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This is an attempt to write a condensed version of the "Trump pee tape rumor" story. I have enough source material to write a whole book, but that would not be for Wikipedia.

BLP considerations are still maintained strictly here. As stated in the failed MfD, there were not found any BLP violations. All negative content is properly-sourced, so BLP's WP:Public figures is satisfied. WP:GNG is also easily satisfied, so any further nominations for MfD (or later an AfD) are bad faith moves. Any problems with the finished article should follow WP:Preserve, which is a policy, not a guideline. WP:Preserve enjoins that we "fix the problems", not "delete the article".

Outline from a largely chronological POV (even shorter)

Preceeding events before alleged incident

The Senate Intelligence Committee report implied that Aras Agalarov and his Crocus Group were part of a Russian intelligence effort to compromise and gain leverage over Trump. Seth Abramson asserts the alleged hotel incident was inspired by a June 2013 visit by Trump to The Act, a raunchy Las Vegas nightclub. He was together with Agalarov and a group of Russians, some of whom were well-connected with Russian intelligence. There, according to Cohen, Trump watched a golden showers show "with "delight", and, according to to Abramson, his delighted reaction was observed by the group of Russians. Years later, first Rtskhiladze, and then the dossier's sources, independently of each other, implicated Aras Agalarov and his Crocus Group with responsibility, knowledge, and/or possession of compromising tapes of Trump.

Alleged incident

Trump was in Moscow one and a half days, the weekend of November 7‍–‍10, 2013, with one full overnighting. He was there 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, went to an after-party, and then drove directly to the airport without going back to his hotel.

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. Igor Danchenko alleges that "Trump was with some powerful Russian oligarchs, who brought the sex workers." There, because he "hated" Obama so much, Trump asked "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 Trump.

The rumor 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. That unproven incident involving prostitutes peeing on a bed, which Trump allegedly orchestrated and watched, was purportedly arranged and secretly recorded by Russian FSB intelligence to be used as kompromat to blackmail Trump.

A "five-hour window" of time

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 it might have occurred during this available time that was not well-documented. Trump had a very busy schedule and was constantly surrounded by people, except during the early Saturday morning hours of November 9, hours described by Rob Goldstone as a "five-hour window" of time.

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 alleged salacious incident, and the Senate Intelligence Committee found evidence of "additional social activity" in Trump's room at that time.

History of start of rumor

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".

History of rumor awareness

See also: § Appendix A: Awareness timeline table

True or not, the rumor became known to at least five groups of people at different time periods. Awareness started among Russians, Cohen, Trump, and a few others around him, but it was unknown to the American public until publication of the Steele dossier in 2017.

In late 2013, shortly after Trump left the 2013 Miss Universe pageant, Muscovites began to hear that Trump had been with prostitutes in the Ritz-Carlton hotel, with "tales of [Trump's] weird sexual indiscretions" being described as an "open secret" and "a well-known story", and Moscow prostitutes saying "the 'golden shower' orgy story is true".

The second group were individuals who tried to help Cohen find out if the tapes were real, locate them, and stop them. Cohen was willing to pay a lot for the tapes.

Awareness outside of Russia was limited to a third group, mostly with connections to Cohen and 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" long before Steele even started his research.

The fourth group's knowledge was related to Steele. In June 2016, after Steele began to receive reports back from his Russian sources, he began to privately share some details with a few journalists, the FBI Crossfire Hurricane team, and its leaders. 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.

The public were the fifth group. They learned of the rumor when the dossier was published on January 10, 2017. Because the dossier's description was the first public description, people were under the mistaken impression Steele invented a new rumor. Cohen's testimony to the House Intelligence Committee on March 6, 2019, made clear that Steele's Russian sources were not inventing a rumor; rather, they were sharing the old rumor from 2013, and Trump and Cohen had known about it the whole time.

Awareness of allegations that predate the Steele dossier and 2016 campaign

The Senate Committee dug into early awareness, writing about "Separate but related allegations, which were not public, in some cases 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.

They also noted that Trump knew about the "alleged compromising tapes of him in Moscow", allegations that "are separate from" the later Steele dossier:

The Committee's Report also shows that prior to and during the campaign, Trump was informed of alleged compromising tapes of him in Moscow. These allegations are separate from Christopher Steele's reports, which were not used to support the Committee's work. The Committee found that the Russian intelligence services clearly engage in the collection of compromising information for leverage, and that there may be substance to some of the allegations regarding Trump, which leaves open an ongoing concern about Russian influence operations.

Early knowledge of rumor

Cohen testified he and Trump learned about it long before the Steele dossier. 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: 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."

Trump's lawyer, Michael Cohen, testified he first learned 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 immediately told Trump about the rumor and then began a hunt for the alleged tapes.

The Senate Intelligence Committee wrote that "prior to and during the campaign" Trump was again "informed of alleged compromising tapes of him in Moscow. These allegations are separate from Christopher Steele's reports." Cohen said many others also knew of the rumor and contacted him "over the course of several years", and that he was willing to pay a lot for the tapes.

Attempts to find and stop tapes

Cohen tried to find and stop the alleged tapes, and was willing to pay a whole lot to do that.

He enlisted help from a friend, Georgi Rtskhiladze, and on October 30, 2016, Rtskhiladze texted Cohen he had successfully "stopped flow of some tapes from Russia", tapes he later suspected to be "one and the same" as those mentioned in the Steele dossier. Rtskhiladze later changed his story to Robert Mueller and claimed those "tapes were fake", but District Judge Christopher R. Cooper cast doubt on that claim. Rtskhiladze v. Mueller, Memorandum Opinion, 20-cv-1591 summarizes the following events and then accurately quotes the Senate Committee report:

The Senate Report first identifies Rtskhiladze's contacts with Cohen as part of "three general sets of allegations" regarding "Russian government collected kompromat on Trump" that were "[s]eparate from Steele's memos." Id. at 638. Discussing those allegations, the report indicates that "Cohen has testified that he became aware of allegations about a tape of compromising information in late 2013 or early 2014 . . . related to Trump and prostitutes." Id. at 658. As a result, Cohen "asked a friend, Giorgi Rtskhiladze, to see if Rtskhiladze could find out if the tape was real." Id. It adds that "Cohen . . . would have been willing to pay . . . to suppress the information if it could be verified." Id. The Senate Report then summarizes a response offered by Rtskhiladze to the Select Committee in 2019:

During an October 2015 phone call that Mr. Rtskhiladze had with his friend and former business associate, Sergei Khokhlov, Mr. Khokhlov stated that while having dinner at a restaurant, Mr. Khokhlov overheard a stranger at a table next to him discuss tapes from Donald Trump's visit to Russia. The overheard dinner conversation was not important to Mr. Rtskhiladze and Mr. Khokhlov so they did not discuss this matter again. Mr. Khokhlov was aware that Mr. Rtskhiladze and his Georgian partners were in business with the Trump Organization. Due to the news about the Access Hollywood tapes and its potential impact on Mr. Trump's reputation, Mr. Rtskhiladze sent a text message to Mr. Cohen to inform him that an individual was overheard discussing sensitive tapes of Mr. Trump's trip to Russia.

A year after the October 2015 phone call, 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". The "several others" included Donald Trump Jr. and Keith Schiller. (Katrina Pierson and Hope Hicks already knew of the pee tape.) "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."

Successful stoppage of tapes

Rtskhiladze later contacted Cohen to inform him he had successfully "stopped flow of some tapes from Russia"

When Rtskhiladze contacted Cohen, he indicated he had acted on the information from Khokhlov (from 2015) and "stopped 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 about the tapes "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 quotes the start of these communications between Rtskhiladze and Cohen:

112 Comey 1/7/17 Memorandum, at 1-2; Comey 11/15/17 302, at 3. 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. During the 2016 presidential campaign, a similar claim may have reached candidate Trump. On October 30, 2016, Michael Cohen received a text from Russian businessman Giorgi Rtskhiladze that said, "Stopped flow of tapes from Russia but not sure if there's anything else. Just so you know . . . ." 10/30/16 Text Message, Rtskhiladze to Cohen. Rtskhiladze said "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. Rtskhiladze 4/4/18 302, at 12. Cohen said he spoke to Trump about the issue after receiving the texts from Rtskhiladze. Cohen 9/12/18 302, at 13. Rtskhiladze said he was told the tapes were fake, but he did not communicate that to Cohen. Rtskhiladze 5/10/18 302, at 7.

