

Hope Hicks


As Trump's most personal aide in his inner circle, Hope Hicks was a close witness to every Trump scandal and controversy: "She was there for everything." Along with awareness of many other Trump scandals and sexual misconduct allegations, it was later revealed that she became aware of the pee tape rumor on October 8, 2016.

Trump's top strategist, Steve Bannon, revealed that Trump lawyer "Marc Kasowitz 'took care' of 100 women during the presidential campaign". This all involved multiple tapes and hush money payments, creating confusion over which tape was being referred to, and this required that Hicks testify to a Congressional committee, exposing hers and Trump's early knowledge of the pee tape rumor.

On October 7, 2016, news of the Donald Trump Access Hollywood tape broke, and the next day she learned of the pee tape from Trump campaign spokesperson Katrina Pierson. Pierson told her that Harvey Levin of TMZ might have access to the pee tape. Hicks, realizing that Michael Cohen knew him, immediately reached out to Cohen and requested that he investigate the matter and report back to her. Trump was on one of the three phone calls between Hicks and Cohen: "The affidavit identifies three calls involving Ms. Hicks and Mr. Cohen on the evening of October 8, 2016, including one, the first call that Mr. Trump joined."

As part of its investigation of hush money payments related to Trump's affair with Karen McDougal and the Stormy Daniels–Donald Trump scandal, the House Judiciary Committee had to investigate those phone calls. Therefore, Hicks was questioned about whether Trump ever directed her "to make public statements about the hush money payments during the campaign". She denied ever doing so.

Due to confusion between the pee tape and the Access Hollywood tape, she had to explain the difference, and, in doing so, she made a new revelation of what the Trump campaign knew about the pee tape. She testified about her phone calls with Cohen: "[The calls were not] about the [Access Hollywood] tape; it was about   ... rumors of a tape involving Mr. Trump in Moscow     ... with Russian hookers, participating in some lewd activities.    ... I wanted to make sure that I stayed on top of it before it developed any further, to try to contain it from spiraling out of control."

She testified to the Committee that she and others in the Trump campaign already knew of the pee tape three months before the publication of the Steele dossier, and that she and Michael Cohen discussed the pee tape with Trump in October 2016. This information about Trump's early knowledge of the pee tape touched on the Mueller report's "Footnote 112" and Comey's briefing of Trump at Trump Tower right before his inauguration. At that time, Trump did not inform Comey that Cohen had told him about the pee tape rumor in late 2013, shortly after the Miss Universe pageant, or that he had again heard about the pee tape from Hicks and Cohen on October 8. He also said nothing about Cohen's October 30 communications with Giorgi Rtskhiladze, a fact Mueller drew attention to by writing "Footnote 112".

Intelligence sources and agencies
Robert Manne, referring to a January 11, 2017, report by Paul Wood, wrote that "Independent [from the dossier] evidence about Trump as a potential victim of sexual blackmail emerged soon after the publication of the dossier."

On January 11, 2017, Paul Wood, of BBC News, described those "independent" sources and wrote that Steele was "not the only source" for claims about Russian kompromat on Trump, and that multiple intelligence sources were privately reporting about kompromat before the publication of the dossier: "And the former MI6 agent is not the only source for the claim about Russian kompromat on the president-elect. Back in August, a retired spy told me he had been informed of its existence by 'the head of an East European intelligence agency'. Later, I used an intermediary to pass some questions to active duty CIA officers dealing with the case file - they would not speak to me directly. I got a message back that there was 'more than one tape', 'audio and video', on 'more than one date', in 'more than one place' - in the Ritz-Carlton in Moscow and also in St Petersburg - and that the material was 'of a sexual nature'. The claims of Russian kompromat on Mr Trump were 'credible', the CIA believed."

Briefings of Obama and Trump about pee tape rumor
On January 5, 2017, the chiefs of four U.S. intelligence agencies briefed President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden about the Russian interference in the election and the existence of the dossier and its allegations. They were Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, FBI Director James Comey, CIA Director John Brennan, and NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers.

