That’s where the Trump dossier story stands today. No one has proved that the most serious allegations are true. But since no one has proved them false, either, some in the political class act as if they were true.

What is still unclear is how much effort the FBI and U.S. intelligence agencies put into trying to prove the dossier’s allegations. Fired FBI Director James Comey noted in his January 28, 2017 memo that Trump asked that the FBI investigate the dossier’s so-called “golden showers” allegation – the charge that Trump watched as prostitutes performed a kinky sex show in a Moscow hotel room in 2013. Comey, by his own account, demurred.

“I replied that it was up to him,” Comey wrote, “but I wouldn’t want to create a narrative that we were investigating him, because we are not and I worried such a thing would be misconstrued. I also said that it is very difficult to disprove a lie.”

In an interview with ABC News, Comey repeated the story and added, “It’s very difficult to prove something didn’t happen.”