The "tapes were fake" claim

Rtskhiladze also claimed the "tapes were fake", but Judge Cooper cast doubt on that claim. He said Rtskhiladze "undercut" his claim by speaking as if getting recorded was a real consequence of indiscretions committed around Agalarov/Crocus.

Judge Cooper did not believe Rtskhiladze's claim the "tapes were fake" because his own words suggested "that the tapes may have been real". He did not appear to be lying to Cohen when he said he "stopped some tapes":

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.'

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 flow of some tapes", he said nothing about "fake tapes", but 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."
• "Footnote 112" "concluded with additional information from a May 2018 interview". His previous story in April changed with the additional claim "that Khokhlov subsequently called and stated that the tapes were fake, but Rtskhiladze said this information was not conveyed to Cohen."

Both Cooper and the Senate Intelligence Committed seemed skeptical of the claim. The Senate report notes the lack of evidence for that claim in the partially blacked-out "Footnote 4281" that says "did not identify evidence of a later call from Khokhlov".

Because Rtskhiladze, per Cohen's request in "2014 or 2015" 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 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 his May 2018 interview, that Rtskhiladze changed his story and claimed "he was told the tapes were fake", a claim doubted by Judge Cooper and the Senate Committee.

If Rtskhiladze really had received such a "fake tapes" call by Khokhlov, he would have immediately relayed this information to Cohen and also mentioned it in his April 2018 interview with Mueller's investigators, but he did not do that. Instead, his message on October 30, 2016, gave Cohen (and Trump) "the impression that real tapes had existed" all that time. In other words, according to New York Times reporter Madison Malone Kircher, "Team Trump thought they existed, according to the Mueller report." Ruthann Robson also noted Trump's possible belief:

[W]hile 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.

Cohen identifies the stopped tapes as the "infamous pee tape"

Cohen described the tape stopped by Rtskhiladze as "the infamous pee tape when Mr. Trump was in Moscow for the Miss Universe Pageant".

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 media and comedians had made "pee tape" a well-known term. The House 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 Steele dossier's "pee tape". The day after the 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." 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.

During her questioning of Cohen, Speier noted how that original rumor from 2013 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."

Lies seen as "consciousness of guilt"

These lies led Comey to change his mind and become a maybe peeliever.

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 pee tape might be real.

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

In a CNN town hall interview with James Comey, Anderson Cooper addressed Trump's claim that "he did not stay overnight in Moscow around the time of the Miss Universe pageant in 2013". Cooper: "Do you think it's significant that the President lied to you twice?" Comey: "It's always significant when someone lies to you, especially about something you're not asking about. It tends to reflect a consciousness of guilt."

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?"

An innocent man likely would not insist that the FBI disprove a ludicrous allegation, nor worry that his wife would find it believable. ... 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.

Current state of rumor

The rumor is still an unsettled matter, with many believing it might be true.

Trump has denied the story and repeatedly and falsely asserted that he did not overnight in Moscow even once, an easily disproven lie that has led many to doubt his denials and remain open to the possibility something happened. FBI Director James Comey originally doubted the rumor, but because of Trump's unforced and repeated lies to him, he came to believe the rumor could be true and described Trump's lies as evidence of his "consciousness of guilt". Referring to those lies, Jennifer Rubin wrote that the "evidence of the coverup is so plentiful that ordinary people — not unreasonably — will assume guilt." Writers for the Center for American Progress have written that "This allegation ... has been neither conclusively corroborated nor conclusively disproven."

Old lead (with full refs)

Some of this may be used in the outline above.

PARAGRAPH 1

The Donald Trump pee tape rumor is an unproven story related to Donald Trump's alleged potential vulnerability to kompromat and blackmail by Vladimir Putin and others, and to allegations by veteran members of the intelligence community that he is a threat to national security.

The rumor started in late 2013 and 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. That unproven incident involving prostitutes peeing on a bed, which Trump allegedly orchestrated and watched, was purportedly arranged and secretly recorded by Russian FSB intelligence to be used as kompromat to blackmail Trump.

The Steele dossier asserts the Kremlin promised Trump they would not use the kompromat collected against him given the "high levels of voluntary co-operation forthcoming from his team".

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 alleged salacious incident, and the Senate Intelligence Committee found evidence of "additional social activity" in Trump's room at that time.

PARAGRAPH 2

Trump has denied the story and repeatedly and falsely asserted that he did not overnight in Moscow even once, an easily disproven lie that has led many to doubt his denials and remain open to the possibility something happened. FBI Director James Comey originally doubted the rumor, but because of Trump's unforced and repeated lies to him, he came to believe the rumor could be true and described Trump's lies as evidence of his "consciousness of guilt". Referring to those lies, Jennifer Rubin wrote that the "evidence of the coverup is so plentiful that ordinary people — not unreasonably — will assume guilt." Writers for the Center for American Progress have written that "This allegation ... has been neither conclusively corroborated nor conclusively disproven."

PARAGRAPH 3

Trump's lawyer, Michael Cohen, testified he first learned 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 immediately told Trump about the rumor and then began a hunt for the alleged tapes.

He enlisted help from a friend, Georgi Rtskhiladze, and on October 30, 2016, Rtskhiladze texted Cohen he had successfully "stopped flow of some tapes from Russia", tapes he later suspected to be "one and the same" as those mentioned in the Steele dossier. Rtskhiladze later changed his story to Robert Mueller and claimed those "tapes were fake", but District Judge Christopher R. Cooper cast doubt on that claim.

The Senate Intelligence Committee wrote that "prior to and during the campaign" Trump was again "informed of alleged compromising tapes of him in Moscow. These allegations are separate from Christopher Steele's reports." Cohen said many others also knew of the rumor and contacted him "over the course of several years", and that he was willing to pay a lot for the tapes.

On January 6, 2017, when James Comey told Trump about the Steele dossier's salacious allegations, Trump did not reveal he had known of the old rumor since late 2013. In June 2016, after one of Igor Danchenko's visits to Moscow, he described the pee tape rumor as a "well-known story ... that he had not been able to confirm". The rumor remained unknown to the American public until January 10, 2017, when the unfinished Steele dossier was published without permission. In 2019, after Cohen knew of the dossier's description of the alleged pee tape, he testified that the pre-dossier report he got from Rtskhiladze on October 30, 2016, was "regarding the infamous pee tape when Mr. Trump was in Moscow". It was only after Cohen's 2019 testimony that it became known that, long before the dossier, Trump, Cohen, and many others already knew of the rumor.

PARAGRAPH 4

Paul Wood, of BBC News, has written that "the head of an East European intelligence agency" had said the Russians had kompromat on Trump; that CIA officers asserted there are multiple embarrassing tapes of Trump in Russia; and that there are multiple sources for claims of possible Trump–Russia blackmail. The Senate Committee also believes "there may be substance to some of the allegations regarding Trump". The leaders of U.S. and British intelligence agencies view Trump as under Vladimir Putin's influence, and experienced intelligence personnel view Trump not as a Russian "agent" (spy), but as an "asset" and "agent of influence", someone who uses their power "to influence public opinion or decision-making to produce results beneficial to the country whose intelligence service operates the agent". The constant threat that Putin could release the alleged pee tapes has been proposed as one reason why Trump has never criticized Putin, and the fact that actual tapes have not been published means the rumor, true or not, remains unsubstantiated. They believe this makes him a serious threat to the national security of both nations. Bruce Ohr testified that Steele told him that Russian intelligence believed "they had Trump over a barrel". The source for that claim was later identified by Paul Wood as "no less than a former head of Russia's foreign intelligence services".

