Trump–Russia dossier

The Trump–Russia dossier, also known as the Steele dossier,[1] is a private intelligence report comprising memos written between June and December 2016 by Christopher Steele,[2] a former head of the Russia Desk for British intelligence (MI6). The resulting dossier contains allegations of misconduct and conspiracy between Donald Trump's presidential campaign and the Government of Russia during the 2016 election, with campaign members and Russian operatives allegedly colluding to interfere in the election to benefit Trump.[3] It also alleged that Russia sought to damage Hillary Clinton's candidacy, including sharing negative information about Clinton with the Trump campaign.[4] The dossier was published in full by BuzzFeed on January 10, 2017.[5] Several mainstream media outlets criticized BuzzFeed's decision to release it without verifying its allegations.[6][7]

In October 2015, private investigative firm Fusion GPS was contracted by conservative political website The Washington Free Beacon to provide political opposition research against Trump. In April 2016, attorney Marc Elias separately hired Fusion GPS to investigate Trump on behalf of Hillary Clinton's campaign and the DNC. The Free Beacon stopped their backing when Trump became the presumptive Republican Party presidential nominee.[2] In June 2016, Fusion GPS subcontracted Steele's firm to compile the dossier. His instructions were to seek answers to why Trump would "repeatedly seek to do deals in a notoriously corrupt police state".[8] Clinton campaign officials were reportedly unaware that Fusion GPS had subcontracted Steele, and he was not told the Clinton campaign was the recipient of his research.[9][10] Following Trump's election as president, funding from Clinton and the DNC ceased, but Steele continued his research and was reportedly paid directly by Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn R. Simpson.[11] The completed dossier was then handed to British and American intelligence services.[12]

The media, the intelligence community, and most experts have treated the dossier with caution due to its unverified assertions, while Trump has denounced the report as fake news.[13] However, the intelligence community takes the allegations seriously and is investigating them.[14][15][16][17]

In May 2018, former career intelligence officer James Clapper stated that "more and more" of the dossier had been validated over time.[18] Overall, while some allegations of the dossier have been corroborated,[19] others remain unverified.[20] Some may require access to classified information for verification.[21][22]

History

The opposition research conducted by Fusion GPS on Donald Trump was completed in two phases with separate funders. The first research phase, from October 2015 to May 2016, was funded by The Washington Free Beacon. The second phase, from June 2016 to December 2016, was separate from the Washington Free Beacon request and was funded by the DNC and the Clinton campaign. Only the second phase produced the dossier.[23][24]

Research funded by conservative website

In October 2015, before the official start of the 2016 Republican primary campaign, The Washington Free Beacon, an American conservative political journalism website primarily funded by Republican donor Paul Singer, hired the American research firm Fusion GPS to conduct general opposition research on Trump and other Republican presidential candidates.[1] The Free Beacon and Singer were "part of the conservative never-Trump movement".[25] For months, Fusion GPS gathered information about Trump, focusing on his business and entertainment activities. When Trump became the presumptive nominee on May 3, 2016,[26] The Free Beacon stopped funding research on him.[2][27][28]

In October 2017, the Free Beacon issued a statement:

"All of the work that Fusion GPS provided to the Free Beacon was based on public sources, and none of the work product that the Free Beacon received appears in the Steele dossier. The Free Beacon had no knowledge of or connection to the Steele dossier, did not pay for the dossier, and never had contact with, knowledge of, or provided payment for any work performed by Christopher Steele. Nor did we have any knowledge of the relationship between Fusion GPS and the Democratic National Committee, Perkins Coie, and the Clinton campaign."[29]

Although the source of the Steele dossier's funding had already been reported correctly over a year before,[2][27][28] and alluded to by the Free Beacon in October 2017,[29] a February 2, 2018 story by the Associated Press (AP) contributed to confusion about its funding by stating that the dossier "was initially funded" by the Washington Free Beacon, so the AP posted a correction the next day: "Though the former spy, Christopher Steele, was hired by a firm that was initially funded by the Washington Free Beacon, he did not begin work on the project until after Democratic groups had begun funding it."[30]

Research funded by Democrats produces dossier

The second phase of opposition research was funded by the DNC and the Clinton campaign, working through their attorney of record, Marc Elias of Perkins Coie.[9] In March 2016, Fusion GPS "approached Perkins Coie to see if its clients would be interested in paying Fusion" to continue its existing research on Trump,[31] and in April 2016, Elias hired Fusion GPS to perform opposition research on Trump.[9][31]

As part of their investigation, Fusion GPS hired Orbis Business Intelligence, a private British intelligence firm, to look into connections between Trump and Russia. Orbis co-founder Christopher Steele, a retired British MI6 officer with expertise in Russian matters,[2] was hired as a subcontractor to do the job.[32] In total, Perkins Coie paid Fusion GPS $1.02 million in fees and expenses, $168,000 of which was paid to Orbis by Fusion GPS and used by them to produce the dossier.[33] The DNC and Clinton campaign disclosed the total amount paid to Perkins Coie on campaign finance reports.[34]

Orbis was hired between June and November 2016, and Steele produced 16 memos during that time, with a 17th memo added in December.[35] The memos were like "prepublication notes" based on reports from Steele's sources, and were not released as a fully vetted and "finished news article".[36] Steele believes that 70–90% of the dossier is accurate,[37] a view that is shared by Simpson.[36]

Simpson has stated that, to his knowledge, Steele did not pay any of his sources.[38][8][39] According to investigative reporter Jane Mayer of The New Yorker, Orbis has a large number of paid "collectors" who "harvest intelligence from a much larger network of unpaid sources, some of whom don't even realize they are being treated as informants […] but money doesn't change hands, because it could risk violating laws against, say, bribing government officials or insider trading. Paying sources might also encourage them to embellish."[10] According to British journalist Luke Harding, Steele's sources were not new: "They're not people that he kind of discovered yesterday. They are trusted contacts who essentially had proven themselves in other areas."[40] Howard Blum said that Steele leaned on sources "whose loyalty and information he had bought and paid for over the years".[41]

Steele delivered his reports individually to Fusion GPS as one- to three-page memos.[2] The first memo, dated June 20, 2016, was sent to Washington by courier and hand-delivered to Fusion GPS. The names of the sources were redacted, "providing instead descriptions of them that enabled Fusion to assess their basic credibility."[10]

Luke Harding wrote:

"At first, obtaining intelligence from Moscow went well. For around six months – during the first half of the year – Steele was able to make inquiries in Russia with relative ease. It got harder from late July, as Trump's ties to Russia came under scrutiny. Finally, the lights went out. Amid a Kremlin cover-up, the sources went silent and information channels shut down."[42]

Steele has stated that he soon found "troubling information indicating connections between Trump and the Russian government." According to his sources, "there was an established exchange of information between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin of mutual benefit."[43] According to Harding, "Steele was shocked by the extent of collusion his sources were reporting," and told his friends: "For anyone who reads it, this is a life-changing experience."[37] Steele felt that what he had unearthed "was something of huge significance, way above party politics."[41] American reporter Howard Blum described Steele's rationale for becoming a whistleblower: "The greater good trumps all other concerns."[41]

On his own initiative, Steele decided to also pass the information to British and American intelligence services because he believed the findings were a matter of national security for both countries.[44][45] According to Simpson's testimony, Steele approached the FBI because he was concerned that Trump, then a candidate, was being blackmailed by Russia,[46] and he became "very concerned about whether this represented a national security threat".[44] When Steele showed his findings to FBI agents in Rome in early July, their reaction was "shock and horror".[46][47] Jane Mayer reports that the FBI agents "asked Steele about Papadopoulos, and he [Steele] said that he hadn't heard anything about him."[10]

Nancy LeTourneau, political writer for the Washington Monthly, said that, according to ABC News,[48] in July 2016, as Steele was compiling the dossier, he sent what he had to "an FBI contact in Rome, who passed it on to an agent in the FBI's New York field office. It sat there until mid-September, when it was finally sent to the counterintelligence team investigating Russia at FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C." She wrote that "while the Steele dossier was languishing in the FBI's New York field office" for two months, according to The Washington Post, CIA Director John Brennan had started an investigation with a secret task force "composed of several dozen analysts and officers from the CIA, the NSA and the FBI". At the same time, he was busy creating his own dossier of material documenting that "Russia was not only attempting to interfere in the 2016 election, they were doing so in order to elect Donald Trump ... [T]he entire intelligence community was on alert about this situation at least two months before [the dossier] became part of the investigation." She also said that the "Steele dossier has so far proven to be fairly accurate".[49]

Steele enjoyed a good working reputation "for the knowledge he had developed over nearly 20 years working on Russia-related issues for British intelligence."[50] Knowing this, in October 2016, a few weeks before the election, the FBI agreed to pay him to continue collecting information. However, the subsequent public release of the dossier stopped discussions between Steele and the FBI.[50] Simpson testified that "Steele wasn't paid by the FBI, but was possibly reimbursed for a trip to Rome to meet with FBI officials."[28][51] According to Mayer, Steele "did request compensation for travelling to Rome, but he never received any."[10]

Simpson later said that "Steele severed his contacts with [the] FBI before the election following public statements by the FBI that it had found no connection between the Trump campaign and Russia and concerns that [the FBI] was being 'manipulated for political ends by the Trump people'."[52] Steele had become frustrated with the FBI, whom he believed failed to investigate his reports, choosing instead to focus on the investigation into Clinton's emails. According to The Independent, Steele came to believe that there was a "cabal" inside the FBI, particularly its New York field office linked to Trump advisor Rudy Giuliani, because it blocked any attempts to investigate the links between Trump and Russia.[45]

What the DNC, Clinton campaign, and Steele knew

According to Fusion GPS's co-owners, Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch, they did not tell Steele who their ultimate clients were, only that Steele was "working for a law firm",[10] and they "gave him no specific marching orders beyond this basic question: 'Why did Mr. Trump repeatedly seek to do deals in a notoriously corrupt police state that most serious investors shun?'"[8]

