This story keeps getting better (for us) and worse for Trump and his minions. Not only does it have the ring of truth, considering what we know about Trump’s sexual proclivities, his lack of boundaries, his narcissistic confidence he can do anything he wants to do to satisfy his perversions (pleasure from grabbing women is a paraphilia). While enjoying consenting golden showers is a paraphilia, it isn’t harmful; that is unless Putin can blackmail you with videos.
This is the first time I’ve decide there was enough information on a topic I’ve already written about here to write a third story.
This comes not from the grown cacophony of serious voices saying they don’t believe Trump’s denials, especially since he has offered no evidence except his word that they are false. This coming from a pathological liar! It comes from an excellent article in The Conversation about honey traps published today.
Ever since World War II Russian spy agencies have had notable success using sexual blackmail to recruit spies. “The Conversation” article describes many of them. They also give examples of how they are using honey traps today:
Sir Anthony Brenton, Britain’s ambassador to Moscow between 2004 and 2008, described kompromat* as “very much a part of the way Russia works”. Sure enough, various incidents of recent years prove that Western diplomats and luminaries on tour in Russia still need to keep their noses clean.
In July 2009 British diplomat James Hudson, then deputy consul general at Yekaterinburg, was humiliated by the release of a four-minute video, “Adventures of Mr Hudson in Russia”, which showed him with prostitutes. There was no suggestion he was involved in espionage. He resigned his post. In a statement, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office warned that staff should “demonstrate high levels of personal and professional integrity”.
A month later, a US diplomat was also involved in a sex scandal following a video which showed him with a prostitute being leaked online.
Whatever the truth regarding allegations against Trump, sexual entrapment was, and is, a tool frequently used by the Soviet intelligence services and their modern-day Russian descendants. The claims in the dossier are lurid and unproven, but they draw on very real precedents.
*Kompromat -Wikipedia (Russian: компромат), short for компрометирующий материал, literally "compromising material") is the Russian term for compromising materials about a politician or other public figure. Such materials can be used to create negative publicity, for blackmail, or for ensuring loyalty. Kompromat can be acquired from various security services, or outright forged, and then publicized by paying off a journalist.[1][2] Widespread use of kompromat has been one of the characteristic features of politics in Russia[3] and other post-Soviet states. From The Conversation.
Here’s an interesting tidbit from The Daily Beast:
Trump shouldn’t be too embarrassed by the rumors; he is far from alone. In fact, one would be hard-pressed to find a world leader in history, especially a Trumpian one with despotic tendencies, without a closet full of underage or extramarital or piss-covered skeletons. Dictators and deviant sex go together like Russia and blackmail. www.thedailybeast.com/...
Also from the Daily Beast article, file this under “what I didn’t know about Putin’s sex life:
He had a wife, with whom he fathered two children before she disappeared from the public eye for years. Many assumed her dead until she suddenly reappeared for long enough to divorce Putin. During the time she was out getting fresh air in the Russian countryside, Putin was alleged to have taken up with a former rhythmic gymnast he met when she was only a teenager. The pair have three rumored children. Last year, Page Six speculated that Putin has a new girlfriend, a “busty” 23-year-old who appeared in a sexy calendar dedicated to Putin’s birthday when she was just out of high school. The rhythmic gymnast, say the reports, was kicked to the curb. He’s like Leonardo DiCaprio, but only 5-foot-7 and without the ability to move his face.
One could argue that the difference between, say, a Putin or an Amin rumor and the Trump rumor is that the aforementioned world leaders faced accusations that bolstered their virile image. The Trump rumor, not so much. Even though the Trump dossier contains little verifiable information, it’s hard to eliminate the stench of a pee rumor from a mattress or a reputation. But it could be much worse. At least nobody’s speculating about what’s wrong with his penis. Yet.