PARAGRAPH 5

The Senate Intelligence Committee report implied that Aras Agalarov and his Crocus Group were part of a Russian intelligence effort to compromise and gain leverage over Trump. Seth Abramson asserts the alleged hotel incident was inspired by a June 2013 visit by Trump to The Act, a raunchy Las Vegas nightclub. He was together with Agalarov and a group of Russians, some of whom were well-connected with Russian intelligence. There, according to Cohen, Trump watched a golden showers show "with "delight", and, according to to Abramson, his delighted reaction was observed by the group of Russians. Years later, first Rtskhiladze, and then the dossier's sources, independently of each other, implicated Aras Agalarov and his Crocus Group with responsibility, knowledge, and/or possession of compromising tapes of Trump.

The salacious rumor became very notable and has been widely publicized and featured in FBI and Special Counsel investigations, Congressional hearings and testimony, books, comedy, lawsuits, Trump's own repeated and unprompted mentions of it, and his lies about the timing of events. The included timeline provides the contextual setting for the allegations of kompromat and potential blackmail, the rumor's complicated history, claims made about it, as well as documenting Trump's activities and behavior in public that weekend, including how he very publicly accosted two young women.

Storage

Old lead (copied from above, with full refs)

Store here in case something goes wrong above.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The '''Donald Trump pee tape rumor''' is an unproven story related to [[Donald Trump]]'s alleged potential vulnerability to '''''kompromat'''''{{efn|name="Vulnerable_to_kompromat"|TOPIC: Vulnerability to ''kompromat''.<ref name="Wittes_et_al_8/21/2020">{{cite web | last=Wittes | first=Benjamin | author-link=Benjamin Wittes | title=A Collusion Reading Diary: What Did the Senate Intelligence Committee Find? | website=[[Lawfare (website)|Lawfare]] | date=August 21, 2020 | url=https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/collusion-reading-diary-what-did-senate-intelligence-committee-find | access-date=October 17, 2023}}</ref><ref name="Wood_1/12/2017">{{cite web | last=Wood | first=Paul | author-link=Paul Wood (journalist) | title=Trump 'compromising' claims: How and why did we get here? | website=[[BBC]] | date=January 12, 2017 | url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38589427 | access-date=March 14, 2024}}</ref><ref name="Blake_8/21/2020">{{cite news |last1=Blake | first1=Aaron | title=Five provocative nuggets from the Senate intel report on Trump and Russia | url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/08/21/provocative-details-senate-intel/ | access-date=November 9, 2020 | newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] | date=August 21, 2020}}</ref><ref name="Abramson_1/17/2017">{{cite web | last=Abramson | first=Seth | author-link=Seth Abramson | title=Allegations By Former Miss Hungary Contradict Trump Claims On Dossier | website=[[HuffPost]] | date=January 17, 2017 | url=https://www.huffpost.com/entry/allegations-by-former-miss-hungary-contradict-trump_b_587e91b9e4b06a0baf649129 | access-date=January 12, 2024 | quote=In May [2016, Sarka] told Hungarian talk-show host Kasza Tibor that during a pageant after-party Trump gave her his business card, private telephone number, and hotel room number. Sarka has since shared the business card—which she kept, though she never went to Mr. Trump's hotel room—with the media. The implication taken by Sarka at the time she received the card was that she was being propositioned for a romantic liaison with Trump, who was then married to current wife Melania.}}</ref><ref name="Pasha-Robinson_9/5/2017">{{cite news | last=Pasha-Robinson | first=Lucy | title=Russian politician says they should 'release the Kompromat' they have on Trump | newspaper=[[The Independent]] | date=September 5, 2017 | url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-donald-trump-kompromat-nikita-isaev-new-russia-movement-state-tv-us-president-a7929966.html | access-date=March 16, 2024}}</ref><ref name="Rubin_11/30/2018">{{cite news | last=Rubin | first=Jennifer | author-link=Jennifer Rubin (columnist) | title=Was Trump compromised? Is he still? | newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] | date=November 30, 2018 | url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/opinions/wp/2018/11/30/was-trump-compromised-is-he-still/ | access-date=December 29, 2023}}</ref><ref name="Farrell_11/30/2018">{{cite news | last=Farrell | first=Greg | title=Cohen's Plea Suggests Russians Held 'Kompromat' on Trump | agency=[[Bloomberg News]] | date=November 30, 2018 | url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-30/cohen-s-plea-suggests-russians-held-kompromat-on-donald-trump | access-date=January 31, 2024}}</ref>}} and [[blackmail]]{{efn|name="Vulnerable_to_blackmail"|TOPIC: Vulnerability to blackmail.<ref name="Corn_Isikoff_3/8/2018">{{cite magazine | last1=Corn | first1=David | author-link1=David Corn | last2=Isikoff | first2=Michael | author-link2=Michael Isikoff | date=March 8, 2018 | title=What Happened in Moscow: The Inside Story of How Trump's Obsession With Putin Began | magazine=[[Mother Jones (magazine)|Mother Jones]] | url=https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/03/russian-connection-what-happened-moscow-inside-story-trump-obsession-putin-david-corn-michael-isikoff/ | access-date=April 15, 2018}}</ref><ref name="Chait_4/13/2018">{{cite magazine | last=Chait | first=Jonathan | author-link=Jonathan Chait | title=I'm a Peeliever and You Should Be, Too. 5 Reasons the Pee Tape Is Probably Real. | magazine=[[New York (magazine)#Intelligencer|Intelligencer]] | date=April 13, 2018 | url=https://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/04/im-a-peeliever-and-you-should-be-too.html | access-date=April 16, 2018}}</ref><ref name="Farrow_2/16/2018">{{cite magazine | last=Farrow | first=Ronan | author-link=Ronan Farrow | title=Donald Trump, a Playboy Model, and a System for Concealing Infidelity | magazine=[[The New Yorker]] | date=February 16, 2018 | url=https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/donald-trump-a-playboy-model-and-a-system-for-concealing-infidelity-national-enquirer-karen-mcdougal | access-date=January 30, 2024}}</ref><ref name="Chait_2/16/2018">{{cite magazine | last=Chait | first=Jonathan | author-link=Jonathan Chait | title=There's a Pretty Good Chance President Trump Is Being Blackmailed | magazine=[[New York (magazine)#Intelligencer|Intelligencer]] | date=February 16, 2018 | url=https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/02/theres-a-good-chance-president-trump-is-being-blackmailed.html | access-date=January 30, 2024 | quote=Ronan Farrow's new story shows that Trump habitually pays for sex. He had an affair with former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal, and offered her money after sex, which she turned down. At another point in the story, he offered adult entertainer Jessica Drake $10,000 for 'her company.'"}}</ref><ref name="Silver_4/23/2018">{{cite news | last=Silver | first=Vernon | title=Flight Records Illuminate Mystery of Trump's Moscow Nights | agency=[[Bloomberg News]] | date=April 23, 2018 | url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-23/flight-records-illuminate-mystery-of-trump-s-moscow-nights | access-date=April 24, 2018}}</ref><ref name="Eriksen_1/14/2017">{{cite web | last=Eriksen | first=Alex | title=Who Is Kata Sarka? This Hungarian Beauty Claims Donald Trump Made a Pass at Her | website=[[Yahoo! Life]] | date=January 14, 2017 | url=https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/who-is-kata-sarka-this-hungarian-beauty-claims-donald-trump-made-a-pass-at-her-212728724.html | access-date=January 12, 2024 | quote=[She is described as a "Hungarian celebrity", not "Miss Hungary".] Sarka was not a contestant that year but claims to have been in Moscow for the event as the CEO of Magyarország Szépe Kft., the company that ran the Miss Universe Hungary pageant at the time. Hungary's contestant in 2013 was [[Rebeka Kárpáti]].