The Pee Tape that wouldn't stay buried

With the release of the transcript of Glenn Simpson's testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, the infamous Pee Tape has come back into the conversation. Here's something from a British reporter [Paul Wood] back in January last year that I didn't see at the time, as people weren't willing to believe such an outlandish claim from the Steele dossier, so American news pretty much dismissed it, defended Trump, and moved on.

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 Saint Petersburg — and that the material was “of a sexual nature”. The claims of Russian kompromat on Trump were “credible,” the CIA believed. That is why these claims ended up on President Obama’s desk last week, a briefing document also given to Congressional leaders and to Trump himself.

[...]

A former CIA officer told me he had spoken by phone to a serving FSB officer who talked about the tapes. He concluded: “It’s hoakey as hell.” Mr Trump and his supporters are right to point out that these are unsubstantiated allegations.

  The Spectator

But in August, Wood had a slightly different story.

At a news conference this week at his New Jersey golf club, the President bizarrely asserted that the Steele dossier had been paid for by Russia in order to damage him. This is the latest twist in Trump’s response to the dossier, which began with flat denials in January that he had been filmed by Russian intelligence with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel room.

That remains unproven. Nevertheless, Steele is not the only source. I heard of Russian kompromat — compromising material — on Trump from two sources months before the Steele dossier came to light. That might be evidence for Trump’s statement that Russian intelligence, as well as the US agencies, are out to get him. There are, though, reports of witnesses in the hotel who corroborate Steele’s reporting. These include an American who’s said to have seen a row with hotel security over whether the (alleged) hookers would be allowed up to Trump’s suite. The dossier’s account of hookers in a Moscow hotel room was the subject of gossip among a select group of journalists, politicians, and intelligence people for months before it was published. Now, claims are circulating of more tapes showing even more extreme behaviour. Expect these allegations to emerge in due course.

  Conservative Circle

We'll be waiting.  While those aren't crimes, they're fuel and they bolster the idea that, as blackmail material, Trump is beholden to the Kremlin.

Oh, and there was also this little tidbit about one of Trump's Russian mob pals:

For several weeks there have been rumours that Sater is ready to rat again, agreeing to help Mueller. ‘He has told family and friends he knows he and POTUS are going to prison,’ someone talking to Mueller’s investigators informed me.

We hope so.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.