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TITLE: Donald Trump pee tape rumor and kompromat

The Donald Trump pee tape rumor relates to kompromat, Donald Trump's vulnerability to blackmail by Vladimir Putin and others, and to Trump as a threat to national security. It is about an alleged "golden showers" incident at the Ritz-Carlton Moscow hotel when Trump stayed there while attending the 2013 Miss Universe pageant the weekend of November 8‍–‍10, 2013. The unproven incident involving prostitutes peeing on a bed, which Trump allegedly orchestrated and watched, was purportedly secretly recorded (hence "pee tape") by Russian FSB intelligence to be used as kompromat to blackmail Trump. During testimony, Trump's bodyguard was unable to provide an alibi for Trump's activities during the early morning hours of November 9, a "five-hour window" of time suspected of being the time of the incident, and there is evidence of "additional social activity" in his room then. Trump repeatedly lied that he wasn't even in Moscow during that night. The incident was allegedly inspired by Russian observations of Trump's "delighted" reaction to a previous golden showers show in a raunchy Las Vegas nightclub.

The rumor, which Moscow prostitutes believed was true, began to spread there shortly after the pageant, and "tales of [Trump's] weird sexual indiscretions" were described as "an 'open secret' in Moscow". Michael Cohen later testified he learned of the rumor "shortly after the Miss Universe 2013 pageant", and he immediately told Trump. He said many others also knew and contacted him. Cohen and other associates began quiet attempts to locate the tape and perform a catch and kill operation to protect Trump. Both the Steele dossier and Giorgi Rtskhiladze, independently of each other, implicated Aras Agalarov and his Crocus Group with possession and knowledge of compromising sexual tapes of Trump. When investigators later told Trump about the Steele dossier allegation, he never let them know of his early knowledge of the old rumor. The rumor remained unknown to the American public until January 10, 2017, when the Steele dossier was published.

Trump denies the incident, but his habit of repeatedly making unprompted mentions of the salacious rumor at his campaign rallies, and his multiple lies and phony alibi about November 9, 2013, have caused many to doubt him and even remain open to the possibility it all happened as alleged. FBI Director James Comey, who originally doubted the rumor, came to believe the rumor could be true because he saw Trump's unforced lies as evidence of his "consciousness of guilt". Intelligence agencies assert that Russia possesses more compromising tapes of Trump's sexual behavior from his many trips to Russia. The CIA reportedly views these reports about kompromat as credible. The leaders of U.S. and British intelligence agencies view Trump as under Vladimir Putin's influence, thus making him a threat to the national security of both nations. The constant threat of revealing the pee tape has been proposed as a reason why Trump treats Putin with such deference and has never criticized him.

The salacious rumor has been widely publicized and featured in FBI and Special Counsel investigations, Congressional hearings and testimony, books, comedy, and lawsuits. Trump has repeatedly lied about the timing of events, and this article documents the whole weekend and Trump's behavior in public, as they are all the contextual setting for the allegations of kompromat and potential blackmail, the rumor, its complicated history, and claims made about it. The fact that the actual tape (or tapes) has not been produced, means the rumor, true or not, remains unproven.

Trump and "golden showers"

Trump has been connected with two different golden showers incidents, and some sources have asserted the first incident in Las Vegas may have inspired the FSB's planning of the alleged incident in Moscow five months later as part of "a Russian effort to gain influence over Trump".

The first incident occurred in June 2013 at a raunchy Las Vegas nightclub, where the group of Russians with Trump could observe him watching a golden showers performance "with delight". Jane Mayer quotes a source close to Steele who commented on the similarity of the two golden showers incidents: "It does suggest that there is some kind of track record here. This behavior was not unheard of in Trump's circle. So in that sense, it adds to the credibility of the dossier."

The second incident allegedly occurred five months later, in early November 2013, in a Moscow hotel suite, and was allegedly "arranged" and "monitored" by the FSB. That incident is the subject of the unproven rumor. Although the rumor predated the Steele dossier by several years, the dossier provides the most detailed description of the rumor, which has been described as the "most notorious" of all the dossier's allegations.

The Act nightclub in Las Vegas (June 2013)

On June 15, 2013, five months before the alleged pee tape incident in Moscow, Trump visited Las Vegas and met with Putin-connected oligarch Aras Agalarov, the Azerbaijani businessman who arranged the Trump Tower meeting. He is the owner of Crocus Group and the Crocus entertainment center in the Moscow suburbs, where the Miss Universe pageant was held. He was accompanied by some of his family and a group of Russians. (Persons associated with Crocus Group were later linked to the possession of kompromat in the form of "compromising tapes of Trump", otherwise known as the "pee tape".) The meeting was ostensibly held to convince Trump to hold the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow, for which Agalarov was willing to pay Trump $20 million. Later, Trump got his money, but Agalarov lost about $10 million on the whole affair, a sizable sum, even for a billionaire.

A Lawfare report described how the Senate Intelligence Committee report implied another reason for Agalarov's Las Vegas meeting with Trump:

So the first point to bear in mind is that the Trump Tower meeting was arranged by a Russian oligarch with ties to organized crime and to Putin.
The second key point is that the Agalarovs had been cultivating Trump for some time. Trump met the Agalarovs in 2013 through efforts to bring the Miss Universe pageant, which Trump owned, to Moscow. This alone is nothing new. But the report also suggests—without stating outright—that the event, including the involvement and support of the Agalarovs, was likely a Russian effort to gain influence over Trump.

During a dinner with the Agalarov group, Trump's bodyguard, Keith Schiller, approached Rob Goldstone (a music producer and Emin Agalarov's publicist) and asked him if the group had plans after the meal. Goldstone told Schiller that one of Emin's associates "was an investor in a club called The Act and that the group planned to go there. According to Goldstone, Schiller responded by telling Goldstone that 'Mr. Trump wants to come.'" The club's featured acts, described in detail by Jane Mayer, included simulated sex acts of bestiality, grotesque sadomasochism, and girls simulating urinating on a "professor". The acts were so daring that a Nevada judge later "ordered the club to scale back on some of its more risque performances", and it closed five months later on October 12, 2013.

The group of nearly 50 guests included Aras Agalarov, his son Emin, Ike Kaveladze, Rob Goldstone, Donald Trump, Michael Cohen, Keith Schiller, and others. Trump also took Miss USA Nana Meriwether, Miss Universe Olivia Culpo, and former Miss Alabama Katherine Webb with him.

They arrived after midnight and stayed "for several hours", "enjoying The Act's performances from the center of the action, on the floor beneath the main stage". Trump was photographed there and, according to Cohen, Trump watched a golden showers performance "with delight". Madeleine Aggeler believes Trump's "delight" at the sight "could be considered a form of urolagnia, which is sexual excitement associated with the sight or thought of urine and/or urination".

Seth Abramson, in his book Proof of Collusion, shared the concerns about Trump's vulnerability to blackmail expressed by Lawfare and the Senate Intelligence Committee. He noted that "the Agalarovs couldn't have missed" Trump's enthusiastic reaction at the sight of women peeing, and that his "delighted" reaction "may have informed the activities they wanted prostitutes to perform in front of Trump in his hotel suite in Moscow in November 2013, just 120 days after the risqué performance in Las Vegas". The dossier alleges the incident was "arranged/monitored by the FSB".

Schiller later told the Senate Intelligence Committee that "he had no recollection of going to any club" in Las Vegas. He also repeatedly answered "no recollection" to Committee questions about many things that occurred during the weekend in Moscow when the pee tape incident allegedly occurred.

The Ritz-Carlton Moscow hotel (November 2013)

[[File:2014 Moskva Ritz-Carlton building.JPG|thumb|right|200px|Ritz-Carlton Moscow (2014)]]

Trump was in Moscow to attend the 2013 Miss Universe pageant on Saturday evening November 9, but he was also there to network with powerful Russians in Moscow. He had a very busy schedule and was constantly surrounded by people. The night of Friday-Saturday was the only full night he was in Moscow, and the pee tape incident allegedly occurred in the hotel's Presidential Suite early Saturday morning, well after midnight. The next evening he attended the Miss Universe pageant and then drove directly to the airport without going back to his hotel. A full timeline is included below, and the Senate Intelligence Committee report covers "Trump's Travel to Moscow in 2013" on pages 655-662.

The alleged incident

The most detailed description comes from the Steele dossier, and, with its seven Russian sources, it is the dossier allegation with the "most sources attached to it, all of them independent". That description later proved to harmonize with how those who knew the original rumor remembered it. When the dossier was published in January 2017, both Michael Cohen and Giorgi Rtskhiladze, who knew the original rumor, recognized how the dossier described the tapes they had been chasing for several years.

The rumor alleges that when Trump visited Moscow, he stayed in the Presidential Suite of the Ritz-Carlton hotel where President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama had stayed. There, because he "hated" Obama so much, he employed "a number of prostitutes to perform a 'golden showers' (urination) show in front of him" in order to defile the bed used by the Obamas four years earlier. The incident is alleged to "have been arranged/monitored by the FSB" and was reportedly recorded by the FSB as kompromat so they could blackmail him.

Below is the original description (bolded for the reader in ¶ 3) within its context:

CONFIDENTIAL/SENSITIVE SOURCE

COMPANY INTELLIGENCE REPORT 2016/080

US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE DONALD TRUMP'S ACTIVITIES IN RUSSIA AND COMPROMISING RELATIONSHIP WITH THE KREMLIN

Former top Russian intelligence officer claims FSB has compromised TRUMP through his activities in Moscow sufficiently to be able to blackmail him. According to several knowledgeable sources, his conduct in Moscow has included perverted sexual acts which have been arranged/monitored by the FSB

3. However, there were other aspects to TRUMP's engagement with the Russian authorities. One which had borne fruit for them was to exploit TRUMP's personal obsessions and sexual perversion in order to obtain suitable 'kompromat' (compromising material) on him. According to Source D, where s/he had been present, TRUMP's (perverted) conduct in Moscow included hiring the presidential suite of the Ritz Carlton Hotel, where he knew President and Mrs OBAMA (whom he hated) had stayed on one of their official trips to Russia, and defiling the bed where they had slept by employing a number of prostitutes to perform a 'golden showers' (urination) show in front of him. The hotel was known to be under FSB control with microphones and concealed cameras in all the main rooms to record anything they wanted to.
4. The Moscow Ritz Carlton episode involving TRUMP reported above was confirmed by Source E, [REDACTED BY BUZZFEED NEWS], who said that s/he and several of the staff were aware of it at the time and subsequently. S/he believed it had happened in 2013. Source E provided an introduction for a company ethnic Russian operative to Source F, a female staffer at the hotel when TRUMP had stayed there, who also confirmed the story. Speaking separately in June 2016, Source B (the former top level Russian intelligence officer) asserted that TRUMP's unorthodox behavior in Russia over the years had provided the authorities there with enough embarrassing material on the now Republican presidential candidate to be able to blackmail him if they so wished.

20 June 2016

A "five-hour window" of time

The time of the alleged incident

[[File:Keith Schiller.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Keith Schiller (2017)]]

See also: § Weekend timeline (November 7‍–‍10, 2013)

Several writers have examined timelines of the weekend and concluded that November 9 is the date that the alleged golden showers incident would have occurred, with Martin Longman writing: "The incident, if it occurred, would have happened the night before the pageant when he did stay at the hotel."

The night of Friday-Saturday was the only full night Trump was in Moscow, and because the exact time of the alleged golden showers incident is not documented, sources have speculated they might have occurred during the only available time that was not well-documented. Trump had a very busy schedule and was constantly surrounded by people, with one notable exception, and that was during the early Saturday morning hours of November 9, hours described by Rob Goldstone as a "five-hour window" of time.

According to Comey, the time needed for the described incident to occur was minimal, which allowed for other things to also happen during those hours. Comey wryly described his thoughts at one of the times Trump was lying to him:

[Trump said] that he'd never stayed overnight at the hotel, he'd just changed clothes there and went to the Miss Universe pageant. ... I remember thinking, "Well, should I say that, 'As I understand the activity sir, it doesn't require an overnight stay. And given that it was allegedly the presidential suite at the Ritz Carlton, I would imagine you could be at a safe distance from the activity--'" all these things are bouncing around my head. But instead of saying it, it just led me to think, 'The world's gone crazy.'"

There are a number of factors that make those hours the most likely time of the alleged incident:

• During his testimony, Schiller was unable to provide an alibi for Trump's activities the rest of that night: He testified that he "eventually left Trump's hotel room door and could not say for sure what happened during the remainder of the night". Some say this left "open the possibility that the encounter may have occurred after Schiller left".
• Doubts have been raised about the truthfulness of Schiller's testimony that he refused the offer to send five prostitutes "to Trump's hotel room that night".
• The sincerity of Trump's denials and excuses has been questioned by many commentators, and his long history of lying about uncomfortable truths, including the circumstances surrounding the pee tape rumor, creates a problematic "credibility gap" for him. Comey said these lies reflected Trump's "consciousness of guilt".
• The Senate Intelligence Committee report notes that "Several items on the hotel room bill may indicate additional social activity following the birthday party."
• Rob Goldstone said he "was in Trump's company [most of the time], except for a five-hour window that Trump was afforded to sleep early Saturday morning". Trump has bragged that under normal conditions he needs little sleep, anywhere from 90 minutes to four hours. In this case, the time difference between Moscow and the U.S. meant he would normally have been awake at this time.
• Martin Longman wrote: "Did Russian women show up at the Ritz Carlton that night? There are several reasons to believe they did, including that Christopher Steele was able to partially corroborate a rumor that he learned of from a conversation that took place in New York City several years later by having sources talk to staff at the hotel in Moscow. I also think it's interesting that Keith Schiller felt compelled to admit that the offer was made, even if he denied that Trump accepted it."
• David Geovanis claimed he gave Trump a tour of Moscow, and, according to him, there was partying and possibly blackmailable activity. The exact time for this tour is unknown, but it could have happened anywhere in Moscow, including at the hotel and at this time. (See #Number of city tours.)

Some other alleged activities could also fit into these hours

Two other incidents involving Trump and prostitutes allegedly occurred in the hotel that weekend. Because doubts have been raised about the truthfulness of Schiller's statement that he refused the offer to send five prostitutes "to Trump's hotel room that night", these incidents are covered here:

• Trump was seen in the lobby with a group of prostitutes who wanted to go up to his room without signing in. Trump was defending them in a loud "row" with hotel security. The confrontation was observed by witnesses. The report of the incident came from an editor at The Guardian:

The Guardian has heard 'there are witnesses to a confrontation in the hotel lobby, when security wanted the girls to sign in and DJT [Donald Trump] objected. . . . [O]ne [witness] is [a] former Trump Organization [employee]. ...'
Over the course of the next year there will be several reports of witnesses who saw a confrontation in the Ritz-Carlton Moscow lobby between hotel staff and a group of women who wanted to go up to Trump's room without signing in. Paul Wood of the BBC, in an article for The Spectator, will say he was told by an unnamed source that a hotel employee and an American tourist saw the row happen.

• He was also videotaped in a Ritz elevator "involved with several women" described as "hostesses". Shortly after the Miss Universe contest, two Marriott International executives discussed an elevator security camera video.

One of the Marriott executives who was involved in the conversation—previously a manager of the Ritz Carlton Moscow—had clearly seen the video, which allegedly showed Trump in an elevator involved with several women who the discussant implied to be 'hostesses.' The executive who had seen the video had asked the other, more senior, executive what to do with the recording. The former executive said the two discussants then left to continue the conversation in a more private location, and he did not hear anything further.

Possible motivations

See also: § Compromised national security vs sex act

Several sources have discussed the possible motivations for Trump's intense hatred of Obama, and thus the alleged choice to defile the bed.

Jaclyn Friedman mentions racist and disrespectful motivations:

It is, of course, scandalous and hella racist that he made a point to defile the bed the Obamas slept in. Indeed, it is important to distinguish the difference between what's going viral and what's in the document. The former is the concept of someone being sexually excited by pee, which is a sexual preference some people have. The document, on the other hand, contains alleged evidence that President-elect Donald Trump intentionally disrespected the President of the United States, and that he did so in a way that is reminiscent of a long controversial wartime tradition that violates military law.

Michael Cohen also asserts that Trump's hatred of Obama is racist and envious:

"His hatred for Barack Obama is plain and simple: he's Black, he went to Harvard Law, he graduated at the top of his class, he's incredibly articulate, he's all the things that Donald Trump wants to be," Cohen said. "And he just can't handle it. So what do you do if you're Donald Trump and you can't handle it? You attack it."

John Sipher, a foreign policy, intelligence, and national security expert, has pointed out that nothing indicates that Trump did anything other than watch and instruct the prostitutes. Unlike what some sources have alleged, the dossier does not say he was involved in any sexual acts with the prostitutes, nor that they urinated on him. Sipher said that Trump just "sought to denigrate Obama" because he hated him: "[Trump's] policies are almost exclusively about overturning and eradicating anything related to President Obama's tenure', just as ancient rulers 'sought to obliterate the existence of their predecessors. ... Is it inconceivable that he would get some satisfaction from a private shaming of the former President?"

ABC News traces the bad blood to Trump's constant pushing of baseless Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories (aka "birtherism"). Obama criticized Trump for doing so and later roasted Trump at the 2011 White House Correspondents' dinner.

Jonathan Chait wrote: "We also know Trump harbored a burning resentment of President Obama in the wake of Obama's mocking him at the 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner. And many reports of Trump's decision-making suggest that the strongest consideration in any decision is the chance to defile or destroy something associated with Obama." Chait elaborated on Trump's motivation:

Obama hatred is the lodestar of Trump's often confused policy-making. "It's his only real position," a top European diplomat told BuzzFeed last year. "He will ask: 'Did Obama approve this?' And if the answer is affirmative, he will say: 'We don't.'" Even bizarrely self-defeating actions ... seem to be motivated by a desire to defile his predecessor's legacy. Getting prostitutes to pee on the bed Obama slept in seems to be very much in character.