}}</ref><ref name="Shaumyan_3/17/2018">{{cite web | author=Kentron/Shaumyan | title=Kentron TV interview with Armenian actress, Edita Shaumyan | website=[[YouTube]] | publisher=[[Kentron TV]] (official account) | date=March 17, 2018 | url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=yQMIKfpr7uk&ab_channel=KentronChannel | access-date=January 13, 2024}}</ref><ref name="Abramson_1/17/2017"/><ref name="Brown_1/13/2017">{{cite news | last=Brown | first=Hayes | title=A Hungarian Beauty Queen Said That Trump Invited Her To His Moscow Hotel Room | agency=[[BuzzFeed News]] | date=January 13, 2017 | url=https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hayesbrown/a-hungarian-beauty-queen-said-that-trump-invited-her-to-his | access-date=January 12, 2024}}</ref><ref name="Watkins_3/22/2018">{{cite web | last=Watkins | first=Eli | title=Karen McDougal tells CNN Trump once tried to pay her after sex | website=[[CNN]] | date=March 22, 2018 | url=https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/22/politics/karen-mcdougal-donald-trump/index.html | access-date=January 29, 2024}}</ref><ref name="Chait_7/25/2019">{{cite magazine | last=Chait | first=Jonathan | author-link=Jonathan Chait | title=Mueller Testifies Russia Had Blackmail on Trump | magazine=[[New York (magazine)#Intelligencer|Intelligencer]] | date=July 25, 2019 | url=https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/07/mueller-testifies-russia-blackmail-leverage-trump.html | access-date=January 31, 2024}}</ref><ref name="Kosoff_2/16/2018">{{cite web | last=Kosoff | first=Maya | title=What the Trump-McDougal Story Reveals About the Steele Dossier | website=[[Vanity Fair (magazine)|Vanity Fair]] | date=February 16, 2018 | url=https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/02/what-the-trump-mcdougal-story-reveals-about-the-steele-dossier | access-date=January 29, 2024}}</ref><ref name="Francis_Groll_6/7/2017">{{cite magazine | last1=Francis | first1=David | last2=Groll | first2=Elias | title=Comey: Trump Denied He Was Involved With 'Hookers' in Russia | magazine=[[Foreign Policy]] | date=January 25, 2017 | url=https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/06/07/comey-trump-denied-he-was-involved-with-hookers-in-russia/ | access-date=January 25, 2018}}</ref>}} by [[Vladimir Putin]] and others, and to allegations by veteran members of the [[intelligence community]]<!-- from several nations, so not specifying here --> that he is a threat to [[national security]]. The rumor started in late 2013 and is about an alleged "[[urolagnia|golden showers]]" incident at the [[The Carlton Moscow|Ritz-Carlton Moscow]] hotel<!-- Do not "update" the name of the "Ritz-Carlton" as that was its name at the time. --> when Trump stayed there while attending the [[Miss Universe 2013|2013 Miss Universe pageant]] the weekend of November 8{{nbnd}}10, 2013.<ref name="HIC_3/6/2019">{{cite web | date=March 6, 2019 | title=Deposition of Michael Cohen, Part 2 | website=[[United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence|House Intelligence Committee]] | url=https://docs.house.gov/meetings/IG/IG00/20190520/109549/HMTG-116-IG00-20190520-SD001.pdf | pages=225-229, 235-236, 254}}</ref> That unproven incident involving prostitutes peeing on a bed, which Trump allegedly orchestrated and watched,<ref name="Sipher_9/6/2017">{{cite web | last=Sipher | first=John | title=A Second Look at the Steele Dossier | publisher=[[New York University School of Law|Just Security]] | date=September 6, 2017 | url=https://www.justsecurity.org/44697/steele-dossier-knowing/#more-44697 | access-date=January 4, 2024}}</ref> was purportedly arranged and secretly recorded by Russian [[Federal Security Service|FSB intelligence]] to be used as ''[[kompromat]]'' to blackmail Trump.<ref name="Bensinger_1/10/2017">{{cite news | last1=Bensinger | first1=Ken | last2=Elder | first2=Miriam | author-link2=Miriam Elder | last3=Schoofs | first3=Mark | author-link3=Mark Schoofs | 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 | access-date=December 24, 2017}}</ref><ref name="Bertrand_11/10/2017">{{cite web | last=Bertrand | first=Natasha | author-link=Natasha Bertrand | title=Trump's bodyguard's testimony raises new questions about the most salacious allegations in the dossier | website=[[Business Insider]] |date=November 10, 2017 | url=https://www.businessinsider.com/house-intelligence-asks-trump-bodyguard-about-moscow-prostitutes-allegation-2017-11 |access-date=January 14, 2018}}</ref><ref name="Parfitt_1/12/2017">{{cite news | last=Parfitt | first=Tom | title=Putin spies 'taped Trump sex game with prostitutes' | newspaper=[[The Sunday Times]] | date=January 12, 2017 | url=https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/putin-spies-taped-trump-sex-game-with-prostitutes-lmk85vncx | access-date=January 21, 2018}}</ref> The [[Steele dossier]] asserts the Kremlin promised Trump they would not use the ''kompromat'' collected against him given the "high levels of voluntary co-operation forthcoming from his team".<ref name="Withnall_Sengupta_1/12/2017">{{cite news |last1=Withnall |first1=Adam |last2=Sengupta |first2=Kim |title=The 10 key Donald Trump allegations from the classified Russia memos |newspaper=[[The Independent]] |date=January 12, 2017 |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-russia-10-allegations-dossier-kremlin-michael-cohen-sex-claims-intelligence-reports-a7522056.html |access-date=December 29, 2017}}</ref><ref name="Bertrand_1/10/2017">{{cite web | last=Bertrand | first=Natasha | author-link=Natasha Bertrand | title=Trump briefed on unverified claims that Russian operatives have compromising information on him | website=[[Business Insider]] | date=January 10, 2017 | url=https://www.businessinsider.com/russians-say-they-have-compromising-information-on-trump-2017-1 | access-date=February 26, 2018}}</ref> During testimony, Trump's [[Keith Schiller|bodyguard]] was unable to provide an [[alibi]] for Trump's activities during the early morning hours of November 9,<ref name="Dilanian_Allen_11/9/2017">{{cite news | last1=Dilanian | first1=Ken | author-link1=Ken Dilanian | last2=Allen | first2=Jonathan | author-link2=Jonathan Allen (journalist) | title=Bodyguard rejected Russian offer of 5 women for Trump | agency=[[NBC News]] | date=November 9, 2017 | url=https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trump-bodyguard-testifies-russian-offered-trump-women-was-turned-down-n819386 | access-date=December 2, 2023}}</ref> a "five-hour window" of time<ref name="Helderman_9/22/2018">{{cite news | last=Helderman | first=Rosalind S. | author-link=Rosalind S. Helderman | title=How a British music publicist ended up in the middle of the Russia storm | newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] | date=September 22, 2018 | url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-a-british-music-publicist-ended-up-in-the-middle-of-the-russia-storm/2018/09/21/d1449a40-ba83-11e8-a8aa-860695e7f3fc_story.html | access-date=September 23, 2018}}</ref> suspected of being the time of the alleged salacious incident,{{efn|name="time_of_incident"}} and the [[United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence|Senate Intelligence Committee]] found evidence of "additional social activity" in Trump's room at that time.<ref name="SICv5_8/18/2020"/>{{rp|292}} Trump has denied the story and repeatedly and falsely asserted that he did not overnight in Moscow even once,{{efn|name="repeated_lies"|TOPIC: Repeated lies about timing.