I've speed read the Senate intelligence committee's report on Russian interference. Story for @GuardianUS coming shortly! It's a treasure trove of new detail about #Trump-#Russia and provides the most compelling account yet of what goes on inside the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Moscow
A Russian intelligence officer is stationed permanently at the hotel, notes who checks in and out, and presides over a "network" of cameras including in guests' bedrooms, the report says. There are prostitutes under the control of an unnamed spy agency. We can assume #FSB
The committee doesn't confirm if the Trump 'golden showers' story is true. It is generally scathing about Christopher Steele. Nonetheless, it collaborates the essence of the dossier: that the Ritz-Carlton is a #kompromat factory, set up to ensnare the unwary and the reckless
There is also the lurid tale of David #Geovanis, a Moscow-based businessman who hosted Trump during a visit to Russia in 1996. It was there, per the committee, that Trump may have had a brief relationship with an unnamed Russian woman, whom he met at a Geovanis party - page 664
Meanwhile, the Senate confirms that Konstantin #Kilimnik (aka @PBaranenko) is a #GRU spy. And that Manafort was secretly passing him polling data and other intel throughout 2016. Both concealed their comms with crypto and burners. There's a word for this kind of relationship ...
At the risk of sounding like a desperate author I explore all of this in my 2017 book #Collusion and my latest one Shadow State, published in US by @harperbooks. My chapter on Kilimnik is entitled 'Tonto', after Kilimnik told me he was a lowly Tonto to Manafort's Lone Ranger