Weekend timeline (November 7‍–‍10, 2013)

Because Trump has repeatedly lied by denying he stayed overnight even once on the trip, a detailed, but incomplete, timeline is produced below. Details not directly related to the rumor are also included for situational and background context, as well as evidentiary purposes, as they all bear on Trump's unseemly behavior in public, his denials and lies, and potential kompromat. Trump had a "hectic" schedule, and, with the exception of one "five-hour window", his activities were public, all seen and documented by numerous witnesses and sources, including social media, journalists and their posted videos, his own selfies and tweets, friends and associates, officials, hosts, chauffeurs, police escorts, bodyguards, his translator, and testimony to investigators. Russian intelligence is alleged to have recorded some of his private behavior.

• November 7 (Thursday)
  • Thursday evening, Trump attended the 95th birthday tribute to evangelist Billy Graham in Asheville, North Carolina.
  • Flight records show he left Asheville at 9:15 p.m. and flew to Moscow on Phil Ruffin's Bombardier Global 5000 jet.
• November 8 (Friday)
  • After a flight of about 11 hours, Trump arrived at Vnukovo International Airport at 6:15 a.m., Moscow time, which is eight hours ahead of Asheville. Flight records and social media posts "seem to put him in the Russian capital during the day of Friday and the night of Friday-Saturday."
  • When he arrived in Russia, he was met by a translator hired by the Agalarovs, and he used the same translator "for the duration of the trip".
  • He then drove less than an hour to the Ritz-Carlton hotel, where he booked in.
  • The Agalarovs had "arranged for Donald Trump to stay at the Ritz Carlton Hotel", which was rated a "high counterintelligence risk environment", with Russian agents on staff, surveillance of rooms, and many prostitutes.
  • Schiller testified that he "did not know who reserved the hotel rooms, and did not recall being involved in reviewing the hotel selection".
  • Schiller testified that he "did not recall taking any security precautions regarding Trump's room other than looking to see that there was no one else in it".
  • After arriving, "Trump attended a morning meeting about the pageant at his hotel, the Ritz-Carlton."
  • Schiller said that at some point during this meeting, someone offered to send five prostitutes "to Trump's hotel room that night". He later said the location of the offer may have been the hotel.
  • The Senate Committee noted Schiller's inconsistent and unclear recollections: "It is not clear, based on Schiller's recollection, where or when the offer was made, or by whom. ... Schiller said that the offer may have taken place at the hotel, however he did not have a clear recollection of the timing or location of the offer."
  • "Multiple sources said the offer ... came from a Russian who was accompanying Emin Agalarov."
  • Schiller said that he took the offer as a joke and rejected it, but doubts have been raised about the truthfulness of Schiller's claim he refused the offer.
  • Later that day, Trump ate a gala lunch at the Nobu Moscow restaurant. There he met with Russian businessmen, including Herman Gref, the chief executive of Sberbank.
  • He next went to a theater in Crocus City Hall to inspect contestants, where, according to his contractual and usual practice at Miss Universe pageants, he could "overrule the selection of judges and pick the con­testants he wanted among the finalists". This was usually done in a very specially-equipped room set up for him backstage. Among other demands, "He required unscented soap and hand towels—rolled, not folded." Miss Universe staffers explained how Trump would frequently "toss out finalists", especially those he deemed "too ethnic or too dark-skinned" and "replace them with others he preferred". On occasion, Trump "would reject a woman 'who had snubbed his advances'".
  • Late that evening, Trump attended Aras Agalarov's 58th birthday party at 10:00 p.m.
• November 9 (early Saturday morning).
  • He left the party early Saturday morning and, at about 1:30 a.m., Moscow time (5:30 p.m. Asheville time), returned to his hotel room with his bodyguard, Keith Schiller.
  • While Trump and Schiller were walking back to Trump's hotel room, Schiller said he told Trump about the earlier offer to send five prostitutes "to Trump's hotel room that night", and Schiller said they laughed about it. After Trump entered his room, Schiller said he stood outside Trump's door for a time and then left.
  • Doubts have been raised about the about the truthfulness of Schiller's claim that he refused the offer.
  • Several sources suggest the pee tape incident occurred in these hours.
    • See #A "five-hour window" of time above for factors and possible activities the rest of the night.
• November 9 (Saturday, day and evening)
  • In the morning, Trump had another "hectic" day ahead of him. The previous evening, Trump had agreed to help Emin with a new music video, based on The Apprentice, "but it had to be early — between 7:45 and 8:10 in the morning". Facebook posts showed Trump at the Ritz in the music video shoot. Emin Agalarov has said that Trump "was only present at the music video filming for 10 minutes".
  • After the music video, Trump was taken on at least one tour of Moscow. The number is uncertain. (See #Number of tours.)
  • Then he attended a press conference with 300 reporters.
  • That evening, right after the press conference, he went to the Miss Universe contest with its red carpet event and broadcast.
• November 10 (early Sunday morning)
  • This was followed by an after-party scheduled to start at 1:00 a.m., November 10. Trump arrived early at 12:30 a.m.
  • There, according to Hungarian celebrity Kata Sarka, Trump, who was "surrounded by bodyguards", publicly grabbed her and propositioned her: "Trump gave her his business card, private telephone number, and hotel room number." She turned him down. Trump was married to Melania at the time. Abramson cited this kompromat occurrence, disclosed before the Steele dossier was even written, as evidence that Trump was lying about being discrete in Moscow, that he was publicly careless, and that his deceptive denials showed "consciousness of guilt".
  • Trump also publicly grabbed another young woman, a 26-year-old aspiring Armenian actress, Edita Shaumyan, but she also rejected his advances.
  • He then left the party and drove directly to the airport. Ruffin's Bombardier left the airport at 3:58 a.m., Moscow time.
  • Trump arrived at Newark Liberty International Airport, near New York City, when it was still Sunday morning, at 4:11 a.m. local time.

Number of city tours

Both Aras Agalarov and David Geovanis claim to have given him tours to Trump while he was in Moscow. Aras Agalarov said he toured possible building sites with Trump, and David Geovanis indicated his tour with Trump included partying and potentially blackmailable activity.

David Geovanis was cited as saying that "he showed Mr. Trump around Moscow during the Miss Universe pageant in 2013. He did not get into specifics, but intimated that there was partying and that Mr. Trump should be nice to him in light of the information he had."

The exact time for the tour with Geovanis is unknown, but, according to sources for the weekend's events, there were only two known timeslots where it could have happened, either during the early morning "five-hour window" of November 9, when the pee tape incident allegedly occurred, or at some time after the filming of the music video. It could have happened anywhere in Moscow, including at the hotel. It could also have been separate from the tour with Agalarov, or the three men could have been together. Sources do not clarify the issue. The article by Silver and Pismennaya, with their heading of "Moscow Tours", and not saying who gave him the tours, or even if it was the "same tour Trump tweeted about", indicates the possibility of more than one tour.

The tour with Agalarov was after the early morning music video of November 9, well before the Miss Universe contest that evening. "Separately, Aras Agalarov said he showed Trump around Moscow during the trip, inspecting different sites with an eye toward building a Trump Tower together, though it's unclear whether this is the same tour Trump tweeted about."

That afternoon, Trump tweeted that he "was just given a great tour of Moscow", but he did not say who gave him that tour.

Change of rooms?

There are some unexplained questions about Trump's room and a possible room change. Regardless of where he stayed in the hotel, many sources (including the 2013 hotel sources that long predate the June 2016 dossier memo) claim that Trump stayed in the Presidential Suite, and the golden showers incident is alleged to have happened in that suite. It is only after the dossier was published in 2017, that the Ritz Carlton Moscow produced documents indicating Trump did not stay in that suite, even though it was reserved for him and the hotel's employees said he stayed there:

According to documents produced by Ritz Carlton Moscow, Trump was initially booked in the Presidential Suite, but that reservation was later canceled, and Trump was moved to a different room, a Carlton Suite. Despite Trump's scheduled arrival on November 8 being known significantly in advance, his room was reserved, and paid for, for an additional two nights prior to arrival, starting on November 6. The Committee was not able to determine why this advance reservation took place.

The Durham special counsel investigation says: "[T]he Office obtained records from the Ritz Carlton Moscow that reveal that Trump was a guest at the hotel in 2013, but did not stay in the Presidential Suite then or at any other time."

Among those who knew the original 2013 rumor at the time were hotel staff who later spoke to Steele's sources in 2016. They and other 2016 staff contradicted those records the hotel reported to Durham: When Charles Dolan Jr. was given a tour of the Presidential Suite in June 2016, the "staff member informed them that Donald Trump had stayed in the Suite, but did not mention any sexual or salacious activity".

The Agalarovs reserved the Presidential Suite at the Ritz-Carlton hotel, and when someone suggested that Trump could stay at the cheaper Intercontinental Hotel, Emin Agalarov demanded compliance with his wish that Trump stay at the Ritz Carlton: "trump will stay at the ritz comply with me", and he "requested that room options be sent to him".

Confounding factors, lies, and doubts

Trump's reactions to the pee tape rumor have raised more questions than they answered, issues many have analyzed. If he was innocent, why did he repeatedly lie and, without any prompting, keep bringing up the subject? Why did he lie so specifically about the time when the incident could have happened when no one had yet mentioned that time? Why did he and his closest allies act as if the pee tape(s) really existed?

Trump's denials, lies, and credibility

See also: False or misleading statements by Donald Trump

Trump has repeatedly denied the pee tape rumor, calling it phony, false, and fake. The sincerity of his denials and excuses has been questioned by many commentators, and his long history of lying about uncomfortable truths, including the circumstances surrounding the pee tape rumor, creates a problematic "credibility gap" for him.

Ashley Parker described why Trump's lack of credibility is a problem for the "Russia tape":

Trump has cried 'fake news' so frequently that his angry denials have lost their wallop. ... For the president, the 'fake' modifier frequently refers to news reports that he wishes were not true rather than those that are actually false. And the White House has an enormous credibility gap, with a long record of vociferously denying news reports ... that are proved true days later. ... Such incidents have allowed the tantalizing possibility that the Russia tape just might exist to percolate on the fringes of respectability.

Comey's first private meeting with Trump was at Trump Tower after the election, on January 6, 2017, when Comey briefed Trump about "the sensitive material in the Steele reporting". The Mueller report's Footnote 112 mentions the meeting: "Comey's briefing included the Steele reporting's unverified allegation that the Russians had compromising tapes of the President involving conduct when he was a private citizen during a 2013 trip to Moscow for the Miss Universe Pageant." There is no indication that Trump ever revealed to Comey or other investigators that he already had prior knowledge of the rumor from long before the Steele dossier was written. Instead, the dossier became the distracting focus of his attacks.

Trump addressed the golden showers allegation on January 11, 2017, publicly stating: "Does anyone really believe that story? I'm also very much of a germaphobe, by the way." This contradicted an interview in 2015 when he stated: "'I'm not germaphobic,' he said, when asked if he would kiss babies and shake hands on the campaign trail." John Sipher clarified how the claim of germaphobia is irrelevant because the dossier does not say the prostitutes pissed on Trump, just on the bed.

Later, Comey met with Trump several times, and Trump repeatedly lied specifically about the time when the incident could have happened, even though no one had mentioned that time. This caused Comey to doubt the sincerity of Trump's denials. Comey said these lies reflected Trump's "consciousness of guilt", leading him to believe the rumor could be true.

Trump's phony alibi and excuses

Trump lied by saying he didn't overnight in Moscow even once, but there is plenty of evidence that he did stay there the night prior to the Miss Universe contest. His lies have been described as obstruction of justice. Trump's fake alibi was easily debunked by flight records, congressional testimony from his bodyguard, photographs, and social media posts.

Bess Levin described Trump's alibi as "a total fabrication" and pointed to how that lie increases the credibility of the pee tape rumor. She described how some have tried to explain why Trump treats Russia with "respect and deference" by pointing to his "business interests" and "obsession with oligarchs", but she points to another possibility:

Others have consistently come back to the idea that Russia has something on the president that he doesn't want to get out. Could it be, say, video evidence that he witnessed Russian prostitutes peeing in a bed once slept in by his predecessor? Reason and logic tells us this cannot be possible . . . and yet, on Monday, a new report nudged the impossible a hair closer in the direction of credibility!

Josh Marshall makes the point: "In any court, this lie would be entered as evidence of his lack of credibility on the main point. There's zero question he lied about this repeatedly and to multiple people."

Ben Schreckinger noted how "A conscious effort by Trump to mislead the FBI director could lend weight to the allegation [in the dossier] that Trump engaged in compromising activity during the trip that exposed him to Russian government blackmail."

According to Pete Zeidenberg: "It has also likely caught the eye of special counsel Robert Mueller. ... False statements to Comey about the trip could demonstrate that Trump has 'consciousness of guilt'. That could bolster a legal case against Trump."

Trump's repeated and unforced lies to Comey (a phony alibi)

• He didn't overnight in Moscow even once.
• "I went there for one day for the Miss Universe contest, I turned around, I went back."
• Trump told Comey that he "had spoken to people who had been on ... the trip with him and they had reminded him that he didn't stay over night in Russia for that". Pete Zeidenberg "suggested that investigators could also probe whether Trump had in fact conferred with others who 'reminded' him he did not stay the night in Russia. ... It's very likely there would be no corroboration for that story, which makes the whole thing look like a big fat lie."

Other excuses and concerns

• He is a germaphobe.
• He didn't need the service of prostitutes.
• He has a beautiful wife.
• It bothered him if "there's even a one percent chance my wife thinks that's true".
• He wanted to convince his wife that it wasn't true.
• He said he assumed he was always being recorded when in Russia, thus implying that he was not vulnerable to blackmail.

Phony alibi debunked

Trump did overnight in Moscow for one full night, the night the incident allegedly happened.

• Flight records show Trump stayed overnight in Moscow the night before the pageant, then, the night of the next day, left Moscow early in the morning after the pageant at 3:58 a.m.
• In a radio interview, Trump said: "I really loved my weekend, I called it my weekend in Moscow. But I was with the top level people, both oligarchs and generals, and top of the government people."
• The testimony of Keith Schiller, his longtime bodyguard, confirms he overnighted the night before the pageant.
• Although Schiller could not account for Trump's activities for the "remainder of the night", the Senate Intelligence Committee documented that "Several items on the hotel room bill may indicate additional social activity following the birthday party."
• Rob Goldstone, Emin Agalarov's publicist, "said he was in Trump's company from the time the celebrity mogul landed in Moscow on his private plane about 3 p.m. on a Friday until the time he departed at 3 a.m. Sunday, except for a five-hour window that Trump was afforded to sleep early Saturday morning."
• Thomas Roberts, the host of the pageant, confirmed "that Trump was in Moscow for one full night and at least part of another".
• Social media posts show he was in Moscow during the early morning hours of November 9.

Trump's behavior makes him vulnerable to blackmail

See also: Donald Trump sexual misconduct allegations

• Trump is accustomed to adultery, paying to cover it up, and paying for sex. He even tried to hand cash to Playboy Playmate of the Year Karen McDougal after sex and offered porn star Jessica Drake $10,000 for "her company".
• Trump's behavior shows he was indeed vulnerable to blackmail: "The central thesis of the dossier seems increasingly likely: that Trump's long history of alleged affairs make him uniquely susceptible to blackmail."
• In the Ritz-Carlton lobby, he was observed defending a group of prostitutes who tried to get up to his room without signing in.
• In a Ritz-Carlton elevator, he was filmed with some prostitutes.
• On his last night in Moscow in 2013, he accosted, without success, two young women in a very public manner.

Trump's public denials and private lies to Comey

[[File:James Comey official portrait.jpg|thumb|right|200px|James Comey (circa 2010 to 2013)]]

The Associated Press described the first two denials to Comey:

According to Comey's accounts of his 2017 meetings with the president, Trump said the Moscow trip was so quick that his head never hit a pillow — even for one night. Trump fired Comey on May 9, 2017.

The first denial came over dinner at the White House in late January 2017. "He said he arrived in the morning, did events, then showered and dressed for the pageant at the hotel," and then left for the event, Comey wrote. "Afterwards, he returned only to get his things because they departed for New York by plane that same night."

On the second occasion in February 2017, Trump "explained, as he did at our dinner, that he hadn't stayed overnight in Russia during the Miss Universe trip".

Trump publicly disputed that he had issued such a denial to Comey: "He said I didn't stay there a night. Of course I stayed there. I stayed there a very short period of time but of course I stayed."

Comey said that Trump, without prompting, "brought up the pee tape on four separate occasions": "For about the fourth time, he argued that the golden showers thing wasn't true." Even though the pee tape allegation never says Trump needed the sexual services of prostitutes, only that they defile a bed, he again asked: "Can you imagine me, hookers?" and "whether he seemed like a guy who needed the service of prostitutes".

James Comey wrote in his book A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership that Trump asked him to have the FBI investigate the pee tape rumor "because he wanted to convince his wife that it wasn't true. ... He brought up what he called the 'golden showers thing'  ... adding that it bothered him".

Comey added:

'If there's even a one percent chance my wife thinks that's true, that's terrible.' And I remember thinking, how could your wife think there's a one percent chance you were with prostitutes peeing on each other? I'm a flawed human being, but there is literally zero chance that my wife would think that was true. So what kind of marriage to what kind of man does your wife think there's only a 99 percent chance you didn't do that?

Comey wrote: "In an apparent play for my sympathy, he added that he has a beautiful wife and the whole thing has been very painful for her. He asked what we could do to 'lift the cloud.'" Responding to Trump's request for an FBI investigation of the dossier and the rumor, "Comey said he told Trump that it ultimately was up to the president to decide whether to open a probe but cautioned that doing so could 'create a narrative' that the FBI was investigating him."

James Clapper, who was then the Director of National Intelligence, also received a request from Trump to publicly discredit the dossier and its allegations. Clapper emailed Comey: "He asked if I could put out a statement. He would prefer of course that I say the documents are bogus, which, of course, I can't do."