<ref name="Foran_4/26/2018"/><ref name="Silver_4/23/2018"/><ref name="Levin_5/23/2018">{{cite web | last=Levin | first=Bess | title=Trump's Pee-Tape Alibi Is Falling Apart | website=[[Vanity Fair (magazine)|Vanity Fair]] | date=April 23, 2018 | url=https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/04/trumps-pee-tape-alibi-is-falling-apart | access-date=April 18, 2024 | quote=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 {{spaces}}... and yet, on Monday, a new report nudged the impossible a hair closer in the direction of credibility!}}</ref><ref name="Blake_4/24/2018">{{cite news | last=Blake | first=Aaron | title=Trump's denials that he stayed overnight in Russia are falling apart | newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] | date=April 24, 2018 | url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2018/04/23/trump-has-some-explaining-to-do-about-his-2013-russia-trip/ | access-date=April 19, 2024}}</ref><ref name="May_4/24/2018">{{cite web | last=May | first=Charlie | title=Donald Trump's Moscow trip alibi has a big hole | website=[[Salon.com|Salon]] | date=April 24, 2018 | url=https://www.salon.com/2018/04/24/donald-trumps-moscow-trip-alibi-has-a-big-hole/ | access-date=April 18, 2024}}</ref><ref name="Schreckinger_4/24/2018">{{cite web | last=Schreckinger | first=Ben | author-link=Ben Schreckinger | title=Trump's false claims to Comey about Moscow stay could aid Robert Mueller | website=[[Politico]] | date=April 24, 2018 | url=https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trumps-false-claims-to-james-comey-about-moscow-stay-could-aid-robert-mueller/ | access-date=April 18, 2024}}</ref>}} an easily disproven lie{{efn|name="guilt"}} that has led many to doubt his denials{{efn|name="many_doubt"|TOPIC: Many doubt Trump's denials.<ref name="Sollenberger_6/13/2017">{{cite magazine | last=Sollenberger | first=Roger | title=I'm Not a Nutjob: Here Are Eight Reasons the Trump Pee-Pee Tape is Real | magazine=[[Paste (magazine)|Paste Magazine]] | date=June 13, 2017 | url=https://www.pastemagazine.com/politics/piss-tape/im-not-a-nutjob-here-are-eight-reasons-the-trump-p | access-date=December 13, 2023}}</ref><ref name="Chait_4/13/2018"/><ref name="Foran_4/26/2018"/><ref name="Hartmann_10/15/2021"/><ref name="Nemtsova_1/20/2017">{{cite web | last=Nemtsova | first=Anna | title=She Met Donald Trump at the Moscow Ritz (Not That Way!) | website=[[The Daily Beast]] | date=January 20, 2017 | url=https://www.thedailybeast.com/she-met-donald-trump-at-the-moscow-ritz-not-that-way | access-date=December 1, 2019 | quote=Prostitutes around the city say the 'golden shower' orgy story is true.}}</ref>}} and remain open to the possibility something happened. [[Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI Director]] [[James Comey]] originally doubted the rumor, but because of Trump's unforced and repeated lies to him, he came to believe the rumor could be true and described Trump's lies as evidence of his "[[consciousness of guilt]]".{{efn|name="guilt"|TOPIC: Trump's "consciousness of guilt.<ref name="Marshall_4/20/2018">{{cite web | last=Marshall | first=Josh | author-link=Josh Marshall | title=Comey Memos: Clear Proof Trump Repeatedly Lied About His Trip To Moscow | website=[[Talking Points Memo]] | date=April 20, 2018 | url=https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/comey-memos-clear-proof-trump-repeatedly-lied-about-his-trip-to-moscow | access-date=April 19, 2024}}</ref><ref name="Foran_4/26/2018">{{cite web | last=Foran | first=Clare | title=Comey on Trump's assertion that releasing memos was illegal: 'He's just making stuff up' | website=[[CNN]] | date=April 26, 2018 | url=https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/25/politics/james-comey-anderson-cooper-town-hall-cnn/index.html | access-date=July 29, 2024}}</ref><ref name="Rubin_4/24/2018"/><ref name="Hartmann_10/15/2021"/><ref name="Horton_10/19/2021">{{cite news | last=Horton | first=Adrian | title=Colbert says new Superman motto got people angry – 'it's the American way' | newspaper=[[The Guardian]] | date=October 19, 2021 | url=https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/oct/19/stephen-colbert-superman-trump-steele-dossier | access-date=December 28, 2023}}</ref><ref name="Schreckinger_4/24/2018">{{cite web | last=Schreckinger | first=Ben | author-link=Ben Schreckinger | title=Trump's false claims to Comey about Moscow stay could aid Robert Mueller | website=[[Politico]] | date=April 24, 2018 | url=https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trumps-false-claims-to-james-comey-about-moscow-stay-could-aid-robert-mueller/ | access-date=April 18, 2024}}</ref><ref name="Lemire_Day_4/27/2018">{{cite news | last1=Lemire | first1=Jonathan | author-link1=Jonathan Lemire | last2=Day | first2=Chad | title=Trump pledges hands off Russia probe, may "change my mind' | work=[[Associated Press]] | date=April 27, 2018 | url=https://apnews.com/article/north-america-donald-trump-ap-top-news-elections-james-comey-27a9d905748d4141b0e675afc6356527 | access-date=May 10, 2021}}</ref><ref name="Sheets_12/18/2023">{{cite news | last=Sheets | first=Megan | title=Melania Trump's response to 'golden shower' claims – according to her husband | newspaper=[[The Independent]] | date=December 18, 2023 | url=https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-golden-showers-melania-b2465900.html | access-date=December 19, 2023}}</ref><ref name="Savage_4/13/2018">{{cite web | last=Savage | first=Dan | author-link=Dan Savage | title=The Pee Tape Is Real* | website=[[The Stranger (newspaper)|The Stranger]] | date=April 13, 2018 | url=https://www.thestranger.com/news/2018/04/13/26039081/the-pee-tape-is-real | access-date=December 22, 2023}}</ref><ref name="Smith_11/24/2023">{{cite magazine | last=Smith | first=Ryan | title=Seth Meyers mocks Donald Trump golden shower story | magazine=[[Newsweek]] | date=November 24, 2023 | url=https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-golden-shower-mocked-seth-meyers-1846591 | access-date=December 28, 2023}}</ref><ref name="Bump_4/26/2018">{{cite news | last=Bump | first=Philip | title=Analysis: When you are and aren't legally allowed to lie to the FBI | newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] | date=April 26, 2018 | url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/04/26/when-you-are-and-arent-legally-allowed-to-lie-to-the-fbi/ | access-date=May 9, 2021}}</ref>}} Referring to those lies, [[Jennifer Rubin (columnist)|Jennifer Rubin]] wrote that the "evidence of the [[cover-up#In criminal law|coverup]] is so plentiful that ordinary people — not unreasonably — will assume guilt."<ref name="Rubin_4/24/2018">{{cite news | last=Rubin | first=Jennifer | author-link=Jennifer Rubin (columnist) | title=A false alibi could be strong evidence of guilt | newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] | date=April 24, 2018 | url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2018/04/24/trumps-false-alibi-could-be-strong-evidence-of-guilt/ | access-date=April 17, 2024}}</ref> Writers for the [[Center for American Progress]] have written that "This allegation{{spaces}}... has been neither conclusively corroborated nor conclusively disproven."<ref name="Bergmann_et_al_11/27/2018"/> Trump's lawyer, [[Michael Cohen (lawyer)|Michael Cohen]], testified he first learned 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."<ref name="SICv5_8/18/2020"/>{{rp|658}} Cohen immediately told Trump about the rumor and then began a hunt for the alleged tapes. He enlisted help from a friend, Georgi Rtskhiladze, and on October 30, 2016, Rtskhiladze texted Cohen he had successfully "stopped flow of some tapes from Russia",<ref name="HIC_3/6/2019"/> tapes he later suspected to be "one and the same" as those mentioned in the Steele dossier.{{efn|name="Recognition"|TOPIC: Cohen's testimony and recognition of tapes.<br> Both Michael Cohen and Giorgi Rtskhiladze revealed the dossier described the pee tape(s) they had been chasing since shortly after the rumor started; that it described the tapes Rtskhiladze had stopped; and that Rtskhiladze later suspected the dossier's "pee tape(s)" and the stopped tapes to be "one and the same" tape(s).