If I were a confirmed President-elect about to take office and a tabloid-level website ran some utterly bizarre tabloid fodder about me, either ignoring it or issuing a simple “I don’t comment on silly things people like to make up” would be the normal reaction. I wouldn’t be clearly freaking out and instantly issuing multiple denials in all-caps in the wee hours of the morning. Unless it was true, of course.
I kinda doubt that Bush or Obama were up all night pacing the floor when the Weekly World News ran photos of them hanging out with Bat Boy or our alien overlords.
Watching the press conference only makes me more confident in my assessment of how easy it is for the second type of negotiating partner to manipulate #nextpresident’s narcissistic personality. This is cringeworthy stuff, full of ridiculous defenses (my co-defendant will vouch for the fact that I am innocent), chest-puffing braggadocio (Putin likes me, that’s a good thing, but I’d still be tougher on him than Hillary), and self-congratulatory hype (a massive business empire to match the Rockefellers).
And, surprise, he’s still not releasing the tax documents. We’ll just have to take him at his always ironclad word that he had has no business dealings with Russian banks.
I can see their defense now… They’re changing history for the LULZ people! They made Germany win the second world war for the LULZ! Yes, the world is one big fascist state, but THE LULZ are all that matter! MAGA!!!
The buzzfeed article goes out of its way to label this unverified and explosive claims, and every outlet has said they have seen it and passed on it. The “CIA and news outlets” have said this is bunk and didn’t label it news. The only thing keeping this alive is memes and Trump being so mad about it.
Minor point: When someone posts a monetary offer for information, why do they say, “…up to [dollar amount]?” Do they ever get people who only want, say, half the offered amount?
Penthouse: “Okay, person, here’s your million dolla…”
Person: “I said I only wanted $205,666.99”
No they haven’t, this is the report that John McCain provided to congress, the FBI has not labeled it as bunk either when he discussed it with them.
I’m not saying all the allegations are true, but this isn’t fake news from 4chan, this did travel through some chain of fairly reliable custody so far as something so controversial goes.
Trump himself admits on his twitter that the report comes from intelligence agencies.
Me either. If he truly gets off on urophilia I’m not one to judge him on that. What just boggles me is the whole “trying to stick it to the Obamas by using the room he once slept in.”
As I’ve said before, I don’t know if any of these particularly scandalous aspects are even the slightest bit true, but they sure are plausible – he just seems petty enough to do something like this and think he’s really giving Obama the what for. Obama probably couldn’t give a single solitary shit.
I always assumed that meant that $1 million would be the maximum reward, let’s say if someone came forward with a verifiable tape that clearly showed Trump being peed on by Russian prostitutes.
But if someone had a dodgy audio recording of a room service call with a more-or-less Trump sounding guy saying “I need someone to come up here with champagne and caviar and some extra towels for all of this piss on my bed,” they’d still get a reward, but not as much.
Nobody has sourced the document to the CIA (if anything, it’s reported the information came from a British intelligence agent), and only Buzzfeed has released the full PDF, AFAIK.
Which is why you’ll notice that most news orgs are treating the release with some patience and distance, much unlike all the “leaked” shit about HRC or the DNC.
Beyond that, here’s the report released publicly about Russia’s interference in favor of trump:
"Background to “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections”: The Analytic Process and Cyber Incident Attribution"
