title: Steele dossier

text: The dossier is central to Republican assertions that Trump is the victim of an intelligence community conspiracy to take him down. Democrats see this focus on the dossier as conspiratorial.<ref name="Swan_Brodey_10/18/2019"></ref> Congressman Devin Nunes, a staunch Trump defender, asserted as fact that the dossier originated in Ukraine during his questioning of EU ambassador Gordon Sondland during the Trump impeachment inquiry hearings in September 2019.<ref name="Lambe_11/5/2019"></ref> Nunes also accused Hillary Clinton of colluding with Russia to get dirt on Trump. A fact-check by "The Washington Post" analyzed the claim and the role of the dossier. It found the claim to be false and gave it four Pinocchios.<ref name="Kessler_2/9/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: According to Eric Lutz, Matt Gaetz and Jim Jordan have pushed a conspiracy theory that the dossier was "based on Russian disinformation".<ref name="Lutz_7/24/2019"></ref> The inspector general's report concluded "that more should have been done to examine Steele's contacts with intermediaries of Russian oligarchs in order to assess those contacts as potential sources of disinformation that could have influenced Steele's reporting".


title: Steele dossier

text: David Frum also described a "suddenly red-hot media campaign to endorse Trump's fantasy that he was the victim of a 'Russia hoax.'" Frum argued that "anti-anti-Trump journalists want to use the Steele controversy to score points off politicians and media institutions that they dislike," and thus they "help him execute one of his Big Lies".<ref name="Frum_11/25/2021"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Heather Digby Parton described why we should "forget the Steele dossier" as a "reason for the Russia investigation": "No doubt there was some histrionic coverage of the Steele Dossier. But the truth is that virtually every news outlet that reported it made clear that it was unsubstantiated and no one reported that it was the only reason for the Russia investigation. Trump and his campaign's suspicious behavior was more than enough to set off alarms all over the world."<ref name="Parton_12/1/2021"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Dossier source(s) allege that Cohen and three colleagues met Kremlin officials in the Prague offices of Rossotrudnichestvo in August 2016, to arrange for payments to the hackers, cover up the hack, and "cover up ties between Trump and Russia, including Manafort's involvement in Ukraine".


title: Steele dossier

text: In 2016, Cohen told "Mother Jones" that he had visited Prague briefly 14 years before. "The Wall Street Journal" reported Cohen telling them (at an unspecified date) that he had been in Prague in 2001.<ref name="Berzon_Maremont_Rothfeld_1/11/2017"></ref> Following the dossier's publication, as well as after subsequent reports, Cohen repeatedly denied having ever been to Prague.<ref name="Cormier_5/5/2017"></ref><ref name="Boboltz_12/28/2018"></ref><ref name="Bump_4/14/2018"></ref> Cohen's attorney Lanny Davis said Cohen was "never, ever" in Prague, and that all allegations mentioning Cohen in the Steele dossier were false.<ref name="MSNBC_Davis_8/22/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Cohen's passport showed that he entered Italy in early July 2016, and that he left Italy in mid-July 2016, from Rome, Italy. "Buzzfeed News" in May 2017 reported Cohen telling them that he was in Capri, Italy for the time period in question with his family, friends, and musician and actor Steven van Zandt, and that receipts would prove he had been on Capri, but he declined to provide them. Roger Friedman reported sources quoting van Zandt's wife, Maureen, as saying that she and Steven were in Rome, and never travelled to Capri.<ref name="LeTourneau_12/18/2018"></ref> From this, Nancy LeTourneau of "Washington Monthly" commented that Cohen may have "lost his alibi", and thus doubted if he had really not travelled to Prague. A December 2018 statement from Steven van Zandt's Twitter said that he had met Cohen in Rome and not travelled together.<ref name="Friedman_12/27/2018"></ref> In March 2019, "The Washington Post" reported that Cohen had been in Capri and Rome during his Italy trip, and that Cohen said he met Steven van Zandt in Rome.<ref name="Helderman_Roig-Franzia_3/1/2019"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Cohen has also stated that he was in Los Angeles between August 23 and 29, and in New York for the entire month of September.<ref name="Gray_1/10/2017"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Gubarev has denied all accusations made in the dossier. The accusations are twofold, as they mention Gubarev and his companies. While it has been proven that his companies were used to facilitate cybercrimes,


title: Steele dossier

text: Andrew Weisburd has said that "Neither "BuzzFeed" nor Steele have accused Gubarev of being a willing participant in wrongdoing."


title: Steele dossier

text: 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."


title: Steele dossier

text: 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.<ref name="Lanktree_11/7/2017"></ref><ref name="Kelly_11/6/2017"></ref> On February 11, 2021, Page lost a defamation suit he had filed against Yahoo! News and "HuffPost" for their articles describing his activities mentioned in the Steele dossier. The judge said that Page admitted the articles about his potential contacts with Russian officials were essentially true.


title: Steele dossier

text: Trump addressed the "golden showers" allegation in January 2017, publicly stating: "Does anyone really believe that story? I'm also very much of a germaphobe, by the way."<ref name="Oliver_1/11/2017"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: According to FBI Director James Comey, in private conversations between him and Trump in early 2017, Trump denied the "golden showers" allegation, with one reason given being that he did not stay overnight in Moscow at the time of the Miss Universe contest in 2013, and another being that he assumed he was always being recorded when in Russia.<ref name="Chait_4/13/2018"></ref><ref name="Francis_Groll_6/7/2017"></ref> Per flight records, Trump stayed overnight in Moscow the night before the pageant, then during the night of the pageant, he left Moscow at 3:58 a.m.<ref name="Helderman_9/22/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: According to Comey, Trump's false denials on whether he had stayed overnight in Moscow, despite Comey not asking about it, exhibited behaviour that "tends to reflect consciousness of guilt", but this conclusion is "not definitive", said Comey.