Jane Mayer reported that when the Clinton campaign "indirectly employed" Steele, Elias created a "legal barrier" by acting "as a firewall" between the campaign and Steele. Thus, any details were "protected by attorney-client privilege. Fusion briefed only Elias on the reports. Simpson sent Elias nothing on paper—he was briefed orally."[10] Only several months after signing the contract with Fusion GPS did Steele learn that the DNC and the Clinton campaign were the ultimate clients.[10]

A spokesperson for the DNC stated that neither Tom Perez nor "the new leadership of the DNC were... involved in any decision-making regarding Fusion GPS, nor were they aware that Perkins Coie was working with the organization."[31] A spokesperson for Perkins Coie stated that the campaign and the DNC were unaware that Fusion GPS "had been hired to conduct the research".[53] The Washington Post reported that it is not clear how much of the research Elias received from Fusion GPS he shared with the campaign and the DNC. It is also not clear who in those organizations knew about the roles of Fusion GPS and Steele, but one person "close to the matter" said the organizations were "not informed by the law firm of Fusion GPS's role".[9] The New York Times revealed that earlier in 2017, "Mr. Elias had denied that he had possessed the dossier before the election".[53][31]

The firewall was reportedly so effective that even campaign principals John Podesta and Robby Mook did not know that Steele was on the Democratic payroll until Mother Jones reported on the issue on October 31, 2016.[10] When the Mother Jones story broke, John Podesta, chairman of the Clinton campaign, said he was "stunned by the news that the FBI had launched a full-blown investigation into Trump, especially one that was informed by research underwritten by the Clinton campaign." Although they knew that Perkins Coie had spent money for opposition research, neither Podesta nor campaign manager Robby Mook knew that Steele was on the Democratic payroll. Mayer said they both maintain they "didn't read the dossier until BuzzFeed posted it online.[10] She has also stated that "the Clinton campaign never learned that Christopher Steele was on their payroll until it [the dossier] was in the press."[54] Far from a secret campaign weapon, Steele turned out to be a secret kept from the campaign."[10]

Hints of existence

Jane Mayer has described how, in "late summer, Fusion set up a series of meetings, at the Tabard Inn, in Washington, between Steele and a handful of national-security reporters.... Despite Steele's generally cool manner, he seemed distraught about the Russians' role in the election." Mayer attended one of the meetings. No news organizations ran any stories about the allegations at that time.[10]

Mother Jones story

By the third quarter of 2016, many news organizations knew about the existence of the dossier, which had been described as an "open secret" among journalists. However, they chose not to publish information that could not be confirmed.[2][55]

By October 2016, Steele had compiled 33 pages (16 memos), and he then passed on what he had discovered to David Corn, a reporter from Mother Jones magazine. On October 31, 2016, a week before the election, Mother Jones reported that a former intelligence officer, whom they did not name, had produced a report based on Russian sources and turned it over to the FBI.[43] The article disclosed some of the dossier's allegations:

"The first memo, based on the former intelligence officer's conversations with Russian sources, noted, "Russian regime has been cultivating, supporting and assisting TRUMP for at least 5 years. Aim, endorsed by PUTIN, has been to encourage splits and divisions in western alliance". It maintained that Trump "and his inner circle have accepted a regular flow of intelligence from the Kremlin, including on his Democratic and other political rivals". It claimed that Russian intelligence had "compromised" Trump during his visits to Moscow and could "blackmail him". It also reported that Russian intelligence had compiled a dossier on Hillary Clinton based on "bugged conversations she had on various visits to Russia and intercepted phone calls."

— David Corn, "A Veteran Spy Has Given the FBI Information Alleging a Russian Operation to Cultivate Donald Trump", Mother Jones (October 31, 2016)[43]

Post-election events

After Trump's election on November 8, 2016, the Democratic client stopped paying for the investigation, but Steele continued working on the dossier for Fusion GPS.[2] At that time, Simpson "reportedly spent his own money to continue the investigation".[11] After the election, Steele's dossier "became one of Washington's worst-kept secrets, and journalists worked to verify the allegations.[2]

On November 18, 2016, U.S. Senator John McCain, who had been informed about the alleged links between the Kremlin and Trump, met with former British ambassador to Moscow Sir Andrew Wood at the Halifax International Security Forum in Canada. Wood told McCain about the existence of the collected materials about Trump,[56] and also vouched for Steele's professionalism and integrity.[57]

According to Simpson's August 22, 2017, testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Steele and David J. Kramer, a longtime McCain aide and former U.S. State Department official working at Arizona State University, met each other at the Halifax forum and discussed the dossier. Kramer told Steele that McCain wanted to "ask questions about it at the FBI. ... All we sort of wanted was for the government to do its job and we were concerned about whether the information that we provided previously had ever, you know, risen to the leadership level of the FBI." Later, "Kramer followed up with Steele".[58] Steele had agreed with Fusion GPS to deliver a hard copy of all 16 memos to McCain,[35] which McCain received in early December from Kramer.[2] On December 9, McCain met personally with FBI Director James Comey to pass on the information.[56][23][59] Comey later confirmed that counterintelligence investigations were under way into possible links between Trump associates and Moscow.[35]

After delivering his 16 memos, Steele received more information and composed the two-page "December memo", dated December 13. It mostly contained allegations against Trump's personal attorney, Michael Cohen, which he denied.[60][61] In an April 2017 court filing, Steele revealed previously unreported information that he had given a copy of his last memo to a "senior UK government national security official acting in his official capacity, on a confidential basis in hard copy form", because it "had implications for the national security of the US and the UK".[35] Steele also "sent an encrypted version to Fusion with instructions to deliver a hard copy to Senator McCain."[35]

Publication by BuzzFeed

In early January 2017, President-elect Trump[62] and President Barack Obama were separately briefed about the Russian interference in the election and on the existence of the dossier by the chiefs of several U.S. intelligence agencies. Vice President Joe Biden has confirmed that he and the president received briefings on the dossier and the allegations within.[63][64][65]

After the meeting with Obama, Trump was informed of the Russian election interference by Comey and Clapper on January 6, 2017, at a meeting in Trump Tower. After this meeting, Comey stayed behind and spoke privately with Trump, informing him of the dossier and some of its allegations.[66] Trump later expressed that he felt that James Comey was trying to blackmail him at the meeting in Trump Tower, held two weeks before the inauguration.[62] In April 2018, Comey said he did not inform Trump that the dossier was partly funded by Democrats because that "wasn't necessary for my goal, which was to alert him that we had this information."[67][68]

On January 10, 2017, CNN reported that classified documents presented to Obama and Trump the previous week included allegations that Russian operatives possess "compromising personal and financial information" about Trump. CNN stated that it would not publish specific details on the memos because it had not "independently corroborated the specific allegations."[69][70] Following the CNN report,[71] BuzzFeed published a 35-page dossier that it said was the basis of the briefing, including unverified claims that Russian operatives had collected "embarrassing material" involving Trump that could be used to blackmail him.[72][73][74]

BuzzFeed was harshly criticized for publishing what Washington Post columnist Margaret Sullivan called "scurrilous allegations dressed up as an intelligence report meant to damage Donald Trump,"[75] while The New York Times noted that the publication sparked a debate centering on the use of unsubstantiated information from anonymous sources.[76] BuzzFeed's executive staff said the materials were newsworthy because they were "in wide circulation at the highest levels of American government and media" and argued that this justified public release.[77]

In relation to a defamation lawsuit filed by Aleksej Gubarev against BuzzFeed, regarding their publication of the dossier, Senior Master Barbara Fontaine stated that Steele was "in many respects in the same position as a whistle-blower" because of his actions "in sending part of the dossier to Senator John McCain and a senior government national security official, and in briefing sections of the US media." She said that "it was not known who provided the dossier to BuzzFeed but Mr Steele's evidence was that he was 'horrified and remains horrified' that it was published at all, let alone without substantial redactions."[78] Both Simpson and Steele have denied providing the dossier to BuzzFeed.[79]

Format

When BuzzFeed published the 35-page dossier in January 2017, the individual memos were one- to three-pages long and page numbers 1-35 had been handwritten at the bottom. All but one had a typed date at the bottom. Each of the first 16 reports was assigned a typed number in the heading between 80 and 135, but the numeric order didn't always match the chronological order. The 17th memo, known as the "December memo", was numbered 166.[80] Of the original reports numbered 1-166, only certain reports were used for the dossier, and it is unknown what happened with the content of the other reports: "For example, the first report is labeled as '080,' with no indication given as to where the original 79 antecedents might have gone. The second report is then labeled '086,' creating yet another mystery as to 81 through 85, and what content they might contain that would otherwise bolster or contextualize what came before or what follows."[81]

Each memo started with a page heading in the same style as the first one shown here:

CONFIDENTIAL/SENSITIVE SOURCE

COMPANY INTELLIGENCE REPORT 2016/080

US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE DONALD TRUMP'S
ACTIVITIES IN RUSSIA AND COMPROMISING RELATIONSHIP WITH THE
KREMLIN[42]

Authorship

When CNN reported the existence of the dossier on January 10, 2017,[69][82] it did not name the author of the dossier, but revealed that he was British. Steele concluded that his anonymity had been "fatally compromised", and, realizing it was "only a matter of time until his name became public knowledge", fled into hiding with his family, in fear of "a prompt and potentially dangerous backlash against him from Moscow".[83][84] The Wall Street Journal revealed Steele's name the next day, on January 11.[85] Orbis Business Intelligence Ltd, for whom Steele worked at the time the dossier was authored, and its director Christopher Burrows, a counterterrorism specialist,[25] would not confirm or deny that Orbis had produced the dossier.[82][2] On March 7, 2017, as some members of the U.S. Congress were expressing interest in meeting with or hearing testimony from Steele, he reemerged after weeks in hiding, appearing publicly on camera and stating, "I'm really pleased to be back here working again at the Orbis's offices in London today."[86]