<ref name="RvM_Memorandum_Opinion_9/1/2021">{{cite web | date=September 1, 2021 | title=Rtskhiladze v. Mueller, Memorandum Opinion, 20-cv-1591 (CRC) | website=[[United States District Court for the District of Columbia]] | url=https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?2020cv1591-32}}</ref>}} Rtskhiladze later changed his story to [[Robert Mueller]] and claimed those "tapes were fake",<ref name="Mueller_report"/> but District Judge [[Christopher R. Cooper]] cast doubt on that claim.<ref name="RvM_Memorandum_Opinion_9/1/2021"/> The Senate Intelligence Committee wrote that "prior to and during the campaign" Trump was again "informed of alleged compromising tapes of him in Moscow. These allegations are separate from Christopher Steele's reports."<ref name="SICv5_8/18/2020"/>{{rp|945}} Cohen said many others{{efn|name="many_people"|TOPIC: Many people talked with Cohen about tapes.<br>Cohen said he talked to "many people. Over the course of the years, I must have had half a dozen people reach out." Someone even tried to sell him the tape.<ref name="HIC_3/6/2019"/>}} also knew of the rumor and contacted him "over the course of several years", and that he was willing to pay a lot for the tapes.<ref name="HIC_3/6/2019"/>{{rp|228}}<ref name="Kessler_4/24/2019">{{cite news | last=Kessler | first=Glenn | author-link=Glenn Kessler (journalist) | title=What the Steele dossier said vs. what the Mueller report said |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] | date=April 24, 2019 | url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/04/24/what-steele-dossier-said-vs-what-mueller-report-said/ | access-date=April 25, 2019}}</ref><ref name="RvM_Memorandum_Opinion_9/1/2021"/> On January 6, 2017, when James Comey told Trump about the Steele dossier's salacious allegations, Trump did not reveal he had known of the old rumor since late 2013.<ref name="Longman_4/20/2018"/> In June 2016, after one of [[Igor Danchenko]]'s visits to Moscow, he described the pee tape rumor as a "well-known story{{spaces}}... that he had not been able to confirm".<ref name="USvDanchenko_10/4/2022">{{cite web | date=October 4, 2022 | title=ORDER: United States of America v. Igor Y. Danchenko, Case No. 1:21-cr-245-AJT-1 | website=[[United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia]], Alexandria Division | url=https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.vaed.515692/gov.uscourts.vaed.515692.101.0_3.pdf}}</ref> The rumor remained unknown to the American public until January 10, 2017, when the unfinished Steele dossier was published without permission.<ref name="Perez_Sciutto_Tapper_Bernstein_1/10/2017">{{cite news | first1=Evan | last1=Perez | first2=Jim | last2=Sciutto | author-link2=Jim Sciutto | first3=Jake | last3=Tapper | author-link3=Jake Tapper | first4=Carl | last4=Bernstein | author-link4=Carl Bernstein | title=Intel chiefs presented Trump with claims of Russian efforts to compromise him | date=January 10, 2017 | url=https://edition.cnn.com/2017/01/10/politics/donald-trump-intelligence-report-russia/index.html | agency=[[CNN]] | access-date=January 11, 2018}}</ref><ref name="Mueller_report">{{cite web | author=Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller, III | date=March 2019 | title=Mueller Report: Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election. Volumes I and II | website=[[United States Department of Justice|Department of Justice]] | url=https://www.justice.gov/archives/sco/file/1373816/dl | access-date=April 2, 2023}}</ref> In 2019, after Cohen knew of the dossier's description of the alleged pee tape, he testified that the pre-dossier report he got from Rtskhiladze on October 30, 2016, was "regarding the infamous pee tape when Mr. Trump was in Moscow".<ref name="HIC_3/6/2019"/>{{rp|227}} It was only after Cohen's 2019 testimony that it became known that, long before the dossier, Trump, Cohen, and many others already knew of the rumor.<ref name="HIC_3/6/2019"/><ref name="SICv5_8/18/2020">{{cite web | author=Senate Intelligence Committee (SIC) | date=August 18, 2020 | title=Senate Intelligence Committee report on Russian interference in the 2016 United States presidential election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities | website=[[United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence|Senate Intelligence Committee]] | url=https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf | access-date=December 27, 2023 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210122003727/https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf | archive-date=January 22, 2021 | url-status=live}}</ref>{{rp|945}} [[Paul Wood (journalist)|Paul Wood]], of [[BBC News]], has written that "the head of an East European intelligence agency" had said the Russians had ''kompromat'' on Trump; that CIA officers asserted there are multiple embarrassing tapes of Trump in Russia;{{efn|name="Multiple_tapes"|TOPIC: Multiple embarrassing tapes<br> "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."<ref name="Wood_1/12/2017"/>}} and that there are multiple sources for claims of possible Trump–Russia blackmail.<ref name="Drum_1/12/2017">{{cite magazine | last=Drum | first=Kevin | author-link=Kevin Drum | url=https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/01/bbcs-paul-wood-there-are-four-sources-possible-trump-russia-blackmail | title=BBC's Paul Wood: There are four sources for claims of possible Trump–Russia blackmail | magazine=[[Mother Jones (magazine)|Mother Jones]] | date=January 12, 2017 | access-date=April 1, 2018}}</ref> The Senate Committee also believes "there may be substance to some of the allegations regarding Trump".<ref name="SICv5_8/18/2020"/>{{rp|945}} The leaders of U.S. and British intelligence agencies view Trump as under Vladimir Putin's influence,{{efn|name="Under_influence"|TOPIC: Trump viewed as under Putin's influence.<ref name="Withnall_Sengupta_1/12/2017" /><ref name="Sheth_8/30/2019">{{cite web |last=Sheth |first=Sonam |title=US spies say Trump's G7 performance suggests he's either a 'Russian asset' or a 'useful idiot' for Putin | website=[[Business Insider]] |date=August 30, 2019 |url=https://www.businessinsider.com/spies-react-trump-g7-summit-russian-asset-2019-8 |access-date=November 12, 2019}}</ref><ref name="Sheth_8/27/2019">{{cite web |last=Sheth |first=Sonam |title=Russia came out the winner of this year's G7 summit, and Trump looked like 'Putin's puppet' | website=[[Business Insider]] |date=August 27, 2019 |url=https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-was-the-winner-g7-trump-crimea-2019-8 |access-date=November 12, 2019}}</ref><ref name="CNN_7/19/2018">{{cite news |title=Clapper: I wonder if Russians have something on Trump |agency=[[CNN]] |date=July 19, 2018 |url=https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2018/07/19/james-clapper-trump-helsinki-behavior-putin-bpr-vpx.cnn |access-date=November 12, 2019}}</ref><ref name="Sevastopulo_Hille_7/20/2018">{{cite news |last1=Sevastopulo |first1=Demetri |last2=Hille |first2=Kathrin |title=Trump-Putin: Will Helsinki prove a turning point for the Republicans? |newspaper=[[Financial Times]] |date=July 20, 2018 |url=https://www.ft.com/content/19415d54-8c05-11e8-b18d-0181731a0340 |access-date=November 12, 2019}}</ref>}} and experienced intelligence personnel view Trump not as a Russian [[Espionage|"agent" (spy)]], but as an "asset" and "agent of influence", someone who uses their power "to influence public opinion or decision-making to produce results beneficial to the country whose intelligence service operates the agent".