First, Isikoff and Corn suggest, without saying so explicitly, that the available circumstantial evidence makes the “golden showers” story very unlikely. Reconstructing Trump’s time in Moscow for the 2013 Miss Universe Pageant, Isikoff and Corn report that Trump stayed just one night in Moscow. (Trump did in fact stay in the Ritz Carlton presidential suite where Obama had been a few years earlier.) After arriving in Moscow, Trump attended a brief meeting at the hotel and then left for a day of meetings elsewhere.

That night, an “exhausted” Trump went to a party at which he agreed to take part in a video shoot the next morning between 7:45 a.m. and 8:10 a.m. Trump then left the party at 1:30 a.m. “This would be his only night in Moscow,” Isikoff and Corn write. Trump went to his room, where, according to aide Keith Schiller, Schiller stood guard outside for a while before leaving. The next morning, Isikoff and Corn write, Trump showed up for the video shoot and started another long day. The pageant was that night, followed by another party, after which Trump went to the airport for a private flight back to the U.S.

The schedule did not leave a lot of time for kompromat.