snopes | CLAIM: American intelligence has confirmed that President-elect Donald Trump was blackmailed by Russian operatives.
UNPROVEN
ORIGIN:On 10 January 2017, various web sites reported secondhand that United States intelligence officials had "just confirmed" that President-elect Donald Trump had been blackmailed by Russian operatives:
CNN has just reported that last week the heads of eight intelligence agencies presented information to both President Obama and President-elect Donald Trump that show Russian operatives claiming to have “compromising personal and financial information about Mr. Trump.”This would mean that the Russians have the ability to blackmail Trump into doing whatever they wish. Not only do they have this dirt on Donald Trump, but they were constantly reminding him of it – and telling him what they wanted to see out of him throughout the campaign, since Trump campaign surrogates were in “continuing” contact with Russian government surrogates throughout the entire campaign.
The article is referencing compiled memos containing information given, in part, by a former British intelligence officer. A summary of the memos was presented to President Barack Obama and President-elect Trump in early January 2017. The memos had been leaked to the media as early as 31 October 2016, but were made public in full on 10 January 2017 when they were published by Buzzfeed.
Contrary to the claim that the information contained was "confirmed" by intelligence officers, credible media outlets note that the claims are unverified.
