Before Joe Biden received a surprise Presidential Medal of Freedom (with Distinction!) on Thursday, he spoke with the Associated Press about, uh, the “Golden Showers” file. Yes, the story that has dominated the week is not going away. To recap, a British spy named Christopher Steele delivered the dossier to John McCain, who then handed it to the FBI in December. And there’s a whole lot more in the file than allegations of Trump hiring peeing prostitutes.
Biden confirmed to the Associated Press that he and Obama not only received the two-page addendum, which alluded to “compromising” information, but U.S. intelligence also presented them with the full (and unsubstantiated) 35-page report that was published by Buzzfeed. In addition, Biden stated that he and Obama were fully briefed because intelligence leaders believed the information would catch them by surprise — due to the high probability that it would go public:
Biden said neither he nor Obama asked U.S. intelligence agencies to try to corroborate the unverified claims that Russia had obtained compromising sexual and financial allegations about Trump.
Biden said that in the briefing he and Obama received from Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and others, there were “no conclusions drawn” from the uncorroborated dossier, which was produced in August and then released publicly this week by the media. Biden said it was “totally ancillary” to the purpose of the meeting, which was to brief Obama on a report he ordered documenting Russian interference in the U.S. campaign.
“As a matter of fact, the president was like, ‘What does this have anything to do with anything?'” Biden said. He said intelligence leaders responded by saying “Well, we feel obliged to tell you, Mr. President, because you may hear about it. We’re going to tell him,” referring to Trump.
Biden stated that he’d read the entire report but didn’t ask for conclusions from intelligence. Further, he thought that Trump accusing U.S. intelligence of allowing the “leak” (while invoking Nazi Germany) wasn’t a good look:
Intelligence agencies should never have allowed this fake news to "leak" into the public. One last shot at me.Are we living in Nazi Germany?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2017
“The one thing you never want to invoke is Nazi Germany, no matter what the circumstances,” Biden stated. “It’s an overwhelming diversion from the point you’re trying to make.” He also believes that it would be a “genuine tragedy” if Trump decided he didn’t need the daily intel briefing provided to presidents.
The “Golden Showers” saga shall continue, and for now, folks are still talking about a BBC report that pointed towards Jeb Bush’s SuperPAC as the instigator of the file, since Steele and his Orbis firm were doing work for the PAC at the time. However, the PAC’s opposition research team has slammed the report as “categorically false,” and one of the PAC’s attorneys, Charlie Spies, stated that a cease-and-desist was en route to the BBC.
(Via Associated Press & Talking Points Memo)