title: Steele dossier

text: Trump publicly disputed that he had issued such a denial to Comey: "He said I didn't stay there a night. Of course I stayed there ... I stayed there a very short period of time but of course I stayed."<ref name="Lemire_Day_4/27/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Donald Trump's first Twitter reaction to the dossier was a January 10, 2017, tweet: "FAKE NEWS—A TOTAL POLITICAL WITCH HUNT!", a view echoed the next day by the Kremlin: "absolute fabrication".<ref name="Ewing_1/10/2017"></ref> Trump has repeatedly condemned the dossier and denied collusion with Russia, including in a December 26, 2017, tweet, in which he quoted from "Fox & Friends".


title: Steele dossier

text: Trump has called the dossier "fake news" and criticized the intelligence and media sources that published it.<ref name="Henderson_Lawler_Burke_1/12/2017"></ref> During a press conference on January 11, 2017, Trump denounced the dossier's claims as false, saying it was "disgraceful" for U.S. intelligence agencies to report them.<ref name="Rascoe_1/11/2017"></ref> In response to Trump's criticism, CNN said it had published "carefully sourced reporting" on the matter that had been "matched by the other major news organizations", as opposed to "BuzzFeed"s posting of "unsubstantiated claims".<ref name="Sutton_1/11/2017"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: "The Wall Street Journal" reported that the DNC and the Clinton campaign paid a total of $12.4 million to Perkins Coie for legal and compliance services during the 2016 campaign.<ref name="Ballhaus_10/25/2017"></ref> This led Trump to claim the dossier had cost $12 million. The actual cost was far less.<ref name="Price_11/2/2017"></ref> According to Fusion GPS, Perkins Coie paid them $1.02million in fees and expenses, and Fusion GPS paid $168,000 to Steele's firm, Orbis Business Intelligence, to produce the dossier.<ref name="Khan_11/2/2017"></ref> Despite that, Trump and his son Donald Trump Jr. continued to claim for more than a year that Steele was paid "millions of dollars" for his work.<ref name="Edelman_10/12/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: A footnote in the Mueller Report revealed that Trump requested James Comey and James Clapper to publicly refute the dossier. The two men then exchanged emails about the request, with Clapper saying that "Trump wanted him to say the dossier was 'bogus, which, of course, I can't do'."<ref name="Pecorin_5/1/2019"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: On July 11, 2020, Trump tweeted that Steele should be extradited.<ref name="O'Connell_7/11/2020"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: In July 2019, Special Agent in Charge David Archey briefed the Senate Intelligence Committee about certain aspects of the Special Counsel Office's (SCO) "investigative process and information management":


title: Steele dossier

text: He "declined to provide further information on whether FBI or SCO attempted to verify information in the dossier, although he noted that the SCO did not draw on the dossier to support its conclusions."


title: Steele dossier

text: Russia has backed Trump by attacking the dossier and denying its allegations, calling it an "absolute fabrication" and "a hoax intended to further damage relations".


title: Steele dossier

text: 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."<ref name="Neely_1/21/2017"></ref> Putin called the people who leaked the dossier "worse than prostitutes"<ref name="Walker_1/17/2017"></ref> and referred to the dossier itself as "rubbish".<ref name="Dewan_Veselinovic_1/17/2017"></ref> Putin went on to state he believed the dossier was "clearly fake",<ref name="Macfarquhar_1/17/2017"></ref> fabricated as a plot against the legitimacy of President-elect Trump.<ref name="Roth_Filipov_1/17/2017"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: 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."<ref name="Harding_Hopkins_1/12/2017"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Among journalists, Bob Woodward called the dossier a "garbage document".<ref name="Mahtani_1/17/2017"></ref> Chuck Todd of CBS News labeled the report "fake news". Carl Bernstein said "It's not fake news, otherwise senior-most intelligence chiefs would not have done this."<ref name="KABC_1/16/2017"></ref> 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."<ref name="Greenwood_1/10/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: 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.<ref name="Bergman_1/12/2017"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: 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."<ref name="Simpson_Fritsch_1/2/2018"></ref> Ken Dilanian of NBC News said a "source close to Fusion GPS" told him the FBI had not planted anyone in the Trump camp, but rather that Simpson was referring to Papadopoulos.<ref name="Shafer_1/13/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: 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":


title: Steele dossier

text: 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<ref name="Stanglin_1/5/2018"></ref><ref name="Fandos_Rosenberg_12/15/2017"></ref> for allegedly making false statements to the FBI about the distribution of the dossier's claims,<ref name="Sheth_2/7/2018"></ref> specifically possible "inconsistencies" in what Steele told authorities and "possibly lying to FBI officials".<ref name="Price_1/5/2018"></ref> Senator Lindsey Graham also signed the letter.<ref name="Barrett_Hamburger_1/5/2018"></ref><ref name="Tau_1/5/2018"></ref> 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'."<ref name="BBC_News_1/5/2018"></ref> 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.


title: Steele dossier

text: 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.<ref name="Dennis_1/8/2018"></ref> The next day, ranking committee member Senator Dianne Feinstein unilaterally released the transcript.<ref name="Cheney_1/9/2018"></ref><ref name="Barrett_Hamburger_1/9/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: 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."<ref name="Fernandez_2/5/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: 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.<ref name="Calderone_4/2/2018"></ref> WHCA noted that "[t]hanks to this CNN investigation, 'the dossier' is now part of the lexicon".<ref name="WHCA_4/2/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: As late as July 29, 2018, Trump continued to falsely insist 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."<ref name="Dicker_8/1/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Alan Huffman, an expert on opposition research, has compared the two forms of opposition research represented by the dossier and WikiLeaks. He didn't believe the dossier's intelligence gathering to be illegitimate, although "a little strange", while he was troubled by the large dump of documents from WikiLeaks that "may have been obtained in an illegal way".<ref name="Krieger_10/31/2017"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: In March 2020, Steele commented publicly on the dossier, stating: "I stand by the integrity of our work, our sources and what we did."<ref name="Allen_3/7/2020"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: On February 3, 2017, Aleksej Gubarev, chief of technology company XBT and a figure mentioned in the dossier, sued "BuzzFeed News" 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".<ref name="Goldstein_Hall_Gordon_2/3/2017"></ref><ref name="Rosenberg_2/4/2017"></ref> In the High Court of Justice, Steele's lawyers said their client did not intend for the reports to be released, and that one of the reports "needed to be analyzed and further investigated/verified".<ref name="Cohen_5/2/2017"></ref> In response to the lawsuit, "BuzzFeed News" hired the business advisory firm FTI Consulting to investigate the dossier's allegations.<ref name="Winter_2/12/2018"></ref> "BuzzFeed News" has sued the DNC in an attempt to force the disclosure of information it believes will bolster its defense against libel allegations.<ref name="Pompeo_2/13/2018"></ref> Fusion GPS "has claimed that it did not provide the dossier to "BuzzFeed"".<ref name="Bertrand_10/11/2017"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: In connection with the libel suit against them by Gubarev, on June 30, 2017, "BuzzFeed News" 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."<ref name="Gerstein_6/30/2017"></ref> On June 4, 2018, Judge Ursula Ungaro ruled that "BuzzFeed News" could claim "fair report privilege" for the publication of the dossier and its accompanying article, bolstering "BuzzFeed"s defense.<ref name="Gerstein_6/4/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Cyber security and intelligence expert Andrew Weisburd has said 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."


