Yeah, well, that’s not what the Steele dossier actually claims, so it continues to be a non-denial denial.
Yeah, and this is a really important fact that gets lost. Trump paying prostitutes to pee on him is incredibly unlikely. The story in the dossier, on the other hand, sounds exactly like something Trump would do, given what we know about him now. It sounded plausible at the time, but given how we’ve subsequently seen Trump’s obsession with Obama, he’s discussed his disgust with bodily fluids, and the importance he places on symbolic insults, it’s just become more and more likely.
Given that his denials were explicitly of a story that was not the one given in the Steele dossier, his denials were always rather suspicious to me.
The Russians would hardly be quick to give up their kompromat. This wasn’t supposed to be something Trump made and handed off to some flunky (in which case, yeah, it would totally be out there).
But remember, the salacious version of the story going around wasn’t what was claimed in the dossier (which is extremely consistent with Trump’s personality). The fact that the story got warped in that way - and Trump only denies the warped version - makes the original story more likely, not less.
