Let's start with what we know: It was definitely originally compiled by a former British intelligence agent, this report, a former MI6 man. He did it for what's known as an opposition research company in Washington DC. It's a company I know quite well and have visited often. They were working first of all for Jeb Bush's superpac as it's called in the Republican primaries and then for an anonymous Democratic party donor. The allegations themselves are extremely lurid and out of fairness to Mr Trump and anyone under the age of 18 watching I don't think we should relay them. But here's the crucial point: I was able to send a message into the CIA at the beginning of November to ask them about these allegations. It was illegal for any official to talk to me about them but I got a message back through an intermediary with said the allegations were regarded as credible, and more than that, there was more than a single source for them, not just this MI6 man. There was supposedly more than one tape, not just video but audio, more than one date, and not just in Moscow but in St Petersburg as well. Now obviously if the Russians have blackmail material on Mr Trump they're hardly going to release it, so these are necessarily allegations, but they are allegations that are regarded as credible - that's not the same as saying accurate - but they are regarded as credible by the US intelligence community.