title: Steele dossier

text: On December 19, 2018, Judge Ursula Ungaro sided with "BuzzFeed News" in the defamation suit filed by Gubarev, defending "BuzzFeed"s privilege to publish and the public's right to know about the allegations against Trump.<ref name="Peiser_12/19/2018"></ref><ref name="Paul_Hamburger_12/20/2018"></ref><ref name="Shafer_12/22/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: In May 2017, Mikhail Fridman, Petr Aven, and German Khan—the owners of Alfa-Bank—filed a defamation lawsuit against "BuzzFeed News" for publishing the unverified dossier,<ref name="Porter_5/27/2017"></ref><ref name="Gerstein_5/26/2017"></ref> that describes financial ties and collusion between Putin, Trump, and the three bank owners.<ref name="Smith_1/11/2017"></ref><ref name="Sommer_1/11/2017"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: The case against Orbis was dismissed based on the Anti-SLAPP Act because Steele's speech was protected by the First Amendment, that generally protects speech in the U.S. by non-U.S.-citizens/residents.<ref name="Volokh_11/23/2020"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: 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.<ref name="Gerstein_10/4/2017"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: The three oligarchs dropped their lawsuit against Fusion GPS in March 2022.<ref name="Tucker_3/18/2022"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: On January 9, 2018, Michael Cohen sued "BuzzFeed News" and Fusion GPS for defamation over allegations about him in the dossier.<ref name="Jacobs_1/9/2018"></ref> 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.


title: Steele dossier

text: On September 4, 2019, Devin Nunes filed a racketeering lawsuit in federal court against Fusion GPS seeking $10 million in damages. He accused them of harassment and impeding his investigation into Fusion GPS's role in raising suspicions about Trump's ties to Russian interference in the 2016 campaign. The suit was dismissed on February 21, 2020.<ref name="Gerstein_2/21/2020"></ref><ref name="AP_2/22/2020"></ref> Nunes then filed an amended complaint which allowed the suit to continue. This was the third amended complaint filed since September 2019. On March 31, 2021, the court dismissed the claim "with prejudice" and a warning that "litigation 'asserted in bad faith or for the purpose of harassment' may be met with sanctions".<ref name="Irby_4/1/2021"></ref><ref name="Lambe_4/3/2021"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: On April 16, 2018, Alfa-Bank owners Fridman, Aven, and Khan filed a libel suit against Steele and Orbis Business Intelligence,<ref name="Polantz_4/20/2018"></ref> since the dossier describes financial ties and collusion between Putin, Trump, and the three bank owners. The lawsuit was filed in Washington D.C. Steele's lawyers filed two motions to dismiss the case, accusing the three men of intimidation.<ref name="Haynes_6/7/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: 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.<ref name="Maddow_8/20/2018"></ref><ref name="Wood_8/21/2018"></ref> Without assessing whether the dossier was "accurate or not accurate", the judge determined that Steele was protected by the First Amendment, that protects freedom of speech. He also cited the District of Columbia's anti-SLAPP law, that prevents the filing of frivolous suits to silence critics. 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."<ref name="Harding_8/21/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: On June 18, 2020, an appellate court upheld the dismissal of their defamation lawsuit against Steele and Orbis Business Intelligence.<ref name="Hall_6/18/2020"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Alfa-Bank partners Petr Aven, Mikhail Fridman, and German Khan brought a lawsuit for defamation in Britain against Orbis Business Intelligence, Steele's private intelligence firm. In July 2020, Justice Warby from the Queen's Bench Division of the British High Court of Justice ordered Orbis to pay damages to Aven and Fridman who Steele claimed had delivered "large amounts of illicit cash" to Vladimir Putin when Putin was deputy mayor of St. Petersburg. Judge Warby ruled that the claim was "inaccurate and misleading"<ref name="Browning_7/8/2020"></ref> and awarded the damages to compensate "for the loss of autonomy, distress and reputational damage caused by the breaches of duty". The judge stated that Steele's dossier also inaccurately claimed that Aven and Fridman provided foreign policy advice to Putin.<ref name="Cullison_Kantchev_7/8/2020"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Aleksej Gubarev has filed a defamation lawsuit against Steele alleging the dossier made "seriously defamatory allegations".<ref name="Mackie_7/20/2020"></ref> At issue was whether Orbis/Steele was responsible for the publication of the "December memorandum" by "BuzzFeed", a charge denied by Steele. The defendants said that "BuzzFeed"s publication of the memorandum was "unauthorized" and they "did not intend the December memorandum or its content to be made public (and) did not provide the December memorandum to "BuzzFeed" or any other media organization."<ref name="CNS_7/20/2020"></ref> The Senate Intelligence Committee wrote that "Fusion GPS's work for Perkins Coie ended on Election Day. Steele's final memorandum was completed on December 13, 2016. No one paid for it."


