According to a report from CNN that broke a little over an hour ago, Russian intelligence operatives claim they have "compromising personal and financial information" about despot-elect Donald Trump.
When American intelligence officials briefed Trump and President Obama last Friday, both men were also informed that Russian operatives have, at the very least, claimed that they've compromised Trump.
The allegations were presented in a two-page synopsis that was appended to a report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. The allegations came, in part, from memos compiled by a former British intelligence operative, whose past work US intelligence officials consider credible. The FBI is investigating the credibility and accuracy of these allegations, which are based primarily on information from Russian sources, but has not confirmed many essential details in the memos about Mr. Trump.
As you may recall, the report from British intelligence was originally reported by David Corn at Mother Jones before the election.
Russian intelligence allegedly gathered compromising information on Trump during his travels to Moscow for business during the years before his presidential campaign. We already know Trump has extensive and potentially shady financial ties to Russian oligarchs and businessmen, but we've heard rumors that they also gathered deeply personal information about him.
The key to the comprehensive American intelligence report is that it was gathered through a combination of human sources and signal intelligence and does not entirely rely on reports from other sources.
While I was in the middle of writing this post, Buzzfeed News released the report on what the Russian's allegedly have on Trump.
The dossier, which is a collection of memos written over a period of months, includes specific, unverified and potentially unverifiable allegations of contact between Trump aides and Russian operatives, and graphic claims of sexual acts documented by the Russians. CNN reported Tuesday that a two-page synopsis of the report was given to President Barack Obama and Trump.
It would appear that the Russian sex tape rumor is no longer just a rumor.
There's a very high chance our president-elect will Tweet early tomorrow morning that he does not, in fact, enjoy Golden Showers.