On the afternoon of January 6, 2017, President-elect Trump and his transition team received a similar briefing from the same group of top intelligence chiefs in Trump Tower. They informed Trump of the Russian election interference, and Comey told them of "a piece of Steele's reporting that indicated Russia had files of derogatory information on both Clinton and the President-elect".

Then, according to a pre-arranged plan, Brennan, Clapper, and Rogers left, and Comey then asked to speak with Trump alone. Comey then informed Trump of the dossier and its allegations about salacious tapes held by the Russians. Comey later reported he was very nervous. The previous day, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security told Comey to "be very careful", "choose your words carefully", and then "get outta there". Trump became very defensive, and Comey described the meeting as "really weird". Trump later expressed that he felt James Comey was trying to blackmail him at the meeting in Trump Tower, held two weeks before the inauguration.

Trump dissembled by not telling Comey that he had known of the pee tape rumor since shortly after he left the Ritz-Carlton hotel and 2013 Miss Universe pageant.

Publication of dossier
The first public mention of the rumor was on January 10, 2017, when CNN reported about the January 6, 2017, meeting in Trump Tower where Comey oriented Trump about the salacious aspects of the dossier. Before that, only a few people in intelligence circles, some journalists, some senior members of Congress, some other government officials in Washington, and some foreign officials knew of the dossier.

Following the CNN report, BuzzFeed News immediately published the dossier, thus bringing awareness of the pee tape rumor to the public. Peter Strzok described the reaction as "the Internet equivalent of an atomic explosion". Referring to Congress, he wrote: "We had heard rumors that several of its members had seen the reporting, including Senator John McCain, who had been concerned enough that he had given a copy to Comey. But the majority of their colleagues on the Hill had not. This was the first time that most members of Congress had heard of it — and they suddenly seemed to be unable to talk about anything else. (p. 196)"

Notability and legacy of pee tape narrative
The rumor has been described as a "viral sensation", and the "most notorious" of all the dossier's allegations. "The 'pee tape' claim instantly overshadowed all the other Trump-Russia allegations in the Steele dossier", which itself has been described as "one of the most explosive documents in modern political history" and "perhaps the most controversial opposition research ever to emerge from a Presidential campaign".

According to Tommy Vietor, "once a narrative enters the media ether, it can become uncontrollable.   ... once a rumor gets some traction, it's almost impossible to fix it, even if it is false. The problem with the pee tape allegation is it is so graphic, it is so memorable, that it doesn't matter how many times you knock it down — people are going to remember it."

When Steele was asked why the Russians hadn't released the tape, he replied "It hasn't needed to be released.   ... I think the Russians felt they'd got pretty good value out of Donald Trump when he was president of the U.S." The dossier asserts that the Russian authorities were "able to blackmail him if they so wished". As long as the alleged tape(s) aren't released, the threat has a lasting effect, because the Kremlin allegedly made the conditional nature of the arrangement clear to Trump, who "understood the Kremlin had given its word that [the kompromat] would not be deployed against the Republican presidential candidate given how helpful and co-operative his team had been over several years, and particularly of late." (Report 97)

The founders of Fusion GPS have written: "Ultimately, whether the incident detailed in the dossier is true or not is likely not of paramount importance. The Russians had ample kompromat against Trump and his top aides with or without any pee tape."

Glenn Simpson believes the dossier interrupted a planned renewal of relationships between the United States and Russia that was "not in the interest of the United States"; that it supported the existing FBI investigation into Russian interference; and that it furthered understanding of "the covert relationship between the Trump campaign and the government of Russia".

Journalist David Corn of Mother Jones describes how the "Trump gang" use the dossier as "a convenient foil, their false flag": "It was a clever ploy on the part of the Trump gang: Deny the unfounded—that Trump was caught on tape consorting with urinating prostitutes and that he conspired directly with Putin—to sidestep the damning reality that Trump and his aides betrayed the nation by both encouraging the Russian attack and trying to cover up Putin's sinister intervention."