title: Steele dossier

text: On October 30, 2020, Gubarev lost his libel case when the High Court ruled in Steele's favor. Judge Warby explained that the allegations about Gubarev were indeed defamatory and that their publication "caused serious harm to his reputation", but that Gubarev had failed to prove that Steele was responsible for the publication of the dossier, and that he therefore should not pay damages.<ref name="Telegraph_10/30/2020"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: In October 2018, Carter Page sued the DNC, Perkins Coie, and two Perkins Coie partners, for defamation.<ref name="Burke_10/15/2018"></ref><ref name="WDOK_1/31/2019"></ref> The lawsuit was dismissed on January 31, 2019. Page said he intended to appeal the decision.<ref name="Hayes_1/31/2019"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: On January 30, 2020, Page filed another defamation lawsuit (Case: 1:20-cv-00671, Filed: 01/30/20) against the DNC and Perkins Coie, naming Marc Elias and Michael Sussmann as defendants.<ref name="Shortell_1/30/2020"></ref> The suit was dismissed.<ref name="Wood_6/21/2021"></ref> Page then appealed the lower court's dismissal to the Supreme Court. In January 2022, it declined to review the defamation lawsuit.


title: Steele dossier

text: On June 17, 2020, Georgi Rtskhiladze sued Robert Mueller and the Department of Justice for defamation related to the mention of Rtskhiladze in a footnote in the Mueller Report. Rtskhiladze claims that he was falsely identified as a "Russian businessman" in the footnote. He is a U.S. citizen who was born in Georgia, a former Soviet republic, who emigrated to the U.S. in 1991. He is "seeking $100 million in damages and an injunction that would force DOJ to hastily remove all future references to him in the Mueller Report".<ref name="Kalmbacher_6/17/2020"></ref> The suit was dismissed on September 1, 2021.


title: Steele dossier

text: On February 11, 2021, Page lost a defamation suit he had filed against Yahoo! News and "HuffPost" for their articles that described his activities mentioned in the Steele dossier. The judge said that Page admitted the articles about his potential contacts with Russian officials were essentially true. On May 16, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a defamation suit filed by Page.<ref name="Pappas_5/16/2022"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Page's suit targeted Oath for 11 articles, especially one written by Michael Isikoff and published by Yahoo! in September 2016. The judge dismissed the suit on February 14, 2021, noting that "Page's arguments regarding Isikoff's description of the dossier and Steele were 'either sophistry or political spin'." He also said that Page "failed to allege actual malice by any of the authors, and that the three articles written by HuffPost employees were true".<ref name="Chase_2/14/2021"></ref> Page was represented by attorneys John Pierce<ref name="Lewis_3/12/2021"></ref> and L. Lin Wood, who was denied permission to represent Page because of his actions in the attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election in favor of President Donald Trump.<ref name="Chase_1/13//2021"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: In January 2022, Page lost an effort to revive the defamation case over Isikoff's article. Chief Justice Collins J. Seitz Jr. "said the article at the crux of the case—by Yahoo News reporter Michael Isikoff—was either completely truthful or, 'at a minimum,' conveyed a true 'gist,' even if it included some 'minor' or 'irrelevant' incorrect statements...The court dismissed as far-fetched Page's theories about a conspiracy among interconnected media and political figures to tarnish Trump by concocting the Russia investigation from thin air."<ref name="Leonard_1/19/2022"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: On November 27, 2020, Page filed a $75 million suit against the United States, DOJ, FBI, and several former leading officials for the "defendants' multiple violations of his Constitutional and other legal rights in connection with unlawful surveillance and investigation of him by the United States Government." The defendants included James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Kevin Clinesmith, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Joe Pientka III, Stephen Soma, and Brian J. Auten.<ref name="Atkinson_11/30/2020"></ref><ref name="CNS_11/27/2020"></ref> The suit was dismissed on September 1, 2022, by United States district court judge Dabney L. Friedrich.<ref name="Gerstein_9/1/2022"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: On March 24, 2022, Trump filed a RICO lawsuit against Clinton, Steele, and many others.<ref name="Justia_3/24/2022"></ref> The case was dismissed on September 8, 2022. The judge wrote that "despite the numerous references to [Steele] in Trump's lawsuit, 'none specifically attribute any false statement about Plaintiff to him'".<ref name="Paybarah_9/9/2022"></ref><ref name="Keller_9/9/2022"></ref><ref name="22-CV-14102_9/8/2022"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: The legal status of the dossier has been questioned, but, because of the legal difference between an "expenditure" "by" a campaign and a "contribution" "to" a campaign, it does not run afoul of Federal Election Commission laws (52 U.S. Code § 30121) forbidding foreign nationals from contributing to or aiding political campaigns, and that applies to any form of aid, not just cash donations. The dossier (prepared by a British citizen indirectly hired by the Clinton campaign and DNC) and the 2016 Trump Tower meeting (involving a direct offer of aid by the Russian government to the Trump campaign) are frequently contrasted and conflated in this regard.


title: Steele dossier

text: Philip Bump has explained "why the Trump Tower meeting may have violated the law—and the Steele dossier likely didn't": "Hiring a foreign party to conduct research is very different, including in legal terms, than being given information by foreign actors seeking to influence the election. What's more, Trump's campaign did accept foreign assistance in 2016, as the investigation by special counsel Robert S. MuellerIII determined."<ref name="Editorial_Board_8/19/2020"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: The Trump Tower meeting involved a voluntary offer of aid ("a campaign contribution") to the Trump campaign from the Russian government, and the offer was thus illegal to accept in any manner. Already before the meeting, the Trump campaign knew the source and purpose of the offer of aid, still welcomed the offer, successfully hid it for a year, and when the meeting was finally exposed, Trump issued a deceptive press release about it.<ref name="Pilkington_8/1/2017"></ref><ref name="Dolak_Faulders_7/31/2017"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: By contrast, Steele's work was a legal, declared, campaign expense and did not involve any voluntary offer of aid to the Clinton campaign from the Russian government. FEC law allows such declared campaign expenditures, even if the aid is performed by foreigners.


title: Steele dossier

text: 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."<ref name="Carter_10/27/2017"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: 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" when he learned Russia was helping Trump, Trump's son accepted the support by responding: "If it's what you say, I love it..."


title: Steele dossier

text: Kyle Pope, writing for the "Columbia Journalism Review", has described it as "a document that was never designed to meet the standards of good journalism," noting that its credibility had collapsed, and concluding that it was the source of "a lot of nonsense and misdirection" in subsequent media coverage and should not have been published at all.<ref name="Pope_11/17/2021"></ref> Sara Fischer, media reporter for "Axios", was critical of the initial press coverage of the dossier before it had been adequately scrutinized.<ref name="Fischer_11/14/2021"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Glenn Simpson believes the dossier interrupted a planned renewal of relationships between the United States and Russia that was "not in the interest of the United States"; that it supported the existing FBI investigation into Russian interference; and that it furthered understanding of the hidden relationship between the Russian government and the Trump campaign. Jane Mayer believes the dossier is "perhaps the most controversial opposition research ever to emerge from a Presidential campaign", and Julian Borger described it as "one of the most explosive documents in modern political history...".


title: Steele dossier

text: T.A. Frank has described the dossier as a "case study" in media manipulation.<ref name="Frank_7/14/2021"></ref> In his 2021 book "Spooked: The Trump Dossier, Black Cube, and the Rise of Private Spies", former "New York Times" journalist Barry Meier commented: "...media organizations didn't conduct internal postmortems or public reconstructions about how they handle the dossier story [because] it would have required them to disclose the toxic relationship that had developed between journalists and private spies."


title: Steele dossier

text: David Corn of "Mother Jones" described the dossier as "a convenient foil, their false flag" for the "Trump gang":


title: Agatha Harkness

text: Agatha Harkness is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. She is a powerful witch, typically portrayed as a friend and teacher of Wanda Maximoff, as well as the mother of Nicholas Scratch. Agatha is one of the original witches from the Salem witch trials who goes on to become a significant figure in the Marvel universe, protecting Franklin Richards as his nanny and later mentoring Wanda in the use of real magic. At one point, she had a familiar named Ebony, a cat-like creature that could sense the presence of mystical beings. Since her debut, the character has been referred to as one of the strongest magicians from the Marvel Universe.


title: Agatha Harkness

text: Kathryn Hahn portrayed Agatha Harkness in the Marvel Cinematic Universe miniseries "WandaVision" (2021), and is set to reprise her role in a spin-off series about the character, "".


title: Agatha Harkness

text: Agatha Harkness was introduced as the governess of Franklin Richards. She easily fended off the Frightful Four when they came to abduct Richards, and admitted to the Fantastic Four that she is a witch. She then aided the Fantastic Four in battle against Annihilus.


title: Agatha Harkness

text: Through the actions of her son Nicholas Scratch, she was revealed as a member of the previously unknown New Salem, Colorado, a colony of witches of whom she had been the leader. Scratch had taken control of the town and persuaded its inhabitants that Agatha betrayed the community's secrets by working for the Fantastic Four. She was abducted and taken back to the community with Franklin to stand trial. The Fantastic Four followed and came into conflict with the Salem's Seven, Agatha's grandchildren fathered by Scratch. The Fantastic Four defeated them and freed Agatha. In the process, Scratch's evil was revealed to the community of New Salem and he was banished to another dimension. Agatha became the magical tutor for the Scarlet Witch in the use of witchcraft.


title: Agatha Harkness

text: Eventually Salem's Seven took over the New Salem community again. They captured Agatha and killed her by burning her at the stake, though Agatha soon made her presence known to Wanda in what appeared to be a post-death astral form. In an ensuing battle between the Scarlet Witch and Salem's Seven, the entire community's energies were drawn into Vertigo of the Seven, who lost control of them. Wanda managed to capture some of the energy and funnel it away, but the entire town was destroyed. Following hints from Agatha's astral form, Wanda channeled the remaining energy to become pregnant with twin children of Vision, her android husband.


title: Agatha Harkness

text: Later, Agatha resurfaced, again alive and well, when Wanda's infant children began exhibiting odd behavior (disappearing for brief periods of time) and Wanda became unstable after her husband's dismantling; Agatha provided no explanation for her return. After Mephisto claimed that Scarlet Witch's children were actually fragments of his own soul and reabsorbs them, Agatha briefly mind-wiped Wanda's memory of her children in an attempt to help her deal with the trauma. Agatha later restored those memories soon after when Wanda became a pawn in a complex plot by Immortus. Agatha aided the Avengers in their battle against Immortus.


title: Agatha Harkness

text: Wanda, again having no memory of her children, angrily confronted Agatha about their existence. Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. found what appeared to be Agatha's corpse in her home and concluded that Agatha had been dead for a long time. Some time later, a partially amnesiac Wanda tells Clint Barton she is under the care of her "Aunt Agatha" in a small apartment. However, this version of Wanda was later revealed to be a Doombot that replaced the real Wanda at some point.


title: Agatha Harkness

text: Agatha has since made her presence known in the New Multiverse as a ghost. She appears to Wanda and confirms her death at the hands of her protégé. She also concurrently serves as the omniscient narrator of Vision's ongoing solo title, having induced precognitive visions through arcane ritual involving the murder of Ebony at some undetermined point before her death. Agatha fights alongside Wanda and the spirit of her biological mother Natalya Maximoff against a physical manifestation of Chaos which is attempting to destroy witchcraft. The two spirits channel their magic through Wanda and, after Quicksilver is summoned, they manage to defeat the being once and for all although this has gravely wounded Order, the Goddess of Witchcraft. Natalya sacrifices herself to restore Order and, in doing so, also returns Agatha to life. Despite noting that her and Wanda's paths are intertwined, Agatha chooses to have some time to herself to enjoy being alive again.


title: Agatha Harkness

text: Agatha Harkness later appears as a member of the Daughters of Liberty where she taught magic to its members. At the time when Captain America figured out that Dryad is a revived Peggy Carter, Agatha teleported herself to inform him that the threats that the Daughters of Liberty have been facing are connected with Aleksander Lukin's sister Alexa. Agatha later briefed the Daughters of Liberty's latest recruit Shuri about the situation involving Selene having Sharon Carter's soul. She then proceeded to transport herself, Sharon's Iron Patriot appearance, and Shuri to where Selene is located.