<ref name="Weiner_9/21/2020_WaPo">{{cite news | last=Weiner | first=Tim | author-link=Tim Weiner | title=The unanswered question of our time: Is Trump an agent of Russia? | newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] | date=September 21, 2020 | url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/09/21/russian-agent-trump-counterintelligence/ | access-date=June 1, 2024}}</ref> The constant threat that Putin could release the alleged pee tapes<ref name="Bruggeman_Mosk_10/17/2021">{{cite news | last1=Bruggeman | first1=Lucien | last2=Mosk | first2=Matthew | title=Confronting his critics, Christopher Steele defends controversial dossier in first major interview | agency=[[ABC News (United States)|ABC News]] | date=October 17, 2021 | url=https://abcnews.go.com/US/confronting-critics-christopher-steele-defends-controversial-dossier-major/story?id=80623385 | access-date=February 3, 2023}}</ref><ref name="Bensinger_1/10/2017"/> has been proposed as one reason why Trump has never criticized Putin,<ref name="Davidson_7/19/2018"/> and the fact that actual tapes have not been published means the rumor, true or not, remains unsubstantiated.<ref name="Davidson_7/19/2018">{{cite magazine | last=Davidson | first=Adam | author-link=Adam Davidson (journalist) | title=A Theory of Trump Kompromat | magazine=[[The New Yorker]] | date=July 19, 2018 | url=https://www.newyorker.com/news/swamp-chronicles/a-theory-of-trump-kompromat | access-date=March 25, 2024}}</ref> They believe this makes him a serious threat to the national security of both nations. [[Bruce Ohr]] testified that Steele told him that Russian intelligence believed "they had Trump [[wiktionary:over a barrel|over a barrel]]".<ref name="Tucker_Day_9/1/2018">{{cite web | last1=Tucker | first1=Eric | last2=Day | first2=Chad | title=AP sources: Former spy said Russia had 'Trump over a barrel' | website=[[Associated Press]] | date=September 1, 2018 | url=https://apnews.com/article/north-america-donald-trump-financial-markets-ap-top-news-politics-970eefea2c154b3488ffde03a8a59d22 | access-date=May 4, 2023}}</ref><ref name="Herb_8/31/2018">{{cite web | last=Herb | first=Jeremy | title=Ohr says Steele told him Russian intel believed they had Trump 'over a barrel' | website=[[CNN]] | date=August 31, 2018 | url=https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/31/politics/bruce-ohr-christopher-steele-donald-trump/index.html | access-date=May 4, 2023}}</ref> The source for that claim was later identified by Paul Wood as "no less than a former head of Russia's foreign intelligence services".<ref name="Wood_8/12/2020">{{cite magazine | last=Wood | first=Paul | author-link=Paul Wood (journalist) | title=Was the 'pee tape' a lie all along? Not necessarily: despite what his critics say, Christopher Steele's 'dossier' has not been 'discredited' | magazine=[[The Spectator]] | date=August 12, 2020 | url=https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/was-the-pee-tape-a-lie-all-along/ |access-date=August 14, 2020}}</ref> The [[Senate Intelligence Committee report on Russian interference in the 2016 United States presidential election|Senate Intelligence Committee report]] implied that [[Aras Agalarov]] and his Crocus Group were part of a Russian intelligence effort to compromise and gain leverage over Trump.<ref name="Wittes_et_al_8/21/2020"/> [[Seth Abramson]] asserts the alleged hotel incident was inspired<ref name="Abramson_Collusion">{{cite book | last=Abramson | first=Seth | author-link=Seth Abramson | title=Proof of Collusion: How Trump Betrayed America |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Proof_of_Collusion/7WFwDwAAQBAJ |publisher=[[Simon & Schuster]] | year=2018 | pages=448 | isbn=978-1-471-182402 | quote="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.}}</ref> by a June 2013 visit by Trump to The Act, a raunchy [[Las Vegas]] nightclub. He was together with Agalarov and a group of Russians, some of whom were well-connected with [[Intelligence agencies of Russia|Russian intelligence]]. There, according to Cohen, Trump watched a golden showers show "with "delight",<ref name="Zoellner_9/6/2020">{{cite news | last=Zoellner | first=Danielle | title=Michael Cohen claims Trump watched 'with delight' during sex act performance in Vegas | newspaper=[[The Independent]] | date=September 6, 2020 | url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-golden-showers-las-vegas-russia-michael-cohen-book-b404574.html |access-date=October 15, 2021}}</ref> and, according to to Abramson, his delighted reaction was observed by the group of Russians.<ref name="Abramson_Collusion"/><ref name="Mayer_3/13/2018">{{cite magazine | last=Mayer | first=Jane | author-link=Jane Mayer | title=A Trump Trip to Las Vegas Adds Intrigue to the Steele Dossier | date=March 13, 2018 | magazine=[[The New Yorker]] | url=https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/a-trump-trip-to-las-vegas-adds-intrigue-to-the-steele-dossier | access-date=June 1, 2020}}</ref> Years later, first Rtskhiladze, and then the dossier's sources, independently of each other, implicated Aras Agalarov and his Crocus Group with responsibility, knowledge, and/or possession of compromising tapes of Trump.<ref name="Wittes_et_al_8/21/2020"/> The salacious rumor became very notable and has been widely publicized and featured in FBI and [[United States Department of Justice Office of Special Counsel|Special Counsel]] investigations, Congressional hearings and testimony, books, comedy, lawsuits, Trump's own repeated and unprompted<ref name="Hartmann_10/15/2021">{{cite magazine | last=Hartmann | first=Margaret | title=Does Trump ''Want'' Me to Think He's Into Golden Showers? | magazine=[[New York (magazine)#Intelligencer|Intelligencer]] | date=October 15, 2021 | url=https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trump-golden-showers-denial.html | access-date=December 17, 2023}}</ref> mentions of it, and his lies about the timing of events.<ref name="Comey_Stephanopoulos_4/15/2018">{{cite news | title=Video and Transcript: James Comey's interview with ABC News chief anchor George Stephanopoulos | agency=[[ABC News (United States)|ABC News]] | date=April 15, 2018 | url=https://abcnews.go.com/Site/transcript-james-comeys-interview-abc-news-chief-anchor/story?id=54488723 | access-date=December 27, 2023}}</ref>{{efn|name="time_of_incident"|TOPIC: Possible time of alleged incident.<ref name="Longman_4/20/2018">{{cite magazine | last=Longman | first=Martin | title=Trump Lied to Comey About the Pee Tape | magazine=[[Washington Monthly]] | date=April 20, 2018 | url=https://washingtonmonthly.com/2018/04/20/trump-lied-to-comey-about-the-pee-tape/ | access-date=January 3, 2024}}</ref><ref name="Helderman_9/22/2018"/><ref name="Dilanian_Allen_11/9/2017"/><ref name="Bergmann_et_al_11/27/2018">{{cite web | last1=Bergmann | first1=Max | last2=Venook | first2=Jeremy | last3=Moscow Project Team | first3= | title=Conspiracy Against the United States: The Story of Trump and Russia | website=[[Center for American Progress]] Action | date=November 27, 2018 | url=https://www.americanprogressaction.org/article/conspiracy-united-states-story-trump-russia/ | access-date=January 13, 2024}}</ref><ref name="Feinberg_9/25/2019">{{cite magazine | last=Feinberg | first=Ashley | author-link=Ashley Feinberg | title=The Pee Tape Is Real, but It's Fake |magazine=[[Slate (magazine)|Slate]] | url=https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/09/inside-the-convincing-fake-trump-pee-tape.html | date=September 25, 2019 | access-date=September 27, 2019 | quote=The central premise of the pee tape story is that on Nov. 9, 2013, while he was in Moscow for the Miss Universe pageant, Trump watched prostitutes perform sex acts involving urination on the bed of the presidential suite at the Moscow Ritz-Carlton, and he was secretly filmed as it happened.}}</ref>}} The included timeline provides the contextual setting for the allegations of ''kompromat'' and potential blackmail, the rumor's complicated history, claims made about it, as well as documenting Trump's activities and behavior in public that weekend, including how he very publicly accosted two young women.{{efn|name="Girls_accosted"|TOPIC: Two young women accosted in Moscow.<ref name="Corn_Isikoff_3/8/2018"/><ref name="Eriksen_1/14/2017"/><ref name="Shaumyan_3/17/2018"/><ref name="Abramson_1/17/2017"/><ref name="Brown_1/13/2017"/>}}