Comey did not know if the "golden showers" rumor was true, but he came to believe it was possible. In an interview for ABC News, he told George Stephanopoulos: "I honestly never thought these words would come out of my mouth, but I don't know whether the current president of the United States was with prostitutes peeing on each other in Moscow in 2013. It's possible, but I don't know".

From Comey's interview with George Stephanopoulos on April 15, 2018:

And then he launched into-- I didn't ask about the business with the prostitutes, but he launched into an explanation as to how I should know that wasn't true and that he remembered now, from talking to friends who had been with him, that he'd never stayed overnight at the hotel, he'd just changed clothes there and went to the Miss Universe pageant.

I don't know whether any of this is true, but this is what he said. And then went right back without staying overnight. And then he said, "Another reason you know it's not true is I'm a germaphobe. There's no way I'd let people pee on each other around me." And that he caught me so much by surprise I actually let out an audible laugh and-- 'cause it was just one of those-- I was startled by it.

And-- and I remember thinking, "Well, should I say that, 'As I understand the activity sir, it doesn't require an overnight stay. And given that it was allegedly the presidential suite at the Ritz Carlton, I would imagine you could be at a safe distance from the activity--'" all these things are bouncing around my head. But instead of saying it, it just led me to think, "The world's gone crazy."

Trump's "nitpicking" response to pee tape allegation

In his 2020 book Compromised: Counterintelligence and the Threat of Donald J. Trump, Peter Strzok, former FBI deputy assistant director of counterintelligence, has analyzed all the ways Trump is compromised, and he has also commented on Trump's weird denial to Comey. Immediately after Comey returned from Trump Tower after informing Trump of the dossier and its salacious allegations, Strzok and other FBI leaders discussed Trump's reaction to Comey's briefing:

For some in the room, Trump's reaction was inconclusive, because he was vague in his response, neither confirming nor denying it when Comey told him. I didn't agree. My experience is that people almost universally react with anger and a flat denial if confronted with a false accusation, particularly an outrageously sleazy one. It seemed telling that Trump was nitpicking over whether he ever paid for sex and not whether the episode took place at all in a hotel room in the heart of Russia. Speaking to those around the table, I likened it to accusing a bank robber of a heist involving a shotgun. Instead of denying involvement in the robbery, I said, the thief says, There was no shotgun. I've never touched a shotgun. (pp. 194-195)

Regarding his lies, Trump is known to use the paltering type of lie, which is the selective use of truthful statements in a deceptive manner. Trump's lies about the timing in Moscow involved paltering and lying by omission, as his lies paltered by omitting the fact he spent one whole night in Moscow (when the incident allegedly did happen) while admitting the fact he spent only part of the next night (when the incident could not have happened).

Trump has mentioned different numbers of prostitutes allegedly involved, even though the dossier only says "a number of prostitutes". James Bickerton questioned this aspect of Trump's denial: "Donald Trump has raised eyebrows online after again denying he engaged in a 'golden shower' with 'four hookers' in a Moscow hotel room, as alleged in the 2016 Steele dossier, even though the document doesn't give a number for those it claims were involved."

"Consciousness of guilt"

Trump has used a false/phony alibi (essentially saying "I wasn't there at the time."), and this has been described as evidence of his "consciousness of guilt". The New York State Unified Court System discusses false alibis (in the context of "consciousness of guilt") as a form of admissible evidence:

Evidence of post-crime conduct that may in the context of a particular case evince a defendant's consciousness of guilt of the offense with which the defendant is charged is admissible. A consciousness of guilt may, for example, be evinced by a false alibi or explanation for one’s actions, intimidation of a witness, destruction or concealment of evidence or flight.

Jennifer Rubin described how Trump's fake alibi "could be strong evidence of guilt": "We return to the quintessential Trump dilemma: If he is innocent, why does he behave so much like a guilty man?"

In this case, evidence of the coverup is so plentiful that ordinary people — not unreasonably — will assume guilt. Trump’s penchant for lying, exaggerating, distorting and misremembering in ways that invariably line up with his unfounded assertions might finally do him in.

Several sources have discussed Trump's guilty behavior in relation to the psychology of guilt and how Shakespeare addresses it: Macbeth describes what has been called "consciousness of guilt", and Hamlet mentions how "The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

The sincerity of his denials and excuses has been questioned by many commentators who have described how Trump illustrates both concepts.

Trump "doth protest too much"

Some writers have noted that Trump appears to incriminate himself because he repeatedly, and unforced, keeps mentioning the rumor at his campaign events. This habit of his led Margaret Hartmann, Senior Editor for the Intelligencer, to write an article entitled "Does Trump Want Me to Think He's Into Golden Showers?" She then cited Shakespeare's Hamlet: "Similarly, 'the lady doth protest too much' are words Shakespeare wrote that he probably never thought would be applicable to a national leader accused of urolagnia, but here we are."

Hartmann described how, at an October 2021 National Republican Senatorial Committee retreat, "Trump informed a room full of GOP senators this week that he's not into that sort of thing, although absolutely no one had asked about it." Unprompted, he told them: "I'm not into golden showers. You know the great thing, our great first lady — 'That one,' she said, 'I don't believe that one.'" Among Hartmann's many observations for why he shouldn't do this, Hartmann noted that this "only raises more questions" like "if Melania was so quick to reject this report about her husband’s sexual proclivities, why did he previously raise concerns that she would believe the story?"

Trump did the same thing on November 7, 2022, at a midterm rally in Ohio supporting GOP Senate candidate J. D. Vance, and at a Fort Dodge, Iowa rally on November 18, 2023, leading Megan Sheets, the U.S. Executive Editor for The Independent, to note that the rumor refuses "to go away in part because he keeps bringing it up".

Seth Meyers pointed out the self-incriminating nature of "bringing up the claims so many years after the fact":

Dude, not even Democrats think about the pee tape anymore! But when you come out six years later and deny a story everybody forgot about, I have to think maybe it's true. If someone came up to you at your 20th high school reunion and said, 'By the way, I'm not the one who put the sardines in your locker,' then you just solved that case.

Mentioning Trump's "unprompted denial of the Steele dossier", Stephen Colbert said:

At a donor retreat last week, Trump denied, sans context or prompting, that he enjoys so-called 'golden showers'.
'Um, no one asked you?' Colbert reacted. 'And when no one is bringing up the thing that you famously denied, you shouldn't bring it up either. You don't hear Paul McCartney beginning his concert by saying, 'Hello New York, I did not secretly die in 1966 and get replaced with a lookalike from Canada, eh.'

Dan Savage, who writes the syndicated relationship and sex advice column Savage Love, also discussed Trump's habit of repeatedly mentioning and denying the pee tape. In his column for The Stranger, Savage wrote an article entitled "The Pee Tape Is Real *" where he discussed Trump's denials to Comey, and the dubious nature of those denials, all in the context of Savage's own "specific area of expertise: kinky motherfuckers":

Trump may or may not have been in close proximity. But an appeal to germaphobia does not get one off the urophilia hook—quite the opposite, in fact. A germaphobe is somewhat likelier to be into filthy, gross, or germy things than a non-germaphobe. ...

And a person who is ashamed of their kinks and is in a panic to cover them up is highly likely to point to the very thing that makes their kink so arousing in the first place. Instead of, 'That's not something that turns me on so it's not something I would do,' they say, 'I couldn't be into that because I'm a germaphobe/feminist/proud gay man/powerful dude.' The kinkster subconsciously longs to be exposed—another violation—because deep down we long to be known, to be seen for who and what we really are. But only a few of us are lucky enough to have a special prosecutor to make it happen.

So, yeah, the pee tape is real. Trump keeps telling us so himself.

He ended the article by citing Shakespeare and explaining the asterisk with a "* Runner up headline: 'The President of the United States Doth Protest Too Much, Peethinks.'"

Lies about the rumor's origins and effects

The fact that Trump learned of the rumor from Cohen shortly after he left the Ritz-Carlton hotel and the 2013 Miss Universe pageant did not prevent him from lying about it and claiming the 2017 Steele dossier originated the rumor, and he did not tell Comey or other investigators that he had known of the rumor since long before the dossier was started.

It was only after the Steele dossier's publication that Trump publicly mentioned the rumor and focused his ire on the dossier as if it were the creator of a new rumor. Some other sources did the same. Trump and some sources claim Steele "made-up" the rumor or that it was "born" because of the dossier.

Cohen and Hope Hicks had discussed the old rumor with Trump, and her lawyers falsely described the dossier's much later mention of the rumor as "a rumor of a videotape, now known to have originated with the Steele dossier, involving Mr. Trump in Moscow with Russian prostitutes". Trump has unsuccessfully sued Steele's firm, Orbis Business Intelligence, alleging that the dossier's "reports of his alleged sexual activity in Russia were 'false, phoney or made-up'".

Howie Carr, an American conservative radio talk-show host, repeated John Durham's dubious insinuation about Charles Dolan Jr. by writing that Dolan "most likely made up the pee-tape story".

Sean Hannity, a conservative conspiracy theorist and Fox News host, falsely claimed fewer people voted for Trump in the 2016 election because they heard about the "pee tape" rumor, which he called "election interference", even though it was not public knowledge until 63 days after the election.

Doubts about Schiller's honesty

Keith Schiller, Trump's personal bodyguard for nearly two decades, has been described as "one of Trump's most loyal and trusted aides" and "a constant presence at Trump's side". He also became known as a Trump fixer, i.e., a person who tries to conceal their client's potential scandals, often using questionable, if not illegal, methods.

Schiller has testified that he refused the offer of five prostitutes, but sources have pointed out that he has a history of lying for Trump and aiding, not blocking, Trump's secret affairs with women, and they have raised doubts about whether Schiller's story is true or whether he was lying for Trump.

A Lawfare summary of the final Senate Intelligence Committee report on Russian interference in the 2016 election points out how a "conspicuous footnote" in the report that cites Cohen's testimony about Schiller, raises doubts about the honesty of Schiller's story:

While Schiller told the committee that he and Trump laughed off the offer and the liaison never occurred, a conspicuous footnote leads the reader to question whether Schiller is, in fact, telling the truth: "Cohen has testified that, 'Keith is the ultimate protector, and he was [Trump's] bodyguard, his attache for many, many years. And he was the keeper of Mr. Trump's secrets. So, for example, if he was going to text a female, he would have Keith do it on his phone.' Cohen has also testified that he has seen Schiller lie for Trump."

Ashley Feinberg also questions Schiller's denial as he was known to be an intermediary for Trump's contacts with some women:

According to NBC, Schiller said that he took the offer as a joke and immediately told the man making the proposition, 'We don't do that type of stuff.' Schiller's claim not to do that type of stuff should be considered in the light of the fact that in 2011, adult film star and director Stormy Daniels had told In Touch Weekly that, whenever she needed to contact Trump during the course of their 2006 affair, she'd go through Schiller: 'Keith was always with him. That's how I got in touch with him. I never had Donald's cellphone number. I always used Keith's.'

Cenk Uygur doubted Schiller's honesty and said: "You have to ask the question: Why would you lie about that if you didn't do the 'golden showers' thing? And then he got his personal security guy to also lie for him, but that lie also exposed what really happened."

Schiller's forgetfulness

Under questioning by the Senate Intelligence Committee, Schiller had problems recalling events:

• Las Vegas: "Schiller said he had no recollection of going to any club."
• Moscow:
  • "Schiller told the Committee he did not recall who picked them up at the airport, or who drove them, or what vehicle they were in, or where they went."
  • "He also did not recall doing any vetting of the transportation entities or arrangements for Donald Trump, or having any communication with the Agalarov's organization to coordinate."
  • "Schiller claimed he had no recollection of the event at Nobu."
  • "Schiller told the Committee he did not know who reserved the hotel rooms, and did not recall being involved in reviewing the hotel selection."
  • "Schiller did not recall taking any security precautions regarding Trump's room other than looking to see that there was no one else in it."
  • "Schiller told the Committee he did not recall how many nights they were in Russia, or what hotel they stayed at."
  • "Schiller told the Committee he had no recollection of a music video being filmed."

He was not alone: "A number of witnesses told the Committee their memories were unclear."

Schiller's recollection about an offer of five prostitutes is unreliable. He said the offer was made at a morning meeting, but he later said the offer may have been made at the hotel. The Senate Committee noted Schiller's inconsistent and unclear recollections: "It is not clear, based on Schiller's recollection, where or when the offer was made, or by whom."

Equivocation by Yulia Alferova

Yulia Alferova (Yulya Klyushina) was Trump's hostess during the weekend, and she accompanied him most of the time, was with him in meetings, and knew when he arrived at and left various events. She posted many photos of them together on her social media accounts. In January 2017, when investigators asked her about the pee tape, she equivocated about where Trump spent the night: "I am confident that nobody has any video of Trump with prostitutes. ... See, he came on November 9, worked all day, partied all night, and left. I am not even sure if he spent the night at the Ritz." Like Trump's phony alibi, she left out all of November 8 and the early morning hours of November 9, only mentioning the day of the Miss Universe pageant.

The Senate Intelligence Committee report's Footnote 2510 mentioned tweets, one shortly after the Miss Universe pageant, showing she had foreknowledge, long before the American public, of Trump's planned presidential run. She expressed Russian support for his candidacy, which was later manifested in the "sweeping and systematic" Russian interference in the 2016 elections:

On January 22, 2014, Klyushina wrote on social media that, "I'm sure @realDonaldTrump will be great president! We'll support you from Russia! America needs an ambitious leader!"; On January 28, 2015, Klyushina announced on Twitter that Trump would be running for President of the United States. Tweet, @AlferovaYulyaE, January 28, 2015. The Committee has no insight into the nature of Klyushina's knowledge of these matters or what prompted these statements.

Attempted cover-ups, evasion, and attempts to find the tapes

Sources have alleged that certain people were evasive, lied about, tried to cover-up, and/or spin the news of Trump's alleged activities in Moscow, including possibly having the tapes, searching for them, trying to catch and kill them, trying to purchase them, or maybe publish them. Some of those alleged to have been involved in such activities were Trump, Keith Schiller, Yulia Alferova, Hope Hicks, Michael Cohen, Giorgi Rtskhiladze, Harvey Levin, David Pecker, and Dylan Howard.

• Aras Agalarov/Crocus Group: Both the dossier and Rtskhiladze independently associated possession and knowledge of compromising tapes of Trump with Agalarov and his Crocus Group. Giorgi Rtskhiladze described not merely the matter of possession of the tapes, but the responsibility for them, when he "assessed that if compromising material existed, Crocus Group would likely be responsible".
• Michael Cohen: He tried to find and get possession of the tape.
• Giorgi Rtskhiladze's contacts with Cohen:
  • "in 2014 or 2015 Cohen asked a friend, Giorgi Rtskhiladze, to find out if the tape was real."
  • "On October 30, 2016, three weeks after Hope Hicks asked him to track down the footage in question, Michael Cohen received a text from Giorgi Rtskhiladze reporting that he had successfully stopped the "flow of some tapes from Russia". Rtskhiladze told investigators that these were compromising tapes of Trump, and Cohen told investigators he had spoken to Trump about the issue."
• Keith Schiller: His honesty about events in Moscow has been doubted.
• Yulia Alferova: She is known to have equivocated about the timing of Trump's activities in Moscow, including repeating Trump's phony alibi.
• Harvey Levin, founder of TMZ: Hope Hicks (and maybe Cohen) tried to contact him: "Hicks had been told that TMZ might have access to the tape, and she knew that Cohen was very close to Harvey Levin, the gossip outlet's founder."
• David Pecker and Dylan Howard: They knew of the tapes and are known to perform catch and kill operations, including hush money payments, to help Trump cover up his affairs with Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal.
• Hustler magazine: "Before the election, Larry Flynt, publisher of the pornographic magazine Hustler, put up a million dollars for incriminating tape of Mr Trump."
• Penthouse magazine offered $1 million for it.
  • "However, while many media outlets are content running a story based on conjecture and rumor, we at Penthouse are committed to the value of getting the story right rather than getting it first. So we are offering up to $1-million to secure exclusive rights to the FSB tapes documenting Trump’s Russian hotel hijinks. After all, seeing is believing."

Trump's vulnerability to blackmail

Key kompromat players

Central roles of Agalarovs and Goldstone

[[Aras Agalarov.jpeg|thumb|right|200px|Aras Agalarov (2011)]]

[[Rob Goldstone in DC.jpeg|thumb|right|200px|Rob Goldstone (2017)]]

Aras Agalarov (owner of Crocus Group), his son Emin, and Emin's publicist Rob Goldstone were in close connection with Trump during times when kompromat was allegedly collected, such as their Las Vegas meeting in June 2013, Trump's weekend in Moscow in November 2013, where Agalarov was his host, and later when Goldstone, acting for Emin, arranged the 2016 Trump Tower meeting. Trump's mere association with them made him susceptible to blackmail, due to the system of sistema under which they operate.

The Agalarovs had controlled much that happened in Moscow in 2013. They had "designated the security guard", provided a translator, and reserved the Presidential Suite at the Ritz-Carlton hotel for Trump, and when someone suggested that Trump could stay at the Intercontinental Hotel, Emin Agalarov demanded that Trump stay at the Ritz Carlton: "trump will stay at the ritz comply with me", and he "requested that room options be sent to him". Both the dossier and Rtskhiladze independently associated possession and knowledge of compromising tapes of Trump with Agalarov and his Crocus Group. Giorgi Rtskhiladze later "assessed that if compromising material existed, Crocus Group would likely be responsible".

Rob Goldstone said he "was in Trump's company [most of the time], except for a five-hour window that Trump was afforded to sleep early Saturday morning". That was also the available time frame when the pee tape incident allegedly occurred. All of them were later involved in arranging the 2016 Trump Tower meeting that provided more kompromat against Trump and his cohorts.

