Intel: Russia has Compromising info on Trump.

[Stacyrect]

CNN is not a credible source of information

[DeadmanWalking]

I think that this, in itself, is enough to take this with a grain of salt.

Don't get me wrong, again, the more transparency, the better.

I just feel that this is a smearing campaing by the anti-Trump circle (note how I didn't say democrats here).

All news should be taken with a grain of salt, and a grain of pepper. There is a chance this could be true. Idiocy happens when people automatically decide guilt or innocence based on wether their opinion matches what is said. Intelligent people are open to the possibility that they were wrong about something and don't just believe or disregard anything based on it matching their viewpoint or not.

[Draco-Onis]

Key point is bolded. Does anyone seriously think that if there was anything out there about Trump that we wouldn't have heard about it before the election? Clinton had a whole army of sycophants dedicated to dig up dirt on Trump, is anyone suggesting they couldn't find this? But a bunch of B Grade Russian hackers could?

Oh that's an easy one his tax returns, the apprentice tapes, his non disclosed financial holdings, conflicts of interests, his "special bank accounts". There is no way to legally to get these things without someone on the inside leaking or a court order.

I know it's hard for Trump worshippers to think but come on too easy.

[Stacyrect]

I am open to it. Again, the more transparency, the better.

I doubt this would have any impact on Trump. As he'll be president of the United States in ten days, that will make him immune to these allegations. I certainly want it exposed, though, if that is true. We need people who watch and call out the people up there, they shouldn't have the leisure of standing immune in their ivory tower.

However, due to the timing and which camp push this narrative, I have a hard time grasping what exactly could be true and what is artificially inflated.

100% agree on this

[Sky High]

CNN is not a credible source of information

ooh time for a shot.

[DeadmanWalking]

CNN is not a credible source of information

Did Fox "News" tell you that? The same network where they show a winter Tea Party rally and leaves jump in and out of trees and the sky goes from clear to cloudy repeatedly in seconds as they clip in summer footage to the winter footage to make the tea party rally look bigger than it was?

[LaserSharkDFB]

Out of curiosity, was this person already a billionaire before the fall of communism?

Is there such a thing as a Communist billionaire?

[Deleted]

LOL this i great watching the left contort themselves over every headline about Trump. And we have another 8 years of this to look forward to.

"One reason the nation's intelligence chiefs took the extraordinary step of including the synopsis in the briefing documents was to make the President-elect aware that such allegations involving him are circulating among intelligence agencies, senior members of Congress and other government officials in Washington, multiple sources tell CNN".

Key point is bolded. Does anyone seriously think that if there was anything out there about Trump that we wouldn't have heard about it before the election? Clinton had a whole army of sycophants dedicated to dig up dirt on Trump, is anyone suggesting they couldn't find this? But a bunch of B Grade Russian hackers could?

By the Titans... can you please stop looking bad to all non-Americans? You have a foreign nation with dirt of your entire political system and your concern is "don't care, my side is the best"? Really?

[Torto]

He's a human being, he makes mistakes too.

Thank you for pointing out the obvious.

For the sake of argument, lets say that the intelligence agencies had information that Trump was a Paedophile. Pretty explosive and disgusting information. Do you think they might like to act on this? I'm pretty sure paedophilia is illegal in the US. It would at least make him unsuitable for office I'd hazard to guess...

My point is that if the CIA/FBI/DEA or whoever had concrete information about Trump and potential criminal activity, why the fuck would they keep quiet about it? Are they not duty bound to act on it and arrest Trump? And lets not forget, the intelligence agencies have no love for Trump at the moment.

[IIamaKing]

Well, until such time that said information is made public, I see little merit in speculating what it could be.

[javen]

I don't think Trump is a criminal mastermind, he's just a moron. Clinton has way more skeletons in her closet, but she would still have been the better choice.

I honestly thought this too, but she's been in conservative crosshairs for decades, and so far nothings come up, so now I'm not so sure. Considering only a cursory glance at Trump led to things such as the Access Hollywood video, you'd think with the resources Republicans have been pouring into ruining Clinton's reputation, they'd have something to show for it by now.

