#Second steele dossier series#

Unlike media, the FBI, and intelligence services, I had no special sources or leakers.

#Second steele dossier series#

I followed with a series of articles that challenged Steele’s Dossier. The article attracted an audience of 185,000. I entered this fray two days after BuzzFeed with my article titled, The Trump Dossier Is Fake - And Here Are The Reasons Why. If true, Steele would have uncovered the most sensational scandal in American history – an American Manchurian candidate about to assume the reins of executive power in a mere nine days.

The Dossier gave never-Trumpers the tantalizing excuse that Trump’s collusion with the Kremlin caused the unlikely defeat of Hillary Clinton. On January 11, 2017, BuzzFeed, a frequently contentious media platform, published a confidential report, titled “Republican candidate Donald Trump's Activities in Russia and Compromising Relationship with the Kremlin.” Purportedly gathered by former MI-6 agent, Christopher Steele, from high-level informants from within Vladimir Putin’s (and Trump’s) inner circles, Steele claimed, in effect, that Trump, was an agent of Putin’s Kremlin. Let’s go back to the beginning and my own small role in the matter: We’ll find proof if we follow the clues that Steele has given us. It suggests, yes, there must be something to the charge that Trump colluded with an enemy power. The widespread use of the term “roadmap” is telling. Let’s review the story of the Steele Dossier and ask whether clear-thinking unbiased persons in media or government would have taken the charges in the Dossier so seriously as to use it as the roadmap to Russian government officials’ purported alliance with Trump employees and campaign aides to help his election. The only “verified” information that Horowitz found was available from public sources. He found that the Dossier was compiled from hearsay and third-hand gossip from two low-level sources and that they denied the testimony attributed to them. Inspector General Michael Horowitz drove the final stake through its heart. We now know that the Steele Dossier is bogus. They were a knowing and willing part of the Democratic and media smear of a presidential contender, and then president, that paralyzed U.S.

That our most sophisticated government officials acted as if the Dossier were legitimate leads to only one conclusion. Any residual doubt would have vanished after learning that its author, Christopher Steele, was an opposition researcher paid by the Democrats to dig up dirt on Trump. Sussmann, who pleaded not guilty, previously worked for Perkins Coie.A cursory examination of the Steele Dossier should have convinced the CIA or the FBI that it was fake news. In September, prominent Democratic lawyer Michael Sussmann was charged with making a false statement to the FBI. The arrest was the second to stem from an investigation by John Durham, the special counsel Trump’s Justice Department appointed to investigate the origins of the Russia probe. In November, Igor Danchenko, who has been described as a researcher for the dossier, was arrested on charges that he lied to FBI agents in 2017 about some of the sources of information he passed on to Steele.

The settlement is the latest fallout over the salacious Steele dossier. NBC News previously reported on the effort to fund opposition research in the Steele dossier that detailed Trump's links to Russia. It was not described as opposition research.

The law firm's work was characterized as providing 'legal services, including with respect to potential litigation,' the conciliation agreement said. Former British spy Christopher Steele has been credited with compiling the controversial and largely unverified collection of claims known as the Steele dossier. In 2016, Perkins Coie, a law firm retained by the Clinton campaign and the DNC, paid the intelligence firm Fusion GPS for “research services” that began in April and concluded before the election in early November, according to the conciliation agreement.