I wrote the other day about Trump and the pee tape and my Salon colleague Amanda Marcotte pointed out that it was actually more damning than I had thought:
Oh man, it’s even worse than @digby56 says! Because, like the lifelong liar, fraud and cheater he is, Trump uses a common non-denial denial tactic of denying he does something no one accused him of.
The dossier did not say that Trump enjoys being peed on, by his wife or anyone else. It says he paid sex workers to pee on a bed that Obama slept in. That’s not a kink of self-degradation. That’s about degrading those women and Obama, an act of domination.
I don’t know if it’s true, but it’s memorable because it fits everything we know about Trump: He enjoys degrading women. He has a racism-infused Salieri-style obsession with Obama, for being a Black man is everything he’s not: Smart, decent, handsome, accomplished.
Originally tweeted by Amanda Marcotte (@AmandaMarcotte) on October 16, 2021.
Well, in case you are wondering why all this is coming up again:
Former British spy Christopher Steele defended the contents of his Donald Trump dossier in his first major TV interview since his bombshell allegations came to light years ago.
Steele gave an interview to George Stephanopoulos for ABC News’ upcoming multi-part documentary, Out of the Shadows: The Man Behind the Steele Dossier. The series will reflect on Steele’s discredited claims that Trump conspired with Russia to win the 2016 election, and that the Russians had salacious blackmail to use against the former president.
Stephanopoulos’ conversation with Steele was previewed on ABC’s This Week, where he was shown confronting Steele with the FBI’s assessment that the dossier’s claims about Michael Cohen were not true. The claim was that Cohen, formerly Trump’s personal lawyer, traveled to Prague in 2016 and secretly met with Kremlin agents.
Steele rejected the FBI’s findings on the alleged meeting, so Stephanopoulos remarked that “it defies logic” for Cohen to keep it a secret after turning against Trump and getting swamped in all of his legal troubles.
“He’s told every single story. Why wouldn’t he admit to this?” Stephanopoulos asked
“Because I think it’s so incriminating and demeaning,” Steele answered, “And the other reason is he may be scared of the consequences.”
“Do you think it hurts your credibility at all that you won’t accept the findings of the FBI in this particular case?” asked Stephanopoulos.
“I’m prepared to accept that not everything in the dossier is 100 percent accurate,” said Steele. “I have yet to be convinced that that is one of them.”
Inevitably, the preview arrived at the dossier’s claim that the Russians had a tape of Trump in a hotel room while Russian hookers partook in “golden showers” and other disgusting sex acts in front of him. This part showed Stephanopoulos asking Steele “today, do you still believe that this tape exists?”
“I think it probably does, but I would not put 100 percent certainty on it,” Steele answered.
“How do you explain if that tape does, indeed, exist, it has not been released?” Stephanopoulos asked.
“It hasn’t needed to be released,” said Steele, “because I think the Russians felt they’d got pretty good value out of Donald Trump when he was president of the U.S.”
Steele’s comments come shortly after a report about how Trump made fun of the “golden shower” allegation during a recent retreat with donors and GOP lawmakers.
Watch above, via ABC.
If it’s true, it’s no mystery why they would hold it back. Having it to hold over his head is where he power is. And it’s clear that this is a story he doesn’t like one little bit.