The SSCI Report's description of the night of the alleged "incident" at the Ritz Moscow—colloquially known as the night of the "pee tape" (whose existence the CIA confirmed to the BBC in January 2017)—is crazy as hell. Much of it looks like this, which isn't suspicious at *all*:
1/ But the SSCI confirms that *hundreds of dollars of room-service activity* occurred in Trump's room at a time Trump's bodyguard Schiller says Trump was alone—and not 1 cop in 10,000 would read Schiller's SSCI testimony and conclude he told the truth even *one time* to Congress.
2/ Schiller says "I don't recall" to everything about the Moscow trip—including much he would've known. Not a single person seeing Schiller's testimony would credit it. The SSCI confirms the Ritz Moscow would've had many prostitutes present—and at least one Russian intel officer.
3/ The SSCI reports that—though Trump's dates of stay and accommodations were *very* carefully handled—for no explained reason a Russian service had booked Trump's room for two days before his arrival... while failing to book *any* room for his bodyguard (a problematic witness).
4/ Schiller simultaneously admitted he wasn't watching Trump's room *and* that he knows no prostitutes went into it. When pressed, he simply said he never would've allowed that to happen. Cohen confirms Schiller was *the* point-man for all Trump liaisons with random women. *All*.
5/ Here's some more of the SSCI description of what Trump did at the Ritz Moscow—it's really great reading.
6/ It appears David Geovanis may have been with Trump in Moscow.
7/ My book Proof of Collusion has *much* more than the SSCI Report on "the night in question." Which tells me some of what's under those redactions. You'd have to see Proof of Collusion for the full story, which surprises me (i.e., that SSCI is hiding what may already be public).
8/ An interesting tidbit is that—while of course, unsurprisingly, SSCI confirms what we all knew: that Trump was directly offered prostitutes through Schiller, his point-man for random sexual hook-ups—the offer apparently came at Nobu, where Kremlin agents were *thronging* Trump.
9/ Indeed, Trump's meeting with Putin's banker at Nobu, Herman Gref, shortly led to Gref's Sberbank extending Putin's builder, Agalarov, *the largest loan in the bank's history*. And what was it for? The development where Trump and Agalarov were going to build Trump Tower Moscow.
10/ I guess my point is that, by both Trump's predilections and the context—and the info that's in Proof of Collusion—there's simply no realistic scenario in which Trump turned down what his random-sex-point-man was offered at Nobu in Moscow in November 2013. Sorry, there isn't.
PS/ The simplest way to look at it is: Trump has a track record of random sex; we know prostitutes were offered to him; we know his random-sex-point-man lied about what happened; Trump wouldn't spend hundreds of dollars partying with *men* at 2AM in Moscow during an after-party.
PS2/ But moreover, Trump himself admits the room was wired for audio and sound (and the SSCI appears to confirm intelligence activity and room-booking activity at the Ritz consistent with this) and Proof of Collusion has additional evidence—including eyewitnesses as to the women.
PS3/ I'm sorry, I know it's easy to criticize (as sounding like it comes from a movie) something that happens often in both real life and the movies, but if you disbelieve what the CIA told the BBC in January 2017—the tapes exist—you're naive. *And* unwilling to accept evidence.
You can follow @SethAbramson.
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