Commentary and context
A number of writers have shared their analyses and comments about the rumor's veracity or lack of same.

Writers, journalists, and Steele

 * Seth Abramson, in his book Proof of Collusion, wrote that "the Agalarovs couldn't have missed" Trump's enthusiastic reaction to the sight of women peeing, and that his "delighted" reaction "may have informed the activities they wanted prostitutes to perform in front of Trump in his hotel suite in Moscow in November 2013, just 120 days after the risqué performance in Las Vegas". He noted that Trump's public actions at an after-party after the Miss Universe contest, where Trump accosted two women,  provided kompromat for the Russians. He described how these public actions, which were disclosed before the Steele dossier was even written, were evidence that Trump was lying about being discrete in Moscow, that he was publicly careless, and that his deceptive denials showed "consciousness of guilt".


 * Jonathan Chait, an American pundit and writer for New York magazine, wrote an article entitled "I'm a Peeliever and You Should Be, Too". He prefaced his further comments by saying: "I used to doubt that this episode really happened. I now believe it probably did. I am obviously far from certain, but since Steele's dossier came out, an accumulation of evidence has tipped the balance from unlikely to likely." Then he listed five reasons, with explanations, for why he thought we too should believe it likely happened:


 * Christopher Steele is credible.
 * Trump is unhealthily obsessed with Obama.
 * Trump has mixed his denials of the pee tape with obvious lies.
 * Trump's alibi is at least partly false.
 * Trump is comfortable with gross sexual behavior and can be blackmailed.


 * Ashley Feinberg, journalist for Slate, investigated the pee tape rumor, especially the Presidential Suite, and linked to a 25-second "Piss Tape" video (at www.pisstape.org, now found at the Internet Archive) of the purported occurrence. She concluded that the "Piss Tape" video was fake, but "very far from being an obvious fake". A key discrepancy, according to Feinberg, was that the video appeared to show the Presidential Suite as it appeared after a 2015 renovation, despite the purported occurrence being in early November 2013, before the renovation occurred. The video has been in circulation since at least January 26, 2019. Although she believes the "Piss Tape" video is fake, it was so convincing that she said: "The more I tried to prove to myself it wasn't real, the less confident I became in my own skepticism."


 * Feinberg, when referring to "this pee tape" (the one at pisstape.org), distinguishes between it and the missing alleged Moscow "pee tape": "The pee tape is fake. This pee tape, anyway. Whether this pee tape is the pee tape—perhaps you've heard of it as the 'piss tape,' or the 'pee-pee tape,' or the 'golden shower video'—is one of the things that are still unclear about it."


 * Naomi Fry, a staff writer at The New Yorker, said:
 * "To me, the oddest detail of all is the idea that defiling the bed after rather than before the Obamas occupied that Moscow suite—a years-late voodoo ritual—might count as taking revenge on the then President and First Lady. It is this bizarre logic that in fact seems most like Trump, with his crazed rage at perceived enemies and fixation on old offenses—chronology be damned!—and it is what might ultimately count as the true perversity here."


 * Michelle Goldberg's New York Times article "Lordy, Is There a Tape?" mentions Trump's "obsession with the rumored tape" and his lies to Comey "about why it couldn't be real", and concludes that if we found the pee tape existed, "it would prove" something "we already know", "that Trump is sexually debauched and longs to desecrate everything Obama touched".


 * She describes how his lies "are of more than voyeuristic interest". They are significant "because, like the former director of the F.B.I., we don't know if Trump has been compromised by Russia." She mentions a tendency for Trump observers to "avoid admitting what seems to be staring us all in the face    ... the rather obvious possibility that Trump is being blackmailed."


 * She sees "Trump's phony alibi" as just part of the "evidence that the tape might be real". As more evidence, she points to Trump's visit to "The Act" nightclub in Las Vegas, five months before he visited Moscow, where Russians observed Trump watching a golden showers performance "with delight", and its "at least two [acts] involving women simulating urination, a fairly specific kink". She notes that "his presence at the club tells us he may not find this sort of thing unbearably disgusting".


 * Martin Longman, web editor for the Washington Monthly, wrote: "There's a name for people who believe that the tape exists: peelievers. When I saw that Trump lied to Comey about spending a night at the hotel at all, it made me more of a peeliever." Regarding the time of the alleged incident, he wrote:
 * "I can't establish the exact time that Trump was at this shoot [music video for Emin], but he definitely did not sleep in. Even if [Trump] had gone straight to bed the night before, he probably would have gotten no more than four or five hours of sleep. Did Russian women show up at the Ritz Carlton that night? There are several reasons to believe they did, including that Christopher Steele was able to partially corroborate a rumor that he learned of from a conversation that took place in New York City several years later by having sources talk to staff at the hotel in Moscow. I also think it’s interesting that Keith Schiller felt compelled to admit that the offer was made, even if he denied that Trump accepted it."


 * Jennifer Rubin wrote an opinion article for The Washington Post about Trump's fake alibi entitled "A false alibi could be strong evidence of guilt":
 * "Maybe the Big Lie has worked in the past, but in legal or impeachment proceedings, it comes across as evidence of deceit.  ... We return to the quintessential Trump dilemma: If he is innocent, why does he behave so much like a guilty man    ...?    ... Once triers of fact (either at trial or in the court of public opinion) believe that an accused person is lying, it becomes awfully hard to convince them that there is good reason to lie. In this case, evidence of the coverup is so plentiful that ordinary people — not unreasonably — will assume guilt. Trump’s penchant for lying, exaggerating, distorting and misremembering in ways that invariably line up with his unfounded assertions might finally do him in."


 * Roger Sollenberger, a senior political reporter for The Daily Beast, said he came to strongly believe the tape exists. He analyzed the issue and made a list of eight "strikes against the pee-pee tape" explaining why we should not believe the tape is real, and then he debunked all but one: "I can't prove I'm right. But I'm not trying to. All I can do is make a compelling argument that explains why, after being a total skeptic for months, I've slowly come to believe, strongly, that this hideous, ridiculous thing really is out there." He said it was worth writing about because "Russia might indeed have blackmail on our President."


 * He has also concluded it is the dossier allegation with "the most sources attached to it, all of them independent":
 * "Throughout the dossier, Steele is surprisingly honest about qualifying his sketchy sources as sketchy. He never professes certainty about anything. But he doesn't caveat the golden shower report. That report, the most unbelievable one, notably also has the most sources attached to it, all of them independent. And the improbable fact is that, so far, nothing substantial in the dossier has been proven untrue, with the exceptions of some misspellings or a description that's slightly off here and there. And in fact, the dossier is becoming increasingly corroborated."


 * Christopher Steele said he believes that 70–90% of the dossier is accurate. "[Steele] treated everything in the dossier as raw intelligence material—not proven fact." Regarding the "golden showers" allegation, Michael Isikoff and David Corn have stated that Steele's "faith in the sensational sex claim would fade over time.    ... As for the likelihood of the claim that prostitutes had urinated in Trump's presence, Steele would say to colleagues, 'It's 50–50'."


 * On October 17, 2021, in Steele's first major interview, George Stephanopoulos, of ABC News, asked him if he thought the "pee tape" was real. Steele answered that it "probably does exist", but he "wouldn't put 100 percent certainty on it". When he was asked why the Russians hadn't released it, he replied "It hasn't needed to be released.   ... I think the Russians felt they'd got pretty good value out of Donald Trump when he was president of the U.S."


 * In their book Crime In Progress, Glenn R. Simpson and Peter Fritsch write: "Steele remains confident that the Ritz allegation is not disinformation, a hoax, or the fabrication of a fantasist. Ultimately, whether the incident detailed in the dossier is true or not is likely not of paramount importance. The Russians had ample kompromat against Trump and his top aides with or without any pee tape."