[Deleted]

Thank you for pointing out the obvious.

For the sake of argument, lets say that the intelligence agencies had information that Trump was a Paedophile. Pretty explosive and disgusting information. Do you think they might like to act on this? I'm pretty sure paedophilia is illegal in the US. It would at least make him unsuitable for office I'd hazard to guess...

My point is that if the CIA/FBI/DEA or whoever had concrete information about Trump and potential criminal activity, why the fuck would they keep quiet about it? Are they not duty bound to act on it and arrest Trump? And lets not forget, the intelligence agencies have no love for Trump at the moment.

Because they don't want to destroy the political system?

[alexw]

I think that this, in itself, is enough to take this with a grain of salt.

Don't get me wrong, again, the more transparency, the better.

I just feel that this is a smearing campaing by the anti-Trump circle (note how I didn't say democrats here).

This isn't true.

I remember hearing stories about this in the run up to the election. It looks like the FBI/CIA/NSA have now found those reports credible, and its this that is being leaked. It's much much worse than this CNN story portrays it though, as they don't lay out the specific allegations in detail but if you search hard enough you can find them -

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/...e-donald-trump

And a former senior intelligence officer for a Western country who specialized in Russian counterintelligence tells Mother Jones that in recent months he provided the bureau with memos, based on his recent interactions with Russian sources, contending the Russian government has for years tried to co-opt and assist Trump—and that the FBI requested more information from him.

Does this mean the FBI is investigating whether Russian intelligence has attempted to develop a secret relationship with Trump or cultivate him as an asset? Was the former intelligence officer and his material deemed credible or not? An FBI spokeswoman says, "Normally, we don't talk about whether we are investigating anything." But a senior US government official not involved in this case but familiar with the former spy tells Mother Jones that he has been a credible source with a proven record of providing reliable, sensitive, and important information to the US government.

In June, the former Western intelligence officer—who spent almost two decades on Russian intelligence matters and who now works with a US firm that gathers information on Russia for corporate clients—was assigned the task of researching Trump's dealings in Russia and elsewhere, according to the former spy and his associates in this American firm. This was for an opposition research project originally financed by a Republican client critical of the celebrity mogul. (Before the former spy was retained, the project's financing switched to a client allied with Democrats.) "It started off as a fairly general inquiry," says the former spook, who asks not to be identified. But when he dug into Trump, he notes, he came across troubling information indicating connections between Trump and the Russian government. According to his sources, he says, "there was an established exchange of information between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin of mutual benefit."

This was, the former spy remarks, "an extraordinary situation." He regularly consults with US government agencies on Russian matters, and near the start of July on his own initiative—without the permission of the US company that hired him—he sent a report he had written for that firm to a contact at the FBI, according to the former intelligence officer and his American associates, who asked not to be identified. (He declines to identify the FBI contact.) The former spy says he concluded that the information he had collected on Trump was "sufficiently serious" to share with the FBI.

Mother Jones has reviewed that report and other memos this former spy wrote. The first memo, based on the former intelligence officer's conversations with Russian sources, noted, "Russian regime has been cultivating, supporting and assisting TRUMP for at least 5 years. Aim, endorsed by PUTIN, has been to encourage splits and divisions in western alliance." It maintained that Trump "and his inner circle have accepted a regular flow of intelligence from the Kremlin, including on his Democratic and other political rivals." It claimed that Russian intelligence had "compromised" Trump during his visits to Moscow and could "blackmail him." It also reported that Russian intelligence had compiled a dossier on Hillary Clinton based on "bugged conversations she had on various visits to Russia and intercepted phone calls."

The former intelligence officer says the response from the FBI was "shock and horror." The FBI, after receiving the first memo, did not immediately request additional material, according to the former intelligence officer and his American associates. Yet in August, they say, the FBI asked him for all information in his possession and for him to explain how the material had been gathered and to identify his sources. The former spy forwarded to the bureau several memos—some of which referred to members of Trump's inner circle. After that point, he continued to share information with the FBI. "It's quite clear there was or is a pretty substantial inquiry going on," he says.

