The Worst Things Revealed In The Trump Steele Dossier (And Which Ones Have Been Proven TRUE Already)
Yes: the Trump pee pee tapes might actually be real.
huffington post / cnn The Steele Dossier raised many eyebrows (pee pee tapes ring a bell?), but there are more revelations that were pretty much ignored that may come into play during Mueller's investigation.
Donald Trump’s ties to Russia has always been a bit... questionable.
From his real estate dealings in the country to the many memes poking fun at his friendship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump’s relationship with the Kremlin have ranged from humorous to downright shady — but could have some serious consequences for his administration and the U.S. as a whole.
In January 2017, Buzzfeed published a pretty shocking report on Trump’s connection to the Russian government. Compiled by former intelligence agent Christopher Steele, the allegations within what we now know as the Steele Dossier are pretty harrowing.
Of course, the most infamous piece of what's in the Steele Dossier are the sordid details of the 'pee pee tapes'.
According to the report, Russian authorities recorded Trump in a room at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Moscow where Trump allegedly hired prostitutes to “perform a ‘golden showers’ show” on the hotel bed where he knew former President Obama and Michelle Obama had slept while in office.
Related: What Are Golden Showers? And How Trump Allegedly Used Them To Punish Obama
The report also states that Trump’s “unorthodox behavior” over the past few years provided Russian authorities with plenty of “embarrassing material” to blackmail him.
Not surprisingly, Trump has vehemently denied any wrongdoing, crying “fake news.” But as Special Counsel Robert Mueller continues his investigation into Trump’s ties to Russia, more and more parts of the Steele Dossier are seemingly valid — and a top CIA analyst has even proven the dossier credible.
As hilarious as the thought of a Trump pee pee tape is (like, seriously. C’mon dude.), it’s really only the tip of the iceberg. As Mueller’s investigation moves forward, we’re beginning to get a good look at the damning things that really went on leading up to and during the 2016 Presidential Election.
1. Russian authorities supported and “cultivated” Trump for at least five years
According to the report, Russia favored Trump as a political figure long before the Republicans nominated him as their presidential candidate for the 2016 election. Steele’s sources claimed the Kremlin supported Trump because they saw him as a “divisive, anti-establishment candidate,” believing he’d be able to switch the “current international status quo in Russia’s favor.”
This includes time spent gathering blackmail on Trump (yes, like the pee pee tapes) back in 2013, as well as a “Russian dossier” on Hillary Clinton comprised of “eavesdropped conversations” dating back to Bill Clinton’s presidency. The Kremlin’s main goal was to divide the U.S. and allow for a return to a pre-WWII political organization.
According to John Sipher, the CIA analyst who examined the dossier in September 2017, “the Russian effort may well have started as an anti-Clinton operation, and only became combined with the separate effort to cultivate the Trump team when it appeared Trump might win the nomination.”
2. Russia promised Trump intelligence on his political opponents: TRUE
Throughout the 2016 election, there were whispers that Russia was feeding Trump’s team with information, particularly about Clinton. The dossier revealed that a “regular exchange” with Russia “existed for at least eight years.”
While his team denied it, in July of 2017 Donald Jr. published emails between him and former reporter Rob Gladstone who seemed to promise Don Jr. “information that would incriminate Hillary” (which, of course, is a federal crime) — a full year after Steele originally reported such collusion.
As Sipher explains, “Mr. Steele could not have known that the Russians stole information on Hillary Clinton, or that they were considering means to weaponize them in the U.S. election, all of which turned out to be stunningly accurate.”
3. Russia repeatedly hacked the U.S.: TRUE
The Steele Dossier claimed that Russia repeatedly attempted hacking into major western corporations and governments. “Russia has an extensive programme of state-sponsored offensive cyber operations,” Steele wrote. According to the dossier, Russia’s top targets were G7 and NATO governments as well as their security and intelligence services.
Though the report notes that Russia had “limited success” in doing so, they found success through “IT back doors.” Coincidentally, in October 2017 reports surfaced that in 2015, “Russian state hackers stole a collection of National Security Agency (NSA) hacking tools and other documents from the personal computer of an agency contractor” through a Moscow-based antivirus software.
4. Russia was behind the DNC leak
Speaking of hacking, remember the huge DNC leak during the 2016 election that revealed the Democratic National Committee largely favored Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders? According to Steele, it was Russia who provided the emails to Wikileaks — with “full knowledge and support of Trump and senior members of his campaign team.”
The leak supposedly served two purposes, one being to turn people against Clinton and the Democratic party. The second purpose is far more malicious. Since many people were quick to blame Russia for the hack, the dossier claims that a source close to Trump revealed the Republicans were grateful “to have Russia as a media bogeyman to mask more extensive corrupt business ties to China and other emerging countries.”
However, in August 2017, The Nation published a report debating the idea that the DNC leak was the effect of a Russian hack, citing former U.S. intelligence officers who claimed the leak was, in fact, an inside job. Following this report, it’s useful to note that Steele’s dossier does mention that Trump’s teams used moles within the DNC as well as hackers based in the United States in addition to Russian hackers.
5. Russia's fake news actively worked to divide American Democrats: TRUE
The dossier states that Putin, “motivated by fear and hatred of Hillary Clinton,” wanted to sway Sanders voters away from Clinton and straight into Trump’s arms.
As Sipher noted in his analysis of the report, “it was not until March 2017, however, that former director of the National Security Agency, retired Gen. Keith Alexander in Senate testimony said of the Russian influence campaign, ‘what they were trying to do is to drive a wedge within the Democratic Party between the Clinton group and the Sanders group.’”
A March 2017 report also examined the extensive amount of “fake news” that appeared on Sanders’ supporters’ pages. According to the report, at least “40 percent of the domain registrations for the fake news sites he saw popping up on pro-Sanders pages back to Eastern Europe.”
6. Trump’s team held secret meetings with Russia: TRUE
The Steele Dossier alleges that Carter Page, one of Trump’s campaign advisors, held secret meetings with Russian official Igor Sechin. During these meetings, “Page had expressed interest and confirmed that were Trump elected US President, then sanctions on Russia would be lifted,” the dossier states.
Lo and behold, in June 2017 Yahoo published a piece describing Trump’s “efforts to engage the State Department about lifting sanctions ‘almost as soon as they took office.’” A former State Department official told Yahoo, “There was serious consideration by the White House to unilaterally rescind the sanctions,” which Capitol Hill successfully blocked.
Despite being unsuccessful, Page’s efforts did not go unnoticed. In April 2017, the FBI secured a surveillance warrant after Page told officials he "can't definitively say" the issue of US sanctions on Russia "was never raised by anyone" during his time in Russia.
7. Trump’s pee pee tapes
All of this brings us to the infamous pee pee tapes. Did Trump really pay women to pee on a bed where he knew Obama slept? And did Russia get it on video?
As more and more of the dossier proves true, it begs the question… why would Steele make this one specific thing up?
“The important factor to consider is that Trump did not engage with the prostitutes himself, but instead allegedly sought to denigrate Obama,” Sipher said in his analysis of the credibility of the Steele Dossier. “If there is anything consistent in what we have learned about President Trump, it seems that his policies are almost exclusively about overturning and eradicating anything related to President Obama’s tenure.”