Steele dossier: Difference between revisions

The neutrality of this article is disputed. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until conditions to do so are met. (January 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

On January 11, 2017, the media reported on the existence of a dossier containing unsubstantiated information about United States President-elect Donald Trump's alleged ties to Russia. The 35-page dossier claims that Russia was in possession of damaging information about Trump which could be used for purposes of blackmail, if Trump fails to cooperate with the Russian government. The dossier further alleges that Trump has been cultivated and supported as a presidential candidate by Russia for over five years, with the overall aim of creating divisions between western alliances, that Trump has extensive ties to Russia, and that there had been multiple contacts between Russian officials and people working for Trump during the campaign.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6]}

The media and the intelligence community have stressed that nothing in the dossier is verified. Most experts treated the dossier with skepticism and caution. Trump himself has denounced the report as "fake news" and "phony stuff", and a spokesman for the Kremlin said the dossier was phony and its allegations were false.

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.^[7] The report alleged that the Russian government had cultivated Trump for years:

The "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."^[7]

The report further alleged that there were multiple in-person meetings between Russian government officials and individuals established as working for Trump.^[8][9] The former intelligence officer continued to share information with the FBI, and said in October 2016 that "there was or is a pretty substantial inquiry going on."^[7] In January 2017, the officer's identity was revealed.^[10]

According to reports, the firm's investigation was initially funded by Never Trump Republicans and later by the Democrats.^[10][11] Steele decided to also pass on the information to British and American intelligence services because he believed that the findings were a matter of national security for both countries.^[12] However, he became frustrated with the FBI, which failed to investigate his reports and chose instead to focus on investigating Hillary Clinton's emails. According to The Independent, Steele came to believe that there was a "cabal" inside the FBI, particularly it's New York branch linked to Trump advisor Rudy Giuliani, which blocked any attempts to investigate the links between Trump and Russia.^[12] As a result he passed on what he discovered to a reporter from Mother Jones magazine. Shortly after the election, Senator John McCain, who had been informed about the alleged links between Kremlin and Trump, met with former British ambassador to Moscow Andrew Wood. Wood confirmed the existence of the dossier and vouched for Steele. Subsequently McCain obtained the dossier from Steele's intermediary in December and took it to the FBI himself.^[12][11] He provided the document directly to FBI director James Comey.^[13]

Trump and Barack Obama were briefed on the existence of the dossier by the chiefs of several U.S. intelligence agencies in early January. Joe Biden has confirmed that he and the president had received briefings on the dossier, and the allegations within.^{[14][15][16][17][18]}

An independent British spy Christopher David Steele has been named as the source of the material. 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 and is currently working for Orbis Business Intelligence Ltd., a private intelligence company based in London.^[19][20] According to the BBC, the information in Steele's report is also reported by "multiple intelligence sources" and "at least one East European intelligence service." They report that there is "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."^[21][22] Before his spying career, Steele had previously been president of the Cambridge Union in 1985.^[23]

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 they had not yet "independently corroborated the specific allegations."^[24][25] Following the report,^[26] BuzzFeed published a 35-page dossier that it said was the basis of the briefing, including unverified claims that operatives had collected "embarrassing material" involving Trump that could be used to blackmail him.^{[27][28][25][29]} A senior U.S. intelligence official disputed CNN's claim that Trump had been previously briefed on the contents of the memos.^[30] Contrary to the official's claim, Clapper released a statement which suggested "that CNN's original report was correct."^[31]

The existence of the dossier was first reported by CNN on the afternoon of 11 January.^[32] Although its existence had been "common knowledge" among journalists for around half a year at that point, the Telegraph asserted that Steele's anonymity had been "fatally compromised" after CNN published his nationality.^[33] The Independent reported that Steele had fled his home in England several hours before the release of the report and "went to ground" after "realizing it was only a matter of time until his name became public knowledge," and "now fears a prompt and potentially dangerous backlash against him from Moscow."^[33] Steele worked for Orbis Business Intelligence, Ltd. at the time the dossier was authored, and Orbis director Christopher Burrows would not "confirm or deny" that Orbis had produced the dossier.^[32][34][35]

Paul Wood of BBC News reported that other intelligence sources from several countries back Steele's account, and 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."^{[36][37][38][39]}

Many news organizations knew about the document in the fall of 2016, before the presidential election, but refused to publish it because they could not verify any of the information.^[40] After CNN revealed the existence of the dossier, Buzzfeed chose to publish it in full, even though they said it was full of unverified claims and contained "some clear errors".^[41]

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."^[42]

Susan Hennessey, a former National Security Administration 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."^[42][43] Hennessey and Benjamin Wittes wrote that "the current state of the evidence makes a powerful argument for a serious public inquiry into this matter."^[43]

Former CIA analyst Patrick Skinner said that he is "neither dismissing the report nor taking its claims at face value," telling Wired: "I imagine a lot more will come out, and much will be nothing and perhaps some of it will be meaningful, and perhaps even devastating."^[42] Russian investigative journalist Andrei Soldatov writes that while the "many of the report’s elements appear hastily compiled" and there were many "shaky" claims, the document "rings frighteningly true" and "overall ... reflects accurately the way decision-making in the Kremlin looks to close observers."^[44] Soldatov writes: "Unverifiable sensational details aside, the Trump dossier is a good reflection of how things are run in the Kremlin – the mess at the level of decision-making and increasingly the outsourcing of operations, combined with methods borrowed from the KGB and the secret services of the lawless 1990s."^[44]

Critical observers noted the amateurish character of the dossier. Paul Roderick Gregory, a Hoover Institution economist contends that it was written, not by the alleged author, Steele, but more likely by a Russian intelligence officer.^[45] Newsweek published a list of "13 things that don't add up" in the dossier, writing that the document was a "strange mix of amateurish and insightful" and stating that the document "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.^[46] Journalist Bob Woodward called the document "garbage".^[47]

During a press conference on January 11, 2017, Trump denounced the unsubstantiated claims as false, saying that it was "disgraceful" for U.S. intelligence agencies to report them. Trump refused to answer a question from CNN's senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta on the subject and called CNN "fake news." 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 materials."^[48][26] James Clapper described the leaks as damaging to US national security but his statement also confirmed the original report by CNN.^[31] This also contradicted Trump's previous claim that Clapper said the information was false; Clapper's statement actually said the intelligence community has made no judgement on the truth or falsity of the information.^[49]

Russian press secretary Dmitry Peskov insisted in an interview that the document 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."^[50]

• 2016 United States election interference by Russia