Russian hacking what we know and don't know ? - BBC News

The latest - and perhaps most headline-grabbing - source of tension between Donald Trump and the US intelligence community is an unverified report, apparently compiled by a private intelligence firm, claiming Russia has gathered compromising data about the president-elect.

Those claims raise far more questions than they answer. Here is a summary of what we know so far.

Who wrote the report and why?

It has been widely attributed to Christopher Steele, a retired British intelligence officer. 

Mr Steele, who runs a London-based intelligence firm, was reportedly hired by anti-Trump Republicans to investigate Mr Trump's ties to Russia during the battle for the party's presidential nomination. In the general election campaign the research was funded by an anonymous Democratic donor.

But since Mr Steele has been in hiding since the report surfaced on Tuesday, there is no confirmation that he is the author.

What does the report say?

It consists of a series of memos dated from June to December, and said to be based on information from members of the Russian intelligence community.

It claims that Russian officials have cultivated Mr Trump for at least five years to encourage splits within the Western alliance, and shared intelligence information with him.

Most startlingly, it alleges that Russia has managed to compromise Mr Trump and is in a position to blackmail him. It says Russia's FSB agency has footage of the president-elect using prostitutes at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Moscow.

How did the public learn of the existence of the report?

CNN reported its existence on 10 January, and the Buzzfeed website published it in full.

How credible is the information it contains?

Since the report was published, Mr Trump has denounced it as "false and fictitious" and "made up, phony facts". Russian officials have also dismissed it as "pulp fiction".

All major media outlets have stressed that the report's allegations are unsubstantiated. Several, including the BBC, had knowledge of the claims before the election but were unable to verify them and therefore did not publish stories.

Newsweek says it "contains lots of Kremlin-related gossip" and points to factual errors and the misspelling of Russian names.

However, the reports were considered credible enough by the US intelligence community for a two-page summary to be given to both President Barack Obama and President-elect Trump in early January. 

US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has merely said the claims were still being assessed. He also strongly denied suggestions by Mr Trump that US intelligence agencies had been involved in leaking the report.

Trump continues to make private deals despite promise to stop - Hunffington Post

Donald Trump Expanding Scottish Golf Resort After Vowing Not To Make New Foreign Deals

"No new foreign deals ... whatsoever" apparently doesn't include this one.

A multimillion-dollar expansion of Donald Trump’s Scottish golf resort is proceeding despite a promise just days ago by his attorneys that “no new foreign deals will be made whatsoever” by the president-elect’s businesses, in an effort to avoid conflicts of interest during his presidency.

The Aberdeenshire Council has approved a second 18-hole golf course and more housing in the Trump International Golf Links Scotland operation. The expansion will substantially grow the complex and include a 450-room five-star hotel, timeshare complex and private housing estate, The Guardian reported Saturday. Changes are expected to significantly boost the value of the operation to the Trump Organization. 

Trump’s attorney Sheri Dillon announced at his press conference last week that in order to avoid potential conflicts of interest, her client has “ordered that all pending deals be terminated.” Trump is also arranging to turn over management of his companies to his adult sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, but will maintain ownership and investments in his American and global companies and real estate deals. It’s an arrangement that the head of the Office of Government Ethics said fails to meet an ethics standard met by every other president in the last four decades.

Trump owns 100 percent of the Trump International Golf Links Scotland, according to the Guardian.

A written statement later issued by Dillon’s law firm Morgan Lewis emphasized that Trump’s promise “prohibits — without exception — new foreign deals during the duration of President-elect Trump’s presidency.”

It added: “Specifically, the Trust and The Trump Organization will be prohibited at all times ... from engaging in any new deals with respect to the use of the ‘Trump’ brand or any trademark, trade name, or marketing intangibles associated with The Trump Organization or Donald J. Trump in any foreign jurisdictions.”

But now Trump’s transition team insists that the golf resort expansion doesn’t constitute a new deal.

“Implementing future phasing of existing properties does not constitute a new transaction so we intend to proceed,” a spokeswoman told the Scottish Sunday Herald.

Richard Painter, a former White House chief ethics adviser to George W. Bush, called the situation a “perfect example” of obvious conflicts of interest that Trump will apparently continue to attempt to obfuscate.

“He’s using language which is ambiguous. It clearly illustrates that around the world, he will simply expand around the various holdings and as they continue to expand, the conflicts of interest expand,” Painter told the Guardian. “It’s like [the board game] Monopoly: if you have one house on Boardwalk, it’s not a new deal to go for three hotels on Boardwalk.”

Trump’s Aberdeenshire golf resort is particularly notable because it dramatically raised early fears about his conflicts of interest — and concerns that he would push his own business interests as president ahead of what might be best for the public. In a meeting with British politician Nigel Farage shortly after Trump’s election, Trump complained that planned offshore wind farms providing environment-protecting alternative energy would mar the views at his course. He encouraged Farage and his entourage to lobby against the farms.

Scottish residents protested against Trump when he visited last June because of how he handled the golf resort development. Neighbors are suing him because he built a fence blocking a sea view at the house of homeowners who refused to sell to him, and then sent them a bill for it.

“You watch, Mexico won’t pay either,” homeowner David Milne told the New York Times.

The Guardian has reported that Trump hasn’t paid UK taxes on his courses in Aberdeenshire and Turnberry in Ayrshire because he has lost nearly $31 million on his Scottish golf empire on an investment of some $123 million.

Huffington Post