Called by the media a "highly regarded Kremlin expert" and "one of MI6's greatest Russia specialists", Steele formerly worked for the British intelligence agency MI6, heading its Russia Desk for three years at the end of his MI6 career. He entered MI6 in 1987, directly after his graduation from Cambridge University.[87] He currently works for Orbis Business Intelligence Ltd, a private intelligence company he co-founded in London.[88][89]

Wood, the former British ambassador to Moscow, has vouched for Steele's reputation.[45] He views Steele as a "very competent professional operator ... I take the report seriously. I don't think it's totally implausible." He also stated that "the report's key allegation—that Trump and Russia's leadership were communicating via secret back channels during the presidential campaign—was eminently plausible".[90] FBI investigators reportedly treat Steele "as a peer", whose experience as a trusted Russia expert has included assisting the Justice Department, British prime ministers, and at least one U.S. president.[91]

Allegations

President Donald Trump meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin at Helsinki, Finland on July 16, 2018
Michael Cohen (2011)
Carter Page (2017)

The dossier contains multiple allegations, some of which have been publicly verified,[19] others unverified,[20] but, according to James Clapper and Shepard Smith, none have been disproven,[92] with Smith stating: "None of the dossier, to Fox News's knowledge, has been disproven."[93] In some cases, public verification is hindered because information is classified.[21][22]

According to Adam Schiff, a major portion of the dossier's content is about Russian efforts to help Trump, and those allegations "turned out to be true".[94]

Trump and Putin have repeatedly denied the allegations, and Trump has labeled the dossier "discredited", "debunked", "fictitious", and "fake news".[95][96] David A. Graham has noted that in spite of Trump's "mantra that 'there was no collusion'... it is clear that the Trump campaign and later transition were eager to work with Russia, and to keep that secret."[97]

Cultivation, conspiracy, and cooperation

  • That "Russian authorities" had cultivated Trump "for at least 5 years", and that the operation was "supported and directed" by Putin.[42][98] (Dossier, p. 1)
  • That Putin aimed to spread "discord and disunity" within the United States and between Western allies, whom he saw as a threat to Russia's interests.[44][99] (Dossier, pp. 1–2)
  • That Trump was a "divisive" and "anti-Establishment" candidate, as well as "a pragmatist with whom they could do business". That Trump would remain a divisive force even if not elected.[100][101] (Dossier, p. 29)
  • That a major goal of the Russians in supporting Trump was "to upset the liberal international status quo, including on Ukraine-related sanctions, which was seriously disadvantaging the country.[100][101] (Dossier, pp. 28–29)
  • That the Russian government's support for Trump was originally conducted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, then by the Federal Security Service (FSB), and was eventually directly handled by the Russian presidency because of its "growing significance over time."[100][3] (Dossier, p. 29)
  • That Trump had "so far declined various sweetener real estate business deals", but had "accepted a regular flow of intelligence from the Kremlin," notably on his political rivals.[23][102] (Dossier, p. 1)
  • That there was "a well-developed conspiracy of co-operation between [the Trump campaign] and the Russian leadership," with information willingly exchanged in both directions. That this co-operation was "sanctioned at highest levels and involving Russian diplomatic staff based in the US." That the Trump campaign used "moles within DNC and hackers in the US as well as outside in Russia."[103][104] (Dossier, p. 7)
  • That Trump associates had established "an intelligence exchange [with the Kremlin] for at least 8 years." That Trump and his team had delivered "intelligence on the activities, business and otherwise, in the US of leading Russian oligarchs and their families", as requested by Putin.[100][105][101] (Dossier, p. 11)
  • That the Trump camp became angry and resentful toward Putin when they realized he was not only aiming to weaken Clinton and bolster Trump, but was attempting to "undermine the US government and democratic system more generally."[101] (Dossier, p. 17)

Key roles of Manafort, Cohen, and Page

  • That then-Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort had "managed" the "conspiracy of co-operation", and that he used Trump's foreign policy adviser, Carter Page, and others, "as intermediaries".[106][107] (Dossier, p. 7)
  • That Page had "conceived and promoted" the idea of leaking the stolen DNC emails to WikiLeaks during the 2016 Democratic National Convention.[108][99] (Dossier, pp. 7, 17)
  • That Cohen played a "key role" in the Trump–Russia relationship[3] by maintaining a "covert relationship with Russia",[109][110][111] arranging cover-ups and "deniable cash payments",[60][35] and that his role had grown after Manafort had left the campaign.[112][108] (Dossier, pp. 18, 30, 32, 34–35)
  • That "COHEN now was heavily engaged in a cover up and damage limitation operation in the attempt to prevent the full details of TRUMP's relationship with Russia being exposed."[108][101] (Dossier, p. 32)

Kremlin pro-Trump and anti-Clinton

  • That Putin feared and hated Hillary Clinton.[106][113] (Dossier, p. 7)
  • That there was a "Kremlin campaign to aid TRUMP and damage CLINTON".[103][104] (Dossier, pp. 7, 13)
  • That Putin's interference operation had an "objective of weakening CLINTON and bolstering TRUMP".[101] (Dossier, p. 17)

Kompromat and blackmail: Trump

  • That Trump "hated" Obama so much that when he stayed in the Presidential suite of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Moscow,[10][114] he employed "a number of prostitutes to perform a 'golden showers' (urination) show in front of him"[98][72][115] in order to defile the bed used by the Obamas on an earlier visit. The alleged incident from 2013 was reportedly filmed and recorded by the FSB[116] as kompromat.[117][118][119] (Dossier, p. 2)
  • That Trump was susceptible to blackmail[41][100] due to paying bribes and the existence of "embarrassing material" due to engagement in "perverted sexual acts" and "unorthodox behavior" in Russia,[120][72][116] "enough embarrassing material...to be able to blackmail him if they so wished."[120][72][116][121] (Dossier, pp. 1–2, 8, 11, 27)
  • That the Kremlin had promised Trump they would not use the kompromat collected against him "as leverage, given high levels of voluntary co-operation forthcoming from his team."[100][122] (Dossier, pp. 11–12)
  • That Trump had explored the real estate sectors in St Petersburg and Moscow, "but in the end TRUMP had had to settle for the use of extensive sexual services there from local prostitutes rather than business success".[118][117] (Dossier, p. 8)
  • That Trump has pursued real estate deals in St Petersburg, and "paid bribes there to further his interests". That witnesses to his "sex parties in the city" had been "'silenced' i.e. bribed or coerced to disappear."[118][117] (Dossier, p. 27)
  • That Trump associates did not fear "the negative media publicity surrounding alleged Russian interference", because it distracted attention from his "business dealings in China and other emerging markets", which involved "large bribes and kickbacks" that could be devastating if revealed.[123][40] (Dossier, p. 8)

Kompromat: Clinton

Dmitry Peskov (2017)
  • That Putin ordered the maintenance of a secret dossier on Hillary Clinton, with content dating back to the time of her husband's presidency. The dossier comprised eavesdropped conversations, either from bugging devices or from phone intercepts; it did not contain "details/evidence of unorthodox or embarrassing behavior", but focused more on "things she had said which contradicted her current positions on various issues".[100][43] (Dossier, pp. 1, 3)
  • That the Clinton dossier had been collated by the FSB[100][43] and was managed by Dmitry Peskov, Putin's press secretary.[116][44] (Dossier, pp. 1, 3)

DNC email hack, leaks, and misinformation

  • That Russia was responsible for the DNC email hacks[100][124] and the recent appearance of the stolen DNC e-mails on WikiLeaks,[100][125] and that the reason for using WikiLeaks was "plausible deniability".[126] (Dossier, pp. 7–8)
  • That "the operation had been conducted with the full knowledge and support of TRUMP and senior members of his campaign team."[3][126] (Dossier, p. 8)
  • That after the emails had been forwarded to WikiLeaks, it was decided to not leak more, but to engage in misinformation: "Rather the tactics would be to spread rumours and misinformation about the content of what already had been leaked and make up new content."[107] (Dossier, p. 15)
  • That Page had intended the email leaks "to swing supporters of Bernie SANDERS away from Hillary CLINTON and across to TRUMP."[108][113] (Dossier, p. 17)
  • That the hacking of the DNC servers was performed by Romanian hackers ultimately controlled by Putin and paid by both Trump and Putin.[60][35] (Dossier, pp. 34–35)
  • That Cohen, together with three colleagues, secretly met with Kremlin officials in the Prague offices of Rossotrudnichestvo in August 2016,[127][100][61][128] where he arranged "deniable cash payments" to the hackers and sought "to cover up all traces of the hacking operation",[60][35] as well as "cover up ties between Trump and Russia, including Manafort's involvement in Ukraine".[3] (Dossier, pp. 18, 34–35)

Kickbacks and quid pro quo agreements

Viktor Yanukovych (2013)
Igor Sechin (2016)
  • That Viktor Yanukovych, the former pro-Russian President of Ukraine, had told Putin that he had been making supposedly untraceable[3] kickback payments to Manafort while he was Trump's campaign manager.[126] (Dossier, p. 20)
  • That in return for Russia's leaking the stolen documents to WikiLeaks, "the TRUMP team had agreed to sideline Russian intervention in Ukraine as a campaign issue and to raise US/NATO defense commitments in the Baltics and Eastern Europe to deflect attention away from Ukraine, a priority for PUTIN who needed to cauterise the subject."[106][126] (Dossier, pp. 7–8)
  • That Page had secretly met Rosneft chairman Igor Sechin in Moscow on "either 7 or 8 July",[103] together with a "senior Kremlin Internal Affairs official, DIVYEKIN." That Sechin "offered PAGE/TRUMP's associates the brokerage of up to a 19 per cent (privatised) stake in Rosneft" (worth about $11 billion) in exchange for Trump lifting the sanctions against Russia after his election.[129][101][100][130][131] (Dossier, pp. 9, 30–32)

Russian spy withdrawn

  • That Russia had hastily withdrawn from Washington their diplomat Mikhail Kalugin (misspelled as "Kulagin"), whose prominent role in the interference operation should remain hidden.[105][132][133] (Dossier, p. 23)

Cultivation of various U.S. political figures

Use of botnets and porn traffic

  • That Aleksej Gubarev's "XBT/Webzilla and its affiliates had been using botnets and porn traffic to transmit viruses, plant bugs, steal data and conduct 'altering operations' against the Democratic Party leadership."[135] and that Gubarev had been coerced by the FSB and was a significant player.[136] (Dossier, pp. 34–35)

Possible earlier interest in Trump

Although the dossier alleged in June 2016 that the Kremlin had been cultivating Trump for "at least five years", Luke Harding wrote that the Soviet Union had been interested in him since 1987. In his book Collusion, Harding asserts that the "top level of the Soviet diplomatic service arranged his 1987 Moscow visit. With assistance from the KGB." Then-KGB head Vladimir Kryuchkov "wanted KGB staff abroad to recruit more Americans." Harding proceeds to describe the KGB's cultivation process, and posits that they may have opened a file on Trump as early as 1977, when he married Czech model Ivana Zelníčková; the Soviet spies may have closely observed and analyzed the couple from that time on.[137][138]

Denials of specific accusations

Michael Cohen

The dossier alleges that Trump's personal attorney, Michael Cohen, met with Russian officials in Prague in 2016 with the objective of paying those who had hacked the DNC and to "cover up all traces of the hacking operation". Cohen has denied the allegations against him,[35][60][61] stating that he was in Los Angeles between August 23 and 29, and in New York for the entire month of September[128] and that "I have never been to Prague in my life".[139]

According to a Czech intelligence source, as of January 11, 2017, there was no record of him entering Prague by plane, but Respekt magazine and Politico pointed out that he could have entered by car or train from a neighboring country within the Schengen Area, for example Italy. In the latter case, a record of Cohen entering the Schengen zone from a non-Schengen country should exist.[140][141]

In April 2018, McClatchy reported that the Special Counsel had evidence that Michael Cohen had secretly visited Prague in the late summer of 2016, as reported by Steele, and that Mueller's investigators had "traced evidence that Cohen entered the Czech Republic through Germany",[127] a claim which The Spectator reported was "backed up by one intelligence source in London".[142] In August 2018, BBC correspondent Paul Wood wrote: "I have spoken to one intelligence source who says Mueller is examining 'electronic records' that would place Cohen in Prague."[143]

Cohen has maintained that he has never in his life traveled to Prague, but Mother Jones reported that he privately admitted "I was in Prague for one afternoon 14 years ago."[114] During an interview with Chuck Todd on August 22, 2018, Cohen's attorney Lanny Davis stated that Cohen was "never, ever" in Prague, and that all allegations mentioning his name in the Steele dossier are false.[144]

According to McClatchy: "If Cohen met with Russians and hackers in Prague as described in the dossier, it would provide perhaps the most compelling evidence to date that the Russians and Trump campaign aides were collaborating."[127]

Aleksej Gubarev

Gubarev has denied all accusations made in the dossier and has sued Buzzfeed and Fusion GPS.[135][136]

Paul Manafort

Manafort has "denied taking part in any collusion with the Russian state, but registered himself as a foreign agent retroactively after it was revealed his firm received more than $17m working as a lobbyist for a pro-Russian Ukrainian party."[107]

Carter Page

Page originally denied meeting any Russian officials, but his later testimony, acknowledging that he had met with senior Russian officials at Rosneft, has been interpreted as corroboration of portions of the dossier.[145][146][147]

Donald Trump

Trump has denied the "golden showers" allegation by claiming he is a "germaphobe".[148] James Comey has written that Trump, on two different occasions, attempted to prove it couldn't have happened by claiming he did not stay overnight in Moscow. Those alibis have been disproven.[149] On April 13, 2018, James Comey said he did not know whether Trump "was with prostitutes peeing on each other in Moscow in 2013", adding "It's possible, but I don't know".[67][68]

On April 26, 2018,[150] three days after Bloomberg News revealed that flight records proved Trump spent one night in Moscow,[151] Trump phoned in to Fox & Friends and, alluding to "one of the most salacious allegations in the so-called Steele dossier", stated that he did stay overnight in Russia. He also accused Comey of lying.[150] When Comey was asked by Anderson Cooper if he thought that it was "significant that the President lied to you twice?", Comey replied that "It's always significant when someone lies to you, especially about something you're not asking about. It tends to reflect a consciousness of guilt."[152]

In a June 21, 2018, debate, Comey, when asked if he believed "all the salacious" stories in the dossier, replied: "When I first saw it I didn't believe it at all... [now] I think it's possible that it's true." He said he changed his view after his encounters with President Trump.[153] Comey has stated that, at the time he was fired, the allegations had not been verified.[154]

Contradicting what Trump told Comey, Thomas Roberts, the host of the Miss Universe contest, has confirmed that "Trump was in Moscow for one full night and at least part of another." (November 8–10).[155] According to flight records, Keith Schiller's testimony, social media posts, and Trump's close friend, Aras Agalarov, Trump arrived by private jet on Friday, November 8, going to the Ritz-Carlton hotel and booking into the presidential suite, where the "golden showers" incident is alleged to have occurred.[10][156]

There were a number of meetings and a lunch that day. Schiller related that a Russian approached them "around lunch-time"[157] and offered to "send five women to Trump's hotel room that night".[158] According to "multiple sources", the offer "came from a Russian who was accompanying Emin Agalarov".[157] "Schiller said he didn't take the offer seriously and told the Russian, 'We don't do that type of stuff'."[158] Schiller later testified that he rejected the offer, stating that "he took the offer as a joke".[157] That evening Trump attended a birthday party for Aras Agalarov.[159][158]

They returned to the hotel after the party. Schiller testified that, "On their way up to Trump's hotel room that night, [he told Trump] about the offer and Trump laughed it off".[157] He then accompanied Trump to his room, stayed outside the door for a few minutes, and then left,[157] and, according to one source, Schiller "could not say for sure what happened during the remainder of the night."[160]

On Saturday, Facebook posts showed he was at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel.[159] That evening he attended the Miss Universe pageant, followed by an after party. He then returned to his hotel, packed, and flew back to the United States.[151]

Veracity

Steele and the dossier have become "the central point of contention in the political brawl raging around"[91] the Special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. Those who believe Steele consider him a hero who tried to warn about the Kremlin's meddling in the election, and people who distrust him consider him a "hired gun" used to attack Trump.[91] The dossier's "broad assertion that Russia waged a campaign to interfere in the election is now accepted as fact by the US intelligence community."[161] With the passage of time and further revelations from various investigations and sources, it is becoming clearer that the overall thrust of the dossier was accurate, but some details appear to be merely disinformation:[79]

"Some of the dossier's broad threads have now been independently corroborated. U.S. intelligence agencies and the special counsel's investigation into Russian election interference did eventually find that Kremlin-linked operatives ran an elaborate operation to promote Trump and hurt Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, as the dossier says in its main narrative."

— Jeff Donn, "Some Questions in Trump-Russia Dossier Now Finding Answers", Associated Press (June 29, 2018)[79]

Reputation in the U.S. intelligence community

On January 11, 2017, Paul Wood, of BBC News, wrote that the salacious information in Steele's dossier was also reported by "multiple intelligence sources" and "at least one East European intelligence service". They reported that "compromising material on Mr. Trump" included "more than one tape, not just video, but audio as well, on more than one date, in more than one place, in both Moscow and St. Petersburg." While also mentioning that "nobody should believe something just because an intelligence agent says it",[162][85] Wood added that "the CIA believes it is credible that the Kremlin has such kompromat—or compromising material—on the next US commander in chief" and "a joint taskforce, which includes the CIA and the FBI, has been investigating allegations that the Russians may have sent money to Mr Trump's organisation or his election campaign".[163][164][162]

On January 12, 2017, Susan Hennessey, a former National Security Agency lawyer now with the Brookings Institution, stated: "My general take is that the intelligence community and law enforcement seem to be taking these claims seriously. That itself is highly significant. But it is not the same as these allegations being verified. Even if this was an intelligence community document—which it isn't—this kind of raw intelligence is still treated with skepticism."[15][16] Hennessey and Benjamin Wittes wrote that "the current state of the evidence makes a powerful argument for a serious public inquiry into this matter".[16]

On February 10, 2017, CNN reported that some communications between "senior Russian officials and other Russian individuals" described in the dossier had been corroborated by multiple U.S. officials. They "took place between the same individuals on the same days and from the same locations as detailed in the dossier". Some persons were known to be "heavily involved" in collecting information that could hurt Clinton and aid Trump. CNN was unable to confirm whether conversations were related to Trump. Sources told CNN that some conversations had been "intercepted during routine intelligence gathering", but refused to reveal the content of conversations, or specify which communications were intercepted because the information was classified. U.S. officials said the corroboration gave "US intelligence and law enforcement 'greater confidence' in the credibility of some aspects of the dossier as they continue to actively investigate its contents". They also reported that American intelligence agencies had examined Steele and his "vast network throughout Europe and found him and his sources to be credible."[19]

On March 30, 2017, Paul Wood reported that the FBI was using the dossier as a roadmap for its investigation.[165] On April 18, 2017, CNN reported that, according to U.S. officials, information from the dossier had been used as part of the basis for getting the FISA warrant to monitor Page in October 2016. Officials told CNN this information would have had to be independently corroborated by the FBI before being used to obtain the warrant.[12][166] In his testimony before Congress, Glenn Simpson "confirmed that the FBI had sources of its own and that whatever the FBI learned from Steele was simply folded into its ongoing work."[167]

British journalist Julian Borger wrote on October 7, 2017, that "Steele's reports are being taken seriously after lengthy scrutiny by federal and congressional investigators", at least Steele's assessment that Russia had conducted a campaign to interfere in the 2016 election to Clinton's detriment; that part of the Steele dossier "has generally gained in credibility, rather than lost it".[107]

On October 11, 2017, it was reported that Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island), member of the Senate Judiciary Committee (SJC), had stated: "As I understand it, a good deal of his information remains unproven, but none of it has been disproven, and considerable amounts of it have been proven."[168]

On October 27, 2017, Robert S. Litt, a former lawyer for the Director of National Intelligence, was quoted as stating that the dossier "played absolutely no role" in the intelligence community's determination that Russia had interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.[169]

On November 15, 2017, Adam Schiff stated that much of the dossier's content is about Russian efforts to help Trump, and those allegations "turned out to be true", something later affirmed by the January 6, 2017, intelligence community assessment released by the ODNI.[94]

On December 7, 2017, commentator Jonathan Chait wrote that as "time goes by, more and more of the claims first reported by Steele have been borne out", with the mainstream media "treat[ing] "[the dossier] as gossip" whereas the intelligence community "take it seriously".[14]

On January 29, 2018, Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said "little of that dossier has either been fully proven or conversely, disproven".[170][171]

John Sipher, who served 28 years as a clandestine CIA agent, including heading the agency's Russia program, said investigating the dossier allegations requires access to non-public records. He said "[p]eople who say it's all garbage, or all true, are being politically biased", adding he believes that while the dossier may not be correct in every detail, it is "generally credible" and "In the intelligence business, you don't pretend you're a hundred per cent accurate. If you're seventy or eighty per cent accurate, that makes you one of the best." He said the Mueller investigation would ultimately judge its merits.[10] Sipher has written that "Many of my former CIA colleagues have taken the [dossier] reports seriously since they were first published."[112]

During his April 15, 2018, ABC News interview with George Stephanopoulos, former FBI Director James Comey described Steele as a "credible source": "It was coming from a credible source, someone with a track record, someone who was a credible and respected member of an allied intelligence service during his career, and so it was important that we try to understand it, and see what could we verify, what could we rule in or rule out."[172]

In May 2018, former career intelligence officer James Clapper believed that "more and more" of the dossier had been validated over time.[173][18]

Varied reactions about veracity

Steele, the author of the dossier, said he believes that 70–90% of the dossier is accurate,[37][25] In testimony to Congress, Simpson quoted "Steele as saying that any intelligence, especially from Russia, is bound to carry intentional disinformation, but that Steele believes his dossier is 'largely not disinformation'."[79] except for the "golden showers" allegation, which he gives a 50% chance of being true.[25]

Other observers and experts have had varying reactions to the dossier. Generally, "former intelligence officers and other national-security experts" urged "skepticism and caution" but still took "the fact that the nation's top intelligence officials chose to present a summary version of the dossier to both President Obama and President-elect Trump" as an indication "that they may have had a relatively high degree of confidence that at least some of the claims therein were credible, or at least worth investigating further".[15]

Vice President Joe Biden told reporters that, while he and Obama were receiving a briefing on the extent of election hacking attempts, there was a two-page addendum which addressed the contents of the Steele dossier.[63] Top intelligence officials told them they "felt obligated to inform them about uncorroborated allegations about President-elect Donald Trump out of concern the information would become public and catch them off-guard".[174]

On January 11, 2017, Newsweek published a list of "13 things that don't add up" in the dossier, writing that it was a "strange mix of the amateur and the insightful" and stating that it "contains lots of Kremlin-related gossip that could indeed be, as the author claims, from deep insiders—or equally gleaned" from Russian newspapers and blogs.[175] Former UK ambassador to Russia Sir Tony Brenton stated that certain aspects of the dossier were inconsistent with British intelligence's understanding of how the Kremlin works, commenting: "I've seen quite a lot of intelligence on Russia, and there are some things in [the dossier] which look pretty shaky."[176]

In his June 2017 Senate Intelligence Committee testimony, former FBI director James Comey called "some personally sensitive aspects" of the dossier "salacious and unverified," but he did not state that the entire dossier was unverified or that the salacious aspects were false. When Senator Richard Burr asked if any of the allegations in the dossier had been confirmed, Comey said he could not answer that question in a public setting.[177][21]

Trump and his supporters have challenged the veracity of the dossier because it was funded in part by the Clinton campaign and the DNC, while Democrats assert the funding source is irrelevant.[178]

Veracity of certain allegations

Russian assistance to the Trump campaign

A January 6, 2017, intelligence community assessment released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) stated that Russian leadership favored the Trump candidacy over Clinton's, and that Putin personally ordered an "influence campaign" to harm Clinton's electoral chances and "undermine public faith in the US democratic process," as well as ordering cyber attacks on "both major U.S. political parties".[179]

Newsweek stated that "the dossier's main finding, that Russia tried to prop up Trump over Clinton, was confirmed by" this assessment.[98] ABC News stated that "some of the dossier's broad implications—particularly that Russian President Vladimir Putin launched an operation to boost Trump and sow discord within the U.S. and abroad—now ring true."[44] Referring to the ODNI assessment, former Los Angeles Times Moscow correspondent Robert Gillette wrote in an op-ed in the Concord Monitor that the dossier has had at least one of its main factual assertions verified ... Steele's dossier, paraphrasing multiple sources, reported precisely the same conclusion, in greater detail, six months earlier, in a memo dated June 20."[180]

In The New Yorker, Jane Mayer has stated that the allegation that Trump was favored by the Kremlin, and that they offered Trump's campaign dirt on Clinton, has proven true.[10]

In March 2016, George Papadopoulos, a Trump campaign foreign policy adviser, learned that the Russians had "dirt" on Clinton in the form of thousands of stolen emails. This occurred before the hacking of the DNC computers had become public knowledge.[181][182] Papadopoulos sent emails about Putin to at least seven Trump campaign officials. Trump national campaign co-chairman Sam Clovis[183] encouraged Papadopoulos to fly to Russia and meet with agents of the Russian Foreign Ministry, who reportedly wanted to share "Clinton dirt" with the Trump campaign.[184][185] When Donald Trump Jr. learned of the offer, he welcomed it by responding: "If it's what you say, I love it..."[10] Later, on June 9, 2016, a meeting in Trump Tower was held, ostensibly for representatives from Russia to deliver that dirt on Clinton.[186][187]

At the July 2018 summit meeting, Putin was asked if he had wanted Trump to win the 2016 election. He responded "Yes, I did. Yes, I did. Because he talked about bringing the U.S.-Russia relationship back to normal."[188]

'Golden showers' allegation

Regarding the "golden showers" allegation, Michael Isikoff and David Corn have stated that Steele's "faith in the sensational sex claim would fade over time.... As for the likelihood of the claim that prostitutes had urinated in Trump's presence, Steele would say to colleagues, 'It's 50-50'."[25]

James Comey has stated that, after his meetings with Trump, he changed his view and now thinks the salacious claims are possibly true.[153]

British music publicist Rob Goldstone believes it was "unlikely" that Trump used prostitutes while he was in Moscow. He has stated that he accompanied Trump at the 2013 Miss Universe pageant, and claimed that Trump was in Moscow for 36 hours, and that he was with Trump for 31 out of those 36 hours. Trump had landed in Moscow at around 3 p.m. on Friday[189] and left at 3:58 a.m. early Sunday morning.[151]

Republican position on Russian conflict with Ukraine

The dossier alleges that "the Trump campaign agreed to minimize US opposition to Russia's incursions into Ukraine".[190] Harding considers this allegation to have been confirmed by the actions of the Trump campaign: "This is precisely what happened at the Republican National Convention last July, when language on the US's commitment to Ukraine was mysteriously softened."[60] In July 2016, the Republican National Convention made changes to the Republican Party's platform on Ukraine: initially the platform proposed providing "lethal weapons" to Ukraine, but the line was changed to "appropriate assistance". NPR reported, "Diana Denman, a Republican delegate who supported arming U.S. allies in Ukraine, has told people that Trump aide J.D. Gordon said at the Republican Convention in 2016 that Trump directed him to support weakening that position in the official platform."[191] J. D. Gordon, who was one of Trump's national security advisers during the campaign, said that he had advocated for changing language because that reflected what Trump had said.[134][192] The Trump campaign does not appear to have intervened in any other platform deliberations aside from the language on Ukraine.[193]

In an interview on This Week, Trump told George Stephanopoulos that people in his campaign were responsible for changing the GOP's platform stance on Ukraine, but that he was not personally involved.[194]

Trump had formerly taken a hard line on Ukraine. He initially denounced Russia's annexation of Crimea as a "land grab" that "should never have happened", and called for a firmer U.S. response, saying "We should definitely be strong. We should definitely do sanctions." But after hiring Manafort his approach changed; he said he might recognize Crimea as Russian territory and might lift the sanctions against Russia.[195]

Relations with Europe and NATO

Vladimir Putin (2017)

The dossier alleges that as part of a quid pro quo agreement, "the TRUMP team had agreed… to raise US/NATO defense commitments in the Baltics and Eastern Europe to deflect attention away from Ukraine, a priority for PUTIN who needed to cauterise the subject."[106] Aiko Stevenson, writing in The Huffington Post, noted that some of Trump's actions seem to align with "Putin's wish list", which "includes lifting sanctions on Russia, turning a blind eye towards its aggressive efforts in the Ukraine, and creating a divisive rift amongst western allies."[196] During the campaign Trump "called Nato, the centrepiece of Transatlantic security 'obsolete', championed the disintegration of the EU, and said that he is open to lifting sanctions on Moscow."[196] Harding adds that Trump repeatedly "questioned whether US allies were paying enough into Nato coffers."[60] Jeff Stein, writing in Newsweek, described how "Trump's repeated attacks on NATO have...frustrated...allies ...[and] raised questions as to whether the president has been duped into facilitating Putin's long-range objective of undermining the European Union."[197] Trump's appearances at meetings with allies, including NATO and G7, have frequently been antagonistic; according to the Los Angeles Times, "The president's posture toward close allies has been increasingly and remarkably confrontational this year, especially in comparison to his more conciliatory approach to adversaries, including Russia and North Korea."[198]

Lifting of sanctions

The dossier says that Page, claiming to speak with Trump's authority, had confirmed that Trump would lift the existing sanctions against Russia if he were elected president.[100] On December 29, 2016, during the transition period between the election and the inauguration, National Security Advisor designate Flynn spoke to Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak, urging him not to retaliate for newly imposed sanctions; the Russians took his advice and did not retaliate.[199] Within days after the inauguration, new Trump administration officials ordered State Department staffers to develop proposals for immediately revoking the economic and other sanctions.[200] One retired diplomat later said, "What was troubling about these stories is that suddenly I was hearing that we were preparing to rescind sanctions in exchange for, well, nothing."[201] The staffers alerted Congressional allies who took steps to codify the sanctions into law. The attempt to overturn the sanctions was abandoned after Flynn's conversation was revealed and Flynn resigned.[200][116] In August 2017, Congress passed a bipartisan bill to impose new sanctions on Russia. Trump reluctantly signed the bill, but then refused to implement it.[202]

Spy withdrawn from Russian embassy

The dossier alleges that a "Russian diplomat Mikhail KULAGIN [sic]" participated in US election meddling, and was recalled to Moscow because Kremlin was concerned that his role in the meddling would be exposed. The BBC later reported that US officials in 2016 had identified Russian diplomat Mikhail Kalugin as a spy and that he was under surveillance, thus "verifying" a key claim in the dossier.[105] Kalugin was the head of the economics section at the Russian embassy. He returned to Russia in August 2016.[107] McClatchy reported that the FBI was investigating whether Kalugin played a role in the election interference. Kalugin has denied the allegations.[107][203]

Page meeting with Rosneft officials

Jane Mayer said that this part of the dossier seems true, even if the name of an official may have been wrong. Page's congressional testimony confirmed he held secret meetings with top Moscow and Rosneft officials, including talks about a payoff: "When Page was asked if a Rosneft executive had offered him a 'potential sale of a significant percentage of Rosneft,' Page said, 'He may have briefly mentioned it'."[10]

On November 2, 2017, Page appeared before the House Intelligence Committee (HPSCI) which is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. In July 2016, Page made a five-day trip to Moscow,[204] but, according to his testimony, before leaving he informed Jeff Sessions, J. D. Gordon, Hope Hicks, and Corey Lewandowski, Trump's campaign manager, of the planned trip to Russia, and Lewandowski approved the trip, responding: "If you'd like to go on your own, not affiliated with the campaign, you know, that's fine."[131][145] In his testimony, Page admitted he met with high ranking Kremlin officials. Previously, Page had denied meeting any Russian officials during the July trip. His comments appeared to corroborate portions of the dossier.[146][147] Newsweek has listed the claim about Page meeting with Rosneft officials as "verified".[205]

Investigations using or referencing the dossier

The FBI's Russia investigation

In late July 2016, "the CIA had set up a special group with the NSA and FBI... to investigate the extent of Russian intervention in the presidential election." Former CIA director John Brennan then "ensured that all information about links between the Trump campaign and people working for or on behalf of Russian intelligence went to the FBI."[206] These links between Trump associates and Russian officials were numerous. Politico keeps a very detailed running tally of the persons, and, as of April 25, 2018, they listed "73 associated with [Trump's] 2016 campaign".[207] Julian Borger reported that in Brennan's testimony before the House intelligence committee, he made it clear "that he was alarmed by the extent of contacts between the Trump team and Moscow," and that this justified the FBI inquiry:[206]

Brennan stressed repeatedly that collusion may have been unwitting, at least at first as Russian intelligence was deft at disguising its approaches to would-be agents. "Frequently, individuals on a treasonous path do not even realize they're on that path until it gets to be too late," he said.[206]

The investigation was also spurred by comments made by Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos.[182][208] While Trump and some Republicans have claimed that the dossier was behind the beginning of the FBI investigation into his campaign's potential conspiracy with Russia, in December 2017, former and current intelligence officials revealed that the actual impetus was a series of comments made in May 2016 by Papadopoulos to Alexander Downer, a top Australian diplomat, during a night of "heavy drinking at an upscale London bar".[208][182] Shep Smith, an anchor at Fox News, confirmed this series of events, directly contradicting Trump's and Sean Hannity's false claims that the dossier was the impetus for the start of the investigation.[93] John Sipher reported that Papadopoulos bragged "that the Trump campaign was aware the Russian government had dirt on Hillary Clinton"[4] in the form of "thousands of emails" stolen from Clinton which could be used to damage her campaign. Papadopoulos had learned this about three weeks earlier. Two months later, when WikiLeaks started releasing DNC emails, Australian officials alerted the Americans about Papadopoulos' remarks.[208][182] Over a year later, Papadopoulos was arrested on July 27, 2017,[209] and in October 2017, Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, and became a cooperating witness in Mueller's investigation.[208][209]

Other factors also played into the FBI's decision to investigate Russian interference and the Trump campaign: intelligence from friendly governments, especially the British and Dutch, and information about Page's Moscow trip. Steele's first report was sent to Fusion GPS, dated June 20, 2016, and FBI agents first interviewed Steele in October 2016.[182] The New York Times reported on February 14, 2017 that the FBI had made contact with some of Steele's sources.[210] CNN later reported that the FBI had used the dossier to bolster its existing investigations.[35][12]

In a January 2, 2018, CNN panel discussion, Elizabeth Foley, a Florida International University law professor, falsely alleged that the FISA warrant for Page was "all based on a dossier", adding "That's what Jim Comey has suggested." She also cited reports from CNN and The New York Times. PolitiFact concluded that her claim about Comey was unsubstantiated, and according to CNN, the dossier was only "part of the justification", and that The New York Times report did not mention the dossier. PolitiFact rated her claim "Mostly False".[211]

The FBI has resisted FOIA requests which would force it to reveal classified details of its investigation, including its efforts to disprove or confirm allegations in the dossier. This resistance has been approved by U.S. District Court Judge Amit P. Mehta, but a move by Trump to declassify some of this material, and a following FOIA lawsuit by journalist Josh Gerstein and a pro-transparency group, the James Madison Project, resulted in a ruling which would allow some declassification. The irony of the situation was noted by Brad Moss, a lawyer involved in that lawsuit: "It will be rather ironic if the president's peripheral actions that resulted in this ruling wind up disclosing that the FBI has been able to corroborate any of the 'salacious' allegations."[212]

On August 28, 2018, Bruce Ohr, former head of the Justice Department's Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, testified at a closed-door interview with Congressmen that he had "passed on 'dossier'-linked information to the FBI".[213] At that time, the FBI's investigation had already been underway for four months, and the FBI had cited "previously-obtained information from the 'dossier'" to support secret surveillance of Carter Page.[213] Contrary to a conspiracy theory promoted by Trump, there is no evidence that Ohr was involved in the start of the Russia probe.[214] According to a congressional source speaking to ABC News, Ohr had "little impact" on the investigation.[215]

On September 1, 2018, congressional sources relayed to the Associated Press that Ohr told members of Congress he had met Steele over breakfast on July 30, 2016, along with Nellie Ohr and a Steele associate. At that time Steele revealed that he had been told Russian intelligence believed "they had Trump over a barrel", an assertion that Steele echoed in his dossier. Ohr also stated that Steele told him Page had met with "higher-level Russian officials than [he] had acknowledged".[216]

In July 2018, after the FBI released redacted FISA court documents related to Carter Page, former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy wrote in National Review that the documents show that the FBI's probable cause finding that Trump campaign adviser Page conspired with Russian government to influence the 2016 election was based on the dossier. McCarthy said that even though each of the four surveillance applications claimed that the FBI had "verified" Steele's information, the bureau did not confirm the allegations independent of Steele. He also said that if the allegations had been corroborated, "the bureau would not be suffering in silence" and if the FBI and Justice Department had solid evidence to verify the dossier's allegations, which were based on multiple hearsay, they "would have used that evidence as their probable cause showing against Page".[217] Former federal prosecutors Barbara McQuade, Daniel S. Goldman, and Mimi Rocah said that McCarthy argued on Fox News and in his column that: "(1) the so-called Steele dossier was 'the driving force behind the Trump-Russia investigation'; (2) the FISA court was not told that the Clinton campaign was behind Steele's work; and (3) the FBI did not 'verify' the factual allegations contained in the dossier." After quickly dismissing the first two arguments as unsupported, they turned their attention to the third point, explaining that such verification is not always possible, and that if every detail of an accusation must first be proven before an application for surveillance can be submitted, then much police work would never happen. They argue that hearsay evidence is allowable as part of a FISA submission. In this case, they assert that the "FBI would've been derelict not to use Steele dossier for the Carter Page FISA warrant". All the FBI had to prove was "probable cause", not the higher standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt": the "FISA application simply provided evidence that there was probable cause to believe that Carter Page was an agent of a foreign power and may have, or may be about to, commit violations of criminal law."[218]

Special counsel investigation

According to Senate Intelligence Committee vice chairman Mark Warner (D-VA), the dossier's allegations are being investigated by a Special Counsel led by Robert Mueller, which, since May 2017, has been investigating allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 elections.[219] In the summer of 2017, Mueller's team of investigators met with Steele.[161] As some leads stemming from the dossier have already been followed and confirmed by the FBI, legal experts have stated that Special Counsel investigators, headed by Robert Mueller, are obligated to follow any leads the dossier has presented them with, irrespective of what parties financed it in its various stages of development, or "[t]hey would be derelict in their duty if they didn't."[219][220][221]

Subject of the Nunes memo

On February 2, 2018, the Nunes memo, a four-page memorandum written for U.S. Representative Devin Nunes by his staff, was released to the public. Referring to the dossier, the memo states that the FBI "may have relied on politically motivated or questionable sources" to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant in October 2016 and in three subsequent renewals on Carter Page in the early phases of the FBI's interference investigation.[222] Republican legislators argued that the memo presents evidence that a group of politically-biased FBI employees abused the FISA warrant process for the purpose of undermining the Trump presidency.[223] The Nunes memo stated that there was excessive and improper dependence on the Trump–Russia dossier.

On February 3, 2018, Trump praised the Nunes memo and tweeted:

Donald J. Trump from Twitter
@realDonaldTrump

This memo totally vindicates "Trump" in probe. But the Russian Witch Hunt goes on and on. Their was no Collusion and there was no Obstruction (the word now used because, after one year of looking endlessly and finding NOTHING, collusion is dead). This is an American disgrace!

3 Feb 2018[224]

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) disagreed, stating on February 4 on CBS's Face the Nation: "I actually don't think [the memo] has any impact on the Russia probe." He went on to say:

"There is a Russia investigation without a dossier," Gowdy said. "So to the extent the memo deals with the dossier and the FISA process, the dossier has nothing to do with the meeting at Trump Tower. The dossier has nothing to do with an email sent by Cambridge Analytica. The dossier really has nothing to do with George Papadopoulos' meeting in Great Britain. It also doesn't have anything to do with obstruction of justice. So there's going to be a Russia probe, even without a dossier."[28]

Gowdy was dissatisfied with the process of seeking the warrant: "I say investigate everything Russia did but admit that this was a really sloppy process that you engaged in to surveil a U.S. citizen." When questioned, he said that the FISA warrant on Carter Page would not have been authorized without the dossier.[225]

Jane Mayer has quoted Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse: "To impeach Steele's dossier is to impeach Mueller's investigation... It's to recast the focus back on Hillary", with the Republicans' aim to "create a false narrative saying this is all a political witch hunt." Mayer tied his view directly to Devin Nunes' production of "a report purporting to show that the real conspiracy revolved around Hillary Clinton," falsely alleging that Clinton "colluded with the Russians...", a claim debunked by Glenn Kessler.[10] Kessler, a fact checker for The Washington Post, analyzed a false accusation made by Nunes in a February 7, 2018, interview on the Hugh Hewitt Show: "The truth is that they [Democrats] are covering up that Hillary Clinton colluded with the Russians to get dirt on Trump to feed it to the FBI to open up an investigation into the other campaign." Kessler's "Pinocchio Test" rating was: "[T]here is no evidence that Clinton was involved in Steele's reports or worked with Russian entities to feed information to Steele. That's where Nunes's claim goes off the rails—and why he earns Four Pinocchios."[226] "Four Pinocchios" equals a "Whopper".[227]

The Nunes memo falsely asserted that "Comey briefed President-elect Trump on a summary of the Steele dossier, even though it was—according to his June 2017 testimony—'salacious and unverified.'" Factcheckers noted that Comey actually testified that "some personally sensitive aspects of the information" were "salacious and unverified," rather than the entire dossier.[228][229] The Nunes memo asserted that Andrew McCabe testified to the House Intelligence Committee that "no surveillance warrant [of Carter Page] would have been sought from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) without the Steele dossier information," but because McCabe testified in classified session, no transcript has yet been released to verify this assertion. In a CNN interview, McCabe asserted "that House Republicans twisted his answers":

"We started the investigations without the dossier. We were proceeding with the investigations before we ever received that information.... Was the dossier material important to the package? Of course, it was. As was every fact included in that package. Was it the majority of what was in the package? Absolutely not."[230]

Congressman Eric Swalwell, a member of the Committee, also stated that McCabe's testimony was mischaracterized.[231]

Contrary to assertions by Trump and his supporters that the FBI investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections was triggered by the dossier,[232] the Nunes memo confirmed the investigation began with a tip from Australian diplomat Alexander Downer regarding a conversation he had with Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos in a London bar in May 2016.[182][233] The FBI opened its investigation in late July 2016, and The Washington Post noted that this timing is "significant, given the FBI did not seek authorization to conduct surveillance on Page until three months later, on Oct. 21, 2016." The Democrats asserted that the Nunes memo "shows the Russia investigation would be underway with or without the surveillance of Page, and—more critically—even if the government had never seen the dossier of information about Trump that was compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British spy."[234]

Amid assertions in the Nunes memo and from others that the dossier's use in the Carter Page FISA warrant request was improper—countered by Democrats' assertions that there was nothing improper—on April 6, 2018 the Justice Department made the FISA application available for all members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees to review.[235]

On July 21, 2018, the Justice Department released heavily redacted versions of four FISA warrant applications for Carter Page which, according to Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter, Charlie Savage, showed that key assertions made in the Nunes memo were "misleading or false", corroborating the rebuttal made by Democrats.[236][237]

Reactions

November 14, 2017 – House Intelligence Committee transcript of Glenn Simpson
August 22, 2017 Fusion GPS testimony transcript of Glenn Simpson

Donald Trump

Donald Trump has repeatedly condemned the dossier and denied collusion with Russia, including in this tweet, in which he quotes from Fox & Friends:[20]

Donald J. Trump from Twitter
@realDonaldTrump

WOW, @foxandfrlends "Dossier is bogus. Clinton Campaign, DNC funded Dossier. FBI CANNOT (after all of this time) VERIFY CLAIMS IN DOSSIER OF RUSSIA/TRUMP COLLUSION. FBI TAINTED." And they used this Crooked Hillary pile of garbage as the basis for going after the Trump Campaign!

26 Dec 2017[238]

Trump has called the dossier "fake news" and criticized the intelligence and media sources that published it.[239] During a press conference on January 11, 2017, Trump denounced the dossier's claims as false, saying that it was "disgraceful" for U.S. intelligence agencies to report them.[240] Trump refused to take a question from CNN's senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta on the subject. In response, CNN said that it had published "carefully sourced reporting" on the matter which had been "matched by the other major news organizations", as opposed to BuzzFeed's posting of "unsubstantiated claims".[71]

On October 29, 2017, Trump tweeted that the dossier had cost $12 million.[33][241] Three days later, on November 1, 2017, Fusion GPS revealed to Reuters that they had informed Congress that Perkins Coie had paid them $1.02 million in fees and expenses, $168,000 of which was paid by Fusion GPS to Steele's firm, Orbis Business Intelligence, and used by Orbis to produce the dossier.[33] As late as September 2018, Trump still claimed that Steele was paid "millions of dollars" for his work.[242] Multiple journalists have noted that Trump has not provided evidence for his claim.[33][243][244] On October 11, 2018, Donald Trump Jr. repeated his father's claim by tweeting that Clinton's "campaign and the DNC spent over $12,000,000.00 working with foreign agents to creat [sic] a fake dossier with them."[245]

Other responses

James Clapper described the leaks as damaging to U.S. national security.[246] This contradicted Trump's previous claim that Clapper had said the information was false; Clapper's statement actually said the intelligence community had made no judgment on the truth of the information.[247]

As Putin's press secretary, Peskov insisted in an interview that the dossier is a fraud, saying "I can assure you that the allegations in this funny paper, in this so-called report, they are untrue. They are all fake."[248] Putin called the people who leaked the dossier "worse than prostitutes"[249] and referred to the dossier itself as "rubbish".[250] Putin went on to state he believed that the dossier was "clearly fake",[251] fabricated as a plot against the legitimacy of President-elect Trump.[252]

Some of Steele's former colleagues expressed support for his character, saying "The idea his work is fake or a cowboy operation is false—completely untrue. Chris is an experienced and highly regarded professional. He's not the sort of person who will simply pass on gossip."[17]

Among journalists, Bob Woodward called the dossier a "garbage document", while Carl Bernstein took the opposite view, noting that the senior-most U.S. intelligence officials had determined that the content was worth reporting to the president and the president-elect.[253] Julian Borger has described the dossier as "one of the most explosive documents in modern political history..."[107] Ben Smith, editor of BuzzFeed, wrote: "The dossier is a document...of obvious central public importance. It's the subject of multiple investigations by intelligence agencies, by Congress. That was clear a year ago. It's a lot clearer now."[254]

Ynet, an Israeli online news site, reported on January 12, 2017 that U.S. intelligence advised Israeli intelligence officers to be cautious about sharing information with the incoming Trump administration, until the possibility of Russian influence over Trump, suggested by Steele's report, has been fully investigated.[255]

On March 2, 2017, media began reporting that the Senate may call Steele to testify about the Trump dossier.[256] On March 27, 2017, SJC Chairman Chuck Grassley asked the Department of Justice to initiate an inquiry into Fusion GPS, who initially retained Steele to write the dossier.[257] Fusion GPS was previously associated with pro-Russia lobbying activities due to sanctions imposed by the Magnitsky Act.[258] On August 22, 2017, Steele met with the FBI and had provided them with the names of his sources for the allegations in the dossier.[259]

Steven L. Hall, former CIA chief of Russia operations, has contrasted Steele's methods with those of Donald Trump Jr., who sought information from a Russian attorney at a meeting in Trump Tower in June 2016: "The distinction: Steele spied against Russia to get info Russia did not want released; Don Jr took a mtg to get info Russians wanted to give."[260]

Jane Mayer referred to the same meeting and contrasted the difference in reactions to Russian attempts to support Trump: When Trump Jr. was offered "dirt" on Clinton as "part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump," instead of "going to the F.B.I., as Steele had" done when he learned that Russia was helping Trump, Trump's son accepted the support by responding: "If it's what you say, I love it..."[10]

