This evening, Buzzfeed News published a dossier full of Donald Trump gossip that has apparently been circulating among politicians, intelligence officials, and journalists. The claims include allegations that Trump rented out the same Moscow hotel room that the Obamas stayed in and hired a pair of prostitutes to “perform a golden showers show in front of him.” Additionally, they allege, among much else, that Trump adopted pro-Russia policy positions in exchange for the Russian government’s help hacking into the DNC.
The documents have been circulating in Washington circles “for months,” according to Buzzfeed, and while journalists have made occasional reference to their contents, nobody has published them until now. CNN reported on them this afternoon and said that Trump and President Obama had received copies. They also reported that John McCain tried to give FBI director James Comey a copy, but that Comey had been sitting on one already.
As Buzzfeed makes clear, the documents are highly unverified, and their author makes a series of errors. (They were supposedly prepared by a former British intelligence agent who was, according to CNN’s sources, in charge of collecting damning information on Trump, first for “groups and donors” supporting his Republican rivals and then for “groups and donors” supporting the Hillary Clinton campaign.) They may very well be bullshit, but given that they were being read by and presumably to some extent informing the judgments of our nation’s senior political leaders and journalists, they are clearly a matter of legitimate public interest, and not just because they raise the notion of Donald Trump watching prostitutes piss all over a bed.
The president-elect himself has responded as only he can:
The documents have been circulating in Washington circles “for months,” according to Buzzfeed, and while journalists have made occasional reference to their contents, nobody has published them until now. CNN reported on them this afternoon and said that Trump and President Obama had received copies. They also reported that John McCain tried to give FBI director James Comey a copy, but that Comey had been sitting on one already.
As Buzzfeed makes clear, the documents are highly unverified, and their author makes a series of errors. (They were supposedly prepared by a former British intelligence agent who was, according to CNN’s sources, in charge of collecting damning information on Trump, first for “groups and donors” supporting his Republican rivals and then for “groups and donors” supporting the Hillary Clinton campaign.) They may very well be bullshit, but given that they were being read by and presumably to some extent informing the judgments of our nation’s senior political leaders and journalists, they are clearly a matter of legitimate public interest, and not just because they raise the notion of Donald Trump watching prostitutes piss all over a bed.
The president-elect himself has responded as only he can:
