>Or are you trying to argue that evidence of possible Russian influence over one candidate, by its very existence, is evidence that they don't have influence over that candidate?

No. It's possible evidence - some of it is verifiable while other parts are simply allegations.

Can you prove that the part in the dossier about the hotel orgy was not a disinformation campaign used on western intelligence?

Has any part of the dossier been proven false? Not so far as I know. Has any part of the dossier been proven true? Yes.

^^ Comments like this continue to be stunning in how easily someone can toss out basic critical reasoning like knowing where the burden of proof lies when it comes to politics.

My mental framework to study this issue is equally simple, just a single question:

Is President Trump the type of dude that would be into golden showers?

If I claim MaysonL wore a blue shirt when this comment was made on HN, odds are that nobody can prove my claim is 100% false, and yet part of my claim is proven true, because here you are, and therefore all must believe me.

This is your logic.

I'm pretty sure the Steele dossier was not made public until Jan. 10, 2017 (i.e. after the election):

https://www.buzzfeed.com/kenbensinger/these-reports-allege-t...

Steele was shopping it around to media outlets extensively before the election, and Mother Jones reported on it on October 31, 2016:

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/veteran-spy-gav...

Furthermore it was raw intelligence not meant for public consumption.

But wasn’t the Steele dossier used to get a FISA warrant to spy on the campaign, after the original request was denied?

Politicizing the intelligence apparatus would be highly disturbing, even moreso than when the Obama administration apparently used the IRS to target political opponents [1] like the tea party.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRS_targeting_controversy

Upvoted. I hope your comment does not get flagged like mine have been.