The alleged Stormy Daniels affair is playing like a Gennifer Flowers re-run from the Bill Clinton William (Bill) Jefferson ClintonBattle lines drawn on precedent in Supreme Court fight Sunday shows - Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death dominates Bill Clinton on GOP push to fill Ginsburg vacancy: Trump, McConnell 'first value is power' MORE era in which a seamy (and steamy) past comes back to haunt a sitting president. But its true significance is that the porn star, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, demonstrated just how easily this president could potentially be sexually blackmailed.

As a result, the allegations in the dossier compiled by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele that the Russians used prostitutes to compromise President Trump Donald John TrumpBiden leads Trump by 36 points nationally among Latinos: poll Trump dismisses climate change role in fires, says Newsom needs to manage forest better Jimmy Kimmel hits Trump for rallies while hosting Emmy Awards MORE while he was in Moscow in 2013 appear more plausible.

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According to the complaint Daniels recently filed against Trump, she had an “intimate relationship” with Trump in 2006 and 2007 that included at least one “meeting” with Trump in a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel in Los Angeles. When the “Access Hollywood” tape emerged just weeks before Election Day in 2016, Daniels decided to disclose the affair. Trump and his campaign then sought to silence her with money.

Attorneys for Daniels and Trump drew up a nondisclosure agreement that provided for a $130,000 payment to Daniels in return for her silence. The payment was made by Trump’s attorney Michael D. Cohen from his home equity line but Trump never signed the agreement. Significantly, the agreement identified “certain still images,” presumably photographs, in Daniels’ possession that she agreed to transfer to Trump. The lawsuit describes the payment as “hush” money.

In 2016, Steele and his company, Orbis Business Intelligence, did opposition research on then-candidate Trump. Orbis was acting as a subcontractor to Fusion GPS, a private research firm in Washington, D.C., which itself had been contracted by a law firm representing both the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. Steele, who had been stationed in Russia as an intelligence agent and had extensive contacts there, prepared a dossier suggesting that the Kremlin had colluded with Trump to help him win the 2016 presidential election.

One of the allegations was that the FSB, the successor to the KGB, had compromising materials that could be used to blackmail Trump. Purportedly, the materials, in the form of videos, showed Trump with prostitutes in the presidential suite of Moscow’s Ritz-Carlton hotel in 2013. The dossier cited four sources — none were eyewitnesses — including a former high level Russian intelligence officer, two staffers at the hotel, and a Trump associate who had organized and managed his recent trips to Moscow.

Trump dismissed the claim as false. He contended that he would never have engaged in such conduct because it was well known that foreign hotel rooms are bugged and added that the allegations were repugnant to him.

But if Daniels could possibly maneuver Trump into a position where he had to pay "hush" money through a lawyer and use disguised names in a nondisclosure agreement, then it's certainly plausible that the Russians could similarly try to compromise Trump for alleged (but still unsubstantiated) actions in Moscow.

Sexual blackmail has long been a tool in the Russian espionage arsenal. In 1997, Vladimir Putin, then head of the FSB, ran a sex sting operation that destroyed the career of the Russian prosecutor general, which paved the way for Putin’s ascent. Trump, willing to denigrate just about any world leader, has been eerily deferential to Putin.

If, in fact, Trump was compromised by the Russians in 2013, it would explain a lot.

Gregory J. Wallance was a federal prosecutor during the Carter and Reagan administrations. He is the author of “The Woman Who Fought An Empire: Sarah Aaronsohn and Her Nili Spy Ring.” Follow him on Twitter at @gregorywallance.