The claims surrounding the Trump campaign's alleged business ties to the Russian government continue. A widely-circulated and widely-disparaged Buzzfeed report claims that Trump has had extensive dealings with the Kremlin. The report also claims that the Kremlin has compromising information on Trump including some which is sexual in nature and graphic and which might subject him to Russian blackmail:
Questions also continue based on what is being presented as a declassified version of a report given to both President-elect Trump and President Obama:
I read all of the first report and about two-thirds (so far) of the second. Several factors are noteworthy:
1. No direct source is mentioned in anything I've read. It's all "according to so-and-so" or even third-generation garbage (the original source, whoever that is, telling you that someone told them that so-and-so did such-and-such). I understand that this may be the language of spycraft but after the many times we've been lied to by our own government I'm not inclined to believe much of anything we're told by them without a verifiable source.
2. The "company" was referred to several times in both documents. Inside the CIA, this is slang for that agency. No, I can't imagine how anyone would be stupid enough to leave that in there if the CIA was the actual source, but as strange as this whole transition of power has been . . .
Here's the bottom line: there are a bunch of serious, yet unproven allegations here. There is the possibility that the reports are accurate. Yet there are numerous parties with potential motives to hobble a Donald Trump presidency from the start or to try to take the presidency from Mr. Trump and thus disenfranchise almost half of the American electorate and make the Electoral College, and our Constitution, a laughing stock. There is no identified source. There is no physical evidence. There is no 'smoking gun'. I leave it at that.
