Unsubstantiated Report Has Compromising Information on Trump | Hacker News Reader

Unsubstantiated Report Has Compromising Information on Trump

nytimes.com

41 pointsaburan2817 comments

CNN reported that John McCain got this information a while back and that he found the contents of it so damning that he personally gave it to the FBI director James Comey. The FBI already had received those reports from this intelligence firm but still it says a lot that McCain thought it necessary to personally deliver them.

Here is a link from BuzzFeed that they site as a source: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3259984-Trump-Intell...

Note: These are just allegations at the moment and the link is not proof of anything but it is still pretty insane.

If there is any actual proof it needs to be made public at all costs. This is not the time to protect methods or some other crock. Unsubstantiated info isn't all that useful, however, since it is easy to brush off.

And I already have.

At this point I'm almost certain this is a fake report, which will only strengthen Trumps position.

What is that line from Batman? Some men just want to watch the world burn?

This must all be very amusing to the person sat somewhere on his laptop pulling the media's strings.

So it turns out the author is a former head of MI6’s Russia desk and a past president of the Cambridge Union and is now in hiding, worried he's going to get bumped off. Not what I expected.

Why on earth is the NYT publishing an "unsubstantiated report"??? Is journalism really dead?

This report was briefed to the POTUS and PEOTUS today and several top Congressman by intelligence officials. That alone makes it newsworthy.

"includes specific, unverified, and potentially unverifiable allegations of contact between Trump aides and Russian operatives"

"It is not just unconfirmed: It includes some clear errors."

If there is one thing you can get out of Trump's election, it is the methods of very powerful actors being brought into the light. Presumably due to the threat they face, panicking is revealing their structure and nature. This appears to be a full blown war.

edit: Oh and by the way, looks like was a 4chan hoax that started early November. Expect small font corrections over the next week. Thats Fake News for you.

edit edit: 4Chan hoax part was the "golden shower" section, that had been fed to political consultant and journalist Rick Wilson. This was included in the report.

edit edit edit: Quotes I provided were from Buzzfeed who first broke the story, at which point other papers covered. https://www.buzzfeed.com/kenbensinger/these-reports-allege-t...

Do you have a link to something describing the hoax?

From the hoaxer himself here...

https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/5nbqfu/mfw_the_...

Even other news stations are calling out BuzzFeed for publishing #FakeNews.

Neither of the phrases you quote appear in the article. What are you talking about?

Evidence 4chan had anything to do with it would be interesting, if you can provide it.

What are the clear errors?

I've been looking up small details like the names of the Russian officials mentioned (since I can easily read the Russian government websites) and names/times line up without any clear error. Details like Mikhail Kalugin's recall from the Washington embassy (easily checked against archives of Russian embassy websites) that weren't mentioned in any newsfeeds, including LexisNexis and other DB searches, are surprisingly accurate.

If this is a hoax, it's an extremely well executed one.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/kenbensinger/these-reports-allege-t...

Check the disclaimers littered throughout.

There's nothing "littered throughout." There is a few sentences in the middle that say:

It is not just unconfirmed: It includes some clear errors. The report misspells the name of one company, “Alpha Group,” throughout. It is Alfa Group. The report says the settlement of Barvikha, outside Moscow, is “reserved for the residences of the top leadership and their close associates.” It is not reserved for anyone, and it is also populated by the very wealthy.

Those aren't errors. Alfa Group is the spelling the company uses but the Russian names Альфа and Альфа-Банк are most commonly translated as Alpha and Alpha-Bank, including by many of the sources cited by the relevant Wikipedia article. I don't know if you've ever been to Barvikha but there are multiple "settlements" there that are fenced or guarded and where you can only build if you get approval from the local officials. I don't know if any of them are for party insiders but it wouldn't be a stretch considering Barvikha holds one of the official Presidential resorts.

The methods of very powerful actors being brought to light are... falling for your hoaxes?

It's not the powerful actors that are falling for the hoaxes. It is the American people who are falling for the hoaxes.

American people have always fallen for hoaxes. Hell, even Trump got into politics riding the Birther hoax.

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