In 2016, as part of the Agalarov's and Russia's continued efforts to cultivate Trump, Goldstone and Emin Agalarov arranged another kompromising event involving Trump, the 2016 Trump Tower meeting where the Russian government falsely said it would share "dirt" on Clinton. In reality, there was no "dirt", and the mention of "dirt" on Clinton was bait. The Trump campaign knew from George Papadopoulos that the Russian government had promised to help Trump by releasing dirt on Clinton, and Donald Trump Jr's response showed he was expecting more of this aid: "If it's what you say, I love it." The meeting was really a secret attempt to get Trump to lift the Magnitsky Act sanctions imposed against Russia, something Trump was willing to do for Putin.

Acting CIA director John E. McLaughlin explained how Trump's lying about his attempts to get a Trump Tower Moscow deal with Agalarov and his keeping the Trump Tower meeting in New York secret for nearly a year compromised him and gave Putin "leverage" over him. He said the "seeds of blackmail" came from "the Trump Tower meeting on June 9, even if nothing came of it":

If we had never learned of it, Russia would have had in its kit bag an email from [Donald Trump, Jr.] saying 'I'd love some dirt on Hillary from Russia.' And could have threatened to reveal it at any time. Those around Trump clearly are naive about all of this.

Former FBI official Frank Figliuzzi described how Trump's lies about the Trump Tower Moscow deal with Agalarov were "the definition of the Russian word kompromat". Jennifer Rubin wrote that "Russians knew Trump was lying and Trump knew that they knew. That's leverage."

In June 2018, Emin put out a music video that clearly alludes to the pee tape and kompromat, and Mother Jones described it as "an over-the-top trolling of the Trump-Russia investigation". It featured "impersonators playing Donald Trump, Ivanka, Jared Kushner, Hillary Clinton, Mark Zuckerberg, and Stormy Daniels, a series of briefcase handoffs, surreptitious meetings, and bikini-clad Miss Universe contestants".

Aras Agalarov

Aras Agalarov is an Azerbaijani businessman, oligarch, and real estate magnate who has close ties to Yuri Chaika (described as the "Master of Kompromat"), Vladimir Putin, and many forms of organized crime. The Senate Intelligence Committee wrote: "The Agalarovs have significant ties to Russian organized crime and have been closely affiliated with individuals involved in murder, prostitution, weapons trafficking, kidnapping, extortion, narcotics trafficking, money laundering and other significant criminal enterprises. Some of those activities have extended outside of Russia, including to the United States." The fact that a sitting President has close business ties with such people has been criticized.

Agalarov has deep financial ties to Trump and was involved in Trump's plans to build a Trump hotel in Moscow. Michael Cohen was Trump's representative in most of his business dealings with Agalarov in Russia, and the Senate Intelligence Committee wrote that Giorgi Rtskhiladze "warned him twice against working with the Agalarovs, saying they were 'really rough'".

Dossier sources reported that Trump had participated in "sex parties" in St. Petersburg, and that Agalarov "would know most of the details of what the Republican presidential candidate had got up to" in St. Petersburg. Mueller reported how Giorgi Rtskhiladze, independently of the dossier, described how "compromising tapes of Trump" were "rumored to be held by persons associated with the Russian real estate conglomerate Crocus Group" [owned by Agalarov].

Years later, when referring to the alleged pee tape made of Trump with prostitutes in November 2013, Rtskhiladze indicated that such a tape could be the consequence for any indiscretions that occurred around Agalarov/Crocus. Rtskhiladze knew that, as Agalarov was a close associate of Putin and Yuri Chaika, anything improper was likely to be recorded. The Senate Intelligence Committee report notes that Rtskhiladze was the one who "assessed that if compromising material existed, Crocus Group would likely be responsible".⁴²⁸²

The Committee connected the dots by attaching footnote "4282" to "Crocus Group would likely be responsible":

⁴²⁸² Aras Agalarov's associate, Yuri Chaika, the longtime former Prosecutor General of Russia, has a history of utilizing compromising information. ... Most notably, in the late 1990s, Chaika was reportedly involved in the use of a video recording to oust a Russian government official who was investigating corruption in the Russian leadership. The recording, which was made public, showed the official in a compromising situation with two women. Chaika himself replaced the ousted official, who claimed that the tape was falsified. Putin, who was the head of the FSB at the time, 'authenticated' the tape involving the women.

David Geovanis

David Geovanis is "a Moscow-based American businessman with longstanding ties to President Donald Trump". He also "has ties to Kremlin-linked oligarchs, several of whom are sanctioned by the United States. Some of Geovanis's contacts are also associated with Russia's intelligence and security services, and some are involved in Kremlin foreign influence operations."

The Senate Intel Committee has lots of info about Geovanis and his statements about Trump's alleged sexual activities in Russia:

He "holds a Russian passport and may be a dual U.S.-Russian citizen. The Committee is not aware of Geovanis having any direct connection with the Trump Campaign. Geovanis has claimed that, during Trump's travel to Russia, both in 1996 and 2013, Geovanis was aware of Trump engaging in personal relationships with Russian women. Geovanis has suggested that the Russian government was also likely aware of this information.

... Geovanis also has a reputation in Moscow for a pattern of conduct regarding women that could make him, and potentially those around him, vulnerable to kompromat operations.

While the Committee is not specifically aware of Geovanis sharing his alleged information regarding Trump with the Russian government, he has not been discreet with it. He is believed to have told a number of people in Moscow and elsewhere about some of this information, at least some of whom are in the U.S. expatriate business community, and he may have also spoken to the press about it.

Geovanis talks about Trump's alleged relationship with a former Miss Moscow.

The report also said that a Trump associate, David Geovanis, an American businessman based in Russia who was in Moscow for the 1996 visit, continued to discuss Mr. Trump's relationship with the former Miss Moscow after the president's inauguration in 2017. According to the committee report, Mr. Curran, the photographer and a friend of Mr. Geovanis, told Senate investigators that he had asked Mr. Geovanis, 'What exactly happened … did they hook up, or whatever?'
Mr. Geovanis responded, Mr. Curran told the investigators, with 'Yeah, well, I saw them again the next day and they were together, so.'

Luke Harding and Julian Borger describe how:

A report by the Senate intelligence committee provides a treasure trove of new details about Donald Trump’s relationship with Moscow. ...

During the 1990s and into the 2000s, David Geovanis developed a reputation in Moscow, in part as a host for visiting businessmen.

It goes on to say that Trump "may have begun a brief relationship with a Russian woman" he met at the Geovanis party. Her name is blacked out. One source of the information is Theodore Liebman, an architect who lived in Moscow and New York in the 1990s, and who traveled to Russia with Trump to the event. Geovanis has spoken to journalists and is reluctant to visit the US, the committee notes.

Geovanis intimated that he could blackmail Trump. The Senate Intelligence Committee wrote that William McFarren said:

To the best of my recollection, Mr. Geovanis said that he showed Mr. Trump around Moscow during the Miss Universe pageant in 2013. He did not get into specifics, but intimated that there was partying and that Mr. Trump should be nice to him in light of the information he had.

Geovanis also suggested that Putin could blackmail Trump:

Almost a year later, on October 22, 2016, O'Brien sent an invitation email to the group of expatriate businessmen, including Geovanis, regarding the 2016 holiday dinner in Moscow. In that email, O'Brien wrote, 'I keep thinking that VVP [Putin] must have some great material on Donald.' O'Brien told the Committee that this comment was based only on Geovanis's comments at the holiday dinner the prior year.

Dossier mentions of Trump's vulnerability

The dossier described various ways Trump was vulnerable to blackmail:

• ... that Trump was vulnerable to blackmail from Russian authorities for paying bribes and engaging in unorthodox and embarrassing sexual behavior over the years, and that the authorities were "able to blackmail him if they so wished". (Reports 80, 95, 97, 113)
• ... that the Kremlin had promised Trump they would not use the kompromat collected against him "as leverage, given high levels of voluntary co-operation forthcoming from his team". (Report 97)
• ... that Trump had explored the real estate sectors in St. Petersburg and Moscow, "but in the end TRUMP had had to settle for the use of extensive sexual services there from local prostitutes rather than business success". (Report 95)
• ... that witnesses to his "sex parties in the city" had been "'silenced' i.e. bribed or coerced to disappear." (Report 113)
• ... that Trump had paid bribes in St. Petersburg "to further his [business] interests". (Report 113)
• ... that Aras Agalarov "would know most of the details of what the Republican presidential candidate had got up to" in St. Petersburg. (Report 113)
• ... that Trump associates did not fear "the negative media publicity surrounding alleged Russian interference" because it distracted attention from his "business dealings in China and other emerging markets" involving "large bribes and kickbacks" that could be devastating if revealed. (Report 95)
• "DIVEYKIN discusses release of Russian dossier of 'kompromat' on TRUMP's opponent, Hillary CLINTON, but also hints at Kremlin possession of such material on TRUMP." (Report 94)
• "However, the Kremlin official close to IVANOV added that s/he believed DIVEYKIN also had hinted (or indicated more strongly) that the Russian leadership also had 'kompromat' on TRUMP which the latter should bear in mind in his dealings with them." (Report 94)
• "As far as 'kompromat' (compromising information) on TRUMP were concerned, although there was plenty of this, he understood the Kremlin had given its word that it would not be deployed against the Republican presidential candidate given how helpful and co-operative his team had been over several years, and particularly of late. (Report 97)

Trump as national security risk

Compromised national security vs sex act

See also: § Possible motivations

While the media has tended to focus on the sexual nature of the alleged scandalous incident, others have focused on how national security was compromised by the far more serious scandal and kompromat Trump created when he allegedly "intentionally disrespected the President of the United States" and became blackmailable.

Vera Papisova wrote: "If allegations are true, and the Russian government does have compromising financial and personal information about Donald Trump, then we should be more concerned about whether or not this will have an effect on his foreign policy — and not laughing at his sexual preferences."

Jaclyn Friedman points out the real "scandal": "People are so focused on the 'scandalous' sex act that they're missing the treason. The big scandal here, which is getting lost in all the pointing and laughing, is that, if these allegations are true, he's compromised U.S. sovereignty by being either blackmailed or blackmailable by Russia."

Paul Wood, BBC journalist, wrote: "The significance of these allegations is that, if true, the president-elect of the United States would be vulnerable to blackmail by the Russians. I understand the CIA believes it is credible that the Kremlin has such kompromat - or compromising material - on the next US commander in chief."

On the subject of kompromat, Bruce Ohr testified to the House Judiciary and Oversight committees that on July 30, 2016, Steele told him that "Russian intelligence believed 'they had Trump over a barrel'... [a] broader sentiment [that] is echoed in Steele's dossier". Paul Wood described the source as "another Danchenko contact, a 'former senior intelligence officer now a Kremlin official'. This was later said to be no less than a former head of Russia's foreign intelligence services. This source did not talk specifically about the 'pee tape' but, Danchenko told Steele, he said they had sexual kompromat on Trump going back years. 'We've got him over a barrel.'"

Cultivation, compromise, kompromat, and blackmail

Trump appears vulnerable to at least three types of kompromat (compromising material): those of a sexual, financial, and corrupt practices nature. These vulnerabilities go back many years, far before his 2015-2016 presidential campaign and the dossier published in 2017, possibly since his first trip to Eastern Europe in 1977. The Russians and their allied intelligence agencies appear to have tried to collect kompromat on him for at least 40 years.

According to former KGB major Yuri Shvets, Russia has been trying to cultivate Trump as an "asset", not an actual "agent" (spy), for many years. He became the target of a joint KGB and Czech intelligence services spying operation after he married Czech model Ivana Zelnickova and has been cultivated as an "asset" by Russian intelligence since 1977: "Russian intelligence gained an interest in Trump as far back as 1977, viewing Trump as an exploitable target."

Trump was not viewed as an actual spy but as an asset who is a "useful idiot": "We're talking about Trump being a self-interested businessman who's happy to do a favour if it works to his own best interests – and that includes staying out of jail. ... Simply put, an agent is a partner for life, whereas an asset is a friend with benefits. And, most likely, if Trump has been one of the two, it's the latter."

The Senate Intelligence Committee looked at Trump's potentially blackmailable activities in Russia in the mid-1990s:

Two decades before he ran for president, Donald J. Trump traveled to Russia, where he scouted properties, was wined and dined and, of greatest significance to Senate intelligence investigators, met a woman who was a former Miss Moscow.

A Trump associate, Robert Curran, who was interviewed by the Senate investigators, said he believed Mr. Trump may have had a romantic relationship with the woman. On the same trip, another Trump associate, Leon D. Black, told investigators that he and Mr. Trump “might have been in a strip club together.” Another witness said that Mr. Trump may have been with other women in Moscow and later brought them along to a meeting with the mayor.

Mr. Trump was married to Marla Maples at the time.

The Committee also investigated the threats of kompromat about Trump that "emerged in 2016", as well as those that "predated both Steele's memos and the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign":

Russia has a longstanding practice of collecting compromising information to attempt to influence or coerce prominent individuals, posing a potential counterintelligence threat. Allegations that the Russian government had compromising information on then-candidate Trump emerged in 2016, and were more fully made public in early 2017, through memos produced by Christopher Steele. Separate but related allegations, which were not public, in some cases predated both Steele's memos and the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. Collectively, the allegations raised a potential counterintelligence concern, that Russia might use compromising information to influence the then-presidential candidate's positions on relations with Russia. The Committee sought, in a limited way, to understand the Russian government's alleged collection of such information, not only because of the threat of a potential foreign influence operation, but also to explore the possibility of a misinformation operation targeting the integrity of the U.S. political process.

A Lawfare summary of the Committee's final report on Russian interference in the 2016 elections examined its "findings regarding reports of 'kompromat' of a sexual nature that may have been collected on Donald Trump during his various visits to Moscow" and found they were "significantly redacted. The blacked-out portions include a fuller description of the threat posed by Russian intelligence services' collection of kompromat."

While the Committee investigated the possibility of Russian kompromat on Trump, much of the discussion was redacted in the public version of the report. Schiller could "not recall" many events where he was present as Trump's bodyguard. He could not remember ever being at The Act nightclub in Las Vegas or anything about the Moscow trip, not even the name of the hotel or whether they stayed there. He was not the only one with "memory issues": "A number of witnesses told the Committee their memories were unclear." Ultimately, the Committee "did not establish" that Russia had kompromat on Trump.

On September 5, 2017, in a Russian state TV broadcast, Russian politician Nikita Isaev (Isayev) confirmed the Kremlin had kompromat on Trump. He was the leader of the far-right New Russia Movement, and he called for retaliation against the Trump administration over its closure of several Russian diplomatic compounds across the U.S. As retaliation, he threatened the release of unspecified kompromat on Trump held by the Russian government. Isaev said: "Let's hit Trump with our Kompromat!" Host: "Do we have it?" Isaev: "Of course we have it!"

Becoming an asset

Intelligence agencies may create an asset by compromising the person, and this is done by keeping track of their lies, indiscretions, and potential sexual scandals. These can be used as kompromat to gain leverage over the asset:

President Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen says that Trump repeatedly lied during the campaign when he denied have any deals or anything to do with Russia. Others knew as well, presumably — his daughter and son-in-law who worked on the project, Felix Sater who reached out to the Russian and — this is key — the Russians. If you believe Cohen, then Russians knew Trump was lying and Trump knew that they knew. That's leverage. Former FBI official Frank Figliuzzi explains: 'At any time, Vladimir Putin could use — or perhaps he already has used — knowledge of Trump's deceit to pressure Trump on everything from sanctions to public statements to policy on Ukraine.'

Former FBI special agent Clint Watts says that "Trump handed Putin 'a window of opportunity should he choose to use it to discredit President Trump at any time President Trump doesn't do what President Putin likes.'" Former acting CIA director John McLaughlin described how the "seeds of blackmail" can come from "ongoing business negotiations" and "the Trump Tower meeting on June 9, even if nothing came of it".

Jennifer Rubin, columnist for The Washington Post, wrote:

Senator Adam Schiff "raises the possibility that this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to President Trump's financial dealings with Russia. If true, and especially if Trump was engaged in money laundering that might violate U.S. laws (something yet to be proven), Schiff says 'Russians would be well aware of it,' and could hold (or be holding) that over Trump's head."

Both of Trump's sons have "admitted that Russians supplied the Trump Organization much of its capital needs", and Trump's former architect, Alan Lapidus, has described how Trump's "involvement with Russia was deeper than he's acknowledged". He helped Trump survey property in Russia in 1997, yet, to his consternation, Trump later "kept protesting that he knew nothing about Russia and hadn't tried to do much business there". Lapidus said: "The quid pro quo has to be in there somewhere. ... Trump could not get money here. He found Russia, and the Russians gave him a lot of money. He has got to be doing a quid pro quo. It's just logical. It's just too much money."

Rubin cites The Moscow Project's description of Trump's relationship with Russia. In the context of heavy investments by Russians in Trump's properties and "a president under several investigations for his connections to the Kremlin":

Russia's outsize role in Trump's reemergence from financial tribulations that nearly destroyed his real estate empire merit additional attention. What emerges is the story of a man indebted to Russia through the oligarchs that President Vladimir Putin helped create and now controls.

Robert Mueller testified that Russia had blackmail on Trump due to financial factors because he lied about negotiating with Russia for a Trump Tower deal in Moscow. He "repeated five times in one press conference, Mr. Mueller, in 2016, 'I have nothing to do with Russia.'" Those repeated false statements made him vulnerable to blackmail: "Any undisclosed foreign arrangements would raise red flags about candidates for national office, making them vulnerable to blackmail by others privy to those secrets. Russians call such nuggets of damaging information 'kompromat,' a concept that's become familiar enough to enter the international lexicon."

Right after the dossier was published, the BBC's Paul Wood described four sources for claims of possible Trump–Russia blackmail: Christopher Steele ("a former British intelligence agent"); "the head of an East European intelligence agency"; "active duty CIA officers dealing with the case file"; and "an intelligence agency of one of the Baltic States".

