Pay Attention: Donald Trump’s Dossier Scandal Is Snowballing
In an exclusive with The Independent, the former MI6 agent responsible for the unfolding Dossier Scandal—alleging that Donald Trump has been compromised by the Russian government with blackmail-able kompromat and that his campaign has maintained ties to Russian officials throughout Election 2016—claims that the FBI inexplicably sat on his intel memo for months.
The agent, unmasked as Christopher Steele, also revealed that he had been working without pay because he was so alarmed at the possible implications of the intelligence he was finding. He has since gone into hiding in fear of a Russian reaction to his work, but the The Independent article explains “[Steele] came to believe there was a cover-up, that a cabal within the Bureau blocked a thorough inquiry into Mr Trump, focusing instead on the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails.”
Complicating matters further are multiple reports revealing that a classified briefing for Congressional Democrats by FBI Director James Comey and other intelligence agency chiefs left Democrats “fuming,” “outraged,” and “angry.” Earlier this week Comey had frustrated Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee when he refused to reveal if the FBI was currently investigating alleged links between the Trump campaign and Russian officials, an irony Democrats noted in reference to Comey’s late-election decision to announce that the investigation into Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s email controversy was resuming, which arguably cost Clinton the election.
Also of interest is Trump cybersecurity adviser Rudy Giuliani’s apparent track record of obtaining inside FBI knowledge and talking about it to the press for Trump’s political gain before the FBI announced anything. Giuliani admitted on Fox News he knew the FBI was going to announce a further look into Clinton’s emails, and, considering the fact that the investigation days before the election turned up nothing the FBI didn’t already know, the timing of it all is very suspicious.
Also worthy of suspicion are the unfolding details regarding Michael Flynn, Trump’s choice for national security adviser, and his five calls to Russia’s Washington ambassador the day the Obama Administration announced its retaliation against Russia for interfering in the presidential election. Nothing is specifically illegal about the calls, but, considering the unceasing connections between Trump’s advisers and Trump himself to Russian governmental and financial interests, Christopher Steele’s dossier intel of Russian collusion isn’t nearly as unbelievable as Trump and his advisers want concerned Americans to believe.
One of course can’t forget that former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort made millions working for shady, pro-Russian Ukrainian political efforts, and that he continues to live in Trump Tower and advise Trump without compensation even after his obvious Russian connections forced him to retire as campaign manager. Also of note is that the Trump campaign’s single contribution to the Republican Party’s platform at the Republican National Convention was to drop GOP opposition to Russia’s Ukrainian annexation of Crimea.
Financially, connections between Trump and Russia are even more damning. Trump recently tweeted, “NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA – NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NO NOTHING!” but that is simply not true. Disagreeing with Trump is his own son, Donald Trump, Jr., who at a real estate convention in 2008 announced, “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.” Obviously, both Trumps’ statements can’t be true.
The Dossier Scandal has made its biggest splash, however, concerning allegations of more lurid details of racism-motivated golden showers, but such claims may be impossible to prove. Unfortunately for Trump, they are just as likely impossible to disprove.
The most alarming aspect of this Dossier Scandal, however, is that even if none of the dossier’s specific claims are true, the astonishing links between Russian officials and Trump advisers both in terms of apparent intelligence sharing and financial ties are undeniably true and continuing to develop. More troubling than the allegation that Trump’s penchant for golden showers has been filmed by the Russian government for blackmail purposes is that Trump very well may be a Manchurian type of president with political motives well outside of and beyond American national interests and security.
Already, this has had a profound impact on American foreign policy. Trump’s almost-administration is troubling American allies, and, as The Telegraph reported Friday, US spies have warned Israeli intelligence personnel not to share information with the Trump Administration in fear that someone would leak it to Russian officials, who would in turn leak Israeli intelligence to Iran. Yikes.
Donald Trump’s presidency is already a shit show, and he hasn’t even been inaugurated yet. But don’t stop paying attention to the dossier scandal or the myriad of seemingly conspicuous conflicts of interest between Donald Trump and his administration’s advisers because it appears we’re only scratching the surface of Trumpian presidential infamy.
