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  • 2017-01-10 (xsd:date)
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  • U.S. Intelligence Confirms Trump was Blackmailed by Russia? (en)
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  • On 10 January 2017, various web sites reported secondhand that United States intelligence officials had just confirmed that President-elect Donald Trump had been blackmailed by Russian operatives: The article is referencing compiled memos containing information given, in part, by a former British intelligence officer. A summary of the memos was presented to President Barack Obama and President-elect Trump in early January 2017. The memos had been leaked to the media as early as 31 October 2016, but were made public in full on 10 January 2017 when they were published by Buzzfeed. Contrary to the claim that the information contained was confirmed by intelligence officers, credible media outlets note that the claims are unverified. According to the New York Times: Buzzfeed echoed the skeptical tone: While the news was being reported as breaking, the information had actually been explored in depth in a 31 October 2016 article by Mother Jones. Unlike Mother Jones, however, Buzzfeed opted to publish the underlying document in full even though its provenance and truthfulness was unverified: The 36-page document's most discussed claim was that the Russian government possesses a video of Trump engaging in an orgy with prostitutes who perform a golden shower or urinate on each other in an effort to defile a bed once slept on by the Obamas because (according to the report) Trump hated them. It also claims that the regime of Russian president Vladimir Putin has been actively cultivating, assisting and supporting Trump for five years: David Corn, the Mother Jones reporter who broke the story months ago, wrote on Twitter that he chose not to publish the memos because he could not confirm the allegations made within them. Meanwhile, conservative media outlets labeled the memo a hoax, citing both internal evidence (e.g., document headers allegedly don't resemble those of actual U.S. intelligence memos) and 4Chan message board discussions indicating its contents were fabricated. Others countered by asserting that the memo (whether its contents were accurate or not) clearly did not originate with 4Chan pranksters and that it was extremely unlikely U.S. intelligence agencies had been fooled by a crude forgery. According to CNN, American intelligence officials are investigating the information. We reached out to the Trump camp for comment and have not received a response. However, Trump took to Twitter (as he often does) with a comment that was likely related to the memos: (en)
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