Max Boot has listed "18 reasons Trump could be a Russian asset". He mentioned the dossier when he described more "evidence of Trump's subservience to Putin", and he tied it to new government confirmations of rumors about Trump's alleged indiscretions in Russia:

The Senate Intelligence Committee offered some provocative new nuggets, including suggestions that Trump might have engaged in dalliances with Russian women during visits to Moscow that left him open to blackmail. This is the first confirmation from any branch of the U.S. government that rumors of Russian kompromat on Trump — a central feature of the infamous Steele Dossier — may have some basis in fact.

Trump viewed as under Putin's influence

[[File:President Trump Holds a Joint Press Conference with the President of the Russian Federation.webm|thumb|right|200px|thumbtime=0:10|The [[2018 Russia–United States summit#Press conference|press conference]] at the [[2018 Russia–United States summit|2018 summit]] in [[Helsinki]], [[Finland]], on July 16, 2018 (English version) 46 minutes]]

According to former KGB major Yuri Shvets, Trump became the target of a joint Czech intelligence services and KGB spying operation after he married Czech model Ivana Zelnickova and was cultivated as an "asset" by Russian intelligence since 1977: "Russian intelligence gained an interest in Trump as far back as 1977, viewing Trump as an exploitable target."

Kyle Cunliffe writes that Trump was not viewed as an actual agent (spy) but as an asset: "We're talking about Trump being a self-interested businessman who's happy to do a favour if it works to his own best interests."

Dossier sources allege that the Russians possess kompromat on Trump that can be used to blackmail him and that the Kremlin promised him the kompromat would not be used as long as he continues his cooperation with them.

Former CIA director John Brennan, who has accused Trump of "treason", tweeted: "He is wholly in the pocket of Putin." Brennan stressed repeatedly that collusion may have been unwitting, at least at first as Russian intelligence was deft at disguising its approaches to would-be agents: "Frequently, individuals on a treasonous path do not even realize they're on that path until it gets to be too late."

Helsinki summit July 16, 2018

Trump's actions at the Helsinki summit in 2018 "led many to conclude that Steele's report was more accurate than not. ... Trump sided with the Russians over the U.S. intelligence community's assessment that Moscow had waged an all-out attack on the 2016 election. ... The joint news conference ... cemented fears among some that Trump was in Putin's pocket and prompted bipartisan backlash."

Jay Willis described Putin's strange answer when asked "about the purported existence of a certain racy video clip in his country's possession". Putin could have cleared Trump but did not do so: "He's not saying it exists. But he's also not saying it doesn't exist. ... What this answer does not include: any straightforward denial that the pee tape exists."

At the joint press conference, when asked directly about the subject, Putin denied having any kompromat on Trump. Even though Trump was reportedly given a "gift from Putin" the weekend of the pageant, Putin argued "that he did not even know Trump was in Russia for the Miss Universe pageant in 2013 when, according to the Steele dossier, video of Trump was secretly recorded to blackmail him."

Several leaders and lawyers in the U.S. intelligence community reacted strongly to Trump's performance at the Helsinki summit. They described it as "subservien[ce] to Putin" and a "fervent defense of Russia's military and cyber aggression around the world, and its violation of international law in Ukraine" which they saw as "harmful to US interests". They also suggested he was either a "Russian asset" or a "useful idiot" for Putin, and that he looked like "Putin's puppet".

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper saw Trump's behavior and wondered "if Russians have something on Trump".

In reaction to Trump's actions at the Helsinki summit, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) spoke in the Senate: "Millions of Americans will continue to wonder if the only possible explanation for this dangerous and inexplicable behavior is the possibility—the very real possibility—that President Putin holds damaging information over President Trump."

Other

Former CIA director Michael V. Hayden said Trump was a "polezni durak" - a "useful fool" who is "manipulated by Moscow".

Hillary Clinton Clinton said Putin "would rather have a puppet as president of the United States" during the final presidential debate.

Paul Wood, referring to descriptions of Trump by Hillary Clinton and Michael Morell, wrote that both "agent" and "puppet" "imply some measure of influence or control by Moscow".

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi questioned Trump's loyalty when she asked him: "[Why do] all roads lead to Putin?"

Former acting CIA director Michael Morell has written: "In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation."

John Sipher, a former member of the CIA's Senior Intelligence Service, considers Trump a Russian agent in a limited sense. He starts by saying Trump is not an agent in the traditional sense, and later says he is "an agent of a foreign power":

I think it is entirely plausible that Mr. Trump is somehow compromised by his personal and financial dealings with Russia and Russians, but I do not think he is an 'agent' in the sense that intelligence professionals use the term. Let me explain. ... Based on the U.S. definition of an agent, it is unlikely that President Trump is a recruited and controlled source of the Russian intelligence services. To a professional he is a nightmare. Yes, he is a cauldron of potentially exploitable vulnerabilities. ... He clearly crossed a line and can be objectively labeled an agent of a foreign power in the standard definition of the word. From the Russian perspective, it is a win-win even if the relationship doesn’t meet the cloak-and-dagger definition of a wholly clandestine espionage agent.

In his 2020 book Compromised: Counterintelligence and the Threat of Donald J. Trump, Peter Strzok, former FBI deputy assistant director of counterintelligence, has analyzed Trump's life, leading him to believe Trump was and is "compromised" and thus, wittingly or unwittingly, indebted to Putin. He describes the many things Trump did and said before and during his presidency that made him vulnerable to blackmail and pressure from foreign adversaries. Strzok posits the question: "When a president appears to favor personal and Russian interests over those of our nation, has he become a national security threat?" He mentions one very public example related to Trump's business projects in Russia that created the necessary conditions for Trump to be compromised. Lozada writes: "As candidate and again as president, Trump lied about his business ties with Russia." Strzok explains the consequences of those lies:

The moment Trump said publicly, 'I have no business dealings with Russia,' he knew he was lying. Putin knew he was lying, and the FBI had reason to believe he was lying. But American citizens didn't know that. The then-presidential candidate's public denial of his business dealings in Russia signaled to Putin that Trump was more interested in maintaining his personal financial interests than in telling the truth to the American people, and that he needed Putin's complicity to maintain the lie. To use an intelligence term that you will be seeing a lot in this book, in this moment Trump became compromised. Trump's compromising behavior did not begin or end with the lie about his business interests in Russia. The list was long and alarming. ... All these actions made Trump vulnerable to coercion by Russia, and now he was behaving in a way that suggested he was indeed being manipulated by our adversary. The dilemma for us was, what was the Bureau going to do about it?

Ynet, an Israeli online news site, reported on January 12, 2017, that U.S. intelligence advised Israeli intelligence officers to be cautious about sharing information with the incoming Trump administration until the possibility of Russian influence over Trump, suggested by Steele's report, has been fully investigated.

Adam Davidson, a staff writer at The New Yorker, has described "sistema", the system of kompromat and constant fear that affects the actions of people from Russia and other nations in that part of the world, even when they work in the United States. Anyone who works with them is endangered. Everyone collects kompromat on everyone, even their friends and business partners, so everyone exists with the threat of even small missteps being used against them, so they try not to antagonize others. Trump is endangered because he has worked with "many ethnic Turks from Central Asia, such as the Mammadov family, in Azerbaijan; Tevfik Arif, in New York; and Aras and Emin Agalarov, in Moscow [and] large numbers of émigrés from the former Soviet Union."

Davidson writes:

If there truly is damaging kompromat on Trump, it could well be in the hands of Trump's business partners, or even in those of their rivals. ... [They save it]] knowing that it might one day provide some sort of business leverage—even with no thought that he could someday become the most powerful person on Earth. ... Had he never sought the Presidency, he may never have had to come to terms with these decisions. But now he is much like everyone else in sistema. He fears there is kompromat out there—maybe a lot of it—but he doesn't know precisely what it is, who has it, or what might set them off.

Political scientist Keith Darden said that Trump has "never said a bad word about Putin. ... He's exercised a degree of self-control with respect to Russia that he doesn't with anything else." Darden said: "He is capable of being strategic. He knows there are limits, there are bounds on what he can say and do with respect to Russia."

Richard Dearlove, former UK spy chief, says Trump's reelection is a national security threat to Britain.

History of rumor awareness

A general timeline of the awareness of the 2013 rumor shows it started in Russia and was generally unknown to the American public, and then, with the publication of the Steele dossier on January 10, 2017, public awareness exploded. Because the dossier's description was the first public description, people were under the mistaken impression Steele invented a new rumor rather than just repeating the old rumor from 2013.

The rumor began in Moscow shortly after Trump left the Ritz-Carlton hotel and the 2013 Miss Universe pageant, long before the Steele dossier was published in 2017, with the "tales of [Trump's] weird sexual indiscretions" described as "an 'open secret' in Moscow". It was primarily a rumor in Russia, including among Moscow prostitutes, with awareness outside of Russia being limited to a smaller group, mostly with connections to Trump. Cohen testified that "many people" were aware of the rumor, and he mentioned "half a dozen people" who knew and reached out to him. At least twenty named, and many unnamed, people were aware of the "Moscow tape" before Steele even started writing his reports.

With the advent of the dossier, the public became aware of the rumor, but they did not know it was an old rumor until Cohen's testimony to the House Intelligence Committee on March 6, 2019, made it clear that Steele's Russian sources were not inventing a rumor; rather, they were sharing the old rumor from 2013.

Awareness by two groups of people

True or not, the rumor became known by two groups of people in two different time periods.

• 2013‍–‍2016: The original rumor was about a tape related to "Trump and prostitutes" and "compromising tapes of Trump" in Moscow.
  • When the incident allegedly happened on November 9, the alleged perpetrators and some others would have known about the incident: Trump, Russian intelligence and the prostitutes, and some of Steele's seven Russian sources.
  • After November 2013, others learned of the rumor: Cohen, Trump, Giorgi Rtskhiladze, Sergei Khokhlov, David Pecker, Dylan Howard, Harvey Levin, Katrina Pierson, Hope Hicks, and a few others in Trump's orbit.
  • Cohen's testimony revealed that long before the dossier was leaked there was some early form of "public knowledge" of the tape among a small group, although he described them as "many people".

• 2016‍–‍2017: After Steele began to compile what his sources told him, including about the old rumor.
  • After Steele began writing the dossier in June 2016: Steele's sources, Steele, Fusion GPS staff, Bruce Ohr, and a few FBI agents.
  • Then Steele began to privately share some details: some journalists, Paul Wood, Michael Isikoff, David Corn, the FBI Crossfire Hurricane team, and FBI leadership.
  • Before the election, only two news sources mentioned some allegations that came from dossier reports, but neither mentioned the pee tape rumor. Steele had been in contact with both authors. These were a September 23, 2016, Yahoo! News article by Michael Isikoff that focused on Carter Page, and an article by David Corn on October 31, 2016, a week before the election, in Mother Jones magazine.
  • Then John McCain, his aide David J. Kramer, four intelligence chiefs, Obama, and Biden.
  • Then Comey told Trump, who had known since 2013. Trump did not mention his foreknowledge to Comey. This was discovered later.
  • After the dossier's publication on January 10, 2017, the public came to know it as the "pee tape".

Awareness timeline table

Below are listed people who are known to have been aware of the rumor. Some are named and others are mentioned because sources allude to them. The list is roughly in the chronological order of when they were made aware. Some involved in the hunt for the tape(s) were made aware more than once.

Growing awareness of rumor from shortly after Miss Universe 2013 until the publication of the dossier.

Date	Name	Notes	Cite
Nov. 8, 2013	Someone offered to send five prostitutes "to Trump's hotel room that night"	If that person carried through with that offer, they would have known of the incident. Schiller's honesty about the alleged incident has been questioned, including his claim of denying the offer, so the possibility exists that the offer was accepted. The lobby and elevator incidents lend support to this possibility.
Nov. 9, 2013	Those somehow involved in the incident	Allegedly Trump, the prostitutes, their provider, Steele's Source D, those who cleaned the room, and the FSB.
Nov. 9-10, 2013	Some of Steele's seven Russian sources	In 2013, seven Russian sources allegedly knew, including sources D and E, "several of the staff were aware of it at the time and subsequently ... a company ethnic Russian operative to Source F, a female staffer at the hotel when TRUMP had stayed there, who also confirmed the story." They later provided the information reported by Steele.
Unknown	Moscow prostitutes	Stanislav Belkovsky said that "Prostitutes around the city say the 'golden shower' orgy story is true."
Unknown	Aras Agalarov / Crocus Group	Both the dossier and Rtskhiladze independently associated possession and knowledge of compromising tapes of Trump with Agalarov and his Crocus Group. Giorgi Rtskhiladze "assessed that if compromising material existed, Crocus Group would likely be responsible".
Late 2013	Michael Cohen	Cohen testified he became aware in "late 2013 or early 2014, shortly after the Miss Universe 2013 pageant and significantly prior to the 2016 U.S. election cycle".
Late 2013	Donald Trump (again)	Michael Cohen informed him shortly after the Miss Universe 2013 pageant.
Unknown	Six different people	"Cohen estimated that, over the course of several years, six different people contacted him regarding the alleged tape." He named three of them.
Unknown	David Pecker	"[T]hose individuals included David Pecker, Dylan Howard and Harvey Levin."
Unknown	Dylan Howard	"[T]hose individuals included David Pecker, Dylan Howard and Harvey Levin."
Unknown	Harvey Levin	"[T]hose individuals included David Pecker, Dylan Howard and Harvey Levin."
2014 or 2015	Giorgi Rtskhiladze	Cohen tells him about the rumor and asks him to find out if the tapes are real.
Oct. 2015	Sergei Khokhlov	He overheard at least two people discussing tapes of Trump, so he contacted his friend Rtskhiladze.
Oct. 2015	Others discussing tapes of Trump	At least two people were overheard by Khokhlov.
Oct. 2015	Giorgi Rtskhiladze (again)	Khokhlov tells Rtskhiladze, but Rtskhiladze waited a year before telling Cohen on October 30, 2016.
Apr.-June 2016	Some of Steele's seven Russian sources	Steele received the "hotel anecdote" from seven Russian sources. Danchenko was not his only source for this information.
June 2016	Igor Danchenko	Danchenko went to Moscow in early June 2016. There he was told about "'a well-known story' regarding Trump's alleged salacious sexual activity at the hotel". When he "asked the Ritz-Carlton staff about them ... [they] did not deny the veracity of those rumors."
June 2016	Christopher Steele and Fusion GPS staff	After Steele began writing the dossier, the team became aware of the rumor.
July 30, 2016	Bruce Ohr	Steele told him about the rumor and that Russian intel believed they had Trump "over a barrel".
July-Oct. 2016	Journalists Paul Wood, Michael Isikoff, and David Corn	Steele began to privately share some information but not copies of his memos.
Sep. 19, 2016	FBI Crossfire Hurricane team, and probably FBI and CIA leadership.	This was the first time they and their leader, Peter Strzok, had received any of Steele's reporting.
Sep. 19, 2016	James Comey	Comey probably learned some at the same time as the Crossfire Hurricane team.
Before Oct. 7, 2016	Katrina Pierson	She knew before October 7, 2016.
Oct. 8, 2016	Hope Hicks	Katrina Pierson tells Hope Hicks of the pee tape. Hicks reached out to Cohen and asked him to track down the tape.
Oct. 30, 2016	Michael Cohen (again)	Rtskhiladze waited a year before telling Cohen on October 30, 2016, about his October 2015 conversation with Khokhlov.
Oct. 30, 2016	Donald Trump (again)	Cohen tells him and "several others" (including Donald Trump Jr. and Schiller) about message from Rtskhiladze.
Oct. 30, 2016	Donald Trump Jr.	Cohen tells him about October 30, 2016, message from Rtskhiladze.
Oct. 30, 2016	Keith Schiller	Cohen tells him about October 30, 2016, message from Rtskhiladze.
Unknown	Intelligence sources and agencies (multiple)	Unknown how much they knew and when, but presumably more than most others. They (still) keep information redacted in published reports (Mueller report, Senate Intelligence Committee, etc.) to protect their methods and sources.
Unknown	Sir Andrew Wood	The former British ambassador to Moscow had learned of the dossier and vouched for Steele's professionalism to John McCain.
Early Dec. 2016	John McCain and his aide David J. Kramer	Steele gave Kramer a copy of all 16 reports, that Kramer then gave to McCain.
Dec. 9, 2016	James Comey (again)	McCain gave Comey a copy of the dossier. Comey had probably seen some with the Crossfire team after September 19, 2016.
Before Jan. 5, 2017	Barack Obama, Condoleezza Rice, attendees	A few days before January 5, 2017, during the President's Daily Briefing, James Clapper informed Obama of the "golden showers" allegation. Other attendees also heard the message.
Jan. 5, 2017	Barack Obama and Joe Biden	The four intelligence chiefs (James Clapper, John Brennan, Michael S. Rogers, and James Comey) informed Obama and Biden of the dossier and its salacious allegations.
Jan. 6, 2017	Gang of Eight	Clapper, Brennan, Rogers, and Comey inform the bipartisan Gang of Eight of the 115th United States Congress: Devin Nunes, Adam Schiff, Richard Burr, Mark Warner, Kevin McCarthy, Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell, and Chuck Schumer
Jan. 6, 2017	Donald Trump (of dossier)	The four intelligence chiefs go to Trump Tower. Comey then privately briefed Trump about "the sensitive material in the Steele reporting". Trump did not reveal he had known of this rumor since 2013. Trump later testified in London this was the first time he was "made aware" of the dossier.
Jan. 10, 2017	Public learns of "pee tape"	Everyone learns after the dossier was published, without Steele's permission, by BuzzFeed News on January 10, 2017.
Jan. 10, 2017	Hillary Clinton	Clinton first learned of the dossier after BuzzFeed posted it.
Jan. 10, 2017	Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Brian Fallon	They first learned of the dossier after BuzzFeed posted it.
Jan. 10, 2017	Members of Congress	"This was the first time that most members of Congress had heard of it."

Specific individuals

Michael Cohen and Giorgi Rtskhiladze

[[File:Michael Cohen headshot.jpg|upright|thumb|right|[[Michael Cohen (lawyer)|Michael Cohen]] (2011)]]

See also: § Against Robert Mueller and Department of Justice. Filed by Giorgi Rtskhiladze

Although Cohen did not accompany Trump to Moscow in 2013, his actions in relation to the pee tape rumor became important elements in the awareness history of what Cohen described as "the infamous pee tape when Mr. Trump was in Moscow for the Miss Universe Pageant":

Michael Cohen has testified that he became aware of allegations about a tape of compromising information in late 2013 or early 2014, shortly after the Miss Universe 2013 pageant and significantly prior to the 2016 U.S. election cycle. The alleged tape related to Trump and prostitutes. Cohen has testified that he discussed the allegations with Trump, who asked Cohen to find out where the allegations were coming from. Trump told Cohen that the allegations were not true.

Cohen's later testimony revealed that "he had been aware of other similar allegations that began shortly after Trump's travel to Moscow in 2013", and many others have also known about the rumor since that time. Cohen acted on Trump's request, and, in "2014 or 2015", he contacted his friend Giorgi Rtskhiladze, "to see if Rtskhiladze could find out if the tape was real". Rtskhiladze was born in the Republic of Georgia and is now a U.S. citizen (since 2017). He is a businessman who partnered with The Trump Organization, and thus Cohen, in its failed building project plans in the former Soviet Union, including plans for a Trump Tower Moscow development in 2015. Most significant coverage of him is in connection with Cohen and Trump.

In October 2015, Sergei Khokhlov, a Russian friend of Rtskhiladze, told Rtskhiladze he overheard two people "discussing sensitive tapes of a Trump visit to Russia". A year later, the Access Hollywood tape became headlines on October 7, 2016. Because of its possibly damaging effects on Trump's reputation and business possibilities in the former Soviet Union, on October 30, 2016, "Rtskhiladze informed Cohen of the alleged tapes in Moscow, and Cohen informed Trump and several others", including Donald Trump Jr. and Schiller. "Cohen has said that there was no additional action taken, and that he had been aware of other similar allegations that began shortly after Trump's travel to Moscow in 2013, none of which Cohen was able to corroborate."

"Stopped the flow of some tapes"

When Rtskhiladze contacted Cohen, he indicated he had acted on the information from Khokhlov (from 2015) and "stopped the flow of some tapes from Russia". Cohen then asked him "Tapes of what?" and Rtskhiladze replied "Not sure of the content but person in Moscow was bragging had tapes from Russia trip." Their communication continued, and Lawfare observed that the goal of these communications "was to run them down and keep them quiet so that Trump could 'make it to' the White House". This happened about a week before the 2016 election and well before the Steele dossier became public knowledge on January 10, 2017.

CNN noted that this episode "occurred months before top intelligence officials, including former FBI Director James Comey, presented Trump with claims of Russian efforts to compromise him that were contained in a dossier prepared by retired British spy Christopher Steele, which CNN has reported took place in January 2017."

Footnote 112 in Volume 2 of the Mueller Report mentions these communications between Rtskhiladze and Cohen, and the House Intelligence Committee provided the whole exchange in Exhibit 38.

Majority Exhibit 38, HPSCI - Michael Cohen, (Feb. 28, 2019)

From	To	Body	Timestamp: Date	Timestamp: Time
Rtskhiladze	Cohen	Stopped flow of some tapes from Russia but not sure if there's anything else. Just so u know...	10/30/2016	7:30:22 PM(UTC+0)
Cohen	Rtskhiladze	Tapes of what?	10/30/2016	7:48:51 PM(UTC+0)
Rtskhiladze	Cohen	Not sure of the content but person in Moscow was bragging had tapes from Russia trip.	10/30/2016	7:52:12 PM(UTC+0)
Rtskhiladze	Cohen	Will try to dial you tomorrow but wanted to be aware	10/30/2016	7:52:41 PM(UTC+0)
Rtskhiladze	Cohen	I'm sure it's not a big deal but there are lots of stupid people	10/30/2016	7:53:25 PM(UTC+0)
Cohen	Rtskhiladze	You have no idea	10/30/2016	7:53:46 PM(UTC+0)
Rtskhiladze	Cohen	I do trust me.	10/30/2016	7'.54:27 PM(UTC+0)
Rtskhiladze	Cohen	He needs to make it to the WH Mike!	10/30/2016	7:57:4O PM(UTC+0)
Rtskhiladze	Cohen	Mike-Keeping fingers crossed I predicted Mr. Trump!	11/9/2016	2:41:42 AM(UTC+0)
Rtskhiladze	Cohen	Fantastic journey from Batumi to the WH! You and I need to do huge deals!	11/9/2016	7:23:19 AM(UTC+0)

In his 2020 lawsuit against Robert Mueller, Rtskhiladze, unprompted, suggested a way he could have "stopped the flow" of tapes. He also mentioned who might have been in a position to help him do that. This happened when he accused Mueller of "insinuating" how he did it, and which his lawsuit against Mueller denied. Rtskhiladze asserted that "Mueller's report mentioned unverified allegations that a Russian real estate conglomerate, Crocus Group, was in possession of the compromising tapes and insinuated that Rtskhiladze worked with Crocus to prevent its release." In fact, it was Rtskhiladze, not Mueller, who described how "compromising tapes of Trump" were "rumored to be held by persons associated with the Russian real estate conglomerate Crocus Group" (which is owned by Agalarov), and Mueller had not insinuated that "Rtskhiladze worked with Crocus" to stop the tapes.

Judge does not believe Rtskhiladze's changing story

Mueller's office "twice interviewed Rtskhiladze", and his story changed between interviews. Footnote 112 covers both interviews. In the April 2018 interview, when asked what he meant by "tapes" in his claim to have "stopped the flow" of tapes, he stated that "'tapes' referred to compromising tapes of Trump rumored to be held by persons associated with the Russian real estate conglomerate Crocus Group, which had helped host the 2013 Miss Universe Pageant in Russia." The footnote "concluded with additional information from a May 2018 interview". His previous story in April changed with the additional claim made in May "that Khokhlov subsequently called and stated that the tapes were fake, but Rtskhiladze said this information was not conveyed to Cohen." (Judge Cooper cast doubt upon the claim of a call from Khokhlov.)

Because Rtskhiladze, per Cohen's request to "find out if the tape was real", had been watching out for the tapes, his initial message to Cohen on October 30, 2016, (that he had "stopped the flow of some tapes") not only implied the tapes were real, not fake, but also that he had found and stopped the tapes at their source (implications later confirmed by Judge Cooper). It was only much later, in May 2018, that Rtskhiladze claimed "he was told the tapes were fake", a claim doubted by Cooper. If the claim was true, Rtskhiladze could have mentioned this in his April 2018 interview, but he didn't. His message gave Cohen and Trump "the impression that real tapes had existed" all that time. In other words, "Team Trump thought they existed, according to the Mueller report." Ruthann Robson noted Trump's possible belief: "while the Mueller Report casts doubt on the tape's existence, the question of its existence — and the question of whether Trump believed it existed and acted accordingly — implicate national security issues, as well as the issues of obstruction that the Mueller Report raised."

Judge Cooper later said Rtskhiladze "undercut" his claim that the tapes were fake by speaking as if getting recorded was a real consequence of indiscretions committed around Agalarov/Crocus: "As for Rtskhiladze's professed belief that the tapes were fake, that suggestion is somewhat undercut by Rtskhiladze's statement, only present in the Senate Report, suggesting that the tapes may have been real, and that they were 'what happens when you visit crocus I guess.'"

Cohen's testimony

By the time of Cohen's second deposition by the House Intelligence Committee on March 6, 2019, (which is cited in the Senate Intelligence Committee's report), the "pee tape" was a well-known term. The Committee discussed the Mueller Report's footnote 112, the pee tape, and Rtskhiladze's October 30, 2016, texts to Cohen. Cohen's testimony made it clear that (unbeknownst to either of them) Rtskhiladze's texts about the tapes he stopped were about what later became known as the dossier's "pee tape". The day after the Steele dossier was published, and Rtskhiladze read the dossier's description of the alleged pee tape incident in 2013, he wrote an email showing he recognized the dossier's description of the pee tape also described the tapes he stopped in October 2016. Both tapes (which were really the same tapes) were "rumored to be held by Crocus Group". Judge Cooper wrote: "Rtskhiladze's own words as reproduced in the Senate Report show that he, at the very least, suspected in 2017 that the tapes referred to in his texts with Cohen and the tapes mentioned in the Steele Dossier were one and the same."

Under questioning by Representative Jackie Speier, Cohen described the tape stopped by Rtskhiladze as "the infamous pee tape when Mr. Trump was in Moscow for the Miss Universe Pageant". Speier asked: "It wasn't infamous then, was it?" and he replied: "Yes, yes. That the tape - the conversation about the tape has gone back almost a couple months past when they were there for the Miss Universe Pageant that that tape existed." (p. 227) When Speier asked "So you're suggesting you've known about the rumors about this tape for many years before October 30th?" he replied that he had talked to "many people" over the years:

Cohen estimated that, over the course of several years, six different people contacted him regarding the alleged tape. Cohen stated that one individual threatened to release the alleged information if the individual was not paid a large sum of money. Cohen indicated that he would have been willing to pay the individual to suppress the information if it could be verified, but Cohen was never shown any evidence. Cohen has also said that individuals in the media contacted him regarding a tape of Trump. ... [T]hose individuals included David Pecker, Dylan Howard and Harvey Levin.

Cohen explained that Trump had denied the rumor when they first learned of it shortly after the Miss Universe contest, and he asked Cohen to find its source. Speier noted how that original rumor did not die: "but it persists, and then you're hearing it again on October 30th". When Speier said "It does not become public knowledge until January of 2017, when BuzzFeed releases the Steele dossier." Cohen corrected her and confirmed there was some form of "public knowledge" of the pee tape before the Steele dossier: "That's not really true. There were conversations way before that. TMZ, Harvey Levin called me, said he had heard about the existence of it. You know, other people had heard of the existence of that tape."

Pecker, Howard, and Levin

Michael Cohen testified that "over the course of several years, six different people contacted him regarding the alleged tape. ... [T]hose individuals included David Pecker, Dylan Howard and Harvey Levin."

David Pecker is an American publishing executive, businessman, and was also the publisher of National Enquirer. In 2018, Pecker became embroiled in controversy regarding his involvement in catch and kill operations to buy exclusive rights to stories that might embarrass his friend Donald Trump, to prevent the stories from becoming public during Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.

Dylan Howard is an entertainment journalist and media executive best known for his work as editor-in-chief of the National Enquirer tabloid between 2014 and 2020, a period in which he and Pecker oversaw a number of scandals involving powerful figures, including Donald Trump.

Harvey Levin is an American television producer, legal analyst, journalist, and former lawyer. He founded the celebrity news website TMZ in 2005, and later briefly served as the host of OBJECTified (2016–present), which aired on the Fox News Channel.

Steele's seven Russian sources

The founders of Fusion GPS said that Steele received the "hotel anecdote" from seven Russian sources. The dossier says the seven sources for the "golden showers" allegation included Sources D and E, and other sources that Howard Blum describes as [Steele's] "alphabet list of assets". Some have been described:

1. "According to Source D, where s/he had been present,"
2. The episode was "confirmed by Source E (redacted) who said that s/he and ..."
3. "... several of the staff were aware of it at the time and subsequently. S/he believed it had happened in 2013. Source E provided an introduction for ..."
4. "... a company ethnic Russian operative to ..."
5. "... Source F, a female staffer at the hotel when TRUMP had stayed there, who also confirmed the story."
6. (no description)
7. (no description)

Besides the two sources he named, Paul Wood described some "other sources", including an American, whose stories seem to contradict Trump's bodyguard's assertion that he refused the offer of five prostitutes:

Steele has five other sources for the 'golden showers' story. One is the hotel manager, another a maid. Neither had first-hand information, the manager agreed it might have happened, the maid relayed gossip among the housekeeping staff. One is 'an American' who supposedly saw a row in the hotel reception about whether a group of prostitutes could go up to Trump's suite. This American is not Keith Schiller, Trump's bodyguard, who told a Congressional committee he had 'stopped' five prostitutes from trying to visit Trump. Another source was a friend of Danchenko, described as a Russian with a 'wide social network', who said the story was common knowledge around the Kremlin.

Igor Danchenko

See also: § Against Igor Danchenko. Filed by John Durham

Igor Danchenko worked for Christopher Steele's Orbis Business Intelligence as a major collector (a Primary Sub-source) of information for the Steele dossier, including traveling to Moscow in early June 2016. When Danchenko first reported back to Steele of his findings in Moscow, he reported that:

the Russians had been targeting and cultivating Trump for years and had even gathered kompromat on him, specifically tales of weird sexual indiscretions that the collector said 'were an open secret' in Moscow. Steele was horrified. 'I thought I had heard and seen everything in my career,' he told associates.

District Judge Anthony Trenga analyzed the question of Steele's sources and acknowledged that Steele had other sources than Danchenko. He countered Special Counsel John Durham's contention "that Danchenko was Steele's primary source of information for the Steele Reports writ large" by noting that Steele used other sources than Danchenko: "Nor is there any evidence that ... Steele only, or almost entirely, used Danchenko as his source for the Reports."

Trenga described how Danchenko first learned of the rumor:

Danchenko argues that he never told, and there will be no evidence that he told, the FBI that his sources for the Ritz-Carlton allegations were Millian, Dolan, or Kuhlen. Instead, as he told the FBI in a January 25, 2017 interview, he first learned of the Ritz-Carlton Moscow allegations in early June 2016 [in Moscow] when an individual identified as 'I.V.' told him about 'a well-known story' regarding Trump's alleged salacious sexual activity at the hotel, and that he 'reported Trump's unorthodox sexual activity at the Ritz' [to Steele] as 'rumor and speculation' and that he had not been able to confirm the story.

Trenga wrote that "Danchenko told FBI agents that he inquired with staff about the rumors involving Trump's purported sexual activity at the hotel, and that the hotel staff did not deny the veracity of those rumors. Danchenko also told the FBI in that same interview that he passed along to Steele the names of the hotel staff he spoke to." Danchenko said "he found his sources credible but that he took their information with a 'grain of salt'".

The FBI revealed that Danchenko was a very well-connected source whose role went far beyond the Steele dossier. Danchenko worked for the FBI as "an uncommonly valuable" confidential human source for several years after the Steele dossier was published:

Helson testified that Danchenko's reports as a confidential informant were used by the FBI in 25 investigations and 40 intelligence reports during a nearly four-year period from March 2017 to October 2020. ... Danchenko, the FBI agent said, was considered 'a model' informant and 'reshaped the way the U.S. even perceives threats.' Helson said that none of his previous informants had ever had as many sub-sources as Danchenko and that others at the FBI have continued to ask in recent months for Danchenko's assistance amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Hope Hicks

[[File:Hope Hicks thumbs up on 8 November 2017 detail, from- Donald Trump and staff on Air Force One (cropped).jpg|thumb|right|200px|Hope Hicks (2017)]]

As Trump's most personal aide in his inner circle, Hope Hicks was a close witness to every Trump scandal and controversy: "She was there for everything." Along with awareness of many other Trump scandals and sexual misconduct allegations, it was later revealed that she became aware of the pee tape rumor on October 8, 2016.

Trump's top strategist, Steve Bannon, revealed that Trump lawyer "Marc Kasowitz 'took care' of 100 women during the presidential campaign". This all involved multiple tapes and hush money payments, creating confusion over which tape was being referred to, and this required that Hicks testify to a Congressional committee, exposing hers and Trump's early knowledge of the pee tape rumor.

On October 7, 2016, news of the Donald Trump Access Hollywood tape broke, and the next day she learned of the pee tape from Trump campaign spokesperson Katrina Pierson. Pierson told her that Harvey Levin of TMZ might have access to the pee tape. Hicks, realizing that Michael Cohen knew him, immediately reached out to Cohen and requested that he investigate the matter and report back to her. Trump was on one of the three phone calls between Hicks and Cohen: "The affidavit identifies three calls involving Ms. Hicks and Mr. Cohen on the evening of October 8, 2016, including one, the first call that Mr. Trump joined."

As part of its investigation of hush money payments related to Trump's affair with Karen McDougal and the Stormy Daniels–Donald Trump scandal, the House Judiciary Committee had to investigate those phone calls. Therefore, Hicks was questioned about whether Trump ever directed her "to make public statements about the hush money payments during the campaign". She denied ever doing so.

Due to confusion between the pee tape and the Access Hollywood tape, she had to explain the difference, and, in doing so, she made a new revelation of what the Trump campaign knew about the pee tape. She testified about her phone calls with Cohen:

[The calls were not] about the [Access Hollywood] tape; it was about ... rumors of a tape involving Mr. Trump in Moscow ... with Russian hookers, participating in some lewd activities. ... I wanted to make sure that I stayed on top of it before it developed any further, to try to contain it from spiraling out of control.

She testified to the Committee that she and others in the Trump campaign already knew of the pee tape three months before the publication of the Steele dossier, and that she and Michael Cohen discussed the pee tape with Trump in October 2016. This information about Trump's early knowledge of the pee tape touched on the Mueller report's Footnote 112 and Comey's briefing of Trump at Trump Tower right before his inauguration. At that time, Trump did not inform Comey that Cohen had told him about the pee tape rumor in late 2013, shortly after the Miss Universe pageant, or that he had again heard about the pee tape from Hicks and Cohen on October 8. He also said nothing about Cohen's October 30 communications with Giorgi Rtskhiladze, a fact Mueller drew attention to by writing Footnote 112.

Intelligence sources and agencies

Robert Manne, referring to a January 11, 2017, report by Paul Wood, wrote that "Independent [from the dossier] evidence about Trump as a potential victim of sexual blackmail emerged soon after the publication of the dossier."

On January 11, 2017, Paul Wood, of BBC News, described those "independent" sources and wrote that Steele was "not the only source" for claims about Russian kompromat on Trump, and that multiple intelligence sources were privately reporting about kompromat before the publication of the dossier:

Back in August, a retired spy told me he had been informed of its existence by 'the head of an East European intelligence agency'. Later, I used an intermediary to pass some questions to active duty CIA officers dealing with the case file - they would not speak to me directly. I got a message back that there was 'more than one tape', 'audio and video', on 'more than one date', in 'more than one place' - in the Ritz-Carlton in Moscow and also in St Petersburg - and that the material was 'of a sexual nature'. The claims of Russian kompromat on Mr Trump were 'credible', the CIA believed.

Briefings of Obama and Trump about pee tape rumor

On January 5, 2017, the chiefs of four U.S. intelligence agencies briefed President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden about the Russian interference in the election and the existence of the dossier and its allegations. They were Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, FBI Director James Comey, CIA Director John Brennan, and NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers.

On the afternoon of January 6, 2017, President-elect Trump and his transition team received a similar briefing from the same group of top intelligence chiefs in Trump Tower. They informed Trump of the Russian election interference, and Comey told them of "a piece of Steele's reporting that indicated Russia had files of derogatory information on both Clinton and the President-elect".

Then, according to a pre-arranged plan, Brennan, Clapper, and Rogers left, and Comey then asked to speak with Trump alone. Comey then informed Trump of the dossier and its allegations about salacious tapes held by the Russians. Comey later reported he was very nervous. The previous day, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security told Comey to "be very careful", "choose your words carefully", and then "get outta there". Trump became very defensive, and Comey described the meeting as "really weird". Trump later expressed that he felt James Comey was trying to blackmail him at the meeting in Trump Tower, held two weeks before the inauguration.

Trump did not tell Comey that he had known of the pee tape rumor since shortly after he left the Ritz-Carlton hotel and 2013 Miss Universe pageant.

Publication of dossier

The first public mention of the rumor was on January 10, 2017, when CNN reported about the January 6, 2017, meeting in Trump Tower where Comey oriented Trump about the salacious aspects of the dossier. Before that, only a few people in intelligence circles, some journalists, some senior members of Congress, some other government officials in Washington, and some foreign officials knew of the dossier.

Following the CNN report, BuzzFeed News immediately published the dossier, thus bringing awareness of the pee tape rumor to the public. Peter Strzok described the reaction as "the Internet equivalent of an atomic explosion". Referring to Congress, he wrote:

We had heard rumors that several of its members had seen the reporting, including Senator John McCain, who had been concerned enough that he had given a copy to Comey. But the majority of their colleagues on the Hill had not. This was the first time that most members of Congress had heard of it — and they suddenly seemed to be unable to talk about anything else. (p. 196)

Notability and legacy of pee tape narrative

The rumor has been described as a "viral sensation", and the "most notorious" of all the dossier's allegations. "The 'pee tape' claim instantly overshadowed all the other Trump-Russia allegations in the Steele dossier", which itself has been described as "one of the most explosive documents in modern political history" and "perhaps the most controversial opposition research ever to emerge from a Presidential campaign".

According to Tommy Vietor, "once a narrative enters the media ether, it can become uncontrollable. ... once a rumor gets some traction, it's almost impossible to fix it, even if it is false. The problem with the pee tape allegation is it is so graphic, it is so memorable, that it doesn't matter how many times you knock it down — people are going to remember it."

When Steele was asked why the Russians hadn't released the tape, he replied "It hasn't needed to be released. ... I think the Russians felt they'd got pretty good value out of Donald Trump when he was president of the U.S." The dossier makes clear that the Russian authorities were "able to blackmail him if they so wished". As long as the alleged tape(s) aren't released, the threat has a lasting effect, because the Kremlin made clear the conditional nature of the arrangement when it promised Trump the Russians would not use the kompromat collected against him "as leverage, given high levels of voluntary co-operation forthcoming from his team".

The founders of Fusion GPS have written: "Ultimately, whether the incident detailed in the dossier is true or not is likely not of paramount importance. The Russians had ample kompromat against Trump and his top aides with or without any pee tape."

Glenn Simpson believes the dossier interrupted a planned renewal of relationships between the United States and Russia that was "not in the interest of the United States"; that it supported the existing FBI investigation into Russian interference; and that it furthered understanding of "the covert relationship between the Trump campaign and the government of Russia".

Journalist David Corn of Mother Jones described how the "Trump gang" use the dossier as "a convenient foil, their false flag": "It was a clever ploy on the part of the Trump gang: Deny the unfounded—that Trump was caught on tape consorting with urinating prostitutes and that he conspired directly with Putin—to sidestep the damning reality that Trump and his aides betrayed the nation by both encouraging the Russian attack and trying to cover up Putin's sinister intervention."

Commentary and context

A number of writers have shared their analyses and comments about the rumor's veracity or lack of same.

Writers, journalists, and Steele

• Seth Abramson, in his book Proof of Collusion, wrote that "the Agalarovs couldn't have missed" Trump's enthusiastic reaction to the sight of women peeing, and that his reaction "may have informed the activities they wanted prostitutes to perform in front of Trump in his hotel suite in Moscow in November 2013, just 120 days after the risqué performance in Las Vegas". He noted that Trump's public actions at an after-party after the Miss Universe contest, where Trump accosted two women, provided kompromat for the Russians. He described how these public actions, which were disclosed before the Steele dossier was even written, were evidence that Trump was lying about being discrete in Moscow, that he was publicly careless, and that his deceptive denials showed "consciousness of guilt".

• Jonathan Chait, an American pundit and writer for New York magazine, wrote an article entitled "I'm a Peeliever and You Should Be, Too". He prefaced his further comments by saying: "I used to doubt that this episode really happened. I now believe it probably did. I am obviously far from certain, but since Steele's dossier came out, an accumulation of evidence has tipped the balance from unlikely to likely." Then he listed five reasons, with explanations, for why we too should believe it likely happened:

1. Christopher Steele is credible.
2. Trump is unhealthily obsessed with Obama.
3. Trump has mixed his denials of the pee tape with obvious lies.
4. Trump's alibi is at least partly false.
5. Trump is comfortable with gross sexual behavior and can be blackmailed.

• Slate journalist Ashley Feinberg investigated the pee tape rumor, especially the Presidential Suite, and linked to a 25-second "Piss Tape" video at www.pisstape.org (now found at the Internet Archive) of the purported occurrence. She concluded that the tape was fake, but "very far from being an obvious fake". A key discrepancy, according to Feinberg, was that the video appeared to show the Presidential Suite as it appeared after a 2015 renovation, despite the purported occurrence being in early November 2013, before the renovation occurred. The video has been in circulation since at least January 26, 2019. Although she believes the tape is fake, it was so convincing that she said: "The more I tried to prove to myself it wasn't real, the less confident I became in my own skepticism."

Feinberg, when referring to "this pee tape" at pisstape.org, distinguishes between it and the missing alleged Moscow "pee tape": "The pee tape is fake. This pee tape, anyway. Whether this pee tape is the pee tape—perhaps you've heard of it as the 'piss tape,' or the 'pee-pee tape,' or the 'golden shower video'—is one of the things that are still unclear about it."

• Naomi Fry, a staff writer at The New Yorker, said:

To me, the oddest detail of all is the idea that defiling the bed after rather than before the Obamas occupied that Moscow suite—a years-late voodoo ritual—might count as taking revenge on the then President and First Lady. It is this bizarre logic that in fact seems most like Trump, with his crazed rage at perceived enemies and fixation on old offenses—chronology be damned!—and it is what might ultimately count as the true perversity here.

• Michelle Goldberg's New York Times article "Lordy, Is There a Tape?" mentions Trump's "obsession with the rumored tape" and his lies to Comey "about why it couldn't be real", and concludes that if we found the pee tape existed, "it would prove" something "we already know", "that Trump is sexually debauched and longs to desecrate everything Obama touched".

She describes how his lies "are of more than voyeuristic interest". They are significant "because, like the former director of the F.B.I., we don't know if Trump has been compromised by Russia." She mentions a tendency for Trump observers to "avoid admitting what seems to be staring us all in the face ... the rather obvious possibility that Trump is being blackmailed."

She sees "Trump's phony alibi" as just part of the "evidence that the tape might be real". As more evidence, she points to Trump's visit to The Act nightclub in Las Vegas, five months before he visited Moscow, where Russians observed Trump watching a golden showers performance "with delight", and its "at least two [acts] involving women simulating urination, a fairly specific kink". She notes that "his presence at the club tells us he may not find this sort of thing unbearably disgusting".

• Martin Longman, web editor for the Washington Monthly, wrote: "There's a name for people who believe that the tape exists: peelievers. When I saw that Trump lied to Comey about spending a night at the hotel at all, it made me more of a peeliever."

Regarding the time of the alleged incident, he wrote:

"I can't establish the exact time that Trump was at this shoot, but he definitely did not sleep in. Even if had gone straight to bed the night before, he probably would have gotten no more than four or five hours of sleep. Did Russian women show up at the Ritz Carlton that night? There are several reasons to believe they did, including that Christopher Steele was able to partially corroborate a rumor that he learned of from a conversation that took place in New York City several years later by having sources talk to staff at the hotel in Moscow. I also think it’s interesting that Keith Schiller felt compelled to admit that the offer was made, even if he denied that Trump accepted it."

• Jennifer Rubin wrote an opinion article for The Washington Post about Trump's fake alibi entitled "A false alibi could be strong evidence of guilt": "Maybe the Big Lie has worked in the past, but in legal or impeachment proceedings, it comes across as evidence of deceit. ... We return to the quintessential Trump dilemma: If he is innocent, why does he behave so much like a guilty man?"

Once triers of fact (either at trial or in the court of public opinion) believe that an accused person is lying, it becomes awfully hard to convince them that there is good reason to lie. In this case, evidence of the coverup is so plentiful that ordinary people — not unreasonably — will assume guilt. Trump’s penchant for lying, exaggerating, distorting and misremembering in ways that invariably line up with his unfounded assertions might finally do him in.

• Roger Sollenberger, a senior political reporter with The Daily Beast, said he came to strongly believe the tape exists. He analyzed the issue and made a list of eight "strikes against the pee-pee tape" explaining why we should not believe the tape is real, and then he debunked all but one: "I can't prove I'm right. But I'm not trying to. All I can do is make a compelling argument that explains why, after being a total skeptic for months, I've slowly come to believe, strongly, that this hideous, ridiculous thing really is out there." He said it was worth writing about because "Russia might indeed have blackmail on our President".

He has concluded it is the best-sourced dossier allegation:

Throughout the dossier, Steele is surprisingly honest about qualifying his sketchy sources as sketchy. He never professes certainty about anything. But he doesn't caveat the golden shower report. That report, the most unbelievable one, notably also has the most sources attached to it, all of them independent.
And the improbable fact is that, so far, nothing substantial in the dossier has been proven untrue, with the exceptions of some misspellings or a description that's slightly off here and there. And in fact, the dossier is becoming increasingly corroborated.

• Christopher Steele said he believes that 70–90% of the dossier is accurate. "[Steele] treated everything in the dossier as raw intelligence material—not proven fact." Regarding the "golden showers" allegation, Michael Isikoff and David Corn have stated that Steele's "faith in the sensational sex claim would fade over time. ... As for the likelihood of the claim that prostitutes had urinated in Trump's presence, Steele would say to colleagues, 'It's 50–50'."

On October 17, 2021, in Steele's first major interview with ABC News, George Stephanopoulos asked him if he thought the "pee tape" was real. Steele answered that it "probably does exist", but he "wouldn't put 100 percent certainty on it". When he was asked why the Russians hadn't released it, he replied "It hasn't needed to be released. ... I think the Russians felt they'd got pretty good value out of Donald Trump when he was president of the U.S."

In their book Crime In Progress, Glenn R. Simpson and Peter Fritsch write: "Steele remains confident that the Ritz allegation is not disinformation, a hoax, or the fabrication of a fantasist. Ultimately, whether the incident detailed in the dossier is true or not is likely not of paramount importance. The Russians had ample kompromat against Trump and his top aides with or without any pee tape."

Comedians and shows

Immediately following the publication of the Steele dossier on January 10, 2017, comedians naturally provided a stream of jokes, as well as serious commentary, about the pee tape rumor. Twitter was flooded with jokes and "a stream of pee puns", with hashtags like #GoldenShowers, #PeeTape, and #PEEOTUS trending. By the next day, there were about 70,000 jokes on Twitter about the matter.

Serious commentary

• Seth Meyers, on his show Late Night with Seth Meyers, had a humorous monologue about the pee tape. After listening to Comey's account of how Trump asked him to investigate the pee tape, Meyers exclaimed:

Oh my God, it's real. It has to be. Why would you ask the FBI Director to investigate a pee tape if you knew for a fact that pee tape definitely didn't exist? ... You know, I've always thought the pee tape was real, and here's how I know.

Then the monologue continued, including playing a Fox News interview with Trump denying the tape existed, yet explaining how it would embarrass him if such a tape did show up. After Trump brought up the tape many years later, Meyers quipped:

'My favorite part is when he said Melania didn't believe that one, like there are plenty of other stories she definitely believed.' Impersonating Trump, Meyers said: 'She didn't believe the golden-showers story, but when the news broke that I asked a porn star to spank me with a Forbes magazine while we watch Shark Week, she said, 'That sounds like my Donald.'

• David Pakman, host of the The David Pakman Show, delved into the odd fact that Trump lied about the pee tape when a normal person would not need to do so:

These are not normal reactions. ... So, lie confirmed about the pee tape stuff. It's not actually about the pee tape but about the fact that Trump has been caught lying again about something that a normal person would just say 'I didn't do that, and there is no evidence that I did it because it didn't happen.'

• Cenk Uygur, host of The Young Turks, reviewed the evidence that debunked Trump's phony alibi that he didn't overnight in Moscow. Then he said:

You have to ask the question: Why would you lie about that if you didn't do the 'golden showers' thing? And then he got his personal security guy to also lie for him, but that lie also exposed what really happened.' [Then he quotes from Politico's coverage about Schiller's testimony that showed Trump did overnight in Moscow.] Uygur concluded: 'There's Donald Trump in a nutshell for you guys. So now, given that he is clearly lying, clearly covering it up, clearly stayed in Russia that night, the Steele dossier said that he stayed there in that hotel, I now believe there is a pretty good chance that tape exists.'

Comedic coverage

The Steele dossier was published on January 10, 2017, and late night shows and comedians "could barely contain their schadenfreude". They immediately exploited the sensational theme to their fans' great amusement with all kinds of toilet humor jokes that were "saturated", "streaming", and "dripping" with "yellow journalism". Twitter also struck "comedy gold with stream of jokes over Trump report".

• Among them were Samantha Bee, Conan O'Brien, James Corden, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, Trevor Noah, David Pakman, Saturday Night Live, Sam Seder, and Cenk Uygur. A whole fictional episode of the legal drama The Good Fight featured the pee tape and a woman who claimed to be one of the prostitutes involved in the incident.

• Stephen Colbert, host of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, has repeatedly joked about the pee tape on his show.
  • CBS and Colbert took the subject further than others. In 2017, Colbert and CBS decided to investigate the dossier rumor by traveling to Moscow, renting, and overnighting in the Presidential Suite where the pee tape incident allegedly took place. CBS filmed the suite and made it the subject of an episode on The Late Show.
  • When James Comey appeared on the The Late Show, Comey asked Colbert if the Ritz-Carlton's Presidential Suite was large enough to handle the alleged "pee tape" activity, since Trump claimed to be a germaphobe. Colbert joked that "it was plenty big enough to have kept Trump in the 'splash-free zone'". The episode was the third-highest Late Show rating ever.

Litigation involving pee tape rumor

Against Robert Mueller and Department of Justice. Filed by Giorgi Rtskhiladze

See also: § Michael Cohen and Giorgi Rtskhiladze

CASE: Rtskhiladze v. Mueller, Complaint, Case 1:20-cv-01591-CRC. FILED: June 17, 2020.

Rtskhiladze was unhappy with the way he was portrayed in Footnote 112 in the Mueller Report, and in 2020 he unsuccessfully sued Robert Mueller and the Department of Justice for defamation over the matter. Rtskhiladze sought at least $100 million in damages and a retraction from the Mueller report. He asserted he suffered "massive financial and emotional harm" because the Mueller Report allegedly connected him with the pee tape and Crocus Group. According to the suit: "Steele was concerned the Russians could use the recordings to blackmail Trump. Mueller’s report mentioned unverified allegations that a Russian real estate conglomerate, Crocus Group, was in possession of the compromising tapes and insinuated that Rtskhiladze worked with Crocus to prevent its release."

The case was dismissed for lack of standing by District Judge Christopher R. Cooper on September 1, 2021. Cooper's dismissal argumentation included an extensive analysis of Rtskhiladze's activities and beliefs about the tapes which he stopped. The lawsuit brought to light some interesting facts about the hunt for the pee tape, how it likely was "stopped", and Judge Cooper connected many dots before he dismissed the case. Judge Cooper quoted various parts of the Senate Report that demonstrated how, the "day after the Steele Dossier allegations were published in 2017" by BuzzFeed, Rtskhiladze wrote an email showing he recognized the description of the alleged pee tape in the dossier just released by BuzzFeed also described the tapes he stopped in October 2016.

Rtskhiladze identified the likely possessor of the tapes when he described how "compromising tapes of Trump" were "rumored to be held by persons associated with the Russian real estate conglomerate Crocus Group" [owned by Agalarov]. Steele's dossier independently implicated Agalarov when it asserted that Agalarov "would know most of the details of what the Republican presidential candidate had got up to" in St. Petersburg.