Considering the allegations about Trump and how if true they would explain his being so pro-Putin, the Wikipedia entry on kompromat reads almost like an indictment:
History
In the 1950s, British civil servant John Vassall was a victim of a gay honey trap operation, which would be used as a form of kompromat against him since there were no existing LGBT rights in the United Kingdom at the time.[7] During a 1957 visit to Moscow, American journalist Joseph Alsop also fell victim to a gay honey trap operation conducted by the KGB.[8]
In 1997, Valentin Kovalev was removed as the Russian Minister of Justice after photos of him in a sauna with prostitutes controlled by Solntsevskaya Bratva were published in a newspaper. In an interview with another newspaper, Kovalev said, "Kompromat is vile. Once it starts, it knows no limits. Kompromat is always effective in Russia".[6] In 1999, a video aired with a man resembling Yury Skuratov in bed with two women, which would later lead to his dismissal as Prosecutor General of Russia, which was released after he began looking into charges of corruption by President Boris Yeltsin and his associates.[9]
In August 2009, videos allegedly released by the FSB purportedly featured American diplomat Brendan Kyle Hatcher making phone calls, presumably to a prostitute, then engaging in sexual activity with a woman. The United States Department of State protested that it was a doctored, unproven tape.[10] In April 2010, politican Ilya Yashin and comedian Victor Shenderovich were involved in a sex scandal with a woman claimed to have acted as a Kremlin honey pot to discredit opposition figures.[11] The video was released only two days before wedding of Shenderovich's daughter.[10]
In recent[when?] cases of kompromat, Russian operatives have been suspected or accused of placing child pornography on the personal computers of individuals they were attempting to discredit.[12] In 2015, the Crown Prosecution Service of the United Kingdom announced that it would prosecute Vladimir Bukovsky for "prohibited images" found on his computer.[13]However, the case against Bukovshy has been on hold as investigators are trying to determine whether the pornographic images were planted.[14]
Ahead of the 2016 Russian legislative election, a sex tape of Mikhail Kasyanov emerged on NTV.[9][12] Following the 2016 U.S. presidential election, it emerged on 10 January 2017, that U.S. intelligence agencies were investigating possibly compromising personal and financial information on President-Elect Donald Trump, leading to allegations that he and members of his administration may be vulnerable to manipulation by the Russian government.[15][16]
Techniques
In the early days, kompromat featured doctored photographs, planted drugs, grainy videos of liaisons with prostitutes hired by the KGB, and a wide range of other primitive entrapment techniques. However, more contemporary forms of kompromat appear as a form of cybercrime.[14] One aspect of kompromat that stands the test of time is that the compromising information is often sexual in nature.[17]
Usage
In the United States, opposition research is conducted in way to find compromising material on political opponents so that such material could be released to weaken the opponents. However, kompromat differs in that such information is used to exert influence over people.[18]
Kompromat is described to be part of the political culture in Russia, with many members of the business and political elite having collected and stored potentially compromising material on their political opponents.[19] Kompromat does not necessarily target individuals or groups, but rather collects information that could be useful at a later time.[20] Compromising videos are produced long in advance when in need for leverage of people.
Here’s my original story:
On MSNBC and Bloomberg's With All Due Respect hosted by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann they didn’t seem to think these Russia stories about Trump would be game changers prior to the election. But the public loves sexy stories, and they don’t necessarily have to involve sex; but Russia’s notoriously effective and sometimes very dangerous FSB would have been negligent if they didn’t try to compromise billionaire Donald Trump when he was in Moscow for his 2013 Miss Universe pageant. This part of the Russia story could also involve sex.
This morning I wrote about how the FSB might have lured Trump into a classic spy honey trap and have videos of him in sexually compromising activities with a minor, or for that matter since he was married, with an adult woman.
The Russians may have blackmail material they can, or already have, used on Donald Trump.
Since the time immemorial, spy agencies have set honey traps to lure susceptible men (and women) into sexual liaisons or relationships which they later could use either to blackmail foreigners or force them to betray their own countries.
