# Pissgate The Pee Tape Pissgate refers to the January 2017 political scandal around an unverified allegation in a former British spy's dossier that Donald Trump paid prostitutes to urinate on a Moscow hotel bed once used by Barack Obama. CNN broke the intelligence-briefing story on January 10, 2017, BuzzFeed published the full dossier hours later, and Twitter turned it into a wave of hashtag jokes like #PissGate and #PEEOTUS the same night. ## Overview Pissgate, also called the Pee Tape, points to one specific allegation buried inside a 25-page dossier compiled by a former British MI6 officer about Donald Trump's alleged ties to Russia[2]. The passage claimed that during a 2013 visit to Moscow, Trump hired prostitutes to perform a 'golden showers' act on the bed of the presidential suite at the Ritz-Carlton, the same room Barack Obama and the First Lady had stayed in during their official trip that year[1]. The story lit up on January 10, 2017, when CNN reported that both President Obama and President-elect Trump had received a classified briefing on the memo, delivered by the four senior-most US intelligence chiefs including FBI Director James Comey and CIA Director John Brennan[1]. BuzzFeed News published the full unverified dossier roughly an hour later so readers could judge the claims for themselves[2]. The FBI was still investigating the credibility of the memos at that point, and BuzzFeed acknowledged the document contained clear errors, including a misspelling of the Russian conglomerate Alfa Group as 'Alpha Group' throughout[2]. ## How It Spread BuzzFeed's post drew more than 1.3 million views inside three hours, and Twitter reactors piled in with the hashtags #PissGate, #goldenshowers, and #PEEOTUS while a dedicated /r/PissGate subreddit went up the same day[4]. On 4chan's /pol/ and Reddit's /r/The_Donald, users passed around fake 'highlighted' scans of the dossier stuffed with joke accusations, and an alternative theory took hold that the golden showers passage had been planted as a hoax by Anonymous pranksters through Republican strategist Rick Wilson, who publicly denied the story on Twitter[4]. Trump's own reaction came the same night in an all-caps tweet reading 'Fake news, a total political witch hunt!' that pulled 72,000 likes and 25,000 retweets within a day[4]. His attorney Michael Cohen tweeted 'I have never been to Prague in my life' to deny a separate claim in the memo, which other Twitter users mocked by posting photos of random objects paired with denials of visiting Prague. At a January 11 press conference, Trump called the allegations 'false' and 'fake news,' branded BuzzFeed a 'steaming pile of garbage,' and refused a question from a CNN reporter[2]. The story stayed live well into 2018. On January 9, 2018, Senator Dianne Feinstein released the full transcript of Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson's Senate Judiciary Committee testimony after Republicans issued a criminal referral against Steele, and Twitter users seized on Simpson's discussion of possible Russian blackmail as backing for the tape being real[5]. Michael Cohen filed a defamation lawsuit against BuzzFeed, Fusion GPS, and Simpson that same day[2]. In April 2018, an excerpt from Comey's book 'A Higher Loyalty' revealed that Trump had personally asked Comey to investigate the pee-tape claim, telling him he was a 'germaphobe' and that 'there's no way I would let people pee on each other around me, no way'[6]. ## How to Use Pissgate posts typically pair the 'golden showers' framing with existing Trump reaction formats: joke edits of dossier pages with fake highlighted lines, sparkling Twitter graphics, or Trump staring reaction shots. The Michael Cohen 'I have never been to Prague in my life' tweet became its own template, with users posting photos of objects and denying visits to Prague, Barcelona, and other places[4]. #PEEOTUS is common shorthand any time Trump-Russia coverage flares back up[4]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Pissgate The Pee Tape? An unverified allegation from a 2017 dossier claiming Trump paid Russian prostitutes to urinate on a Moscow hotel bed once used by Barack Obama, which spawned a wave of hashtag jokes on Twitter and Reddit[1]. ### Where did Pissgate The Pee Tape come from? CNN reported on January 10, 2017 that Obama and Trump had been briefed on the memo, and BuzzFeed News published the full 25-page dossier the same evening[2]. ### What does Pissgate The Pee Tape mean? It refers to the specific 'golden showers' passage inside the wider Steele dossier alleging Russian kompromat on Trump, not to the whole document[1]. ### How do you use Pissgate The Pee Tape? Users typically tag Trump-Russia posts with #PEEOTUS or riff on the Cohen 'I have never been to Prague in my life' template with random objects[4]. ### Is Pissgate The Pee Tape still popular? It faded as a live meme after the initial 2017-2018 news cycle but is still referenced whenever Trump-Russia stories resurface[6]. ### Who wrote the dossier? Christopher Steele, a former British MI6 officer whose prior work US intelligence had rated as credible[1]. ### Who funded the research behind the dossier? It was commissioned through Fusion GPS, first for anti-Trump Republicans and later for the DNC and Hillary Clinton campaign[3]. ### Did BuzzFeed publish the whole dossier? Yes, BuzzFeed News uploaded the full 25-page document on January 10, 2017, and editor Ben Smith defended the call as letting readers judge for themselves[2]. ### How did Trump respond? He called it 'fake news' in an all-caps tweet, blasted BuzzFeed as a 'steaming pile of garbage' at a press conference the next day, and refused a CNN question[2]. ### What did Comey say about the pee tape? In his book 'A Higher Loyalty,' Comey wrote that Trump personally asked him to investigate the allegation and cited being a 'germaphobe' as proof it could not be true[6]. ### What did Glenn Simpson's Senate testimony say? Senator Dianne Feinstein released the full transcript on January 9, 2018, and it included Fusion GPS lawyer Joshua Levy telling the committee that someone died as a result of the dossier work, without naming the person[5]. ## References 1. [https://www.cnn.com/2017/01/10/politics/donald-trump-intelligence-report-russia/index.html]() 2. [https://www.buzzfeed.com/kenbensinger/these-reports-allege-trump-has-deep-ties-to-russia]() 3. [https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/veteran-spy-gave-fbi-info-alleging-russian-operation-cultivate-donald-trump]() 4. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/pissgate-the-pee-tape]() 5. [https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/09/sen-dianne-feinstein-unilaterally-releases-fusion-gps-testimony.html]() 6. [https://nypost.com/2018/04/12/comey-trump-asked-me-to-investigate-pee-tape-to-reassure-melania/]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/pissgate-the-pee-tape Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library