Did Donald Trump participate in ‘golden showers’ and, if so, how? Or does he just like to watch?

benfell

Updates

  1. January 10, 10:47 am:
    • National Public Radio has an explainer of the Fusion GPS testimony fits into larger investigations of Russian involvement in the 2016 elections[1] that fills in some details—and omits some other details that I include below. (Golden showers)
    • The Washington Post’s allegedly (and probably functionalist) conservative columnist, Jennifer Rubin, blasts Chuck Grassley and Lindsey Graham for obstructing the Fusion GPS transcript and seeking to impugn the company and Christopher Steele.[2] (Golden showers)

Golden showers

In the testimony that Dianne Feinstein released yesterday,[3] Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson stridently defends Christopher Steele’s work[4] in a so-called “dodgy dossier”:

The salacious details included in the dossier have become a partisan flashpoint in the debate over whether Trump officials had improper contacts with Russia.

The dossiers’ supporters have pointed to confirmed details in the dossier — like a meeting that former Trump adviser Carter Page had in Moscow — to argue that it gives credibility to the document as a whole.

Republicans argue that dossier was funded by Democrats and includes wild accusations about sexual impropriety by [Donald] Trump. The core claims of collusion and corruption have not been borne out by the special investigation at this point, they say.[5]

First, it should be pointed out that Fusion GPS, a political intelligence firm,[6] was hired first by conservatives and then by Hillary Clinton’s campaign for opposition research,[7] but what, because “inquiring minds want to know,”[8] are these “wild accusations about sexual impropriety?” Apparently,

Russian intelligence services, acting on Trump’s well-known obsession with sex, had arranged an evening for him with a bevy of hookers, with hidden cameras and microphones recording all the action. The jaw-dropping detail that topped the story? Trump had somehow engaged in “golden showers,” sex acts involving urine.[9]

Hence a discussion of the Russian word, “kompromat,” describing a tactic in which Trump was presumably set up to be vulnerable to blackmail,[10] a possibility that, according to the transcript, so alarmed Steele that he went to the Federal Bureau of Investigation which apparently already had confirmed some details.[11]

But, allegedly, Fusion GPS stopped working with the FBI when a New York Times story suggested “that the Trump campaign was not under investigation. The former spy was concerned that ‘the FBI was being manipulated for political ends by the Trump people and that we didn’t really understand what was going on.’”[12]

Philip Ewing, “How The Fusion GPS Founder’s Testimony Fits In The Russia Saga,” National Public Radio, January 10, 2018, https://www.npr.org/2018/01/10/576899194/how-the-fusion-gps-founders-testimony-fits-in-the-russia-saga

Jennifer Rubin, “Fusion GPS transcript undercuts GOP attack on Steele and FBI,” Washington Post, January 10, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2018/01/10/fusion-gps-transcript-undercuts-gop-attack-on-steele-and-fbi/

Katie Bo Williams and Jonathan Easley, “Five takeaways from the Fusion GPS testimony,” Hill, January 10, 2018, http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/368210-five-takeaways-from-the-fusion-gps-testimony

  1. [1]Philip Ewing, “How The Fusion GPS Founder’s Testimony Fits In The Russia Saga,” National Public Radio, January 10, 2018, https://www.npr.org/2018/01/10/576899194/how-the-fusion-gps-founders-testimony-fits-in-the-russia-saga↩
  2. [2]Jennifer Rubin, “Fusion GPS transcript undercuts GOP attack on Steele and FBI,” Washington Post, January 10, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2018/01/10/fusion-gps-transcript-undercuts-gop-attack-on-steele-and-fbi/↩
  3. [3]“Feinstein: American People Deserve Opportunity to Read Glenn Simpson, Fusion GPS Transcript,” United States Senate, January 9, 2018, https://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?id=B708D3CB-A945-4436-8FB8-9D85978C5EEF↩
  4. [4]Katie Bo Williams and Jonathan Easley, “Five takeaways from the Fusion GPS testimony,” Hill, January 10, 2018, http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/368210-five-takeaways-from-the-fusion-gps-testimony↩
  5. [5]Katie Bo Williams and Jonathan Easley, “Five takeaways from the Fusion GPS testimony,” Hill, January 10, 2018, http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/368210-five-takeaways-from-the-fusion-gps-testimony↩
  6. [6]Rebecca Ballhaus, “Jared Kushner Details Russia Meetings, Denies Collusion,” Wall Street Journal, July 24, 2017, https://www.wsj.com/articles/jared-kushner-releases-details-on-previously-undisclosed-meeting-with-russian-ambassador-1500890433↩
  7. [7]Philip Ewing, “How The Fusion GPS Founder’s Testimony Fits In The Russia Saga,” National Public Radio, January 10, 2018, https://www.npr.org/2018/01/10/576899194/how-the-fusion-gps-founders-testimony-fits-in-the-russia-saga; Chris Megerian, “Sen. Dianne Feinstein releases Fusion GPS transcript, escalating dispute with Republicans over Russia probe,” Los Angeles Times, January 9, 2018, http://www.latimes.com/politics/washington/la-na-pol-essential-washington-updates-sen-dianne-feinstein-releases-fusion-1515522979-htmlstory.html↩
  8. [8]This line was memorably used in advertising for the National Enquirer, a tabloid.↩
  9. [9]Jeff Stein, “Trump, Russian Spies and the Infamous ‘Golden Shower Memos,’” Newsweek, January 10, 2017, http://www.newsweek.com/trump-russian-spies-infamous-golden-shower-memos-541315↩
  10. [10]Greg Myre, “A Russian Word Americans Need To Know: ‘Kompromat,'” National Public Radio, January 11, 2017, http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/01/11/509305088/a-russian-word-americans-need-to-know-kompromat↩
  11. [11]Katie Bo Williams and Jonathan Easley, “Five takeaways from the Fusion GPS testimony,” Hill, January 10, 2018, http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/368210-five-takeaways-from-the-fusion-gps-testimony↩
  12. [12]Katie Bo Williams and Jonathan Easley, “Five takeaways from the Fusion GPS testimony,” Hill, January 10, 2018, http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/368210-five-takeaways-from-the-fusion-gps-testimony↩

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