title: Agatha Harkness

text: Agatha Harkness has a gifted intellect and a vast knowledge of magical lore. Her powers come from manipulation of the forces of magic. She has the ability to manipulate magical forces for a number of effects including teleportation, energy projection, and the tapping of extra-dimensional energy by invoking entities or objects of power existing in dimensions tangential to Earth's through the recitation of spells. She also has the abilities of mesmerism, thought-casting, and illusion-casting. Her advanced age reduces her ability to perform strenuous physical tasks.


title: Agatha Harkness

text: Agatha has a magical familiar named Ebony, a pet black cat with the ability to transform into a large ferocious black panther. She’d sacrificed Ebony at some point to gain precognitive powers.


title: Agatha Harkness

text: Ben Saffle of "CBR.com" stated, "Agatha Harkness has gained a fandom following her antics on "WandaVision". The popularity of the witch is cemented by her receiving her very own show, ""." Richard Fink of "MovieWeb" wrote, "The character has become incredibly popular, with the song "Agatha All Along" going viral and [...] has gained a loyal fanbase, in part thanks to Hahn's incredible performance and this is why she is excellent as Agatha Harkness."


title: Agatha Harkness

text: The Ultimate Universe version of Agatha Harkness makes her debut in "Ultimate Fantastic Four" as a young woman. She first appears in #54, claiming to be a S.H.I.E.L.D. psychologist sent to evaluate the Baxter Building think tank. In issue #56, it is revealed that her S.H.I.E.L.D status was faked and she is really an ancient empathic being that destroyed Atlantis. Known as the Dragon-of-Seven or the Hydra, it can exist as a single creature or as seven seemingly separate ones. In her form as a group of seven individuals, she posed as the superhero group Salem Seven.


title: Agatha Harkness

text: The character of Captain Jack Harkness from "Doctor Who" and its spin-off "Torchwood" was named after Agatha Harkness.


title: Clay Matthews III

text: William Clay Matthews III (born May 14, 1986) is an American former professional football player who was an outside linebacker in the National Football League (NFL). The six-time Pro Bowl selection and two-time All-Pro played primarily with the Green Bay Packers. He is the all-time official quarterback sack leader for the Green Bay Packers.


title: Clay Matthews III

text: After attending Agoura High School in Agoura Hills, California, Matthews was a walk-on student athlete at the University of Southern California for the USC Trojans football team under head coach Pete Carroll. At USC, Matthews was a standout special-teams player, winning three consecutive Special Teams Player of the Year awards from 2006 to 2008. He also played reserve outside linebacker during those years before moving into a starting role his senior season. During his college career, he was a part of three Pac-10 Championship teams.


title: Clay Matthews III

text: Matthews was considered a top prospect for the 2009 NFL Draft. He was ultimately selected by the Green Bay Packers in the first round of the draft (26th overall) after the team traded up to make the selection. In his rookie year, Matthews recorded 10 sacks while playing outside linebacker. He topped that total in 2010 with 13.5 sacks, helping the Packers to their Super Bowl XLV victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers. Matthews continued his role as a leading pass rusher, recording at least six sacks in the first nine seasons he played. He also has showed his athleticism and abilities by playing both inside and outside linebacker during the 2014 and 2015 seasons.


title: Clay Matthews III

text: A member of the Matthews family of football players, he is the brother of former NFL linebacker Casey Matthews, the son of former NFL linebacker Clay Matthews Jr., and the nephew of Pro Football Hall of Fame offensive lineman Bruce Matthews.


title: Clay Matthews III

text: Matthews was born in the Northridge section of Los Angeles, the son of Leslie and Clay Matthews Jr., a professional football player. The family has a history of professional football players. Matthews's grandfather was Clay Matthews Sr. His brother is linebacker Casey Matthews, and his uncle is Bruce Matthews. He also has cousins involved in football: Kevin Matthews, Jake Matthews, and Mike Matthews. His two older brothers, Kyle and Brian, both members of National Championship teams during their time with USC Trojans football, are currently in the real estate business in California and Ohio, respectively. His sister, Jennifer is often featured on NFL Network where she discusses fantasy football.


title: Clay Matthews III

text: Matthews attended Agoura High School in Agoura Hills, California, where he played for the Chargers. Physically, Matthews was a late bloomer. His father was the team's defensive coordinator, but declined to start his son because he was physically undersized. Matthews began developing physically in his senior season, but only garnered interest from Division I FCS schools and local community colleges. He has described his own recruiting status out of high school as "not applicable." Like his father and uncle, Matthews opted to attend the University of Southern California with hopes of becoming a walk-on for the Trojans football team.


title: Clay Matthews III

text: Matthews attended the University of Southern California and played for the Trojans from 2004 to 2008 under head coach Pete Carroll. Though he was the son of an All-Pro NFL linebacker, he entered USC as an unheralded, walk-on student athlete. During his first season, USC's 2004 BCS National Championship, he played only on the scout team and turned down several playing opportunities during garbage time during the fourth quarters of games to preserve his redshirt status and remaining seasons of NCAA eligibility. He remained a nonathletic scholarship (a "walk on") reserve linebacker during the 2005 season, and played mainly on special teams. He was granted full athletic scholarship status at the beginning of the 2006 season. Matthews continued to play reserve linebacker in the 2006 and 2007 seasons, and made two starts in 2007 in place of injured teammate Brian Cushing. He was awarded USC's Co-Special Teams Player of the Year in 2006 and 2007 and blocked two field goals in the later season.


title: Clay Matthews III

text: During the off season, Matthews committed to weight training and conditioning programs to gain size and improve his performance level and stamina. At the beginning of the 2008 season, defensive coordinator Nick Holt, Carroll, and Norton decided to try using Matthews in a hybrid "elephant" position, where Matthews would stand in the position of defensive end, but use the speed and tactics of a linebacker; the coaches had used Cushing in the position in a similar manner in 2006. The experiment was successful, as Matthews recorded 4.5 sacks while playing alongside his other NFL-bound teammates Brian Cushing, Rey Maualuga, and Kaluka Maiava. Furthermore, Matthews continued his spectacular special-teams play and was awarded USC's Co-Special Teams Player of the Year in 2008, making him the only player in USC history to be awarded three consecutive Special Teams Player of the Year awards. Matthews was a participant in the 2009 Senior Bowl and was considered a top prospect for the 2009 NFL Draft.