Comedians and shows
Immediately following the publication of the Steele dossier on January 10, 2017, comedians naturally provided a stream of jokes, as well as serious commentary, about the pee tape rumor. Twitter was "flooded" with jokes and "a stream of pee puns", with hashtags like #GoldenShowers, #PeeTape, and #PEEOTUS trending. By the next day, there were about 70,000 jokes on Twitter about the matter.

Serious commentary

 * Seth Meyers, on his show Late Night with Seth Meyers, had a humorous monologue about the pee tape. After listening to Comey's account of how Trump asked him to investigate the pee tape, Meyers exclaimed:
 * "Oh my God, it's real. It has to be. Why would you ask the FBI Director to investigate a pee tape if you knew for a fact that pee tape definitely didn't exist?  ... You know, I've always thought the pee tape was real, and here's how I know."
 * Then Seth's monologue continued, including playing a Fox News interview with Trump denying the tape existed, yet explaining how it would embarrass him if such a tape did show up. After Trump brought up the tape many years later, Meyers quipped:
 * "'My favorite part is when he said Melania didn't believe that one, like there are plenty of other stories she definitely believed.' Impersonating Trump, Meyers said: 'She didn't believe the golden-showers story, but when the news broke that I asked a porn star to spank me with a Forbes magazine while we watch Shark Week, she said, 'That sounds like my Donald.'"


 * David Pakman, host of the The David Pakman Show, delved into the odd fact that Trump lied about the pee tape when a normal person would not need to do so:
 * "These are not normal reactions.  ... So, lie confirmed about the pee tape stuff. It's not actually about the pee tape but about the fact that Trump has been caught lying again about something that a normal person would just say 'I didn't do that, and there is no evidence that I did it because it didn't happen.'"


 * Cenk Uygur, host of The Young Turks, reviewed the evidence that debunked Trump's phony alibi that he didn't overnight in Moscow. Then he said:
 * "You have to ask the question: Why would you lie about that if you didn't do the 'golden showers' thing? And then he got his personal security guy to also lie for him, but that lie also exposed what really happened.' [Then he quotes from Politico's coverage about Schiller's testimony that showed Trump did overnight in Moscow.] Uygur concluded: 'There's Donald Trump in a nutshell for you guys. So now, given that he is clearly lying, clearly covering it up, clearly stayed in Russia that night, the Steele dossier said that he stayed there in that hotel, I now believe there is a pretty good chance that tape exists.'"

Comedic coverage
The Steele dossier was published on January 10, 2017, and late night shows and comedians "could barely contain their schadenfreude". They immediately exploited the sensational theme to their fans' great amusement with all kinds of toilet humor jokes that were "saturated", "streaming", and "dripping" with "yellow journalism". Twitter also struck "comedy gold with stream of jokes over Trump report".


 * Among them were Samantha Bee, Conan O'Brien, James Corden, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers,  Trevor Noah, David Pakman, Saturday Night Live,  Sam Seder, and Cenk Uygur. A whole fictional episode of the legal drama The Good Fight featured the pee tape and a woman who claimed to be one of the prostitutes involved in the incident.


 * Stephen Colbert, host of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, has repeatedly joked about the pee tape on his show.
 * CBS and Colbert took the subject further than others. In 2017, Colbert and CBS decided to investigate the dossier rumor by traveling to Moscow, renting, and overnighting in the Presidential Suite where the pee tape incident allegedly took place. CBS filmed the suite and made it the subject of an episode on The Late Show.
 * When James Comey appeared on the The Late Show, Comey asked Colbert if the Ritz-Carlton's Presidential Suite was large enough to handle the alleged "pee tape" activity, since Trump claimed to be a germaphobe. Colbert joked that "it was plenty big enough to have kept Trump in the 'splash-free zone'". The episode was the third-highest Late Show rating ever.

Against Robert Mueller and Department of Justice. Filed by Giorgi Rtskhiladze
CASE: Rtskhiladze v. Mueller, Complaint, Case 1:20-cv-01591-CRC. FILED: June 17, 2020.