Rtskhiladze said that he, at the time, did not know of the dossier and therefore could not have known the tapes he stopped were actually the dossier's pee tape(s). He argued: "The public—including plaintiff—did not become aware of the Steele Dossier until several months after the election." He also said that if he "had knowledge that the subject of the tapes was the salacious tapes mentioned in the unverified Steele Dossier, he would not have told Mr. Cohen that he was '[n]ot sure of the content'." Judge Cooper placed that claim in context by writing:

The Senate Report makes clear that Rtskhiladze did, in fact, suspect that the rumored Steele Dossier tapes were the same tapes discussed in his October 2016 text conversation with Cohen. ... Rtskhiladze protests that "it is beyond credulity to suggest-as Footnote 112 does-that [he] was referring to the tapes mentioned in the Steele Dossier" in his texts with Cohen. FAC at ¶ 37. But the Senate Report demonstrates that Rtskhiladze himself suggested that very thing, in writing, just the day after the Steele Dossier was made public. Senate Report at 660. Rtskhiladze's own words as reproduced in the Senate Report show that he, at the very least, suspected in 2017 that the tapes referred to in his texts with Cohen and the tapes mentioned in the Steele Dossier were one and the same.

Judge Cooper cast doubt on Rtskhiladze's strange claim. He said Rtskhiladze "undercut" his claim that the tapes were fake by speaking as if getting recorded was a real consequence of indiscretions committed around Agalarov/Crocus: "As for Rtskhiladze's professed belief that the tapes were fake, that suggestion is somewhat undercut by Rtskhiladze's statement, only present in the Senate Report, suggesting that the tapes may have been real, and that they were 'what happens when you visit crocus I guess.'"

Agalarov and other Russians were with Trump when he visited The Act nightclub in Las Vegas, and they observed Trump watching a golden showers performance "with delight". Agalarov/Crocus had also hosted and paid for the Miss Universe contest and reserved the Presidential Suite at the Ritz-Carlton hotel, which was rated a "high counterintelligence risk environment", with Russian agents on staff, surveillance of rooms, and many prostitutes.

Two "former employees did not know whether there were cameras permanently in certain rooms, but both believed it was possible, and there was awareness of recording devices being prearranged in rooms in anticipation of the arrival of particular guests." Rtskhiladze knew that, as Agalarov was a close associate of Putin, anything improper was likely to be recorded: "[Rtskhiladze] had 'told [Cohen] there was something there b 4 election,' adding, 'well that's what happens when you visit crocus I guess.'" Rtskhiladze was the one who "assessed that if compromising material existed, Crocus Group would likely be responsible". Judge Cooper also noted that "Rtskhiladze ... [has] contacts connected to the Kremlin, particularly the office of Dimitri Peskov,.. key advisor to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin. ... Rtskhiladze told Cohen that Peskov was his 'good friend.'"

Judge Cooper also connected seven dots about the tape before dismissing the case. He showed how (1) Cohen's request in "2014 or 2015" that Rtskhiladze "find out if the tape was real", which was inspired by (2) Cohen's knowledge of the pee tape since "shortly after the Miss Universe 2013 pageant", led to (3) Rtskhiladze acting on a 2015 report from Khokhlov and stopping the flow of some compromising tapes from Russia in October 2016. Those tapes were (4) mentioned in Footnote 112 and connected by Mueller with (5) the dossier's pee tape from 2013. Judge Cooper also showed the tapes were (6) associated with Crocus Group and were (7) suspected by Rtskhiladze to be "one and the same" tape.

Against Orbis Business Intelligence. Filed by Donald Trump

CASE: President Donald J. Trump -V- Orbis Business Intelligence Limited, Case No. KB-2022-004403. FILED: October 2023.

In October 2023, Trump filed an unsuccessful lawsuit in London against Orbis Business Intelligence and Steele (who was later removed from the suit) alleging that Orbis violated British data protection laws when compiling the dossier. Trump accused Steele of making "'shocking and scandalous claims' that were false and harmed his reputation". Trump's witness statement said: "I can confirm that I did not, at any time engage in perverted sexual behaviour including the hiring of prostitutes to engage in 'golden showers' in the presidential suite of a hotel in Moscow." Trump asserted "The inaccurate personal data in the Dossier has, and continues, to cause me significant damage and distress."

On February 1, 2024, the High Court sided with Orbis and dismissed Trump's claim stating that the case was "bound to fail", and that the filing was outside the six-year period of limitations. In March 2024, Trump was ordered to pay legal fees of 300,000 pounds ($382,000) to Orbis.

Trump appealed the decision, and his appeal was denied on March 30, 2024.

Against Igor Danchenko. Filed by John Durham

See also: § Igor Danchenko

CASE: United States of America v. Igor Y. Danchenko, Case No. 1:21-cr-245-AJT-1. INDICTMENT FILED: November 3, 2021. ORDER FILED: October 4, 2022.

In November 2021, as part of the Durham special counsel investigation, Igor Danchenko was indicted by John Durham on five counts of making false statements to the FBI about the identities of his sources but "not about the information [in the dossier] itself". Danchenko pleaded not guilty to all charges. At trial, U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga picked Durham's faulty case apart, leading to Danchenko's acquittal of all charges in October 2022.

During his trial, two FBI officials revealed that Danchenko was "an uncommonly valuable" confidential human source for several years after the Steele dossier was published, and whose role went far beyond the Steele dossier:

Helson testified that Danchenko's reports as a confidential informant were used by the FBI in 25 investigations and 40 intelligence reports during a nearly four-year period from March 2017 to October 2020. ... Danchenko, the FBI agent said, was considered 'a model' informant and 'reshaped the way the U.S. even perceives threats.' Helson said that none of his previous informants had ever had as many sub-sources as Danchenko and that others at the FBI have continued to ask in recent months for Danchenko's assistance amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

All the Trump tapes

See also: Trump tapes

There are several tapes mentioned in connection with Trump, and that can create confusion. Some are real and some are alleged.

• Donald Trump Access Hollywood tape: Recorded discussion between Donald Trump and Billy Bush in 2005 in which Trump describes his habit of sexually assaulting women without first getting their permission: "You can do anything. ... Grab 'em by the pussy." Hope Hicks described it as "confusing" when it was mentioned at the same time as the pee tape.
• Multiple embarrassing tapes: Intelligence agencies assert there are multiple embarrassing tapes of Trump in Russia that are held by Russian intelligence. Paul Wood reported that "active duty CIA officers dealing with the case file [reported] there was 'more than one tape', 'audio and video', on 'more than one date', in 'more than one place' - in the Ritz-Carlton in Moscow and also in St Petersburg - and that the material was 'of a sexual nature'. The claims of Russian kompromat on Mr Trump were 'credible', the CIA believed."
• Donald Trump pee tape rumor and kompromat: Alleged tape of prostitutes performing a golden showers show for Trump at the Ritz-Carlton Moscow hotel in November 2013. The rumor is real.
  • Trump pee tape, an allegation from the 2016 Steele Dossier
• Ritz-Carlton elevator tape: Alleged tape of Trump with prostitutes in hotel elevator in November 2013.
• Trump Tower elevator tape of Melania with Donald Trump: Alleged tape of Trump striking Melania while in an elevator.
• Tapes of Trump on The Apprentice: Tapes where Trump allegedly makes embarrassing off-screen comments about women and makes racial slurs. Tom Arnold searched for the tapes, but Mark Burnett, the show's producer, would not release them.
• The Trump Tapes, 2022 audiobook release of interviews between Donald Trump and journalist Bob Woodward

See also

• Donald Trump sexual misconduct allegations
• E. Jean Carroll v. Donald J. Trump
• False or misleading statements by Donald Trump
• Karen McDougal § Affair with Donald Trump
• Stormy Daniels–Donald Trump scandal
• Timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections
• Trump: The Kremlin Candidate?

Further reading

Articles

• Davidson, Adam (July 19, 2018). "A Theory of Trump Kompromat". The New Yorker.

Books

• Comey, James (2018). A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership. Flatiron Books. ISBN 978-1-250-19245-5.
• Harding, Luke (2017). Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win. Random House. ISBN 978-0-525-52093-1.
• Hettena, Seth (2018). Trump/Russia: A Definitive History. Melville House. ISBN 978-1-612-19739-5.
• Isikoff, Michael; Corn, David (2018). Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin's War on America and the Election of Donald Trump. Grand Central Publishing. ISBN 978-1-5387-2874-1.
• Nance, Malcolm (2019). The Plot to Betray America: How Team Trump Embraced Our Enemies, Compromised Our Security, and How We Can Fix It. Hachette. ISBN 978-0-316-53576-2.
• Simpson, Glenn; Fritsch, Peter (2019). Crime in Progress: Inside the Steele Dossier and the Fusion GPS Investigation of Donald Trump. Random House. ISBN 978-0-593-13416-0.
• Strzok, Peter (2020). Compromised: Counterintelligence and the Threat of Donald J. Trump. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 978-0-358-23706-8.

Government sources

• "Mueller Report: Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election. Volumes I and II". Department of Justice. March 2019.
• "Senate Intelligence Committee report on Russian interference in the 2016 United States presidential election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities" (PDF). Senate Intelligence Committee. August 18, 2020.
• "Inspector General report on the Crossfire Hurricane investigation" (PDF). Department of Justice. December 9, 2019.
• "Report on Matters Related to Intelligence Activities and Investigations Arising Out of the 2016 Presidential Campaigns" (PDF). Department of Justice. May 12, 2023.
• "INDICTMENT. United States of America v. Igor Y. Danchenko, Case No. 1:21-cr-245-AJT-1". United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division. November 3, 2021.
• "ORDER: United States of America v. Igor Y. Danchenko, Case No. 1:21-cr-245-AJT-1" (PDF). United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division. October 4, 2022.
• "Rtskhiladze v. Mueller, Complaint, 1:20-cv-01591-CRC" (PDF). United States District Court for the District of Columbia. June 17, 2020.
• "Rtskhiladze v. Mueller, Opinion, 20-cv-1591 (CRC)". United States District Court for the District of Columbia. September 1, 2021.
• "President Donald J. Trump -V- Orbis Business Intelligence Limited, Case No. KB-2022-004403" (PDF). Royal Courts of Justice, Strand, London. February 1, 2024.
• "Deposition of Michael Cohen, Part 2" (PDF). House Intelligence Committee. March 6, 2019. pp. 225–229, 235–236, 254.
• "Interview of Keith Schiller" (PDF). House Intelligence Committee. November 7, 2017.
• "Interview of Hope Hicks" (PDF). House Judiciary Committee. June 19, 2019.

TV interviews

• Shear, Michael D. (April 16, 2018). "James Comey's Interview on ABC's '20/20': Annotated Excerpts". The New York Times. Retrieved January 30, 2024.
• Comey, James; Stephanopoulos, George (April 15, 2018). "Transcript: James Comey's '20/20' interview with ABC News chief anchor George Stephanopoulos". ABC News. Retrieved January 30, 2024.
• Video: Comey, James; Stephanopoulos, George (April 15, 2018). "James Comey Interview with George Stephanopoulos, Part 1: Telling Trump about the 'dossier' (8:32 min.)". YouTube. ABC News (official account). Retrieved January 30, 2024.
• Video: Comey, James; Stephanopoulos, George (April 15, 2018). "James Comey Interview with George Stephanopoulos, Comey says Trump asked him to investigate 'dossier' (6:45 min.)". YouTube. ABC News (official account). Retrieved January 30, 2024.
• Video: Comey, James; Remnick, David J. (April 23, 2018). "James Comey on His Infamous Dinner with Trump and the Steele Dossier (13:04 min.)". YouTube. The New Yorker (official account). Retrieved January 30, 2024.

External links

* {{cite news | last1=Bensinger | first1=Ken | last2=Elder | first2=Miriam | last3=Schoofs | first3=Mark | title=These Reports Allege Trump Has Deep Ties To Russia | agency=[[BuzzFeed News]] | date=January 10, 2017 | url=https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kenbensinger/these-reports-allege-trump-has-deep-ties-to-russia}}

Categories

{{DEFAULTSORT:Trump, Donald}} {{Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections}} {{Russia–United States relations}} [[Category:Donald Trump controversies|Sexual misconduct allegations]] [[Category:Espionage scandals and incidents]] [[Category:Federal political sex scandals in the United States]] [[Category:Mass media-related controversies in the United States]] [[Category:Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections]] [[Category:Russia–United States relations]] [[Category:Trump administration controversies|Sexual misconduct allegations]] [[Category:2017 controversies in the United States]]

Bottom and notes

TO DO

• Make redirects: #GoldenShowers, #PeeTape, and #PEEOTUS
• Remove this from above when this article is finished: Trump pee tape, an allegation from the 2016 Steele Dossier

Donald Trump pee tape rumor: Scope and Notability
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The NOTABILITY requirements of GNG are fully satisfied for this rumor, so it qualifies for a stand-alone article. Scope The scope is the pee tape rumor and national security implications of a president who may be blackmailed. It has a neutral title that accurately reflects the topic and enjoys enormous "common name" support. Anyone, other than a newbie, who nominates this article at AfD is acting in bad faith. GNG is satisfied, period. Any imperfections and errors should be fixed, not deleted, per PRESERVE. I hold no illusions that certain editors acting in bad faith won't nominate this for AfD. Of course they will, as they alway have done. They demonstrate their NOTHERE attitudes and deliberate refusal to follow GNG. Their usual "I don't like it" arguments will not trump our PAG, and there will, once again, be a "SNOW keep" verdict to keep the article. They should be sanctioned for even trying, per "tendentious". This topic meets all of our General notability guideline's criteria for its own article "A topic is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list when it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." Trump's extreme notability is inherently tied together with the degree of notability assigned to this rumor. It was deemed serious enough that all four of the top intelligence chiefs agreed that President Obama should be notified about it and that later FBI Director James Comey should privately orient President-elect Donald Trump about it. It has been covered in all mainstream RS and the Mueller report, Horowitz report, United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and other investigations. All types of RS covered it, so GNG is fully satisfied. It is very serious (blackmail of a president), very high profile, sensational, explosive, sexual, and salacious, all elements for a very notable topic. For the purposes of weighing an article's GNG notability, the topic's truth or falsity is an irrelevant consideration for a highly publicized and notable allegation about a public figure like Trump. We are instructed to cover it, and do it properly. The seriousness of the pee tape rumor also lends to its notability. Gossip and rumors flourish in response to the real or alleged "transgressional acts that start the scandal".[1] Even if the acts are only alleged, the gossip, rumors, and scandal are very real and can have real-world consequences. Trump is a very scandal-prone, very public figure, so his notability helped to make sure this rumor grabbed the public's attention. If it had happened to anyone less notable, it would have been brushed off and received short-lived attention. Much of its notability also stems from the natural human fascination with sex and scandal, and the media immediately satisfied the demand for such information. This rumor has been described as the "most notorious" of all the dossier's allegations, and this increases its notability. Several sources have described how Trump is a very good example of the Shakespearean saying "The lady doth protest too much." He seems to incriminate himself because he repeatedly, and unforced, keeps denying it at his campaign events. He very tellingly demonstrates what James Comey described as a "consciousness of guilt" when he repeatedly lied to Comey about exactly the only point in time when the incident could have happened. Trump's lies were specific. His denials told Comey exactly when the alleged deed happened. Normally, only the guilty party knows that information. He is like the child who lies by saying "I didn't take the last cookie." The child just told the parents that there are no more cookies and who ate the last one. Trump's lies told Comey that Trump knew when it happened. It is far from the most important allegation, unless true. If true, having a president who is being blackmailed by an enemy nation has enormous ramifications and consequences. Trump does act like a man who is being blackmailed, and the pee tape is far from the only type of salacious material presumably possessed by the Russians. Even if untrue, some other dossier allegations about the Russian interference were very serious, and the most important were confirmed by the FBI. Trump and his campaign did cooperate in myriad ways with the Russians in their election interference. It would be great if an investigation got testimony from those who first heard the pee tape rumor back in 2013‍–‍2014 and we learned exactly what version of the story they heard back then. Maybe some author will collect their versions and describe them for us in a book. A script writer could then include the info in the movie version. What we do know is that both Cohen and Rtskhiladze recognized the Steele report's description as a description of the tapes they had been pursuing for years. References

Thoughts
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
When I started investigating the topic of the rumor (not the alleged incident, which would be a small stub article) I was surprised at how much material there was, how seriously many RS take this, and how notable it is. Much of that is because Trump has supercharged the topic by lying about it and constantly, without prompting, bringing it up. This habit has been identified as an expression of his "consciousness of guilt". Innocent people don't act this way. Because of its national security implications, it has been examined by the highest quality sources, Special Counsel investigations, Congressional committees, and is a topic in several court cases. Trump was rarely alone in Moscow for more than a few minutes. Even when he used the toilet, his bodyguard would be nearby. He was constantly surrounded, photographed, and monitored by hosts, journalists, and spies, and the amount of documentation is impressive. Nearly (!!) every minute is accounted for, except for the one fateful early morning of the only full night he stayed in Moscow, the very night he lied about and pretended he wasn't even in Moscow. Even shadows in pictures and videos have been examined by researchers to establish the correct time of day and location, and it makes a difference! Some pictures have been mistakenly identified as being of the wrong location and time, so researchers have sorted this out. That is a great help. Needless to say, many RS connect many dots, and yet it is the Senate Intelligence Committee (that goes much further than the Mueller report) that provides one of the most interesting pieces of concrete evidence pointing to more "social activity" in Trump's hotel room after his bodyguard left him alone there at the time identified by several RS as the most likely (and only) time the alleged golden showers incident could have happened. He apparently did not go to sleep and may have left the room and returned. (The time difference between Ashville and Moscow means he would be wide awake at this time of the early morning.) Researchers have been forced to examine every minute detail of the weekend in Moscow and how this topic is related to kompromat and national security. The real issue is not Trump's sexual proclivities but his vulnerability to blackmail. Even if it never happened, the fact he lied about it several times makes him vulnerable. People are free to be into golden showers if they wish, but when it's the person who becomes the President, that fact changes the game. Indiscretions committed by a private citizen become the tools used by the enemy to control the public official, and Trump has never criticized Putin, even though he never misses a chance to criticize other world leaders. References