Is Trump blackmailing the Senate Republicans? [View all]

[canetoad]

It's not like he hasn't done this before and true to Trump form, by using sexual accusations to get his own way.

Michaels told Connolly this was because Trump was threatening to embarrass the Forbes family by claiming that publisher Malcolm Forbes, who had died a few months earlier, ordered a hit piece because Trump had supposedly blocked the 70-year-old magazine owner from bringing two male companions under the legal drinking age into the Plaza Hotel bar. (A gay news magazine had outed Malcolm Forbes shortly after his death that February, though the claim was not widely circulated; Trump possessed a much louder megaphone with which to humiliate the Forbes family.) Stern does not recall this and believes that editors simply feared a Trump lawsuit.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2019/06/14/feature/how-donald-trump-silenced-the-people-who-could-expose-his-business-failures/?utm_term=.78dc16749513

H/t to Octoberlib for his post in DetlefK's thread

Over two and a half years ago, on March 30, 2017, three men testified before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. The topic of the hearing was: Disinformation: a Primer in Russian Active Measures and Influence Campaigns.


The three men were Roy Godson, Eugene B Rumer and Clint Watts. I happened to watch it live on CSpan. One short exchange, close to the end of the hearing gave me shivers of apprehension. The video is available but I needed to double check what I'd just witnessed, so found the transcript. I've uploaded a copy here.

After Clint Watts had spoken for a while on computers, cyber security and hacking, this exchange followed:

Senator King. You have mentioned several times, and I think
the Russian term is, ``kompromat.'' I think it's interesting
that they have a Russian term which is compromising
information. This is active in the sense that not only can they
take things off your computer, they can put things on your
computer that will compromise you. I think that should send a
shudder through all Americans, that this isn't only taking--you
can be very careful in your emails, but something can show up
on your computer that's fake and you could be in a lot of
trouble.

This is one of their techniques, is it not?

Mr. Watts. Yes. Americans should look to Europe, where this
has happened quite a bit more frequently.

Angus King was visibly concerned that something could be 'put on' your computer and this, I believe is the key to the obsequious obedience from Lindsay Graham and others. Have they been threatened that gay and/or child porn will be found on their computers?