Rtskhiladze was unhappy with the way he was portrayed in "Footnote 112" in the Mueller Report, and in 2020 he unsuccessfully sued Robert Mueller and the Department of Justice for defamation over the matter. Rtskhiladze sought at least $100 million in damages and a retraction from the Mueller report. He asserted he suffered "massive financial and emotional harm" because the Mueller Report allegedly connected him with the pee tape and Crocus Group. According to the suit: "Steele was concerned the Russians could use the recordings to blackmail Trump. Mueller’s report mentioned unverified allegations that a Russian real estate conglomerate, Crocus Group, was in possession of the compromising tapes and insinuated that Rtskhiladze worked with Crocus to prevent its release."

The case was dismissed for lack of standing by District Judge Christopher R. Cooper on September 1, 2021. Cooper's dismissal argumentation included an extensive analysis of Rtskhiladze's activities and beliefs about the tapes which he stopped. The lawsuit brought to light some interesting facts about the hunt for the pee tape, how it likely was "stopped", and Judge Cooper connected many dots before he dismissed the case. Judge Cooper quoted various parts of the Senate Report that demonstrated how, the "day after the Steele Dossier allegations were published in 2017" by BuzzFeed, Rtskhiladze wrote an email showing he recognized the description of the alleged pee tape in the dossier just released by BuzzFeed also described the tapes he stopped in October 2016.

Rtskhiladze identified the likely possessor of the tapes when he described how "compromising tapes of Trump" were "rumored to be held by persons associated with the Russian real estate conglomerate Crocus Group" [owned by Agalarov]. Steele's dossier independently implicated Agalarov when it asserted that Agalarov "would know most of the details of what the Republican presidential candidate had got up to" in St. Petersburg.

Rtskhiladze said that he, at the time, did not know of the dossier and therefore could not have known the tapes he stopped were actually the dossier's pee tape(s). He argued: "The public—including plaintiff—did not become aware of the Steele Dossier until several months after the election." He also said that if he "had knowledge that the subject of the tapes was the salacious tapes mentioned in the unverified Steele Dossier, he would not have told Mr. Cohen that he was '[n]ot sure of the content'." Judge Cooper placed that claim in context by writing: "The Senate Report makes clear that Rtskhiladze did, in fact, suspect that the rumored Steele Dossier tapes were the same tapes discussed in his October 2016 text conversation with Cohen.  ... Rtskhiladze protests that 'it is beyond credulity to suggest-as Footnote 112 does-that [he] was referring to the tapes mentioned in the Steele Dossier' in his texts with Cohen. FAC at ¶ 37. But the Senate Report demonstrates that Rtskhiladze himself suggested that very thing, in writing, just the day after the Steele Dossier was made public. Senate Report at 660. Rtskhiladze's own words as reproduced in the Senate Report show that he, at the very least, suspected in 2017 that the tapes referred to in his texts with Cohen and the tapes mentioned in the Steele Dossier were one and the same."

Judge Cooper cast doubt on Rtskhiladze's strange claim. He said Rtskhiladze "undercut" his claim that the tapes were fake by speaking as if getting recorded was a real consequence of indiscretions committed around Agalarov/Crocus: "As for Rtskhiladze's professed belief that the tapes were fake, that suggestion is somewhat undercut by Rtskhiladze's statement, only present in the Senate Report, suggesting that the tapes may have been real, and that they were 'what happens when you visit crocus I guess.'"

Agalarov and other Russians were with Trump when he visited "The Act" nightclub in Las Vegas, and they observed Trump watching a golden showers performance "with delight". Agalarov/Crocus had also hosted and paid for the Miss Universe contest and reserved the Presidential Suite at the Ritz-Carlton hotel, which was rated a "high counterintelligence risk environment", with Russian agents on staff, surveillance of rooms, and many prostitutes.

Two "former employees did not know whether there were cameras permanently in certain rooms, but both believed it was possible, and there was awareness of recording devices being prearranged in rooms in anticipation of the arrival of particular guests." Rtskhiladze knew that, as Agalarov was a close associate of Putin, anything improper was likely to be recorded: "[Rtskhiladze] had 'told [Cohen] there was something there b 4 election,' adding, 'well that's what happens when you visit crocus I guess.'" Rtskhiladze was the one who "assessed that if compromising material existed, Crocus Group would likely be responsible". Judge Cooper also noted that "Rtskhiladze    ... [has] contacts connected to the Kremlin, particularly the office of Dimitri Peskov,.. key advisor to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin.    ... Rtskhiladze told Cohen that Peskov was his 'good friend.'"

Judge Cooper also connected seven dots about the tape before dismissing the case. He showed how (1) Cohen's request in "2014 or 2015" that Rtskhiladze "find out if the tape was real", which was inspired by (2) Cohen's knowledge of the pee tape since "shortly after the Miss Universe 2013 pageant", led to (3) Rtskhiladze acting on a 2015 report from Khokhlov and stopping the flow of some compromising tapes from Russia in October 2016. Those tapes were (4) mentioned in "Footnote 112" and connected by Mueller with (5) the dossier's pee tape from 2013. Judge Cooper also showed the tapes were (6) associated with Crocus Group and were (7) suspected by Rtskhiladze to be "one and the same" tape.

Against Orbis Business Intelligence. Filed by Donald Trump
CASE: President Donald J. Trump -V- Orbis Business Intelligence Limited, Case No. KB-2022-004403. FILED: October 2023.

In October 2023, Trump filed an unsuccessful lawsuit in London against Orbis Business Intelligence and Steele (who was later removed from the suit) alleging that Orbis violated British data protection laws when compiling the dossier. Trump accused Steele of making "'shocking and scandalous claims' that were false and harmed his reputation". Trump's witness statement said: "I can confirm that I did not, at any time engage in perverted sexual behaviour including the hiring of prostitutes to engage in 'golden showers' in the presidential suite of a hotel in Moscow." Trump asserted "The inaccurate personal data in the Dossier has, and continues, to cause me significant damage and distress."

On February 1, 2024, the High Court sided with Orbis and dismissed Trump's claim stating that the case was "bound to fail", and that the filing was outside the six-year period of limitations. In March 2024, Trump was ordered to pay legal fees of 300,000 pounds ($382,000) to Orbis.

Trump appealed the decision, and his appeal was denied on March 30, 2024.

Against Igor Danchenko. Filed by John Durham
CASE: United States of America v. Igor Y. Danchenko, Case No. 1:21-cr-245-AJT-1. INDICTMENT FILED: November 3, 2021. ORDER FILED: October 4, 2022.

In November 2021, as part of the Durham special counsel investigation, Igor Danchenko was indicted by John Durham on five counts of making false statements to the FBI about the identities of his sources but "not about the information [in the dossier] itself". Danchenko pleaded not guilty to all charges. At trial, Durham's faulty cases were picked apart: "'During closing arguments in both the Sussmann and Danchenko cases, defense lawyers pointed to evidence they said showed that Mr. Durham and his team had lost their way, ignoring signs of serious flaws in their cases because they were so intent on convicting someone. 'I submit to you that if this trial has proven anything, it’s that the special counsel’s investigation was focused on proving crimes at any cost as opposed to investigating whether any occurred,' Mr. Sears said on Monday.'"

The cases were so defective they "both crumbled", leading U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga to acquit Danchenko of all charges in October 2022.

During his trial, two FBI officials revealed that Danchenko was "an uncommonly valuable" confidential human source for several years after the Steele dossier was published, and whose role went far beyond the Steele dossier: "Helson testified that Danchenko's reports as a confidential informant were used by the FBI in 25 investigations and 40 intelligence reports during a nearly four-year period from March 2017 to October 2020.  ... Danchenko, the FBI agent said, was considered 'a model' informant and 'reshaped the way the U.S. even perceives threats.' Helson said that none of his previous informants had ever had as many sub-sources as Danchenko and that others at the FBI have continued to ask in recent months for Danchenko's assistance amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine."

All the Trump tapes
There are several tapes mentioned in connection with Trump, and that can create confusion. Some are real and some are alleged.


