Assuming the pee tape is real, why haven’t we gotten more information about how Trump likes golden showers? I mean, I’m not an expert on fetishism, but I assume that it’s not the sort of thing that you only do once. It’s a repetitive thing. So there must be lots of people who have urinated on the President in the last 50 years, haven’t there? Why aren’t aren’t any of them blabbing?
Don’t want to piss and tell?
As far as I understand the so-called pee tape, it’s Trump enjoying a vicarious revenge on the Obamas by having a prostitute wee on the hotel bed in which the presidential couple slept during a visit to Moscow.
That’s different to being wazzed on yourself, and it doesn’t indicate Trump enjoys the usual kind of golden showers. Thus there would be no repeat experiences to be uncovered.
But that’s not really all that embarrassing for him, is it? It’s just another demonstration of his disdain for Obama, and wouldn’t really hurt him in the eyes of his dim-witted followers. I was assuming that what he supposedly participated in was a blackmailable offense.
Who knows what Trump finds embarrassing?
Not being the centre of attention 24/7/365 (24/7/366 in leap years)?
Typo edited away.
It’s important to remember that Steele’s dossier is a collection of raw intelligence. That means the information has purposefully not been vetted, synthesized or verified - only reported. It’s basically a collection of notes that have been transcribed from their sources - much like a reporter’s notes when doing a story. They are data points to be investigated further and not to be confused with analysis or conclusions.
It means all the information within can be either true or false depending on who provided it and under what circumstances. It still requires a tremendous amount of work to validate and corroborate the allegations which is what Mueller’s team is essentially doing now, although they are using different sources than the dossier. This is what good investigators do. They don’t rely on a single source of information to build a case.
What we’ve seen however is that most of the broader facts that Steele reported are generally correct and shows a pattern of activity supporting close cooperation between Trump campaign and Russian operatives. So far the parts that could be verified have turned out to be accurate. But that doesn’t mean other parts that have yet to be verified are false. Even if elements like the pee tape ultimately turns out to not to be true it doesn’t discredit the other parts - although that’s exactly what the Trump team is trying to do.
Not even the starting point, and not even the sole justification for the Carter Page FISA warrant.
What did they do to him in the first place, exactly?
Other than not being born in Kenya
Most people put the start of the vendetta at the press dinner in 2011 where he made fun of Trump.
But who the heck knows. The birther stuff was before that.
Well, exactly. It’s not “revenge” if he started it.
“Resentment” is the correct term. He knows, or at one point knew, deep down what real success, charm and being truly admired looks like, and he’s never gotten it. We can argue until the cows come home whether Obama deserves his accolades, but the fact remains that the admiration he gets is real, and that people really do like him. He has a real wife and family, not just one paid to show up.
Donnie knows deep-down that nobody actually likes him. They like celebrity. The glitz. So when a black man gets everything Donnie himself craves and knows he can’t ever have, it all must be destroyed. He’s a sociopathic, oversized toddler throwing a temper tantrum. So, if it sounds like I feel sorry for him, I don’t. He could have grown up at any time. He chose not to.
And I wish that’s how the information was actually being treated, but it’s not. It was published without that context and has taken on a life of its own. In an ideal world it would have been handled responsibly, Louise Mensch wouldn’t have run her FISA story, and the investigation would have continued unimpeded.
If you mean they’re trying to validate and corroborate the specific allegations in the dossier, no, they’re not. The dossier is so politically toxic that I guarantee they’ve purposely avoided using it as a roadmap. While the various investigations will inevitably intersect with things it mentions, they won’t mention it unless defendants invoke it, to which they’ll respond that it played no part in their investigations.
Which is related to the point I made when I first mentioned the dossier. The whole reason I mentioned it is that I think this McClatchy story is itself a symptom of the mistaken belief that the legitimacy of both the dossier and the investigation are one and the same. I’m confident this story won’t be confirmed, and that’s going to affect the perceived legitimacy of the dossier and, for a significant number of people, of the investigation too.
What I’m much less confident about is whether that particular part of the dossier is a slightly distorted truth, or an outright fabrication. I’m currently leaning towards the former, due to the way Cohen’s sentencing went. It’s quite possible that he genuinely did have secret meetings with Russians and they’ll be a key component of the case in chief, but I’d be extremely surprised to discover they took place in Prague, despite what this story says.
Well, usually… but in Individual-1’s twisted mind…
“They made me start it!”
It’s “a” report from one news media organization.
It’s based not on personal knowledge but instead sourcing.
The sourcing is anonymous.
It’s MASSIVELY unlikely to involve any leakage from the Mueller OSC.
Beyond the Mueller OSC, the FBI is not exactly pure as the driven snow on its info. Take, for example, the leakage out of the EDNY office to Rudy Giuliani’s bunch about the supposed ‘hundreds to thousands of previously undiscovered’ emails of Hilary Clinton that were said to be found on the laptop in the home of Antony Weiner and HRC aide Huma Abedin. Turned out that there was NOTHING in the way of ‘new’ or ‘previously undiscovered’ HRC emails on that PC.
Even if true, is the information even accurate?
If both true AND accurate, strickly speaking the most it possibly could do is put THE CELLPHONE in Prague, not Cohen.
Even if entirely true and accurate AND Cohen was in Prague, it’s hardly any sort of “big” news unless Cohen was truthful about with the Mueller OSC interviewers or FBI interviewers or both if both pursued this line.
If Cohen was in Prague and told the OSC or FBI different, it’s entirely NOT “big”, since all it does it render Cohen even more of an unreliable witness than has already been determined.
I am entirely indifferent as to whether it’s true or not true because it adds nothing of real use to any criminal charge or impeachment bill against President Trump.
Why do you think this? If a phone has any power in it, it pings towers whether it’s on or off.
I would be too if public opinion weren’t a factor. That plays a significant role in the impeachment process, and half-baked reporting like this will shift it in Trump’s favor over the long term.
Oh come on. That would be a laughably weak defense, especially considering that the initial claims of Cohen’s presence in Prague PRECEDE the corroborating evidence of the cell phone records.
Feature phones used to power up the baseband periodically, which I’m guessing is why you think that. People don’t really use those, anymore.
Yes, the NSA deployed a method of tracking phones that appear off. They can do this because GSM phones accept baseband firmware updates from the network without authentication. So, if you have an agent at the cell phone company, or if you can get your target with a stinger tower, then it’s possible to reprogram the phone to keep its baseband on even when it appears to be switched off. I was pointing out that I don’t think that’s possible in Cohen’s case.
Check if he plays Pokemon Go: A rare Cyndaquill in Prague? Totally worth it!