Old lead (copied from draft article with its short refs, not full refs)

Store here in case something goes wrong above.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The '''Donald Trump pee tape rumor''' is an unproven story related to [[Donald Trump]]'s alleged potential vulnerability to '''''kompromat'''''{{efn|name="Vulnerable_to_kompromat"}} and [[blackmail]]{{efn|name="Vulnerable_to_blackmail"}} by [[Vladimir Putin]] and others, and to allegations by veteran members of the [[intelligence community]]<!-- from several nations, so not specifying here --> that he is a [[#National security risk|threat to national security]]. The rumor started in late 2013 and is about an alleged "[[urolagnia|golden showers]]" incident at the [[The Carlton Moscow|Ritz-Carlton Moscow]] hotel<!-- Do not "update" the name of the "Ritz-Carlton" as that was its name at the time. --> when Trump stayed there while attending the [[Miss Universe 2013|2013 Miss Universe pageant]] the weekend of November 8{{nbnd}}10, 2013.<ref name="HIC_3/6/2019"/> That unproven incident involving prostitutes peeing on a bed, which Trump allegedly orchestrated and watched,<ref name="Sipher_9/6/2017"/> was purportedly arranged and secretly recorded by Russian [[Federal Security Service|FSB intelligence]] to be used as ''[[kompromat]]'' to blackmail Trump.<ref name="Bensinger_1/10/2017"/><ref name="Bertrand_11/10/2017"/><ref name="Parfitt_1/12/2017"/> The [[Steele dossier]] asserts the Kremlin promised Trump they would not use the ''kompromat'' collected against him given the "high levels of voluntary co-operation forthcoming from his team".<ref name="Withnall_Sengupta_1/12/2017"/><ref name="Bertrand_1/10/2017"/> During testimony, Trump's [[Keith Schiller|bodyguard]] was unable to provide an [[alibi]] for Trump's activities during the early morning hours of November 9,<ref name="Dilanian_Allen_11/9/2017"/> [[#A "five-hour window" of time|a "five-hour window" of time]] suspected of being the time of the alleged salacious incident,{{efn|name="time_of_incident"}} and the [[United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence|Senate Intelligence Committee]] found evidence of "additional social activity" in Trump's room at that time.<ref name="SICv5_8/18/2020"/>{{rp|292}} Trump has denied the story and [[#List of disputed statements to Comey|repeatedly and falsely asserted]] that he did not overnight in Moscow even once, a [[#Contradictions|quickly disproven]] lie<ref name="Marshall_4/20/2018"/><ref name="Foran_4/26/2018"/>{{efn|name="guilt"}} that has led many to doubt his denials{{efn|name="many_doubt"}} and remain open to the possibility something happened. [[Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI Director]] [[James Comey]] originally doubted the rumor, but because of Trump's unforced and repeated lies to him, he came to believe the rumor could be true and described Trump's lies as evidence of his "[[consciousness of guilt]]".{{efn|name="guilt"}} Referring to those lies, [[Jennifer Rubin (columnist)|Jennifer Rubin]] wrote that the "evidence of the [[cover-up#In criminal law|coverup]] is so plentiful that ordinary people — not unreasonably — will assume guilt."<ref name="Rubin_4/24/2018"/> Writers for the [[Center for American Progress]] have written that "This allegation{{spaces}}... has been neither conclusively corroborated nor conclusively disproven."<ref name="Bergmann_et_al_11/27/2018"'/> Trump's lawyer, [[Michael Cohen (lawyer)|Michael Cohen]], testified he first learned 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."<ref name="SICv5_8/18/2020"/>{{rp|658}} Cohen immediately told Trump about the rumor and then began a hunt for the alleged tapes. He enlisted help from a friend, Georgi Rtskhiladze, and on October 30, 2016, Rtskhiladze texted Cohen he had successfully "[[#"Stopped flow of some tapes from Russia"|stopped flow of some tapes from Russia]]", tapes he later suspected to be "one and the same" as those mentioned in the Steele dossier.{{efn|name="Recognition"}} Rtskhiladze later changed his story to [[Robert Mueller]] and claimed those [[#The "tapes were fake" claim|"tapes were fake"]], but District Judge [[Christopher R. Cooper]] [[#The "tapes were fake" claim|cast doubt]] on that claim. Later, "prior to and during the campaign" Trump was again "informed of alleged compromising tapes of him in Moscow. These allegations are separate from Christopher Steele's reports."<ref name="SICv5_8/18/2020"/>{{rp|945}} Cohen said many others{{efn|name="many_people"}} also knew of the rumor and contacted him "over the course of several years", and that he was willing to pay a lot for the tapes.<ref name="HIC_3/6/2019"/>{{rp|228}}<ref name="Kessler_4/24/2019"/><ref name="RvM_Memorandum_Opinion_9/1/2021"/> On January 6, 2017, when James Comey told Trump about the Steele dossier's salacious allegations, Trump did not reveal he had known of the old rumor since late 2013.<ref name="Longman_4/20/2018"/> In June 2016, after one of [[Igor Danchenko]]'s visits to Moscow, he described the pee tape rumor as a "well-known story{{spaces}}... that he had not been able to confirm".<ref name="USvDanchenko_10/4/2022"/> The rumor remained unknown to the American public until January 10, 2017, when the unfinished Steele dossier was published without permission.<ref name="Perez_Sciutto_Tapper_Bernstein_1/10/2017"/><ref name="Mueller_report"/> In 2019, after Cohen knew of the dossier's description of the alleged pee tape, he testified that the pre-dossier report he got from Rtskhiladze on October 30, 2016, was "regarding the infamous pee tape when Mr. Trump was in Moscow".<ref name="HIC_3/6/2019"/>{{rp|227}} It was only after Cohen's 2019 testimony that it became known that, long before the dossier, Trump, Cohen, and many others already knew of the rumor.<ref name="HIC_3/6/2019"/><ref name="SICv5_8/18/2020"/>{{rp|945}} [[Paul Wood (journalist)|Paul Wood]], of [[BBC News]], has written that "the head of an East European intelligence agency" had said the Russians had ''kompromat'' on Trump; that CIA officers asserted there are multiple embarrassing tapes of Trump in Russia;{{efn|name="Multiple_tapes"}} and that there are multiple sources for claims of possible Trump–Russia blackmail.<ref name="Drum_1/12/2017"/> The Senate Committee also believes "there may be substance to some of the allegations regarding Trump".<ref name="SICv5_8/18/2020"/>{{rp|945}} The leaders of U.S. and British intelligence agencies view Trump as [[#Trump viewed as under Putin's influence|under Vladimir Putin's influence]], and experienced intelligence personnel view Trump not as a Russian [[Espionage|"agent" (spy)]], but as an [[#Terms of art: "asset" and "agent of influence"|"asset" and "agent of influence"]], someone who uses their power "to influence public opinion or decision-making to produce results beneficial to the country whose intelligence service operates the agent".<ref name="Weiner_9/21/2020"/> The constant threat that Putin could release the alleged pee tapes<ref name="Bruggeman_Mosk_10/17/2021"/><ref name="Bensinger_1/10/2017"/> has been proposed as one reason why Trump has never criticized Putin,<ref name="Davidson_7/19/2018"/> and the fact that actual tapes have not been published means the rumor, true or not, remains unsubstantiated.<ref name="Mitchell_10/14/2021"/> They believe this makes him a serious [[#National security risk|threat to the national security]] of both nations. [[Bruce Ohr]] testified that Steele told him that Russian intelligence believed "they had Trump [[wiktionary:over a barrel|over a barrel]]".<ref name="Tucker_Day_9/1/2018"/><ref name="Herb_8/31/2018"/> The source for that claim was later identified by Paul Wood as "no less than a former head of Russia's foreign intelligence services".<ref name="Wood_8/12/2020"/> The [[Senate Intelligence Committee report on Russian interference in the 2016 United States presidential election|Senate Intelligence Committee report]] implied that [[Aras Agalarov]] and his Crocus Group were part of a Russian intelligence effort to compromise and gain leverage over Trump.<ref name="Wittes_et_al_8/21/2020"/> [[Seth Abramson]] asserts the alleged hotel incident was inspired<ref name="Abramson_Collusion"/> by an [[#The Act nightclub in Las Vegas (June 2013)|earlier Trump visit]], together with Agalarov and a group of Russians, some of whom were well-connected with [[Intelligence agencies of Russia|Russian intelligence]], to a raunchy Las Vegas nightclub where Trump's "delighted" reaction to a golden showers show was observed by his group.<ref name="Abramson_Collusion"/><ref name="Mayer_3/13/2018"/> Years later, first Rtskhiladze, and then the dossier's sources, independently of each other, implicated Aras Agalarov and his Crocus Group with responsibility, knowledge, and/or possession of compromising tapes of Trump.<ref name="Wittes_et_al_8/21/2020"/> The salacious rumor became very notable and has been widely publicized and featured in FBI and [[United States Department of Justice Office of Special Counsel|Special Counsel]] investigations, Congressional hearings and testimony, books, comedy, lawsuits, Trump's own repeated and unprompted<ref name="Hartmann_10/15/2021"/> mentions of it, and his lies about the timing of events.<ref name="Comey_Stephanopoulos_4/15/2018"/>{{efn|name="time_of_incident"}} The [[#Weekend timeline (November 7‍–‍10, 2013)|included timeline]] provides the contextual setting for the allegations of ''kompromat'' and potential blackmail, the rumor's complicated history, claims made about it, as well as documenting Trump's activities and behavior in public that weekend, including how he very publicly accosted two young women.{{efn|name="Girls_accosted"}}