Today the world awoke to the news that intelligence chiefs allege Russians have compromising personal information on Donald Trump. Buzzfeed, the news website, has published an unsubstantiated report on Trump’s purported behaviour in Russia — with a helpful disclaimer that they do not know if the claims are true as the documents contain errors and are ‘unverified and potentially unverifiable’. The premise is that Russian spies have gathered compromising information on Trump’s ‘personal obsessions and sexual perversion’ so they can use it to influence him.
While the President-elect has dismissed the claims as fake news, it got Mr S wondering: what could Trump possibly have been caught doing that would significantly impact his reputation?
Surely Trump’s reputation is close to untouchable? As the anti-establishment candidate, he has said the unsayable and done the undoable. When it comes to the liberal elite, their opinion of Trump could not be lower. Meanwhile, he has already admitted to things that would have knocked out most wannabe presidents in the early stages — from boasting that he has at times paid zero percent in federal taxes (‘that makes me smart’) to being on record stating that being famous means you can grab women ‘by the pussy’.

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