title: Clay Matthews III

text: Matthews was one of 12 senior USC football players, including the four linebackers Cushing, Maiava, Matthews, and Maualuga, invited to the 2009 NFL Scouting Combine. Matthews, Maualuga and Cushing, were featured on the cover of "Sports Illustrated"s 2009 "NFL Draft Preview" magazine, as all three were regarded by it as potential first-round selections.


title: Clay Matthews III

text: On August 7, 2008, the Green Bay Packers traded Brett Favre to the New York Jets for what would become the Jets' third-round draft pick (83rd overall) in the 2009 NFL Draft.


title: Clay Matthews III

text: On draft day, April 25, 2009, the Packers traded their second-round pick (41st overall, Darius Butler), their third-round pick (73rd overall, Derek Cox, Jacksonville Jaguars), and the 83rd overall pick acquired for Favre (Brandon Tate) to the New England Patriots for a first-round pick (26th overall) and a fifth-round pick (162nd overall, Jamon Meredith) in that year's draft.


title: Clay Matthews III

text: The Packers used the first-round pick obtained from the Patriots to acquire Matthews with the 26th overall selection in the 2009 NFL Draft.


title: Clay Matthews III

text: Kevin Greene, the former All-Pro linebacker who is third on the all-time sack list with 160 (most ever by a linebacker), was hired by Dom Capers in 2009 to coach the outside linebacker position. He saw a lot of himself in Matthews, but feared the Packers would not be able to draft him. Analysts were shocked when the Packers traded up for Matthews, whom they did not regard as a first-round draft prospect due to his limited playing experience at USC (only starting the final ten games of his senior season.) Greene later stated that Matthews has a "set of skills that I have not seen in an outside linebacker. Clay has a set of skills that I didn't have. He has another gear I didn't have. He's better than Kevin Greene was."


title: Clay Matthews III

text: Matthews scored his first career touchdown during a "Monday Night Football" game on October 5, 2009 against the Minnesota Vikings when he stripped the ball from running back Adrian Peterson and ran the ball back for a touchdown.


title: Clay Matthews III

text: In Week 10 against the Dallas Cowboys, Matthews had another outstanding game: recording one tackle, recovering two fumbles forced by cornerback Charles Woodson, and sacking Dallas quarterback Tony Romo to make him a nominee again for the Pepsi NFL Rookie of the Week. For the second time in as many nominations, he was voted Rookie of the Week for week 10.


title: Clay Matthews III

text: In Week 12 against the Detroit Lions, he made three tackles, assisted on two more, and sacked Daunte Culpepper twice. He was nominated for and won the Pepsi NFL Rookie of the Week award for his performance.


title: Clay Matthews III

text: Matthews had arguably the best game in his young career in Week 13 when he was awarded the NFC Defensive Player of the Week award. Matthews had six tackles, two sacks and a forced fumble in the Packers' 27–14 win over the Baltimore Ravens.


title: Clay Matthews III

text: In the Packers' December 13, 2009, contest against the Chicago Bears at Soldier Field, Matthews recorded his eighth sack of the season which put him into a three-way tie with former Packers Tim Harris and Vonnie Holiday for the team record of most sacks in a rookie season (1982–present). The following week, Matthews recorded two more sacks vs the Pittsburgh Steelers to claim the rookie record.


title: Clay Matthews III

text: He was added to the 2010 Pro Bowl NFC squad, replacing Lance Briggs. He was the first Packers' rookie to earn a Pro Bowl selection since wide receiver James Lofton in 1978.


title: Clay Matthews III

text: Matthews recorded 51 tackles, 10 sacks, seven pass deflections, three fumble recoveries, and a forced fumble in his rookie season. He played in all 16 games, starting at ROLB in 13 of them. He led the Packers in QB pressures, with 45.5. He finished third for the NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year, losing to his former USC teammate Brian Cushing. He was named NFC Defensive Rookie of the Year and set the Packer record for most sacks in a season by a rookie, with 10.0.


title: Clay Matthews III

text: Matthews took a different approach to the game in the 2010 season. After seeing him double-teamed and constantly chipped by running backs in the NFC wild card game against the Arizona Cardinals, Dom Capers decided to move him around the field. Matthews eventually ended up playing mostly at LOLB, but he would roam around the field, playing also at the ROLB position and sometimes in the middle. He finished the season with 60 tackles, 13.5 sacks (fourth in the league), four pass deflections, two forced fumbles, and an interception through 15 games in 2010. He became the first Packer to record six sacks in the first two games of the season and had 8.5 sacks in the first five weeks, but slowed down the latter part of the season (five sacks in the last 10 games due to a stress fracture in his lower leg). Matthews was named to the 2011 Pro Bowl NFC roster for the second straight year and was named to the All-Pro team for the first time in his career. Matthews was awarded with the NFL's defensive player of the month award for September after recording six sacks in the first two weeks of the 2010 season. Matthews recorded a career-high 55.0 quarterback pressures. He was named SN-NFL Defensive Player of the Year and NFC Defensive Player of the Year, and won the Butkus Award. He finished a close second (17 votes to 15) to Troy Polamalu in the AP NFL Defensive Player of the Year voting, notable in that both led their defenses to Super Bowl XLV.


title: Clay Matthews III

text: He set the Packers' record for most sacks in a single postseason with 3.5. In the Super Bowl, won by the Packers over the Pittsburgh Steelers, he recorded three tackles, a pass deflection, and a game-changing forced fumble. On the first play of the fourth quarter with the Steelers driving to take the lead with the score 21–17 in favor of Green Bay and the ball on the Packer 33 yard line, he tackled Steelers running back Rashard Mendenhall, who fumbled the ball, recovered by Desmond Bishop. This play was featured by NFL Films SoundFx, Matthews was mic’d up. Matthews knew the play would be coming off of the right side of the offensive line. He called for teammate Ryan Pickett to “spill it”, which meant making Mendenhall redirect his running path further from the center of the line of scrimmage. Matthews’ instincts on this tone-setting play is primarily featured in the Packers Hall of Fame. The Packers never lost the lead, winning their fourth Super Bowl title and first since Super Bowl XXXI, 31–25.