"This is something of huge significance, way above party politics," the former intelligence officer comments. "I think [Trump's] own party should be aware of this stuff as well."

[zEmini]

Can't believe anything from CNN anymore. They were the kings of bias, click baity fake news last year.

[Wolfheart9]

Thank you for pointing out the obvious.

For the sake of argument, lets say that the intelligence agencies had information that Trump was a Paedophile. Pretty explosive and disgusting information. Do you think they might like to act on this? I'm pretty sure paedophilia is illegal in the US. It would at least make him unsuitable for office I'd hazard to guess...

My point is that if the CIA/FBI/DEA or whoever had concrete information about Trump and potential criminal activity, why the fuck would they keep quiet about it? Are they not duty bound to act on it and arrest Trump? And lets not forget, the intelligence agencies have no love for Trump at the moment.

If they had information and instantly acted on it, threw everything out of wack and changed the elections, and it turned out to not be true because they acted instantly on it instead of investigating every grain of sand they could, that would be a bad thing.

[IIamaKing]

Of all the criticisms of CNN, this is one of the weirdest to me.

What did you want to see? Hacking is usually, "write a script/botnet, stare at the server while it does all the work for you, collect infoz" - did you really want a picture of a mildly overweight 30-something Russian dude leaned back in his chair eating Russian cheetos, waiting for the DNC and RNC info to download?

Fallout 4's minigame is a decent visualization of the spirit of hacking, without confusing people or boring them to tears. It's the fantasy of hacking, versus the reality of it.

It's the same reason I defend the 1995 movie "Hackers" - for being one of the better hacking movies of all time - despite it usually being lauded as being hilarious inaccurate for displaying hacking as a bunch of numbers flying around the screen like a screensaver, or a visualization of a database as being towers in a 3D landscape.

What did you want? Someone staring at a LINUX GUI of 200 files in a folder, systematically opening them, reading through the garbage file, closing it, and moving on to the next? Nobody wants that. Hackers captured the spirit of the Golden Age of Hackers, without the boring reality of it.

Which is a hell of a lot better than most TV shows and movies do even today, where they just mumble something about using visual basic to create a GUI - because it sounds suitably technical to the laymen, in response to having their firewall breached (which, of course, is immediately identifiable via sirens and red lights).

Its a news organization, I would expect them to show us reality, not a fantasy.

[Machismo]

ooh time for a shot.

Did I miss the announcement of the drinking game rules? I would love for somebody to post them.

[Brubear]

LOL this i great watching the left contort themselves over every headline about Trump. And we have another 8 years of this to look forward to.

"One reason the nation's intelligence chiefs took the extraordinary step of including the synopsis in the briefing documents was to make the President-elect aware that such allegations involving him are circulating among intelligence agencies, senior members of Congress and other government officials in Washington, multiple sources tell CNN".

Key point is bolded. Does anyone seriously think that if there was anything out there about Trump that we wouldn't have heard about it before the election? Clinton had a whole army of sycophants dedicated to dig up dirt on Trump, is anyone suggesting they couldn't find this? But a bunch of B Grade Russian hackers could?

The claim is that Russia is sitting on the information, but the agencies don't necessarily know what it is (as the original source is an MI6 agent).

So, if Russia was trying to influence the election so that Trump was elected, why would they let any dirt they have on him slip out before the election?

[Torto]

By the Titans... can you please stop looking bad to all non-Americans? You have a foreign nation with dirt of your entire political system and your concern is "don't care, my side is the best"? Really?

Sorry, could I have that again in a coherent sentence?

[Stacyrect]

Did Fox "News" tell you that? The same network where they show a winter Tea Party rally and leaves jump in and out of trees and the sky goes from clear to cloudy repeatedly in seconds as they clip in summer footage to the winter footage to make the tea party rally look bigger than it was?

I don't watch fox news, nor do I have cable for that matter to actually watch either channel. So no. CNN lost all it's credibility over the last few years, same with NBC. Fox news isn't credible either. An anonymous source has anonymous information that says Russia has information on Trump, which can't really be discussed because no one knows what it is? Yeah, no, sorry, get back at me when their is something to actually talk about besides speculation.