On January 2, 2018, Simpson and Fritsch authored an op-ed in The New York Times, requesting that Republicans "release full transcripts of our firm's testimony" and further wrote that, "the Steele dossier was not the trigger for the FBI's investigation into Russian meddling. As we told the Senate Judiciary Committee in August, our sources said the dossier was taken so seriously because it corroborated reports the bureau had received from other sources, including one inside the Trump camp."[8] Ken Dilanian of NBC News stated that a "source close to Fusion GPS" told him that the FBI had not planted anyone in the Trump camp, but rather that Simpson was referring to Papadopoulos.[261][52]

On January 4, 2018, U.S. District Court Judge Amit P. Mehta ruled on Trump's repeated tweets describing the dossier as "fake" or "discredited":

"None of the tweets inescapably lead to the inference that the President's statements about the Dossier are rooted in information he received from the law enforcement and intelligence communities ... The President's statements may very well be based on media reports or his own personal knowledge, or could simply be viewed as political statements intended to counter media accounts about the Russia investigation, rather than assertions of pure fact."[262]

On January 5, 2018, in the first known Congressional criminal referral resulting from investigations related to the Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, Grassley made a referral to the Justice Department suggesting that they investigate possible criminal charges against Steele[263][264] for allegedly making false statements to the FBI about the distribution of the dossier's claims,[265] specifically possible "inconsistencies" in what Steele told authorities and "possibly lying to FBI officials".[266] Senator Lindsey Graham also signed the letter.[267][268] Both Grassley and Graham declared that they were not alleging that Steele "had committed any crime. Rather, they had passed on the information for 'further investigation only'."[269] The referral was met with skepticism from legal experts, as well as some of the other Republicans and Democrats on the Judiciary committee, who reportedly had not been consulted.[267]

On January 8, 2018, a spokesman for Grassley said he did not plan to release the transcript of Simpson's August 22, 2017 testimony before the SJC.[270] The next day, ranking committee member Senator Dianne Feinstein unilaterally released the transcript.[58][271]

On January 10, 2018, Fox News host Sean Hannity appeared to have advance information on the forthcoming release of the Nunes memo and its assertions about the dossier, saying "more shocking information will be coming out in just days that will show systemic FISA abuse." Hannity asserted that this new information would reveal "a totally phony document full of Russian lies and propaganda that was then used by the Obama administration to surveil members of an opposition party and incoming president," adding that this was "the real Russia collusion story" that represented a "precipice of one of the largest abuses of power in U.S. American history. And I'm talking about the literal shredding of the U.S. Constitution."[272]

On January 18, 2018, the HPSCI released the transcript of the Simpson Testimony given on November 14, 2017.[273][274] Democratic committee member Adam Schiff stated that the testimony contains "serious allegations that The Trump Organization may have engaged in money laundering with Russian nationals". Trump Organization's chief counsel Alan Garten called the allegations "unsubstantiated" and "reckless", and said that Simpson was mainly referring to properties to which Trump licensed his name. Democratic member Jim Himes said that Simpson "did not provide evidence and I think that's an important point. He made allegations."[275]

In April 2018, the White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA) gave The Merriman Smith Memorial Award to CNN reporters Evan Perez, Jim Sciutto, Jake Tapper and Carl Bernstein. In January 2017, they reported that the intelligence community had briefed Obama and Trump of allegations that Russians claimed to have "compromising personal and financial information" on then-President elect Donald Trump.[69][276] WHCA noted that "[t]hanks to this CNN investigation, 'the dossier' is now part of the lexicon".[277]

As late as July 29, 2018, Trump continued to falsely insist that the FBI investigation of Russian interference was initiated because of the dossier, and three days later White House press secretary Sarah Sanders repeated the false assertion. Fox News host Shepard Smith said of Trump's assertion: "In the main and in its parts, that statement is patently false."[278]

Circumstances surrounding the death of Oleg Erovinkin

On December 26, 2016, Oleg Erovinkin, a former KGB/FSB general, was found dead in his car in Moscow. Erovinkin was a key liaison between Sechin and Putin. Steele claimed much of the information came from a source close to Sechin. According to Christo Grozev, a journalist at Risk Management Lab, a think tank based in Bulgaria, the circumstances of Erovinkin's death were "mysterious". Grozev suspected Erovinkin helped Steele compile the dossier on Trump and suggests the hypothesis that the death may have been part of a cover-up by the Russian government.[279][280] Experts expressed skepticism about the theory. "As a rule, people like Gen Yerovinkin don't tend to die in airport thriller murders," said Mark Galeotti, an expert on the Russian security services.[279]

Litigation

Against BuzzFeed and Fusion GPS

On February 3, 2017, Aleksej Gubarev, chief of technology company XBT and a figure mentioned in the dossier, sued BuzzFeed for defamation. The suit, filed in a Broward County, Florida court, centers on allegations from the dossier that XBT had been "using botnets and porn traffic to transmit viruses, plant bugs, steal data and conduct 'altering operations' against the Democratic Party leadership".[135][281] In the High Court of Justice, Steele's lawyers said their client did not intend for the memos to be released, and that one of the memos "needed to be analyzed and further investigated/verified".[282] In response to the lawsuit, BuzzFeed hired the business advisory firm FTI Consulting to investigate the dossier's allegations.[283] BuzzFeed has sued the DNC in an attempt to force the disclosure of information it believes will bolster its defense against libel allegations.[284] Fusion GPS "has claimed that it did not provide the dossier to BuzzFeed."[285]

In connection with the libel suit against them by Gubarev, on June 30, 2017, BuzzFeed subpoenaed the CIA, the FBI, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. They also sought "testimony from fired FBI Director James Comey, as well as former DNI James Clapper and CIA Director John Brennan". They were interested in using the discovery process to get information about the distribution of the dossier, how it had circulated among government officials, and the "existence and scope of the federal government's investigation into the dossier". They hoped "the information could bolster BuzzFeed's claim that publication of the document was protected by the fair report privilege, which can immunize reports based on official government records."[286] On June 4, 2018, Judge Ursula Ungaro ruled that BuzzFeed could claim "fair report privilege" for the publication of the dossier and its accompanying article, bolstering BuzzFeed's defense.[287]

Cyber security and intelligence expert Andrew Weisburd has stated that both Gubarev and the dossier "can be right": "Their explanation is entirely plausible, as is the Steele Dossier's description of Mr. Gubarev as essentially a victim of predatory officers of one or more Russian intelligence services.... Neither BuzzFeed nor Steele have accused Gubarev of being a willing participant in wrongdoing."[136]

In May 2017, Mikhail Fridman, Petr Aven, and German Khan – the owners of Alfa Bank – filed a defamation lawsuit against BuzzFeed for publishing the unverified dossier,[288][289] which alleges financial ties and collusion between Putin, Trump, and the three bank owners.[290][291] In October 2017, Fridman, Aven, and Khan also filed a libel suit against Fusion GPS and Glenn Simpson, for circulating the dossier among journalists and allowing it to be published.[292]

On January 9, 2018, Michael Cohen sued BuzzFeed and Fusion GPS for defamation over allegations about him in the dossier.[293] On April 19, 2018, ten days after his home, office and hotel room were raided by the FBI as part of a criminal investigation, Cohen filed a motion to voluntarily dismiss the suit.[294][295][296]

Against Christopher Steele

On April 16, 2018, Alfa Bank owners Fridman, Aven, and Khan filed a libel suit against Steele and Orbis Business Intelligence,[297] since the dossier alleges financial ties and collusion between Putin, Trump, and the three bank owners.[290][291] The lawsuit was filed in Washington D.C.[297] Steele's lawyers filed two motions to dismiss the case, accusing the three men of intimidation.[298]

On August 20, 2018, a judge in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia threw out the libel suit. The case was dismissed with prejudice in response to a motion by lawyers for Orbis Business Intelligence.[299] Without assessing whether the dossier was "accurate or not accurate", the judge determined that the dossier was covered by the First Amendment, which protects freedom of speech. He also pointed out its importance to the public interest: "The Steele dossier generated so much interest and attention in the US precisely because its contents relate to active public debates here."[300]

See also

References

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  29. 1 2 Continetti, Matthew; Goldfarb, Michael (October 27, 2017). "Fusion GPS and the Washington Free Beacon". The Washington Free Beacon. Retrieved February 25, 2018.
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Further reading

  • Bongino, Dan (October 9, 2018). Spygate: The Attempted Sabotage of Donald J. Trump. Post Hill Press. ISBN 978-1642930986.
  • Hamburger, Tom; Helderman, Rosalind S. (February 6, 2018). "Hero or hired gun? How a British former spy became a flash point in the Russia investigation." The Washington Post.
  • Harding, Luke (November 19, 2017). "The Hidden History of Trump's First Trip to Moscow". Politico (an excerpt of his book Collusion).
  • Harding, Luke (November 16, 2017). Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0525520931.
  • Jane Mayer, Christopher Steele, the Man Behind the Trump Dossier, The New Yorker, March 12, 2018
  • Timeline: The making of the Christopher Steele Trump-Russia dossier, The Washington Post, February 6, 2018
  • Timeline: Steele dossier and lawsuits, Associated Press, June 29, 2018
  • Glenn Simpson (August 22, 2017). "Glenn Simpson's testimony re Trump–Russia dossier" (PDF). Official U.S. Senate website of Senator Dianne Feinstein (redacted transcript). Interviewed by U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.
  • Glenn Simpson (November 14, 2017). "Glenn Simpson's testimony re Trump-Russia dossier" (PDF). Official U.S. House of Representatives website (redacted transcript). Interviewed by House Intelligence Committee.
  • "Grassley Probes Opposition Research Firm behind Unsubstantiated Trump Dossier". Official U.S. Senate website of Senator Chuck Grassley (press release). March 27, 2017. Senator Grassley (R) discusses the dossier. Includes text of a letter from Grassley to Simpson of Fusion GPS, asking 13 questions.
  • House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Report on Russian Active Measures, March 22, 2018
  • Schiff, Adam (March 20, 2017). "Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Schiff Opening Statement During Hearing on Russian Active Measures". Schiff's official U.S. House website (press release). Congressman Schiff (D) discusses the dossier.
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