 * Donald Trump Access Hollywood tape: Recorded discussion between Donald Trump and Billy Bush in 2005 in which Trump describes his habit of sexually assaulting women without first getting their permission: "You can do anything.   ... Grab 'em by the pussy." Hope Hicks described it as "confusing" when it was mentioned at the same time as the pee tape.
 * Multiple embarrassing tapes: Intelligence agencies assert there are multiple embarrassing tapes of Trump in Russia that are held by Russian intelligence. Paul Wood reported that "active duty CIA officers dealing with the case file [reported] there was 'more than one tape', 'audio and video', on 'more than one date', in 'more than one place' - in the Ritz-Carlton in Moscow and also in St Petersburg - and that the material was 'of a sexual nature'. The claims of Russian kompromat on Mr Trump were 'credible', the CIA believed."
 * Donald Trump pee tape rumor and kompromat: Alleged tape of prostitutes performing a golden showers show for Trump at the Ritz-Carlton Moscow hotel in November 2013. The rumor is real.
 * Trump pee tape, an allegation from the 2016 Steele Dossier
 * Ritz-Carlton elevator tape: Alleged tape of Trump with prostitutes in hotel elevator in November 2013.
 * Trump Tower elevator tape of Melania with Donald Trump: Alleged tape of Trump striking Melania while in an elevator.
 * Tapes of Trump on The Apprentice: Tapes where Trump allegedly makes embarrassing off-screen comments about women and makes racial slurs. Tom Arnold searched for the tapes, but Mark Burnett, the show's producer, would not release them.
 * The Trump Tapes, 2022 audiobook release of interviews between Donald Trump and journalist Bob Woodward

TV interviews

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Bottom and notes

 * TO DO:


 * Make redirects: #GoldenShowers, #PeeTape, and #PEEOTUS
 * Remove this from above when this article is finished: Trump pee tape, an allegation from the 2016 Steele Dossier

When I started investigating the topic of the rumor (not the alleged incident, which would be a small stub article) I was surprised at how much material there was, how seriously many RS take this, and how notable it is. Much of that is because Trump has supercharged the topic by lying about it and constantly, without prompting, bringing it up. This habit has been identified as an expression of his "consciousness of guilt". Innocent people don't act this way. Because of its national security implications, it has been examined by the highest quality sources, Special Counsel investigations, Congressional committees, and is a topic in several court cases.

Trump was rarely alone in Moscow for more than a few minutes. Even when he used the toilet, his bodyguard would be nearby. He was constantly surrounded, photographed, and monitored by hosts, journalists, and spies, and the amount of documentation is impressive. Nearly (!!) every minute is accounted for, except for the one fateful early morning of the only full night he stayed in Moscow, the very night he lied about and pretended he wasn't even in Moscow. Even shadows in pictures and videos have been examined by researchers to establish the correct time of day and location, and it makes a difference! Some pictures have been mistakenly identified as being of the wrong location and time, so researchers have sorted this out. That is a great help.

Needless to say, many RS connect many dots, and yet it is the Senate Intelligence Committee (that goes much further than the Mueller report ) that provides one of the most interesting pieces of concrete evidence pointing to more "social activity" in Trump's hotel room after his bodyguard left him alone there at the time identified by several RS as the most likely (and only) time the alleged golden showers incident could have happened. He apparently did not go to sleep and may have left the room and returned. For Trump, it was like 5:30 p.m. in Ashville, a time he would normally be wide awake.

Researchers have been forced to examine every minute detail of the weekend in Moscow and how this topic is related to kompromat and national security. The real issue is not Trump's sexual proclivities but his vulnerability to blackmail. Even if it never happened, the fact he lied about it several times makes him vulnerable. People are free to be into golden showers if they wish, but when it's the person who becomes the President, that fact changes the game. Indiscretions committed by a private citizen become the tools used by the enemy to control the public official, and Trump has never criticized Putin, even though he never misses a chance to criticize other world leaders.

Add this. ... code: " To be read.   ... Think "