(I was wrong about this… I mean… who thinks golden showers?)
With Trump they easily could have found a 15 year old to come on to him and play on Trump’s sexual proclivities. Of course they would have videos of everything he did.
Considering that Putin is a former KGB agent I would be surprised if he didn’t order FSB (the new KGB) to get something he could use against someone like Trump who he might need in his pocket in the future.
If he did this when Trump was nominated he must have broke out the Stolichnaya Gold vodka, Beluga caviar, and Piramides Edicion Limitada 2008 Cuban cigars to celebrate his spymaster prescience.
Are honey traps real? You bet!
Oh, they're real. Honey traps, also called "honey pots," have been a favorite spying tactic as long as sex and espionage have existed—in other words, forever. Perhaps the earliest honey trap on record was the betrayal of Samson by Delilah, who revealed Samson's weakness (his hair) to the Philistines in exchange for 1,100 pieces of silver, as described in the book of Judges. The practice continued into the 20th century and became a staple of Cold War spy craft. Governments around the world set up honey traps to this day, but it's an especially common practice in Russia and China. The Central Intelligence Agency doesn't comment on whether its agents use their sexuality to obtain information, but current and former intelligence officials say it does happen occasionally. Slate emphasis added
Take the following poll with a grain of salt, well, more like several grains of salt, a lime, and a glass of tequila.
Saturday, Jan 14, 2017 · 2:14:58 AM +00:00 · HalBrown
Rachel Maddow referenced this story from The Guardian tonight.
Wood said he believed Steele was a “very competent professional operator”, adding: “I do not think he would make things up. I don’t think he would necessarily always draw the correct judgment but that’s not the same thing at all.”
Former Foreign Office and intelligence officials told the Guardian on Thursday that Steele was highly respected in the intelligence community.
Steele’s dossier contains “pretty central accusations” about a presidential candidate being complicit in the hacking of his rival, and about the Russian intelligence services holding lurid sexual material on Trump, Wood said. “These seemed to me to have important implications - if true.”
The allegations were lent weight by some of Trump’s public behaviour on the campaign trail, he added. “It is a suggestion that was I think given certain colouration by the way Trump talked about the hacking exercise and by the stories about his treatment of women, and of course the KGB and FSB now make it a regular practice to do honeytrap exercises.”
The former spy went into hiding this week after his cover was blown. “Russia would certainly like to know where he got his information from - assuming his information is basically true and he hasn’t just made it up, which I don’t believe for a moment - and they’re accustomed to take action,” said Wood, describing the allegations as “dangerous knowledge”.
This Russian Tweet remind us of what Rachel said, and which spy movie aficionados “know” — once a spy always a spy. The former MI-6 agent and current professional private spy is now in hiding. Rachel wondered why. Is he afraid for his life, considering that Moscow has a record of tracking down and killing people no matter where they are.
Saturday, Jan 14, 2017 · 2:26:24 AM +00:00 · HalBrown
More from Rachel, and David Corn:
When I spoke with the former spy, he appeared confident about his material—acknowledging these memos were works in progress—and genuinely concerned about the implications of the allegations. He came across as a serious and somber professional who was not eager to talk to a journalist or cause a public splash. He realized he was taking a risk, but he seemed duty bound to share information he deemed crucial. He noted that these allegations deserved a "substantial inquiry" within the FBI. Yet so far, the FBI has not yet said whether such an investigation has been conducted. As the former spy said to me, "The story has to come out."
Saturday, Jan 14, 2017 · 3:40:54 AM +00:00 · HalBrown
This story goes back to Jullian Assange in a 2010 Slate article
www.slate.com/…
The Central Intelligence Agency doesn't comment on whether its agents use their sexuality to obtain information, but current and former intelligence officials say it does happen occasionally.
I had a personal experience with this when two federal agents, release of information in hand, came to interview me because they planned to hire one of my former psychotherapy clients for a job that she was, dare I say, uniquely qualified for.