title: Clay Matthews III

text: Matthews finished the 2011 season with 50 tackles, and a career low six sacks despite playing 15 of the 16 games. He led the Packers in quarterback pressures for the third straight season, with 53.5. Although some of his numbers plummeted from the previous season, he improved in other aspects of his game. He recorded a career-high three interceptions, nine pass deflections, and three forced fumbles. He also recorded his third career defensive touchdown by picking off Eli Manning for a pick-six. Matthews played almost exclusively at the LOLB position, not roaming around the field like he did the previous season due to the struggling defense. Matthews did not play a single snap at the ROLB position until Week 11 and finished the entire season with only seven rushes from the ROLB spot. Matthews claimed he had his best overall season despite the low numbers. The Packers struggled to find pass pressure from the side opposite of Matthews and the loss of defensive end Cullen Jenkins due to free agency and safety Nick Collins due to a career-ending neck injury, placed the Packers last in total defense despite leading the league in interceptions, with 31. Linebacker coach Kevin Greene stated that he has never seen a pass rusher get double teamed as much as Clay had that season. The defensive line struggled, finishing the season with six total sacks after recording 18 the year before. Matthews was named to his third-straight Pro Bowl as a starter. Prior to the 2011 season, Matthews was named the second-best pass rusher (second only to DeMarcus Ware) and the fourth-best linebacker in the league by ESPN (behind Patrick Willis, James Harrison, and Ware).


title: Clay Matthews III

text: Heading into the 2012 season, the defense needed to improve. Finishing with the 32nd-ranked defense in the NFL was described by Matthews as "unacceptable." The Packers picked six straight defensive players in the draft, including Matthews's former teammate, Nick Perry, out of USC. Because of Perry's larger size (10 pounds heavier) and not being accustomed to playing pass coverage, he was put at the LOLB position, and Matthews was moved back to the ROLB position he played at in his rookie year. The Packers hoped that by drafting Perry, as well as Michigan State DE Jerel Worthy and Iowa DE Mike Daniels, opposing teams would no longer be able to consistently double-team Matthews, allowing pressure to open up on all sides.


title: Clay Matthews III

text: Prior to the 2012 season, "Sporting News" ranked Matthews as the second-best outside linebacker in the league, only behind Cowboys' star DeMarcus Ware. Matthews started out the season with a bang. He recorded 2.5 sacks in the 30–22 season opener loss to the eventual NFC champion San Francisco 49ers and then posted a career-high 3.5 sacks against the Chicago Bears on Thursday night. Matthews became one of only six players in NFL history to record six or more sacks in the first two games of the season, and is the only player ever to do it twice. Entering Week 9 against the Arizona Cardinals, he was second in the league in sacks with nine. Matthews had to leave the game in the second half after his left hamstring started to tighten up. He was eventually ruled out for weeks 11 through 13. After missing four straight games with the hamstring injury, Matthews recorded six tackles, two sacks, and a pass deflection in a 21–13 victory over the Chicago Bears. This victory crowned the Packers as NFC North champions for the second year in a row. Matthews totaled three tackles and a sack in a 37–34 season ending loss to the Minnesota Vikings. He finished the season with 43 tackles, 13.0 sacks (fifth in the league), two passes defended, and a forced fumble. Matthews was selected to his fourth straight Pro Bowl, but dropped out due to injury, and was named to the All-Pro team for the second time.


title: Clay Matthews III

text: In the off-season, Matthews became the highest-paid linebacker in NFL history when the Packers and he made a deal worth $66 million over the next five seasons.


title: Clay Matthews III

text: Playing in only 11 games during the 2013 season, Matthews recorded 41 tackles (26 solo), a team-high 7.5 sacks, and three forced fumbles. During the Packers' Week 5 matchup with the Detroit Lions on October 6, 2013, Matthews broke his right thumb and missed the next four games. On November 10, in a game at home against the Philadelphia Eagles, he returned to the playing field, donning a large "club" cast over his entire right hand. Without the ability to use his fingers to grab or apply pressure or leverage, Matthews was left to be fairly ineffective during this game. The following week, he returned to the field with a less restrictive device that allowed his fingers to remain free. The device seemed to improve his performance the following week. After completing only two tackles (one solo) with no sacks, stuffs, hits, or hurries on the quarterback against the Philadelphia Eagles, in the Packers' Week 11 match-up against the New York Giants the following week, Matthews had four tackles, including a sack with the less restrictive device. After the Giants game, Matthews went on to accumulate 4.5 more sacks and 17 tackles (10 solo) over the next five weeks. In Week 16, during the second to last game of the regular season against the Pittsburgh Steelers, Matthews refractured his thumb sacking Ben Roethlisberger and was out for the remainder of the season.


title: Clay Matthews III

text: Prior to the 2014 season, the Packers signed veteran free agent Julius Peppers to bring an additional pass rush to help Matthews. After a Week 8 loss to the New Orleans Saints, where the Packers defense gave up almost 500 yards of offense, including 172 yards rushing from Mark Ingram, Packers defensive coordinator Dom Capers and head coach Mike McCarthy decided to alter Matthews's position, alternating him between outside linebacker and middle linebacker during games, depending on the play call. The move paid huge dividends for both Matthews and the Packers defense, as the defense improved drastically over the final eight games of the season. After spending the first half of the season ranked near the bottom in the league in defense, the Packers finished the season ranked a respectable 14th in the NFL in total defense. Matthews's sack numbers also increased in the second half of the season. After only getting 2.5 sacks in the first eight games, Matthews had 8.5 sacks in the final eight games, including back-to-back two-sack games against the Buffalo Bills and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Matthews finished the season with 11 sacks, 9 passes defended, one interception (his first since 2011), and two forced fumbles. For the first time in his NFL career, Matthews started every game during the regular season.


title: Clay Matthews III

text: Matthews helped lead his team to the NFC Divisional Round playoff game against the Arizona Cardinals, a game that it lost 26–20 in overtime. Matthews made comments that the Packers should have touched the ball in overtime and "go to college rules". He was ranked 57th on the NFL Top 100 Players of 2016.


title: Clay Matthews III

text: Matthews was among the athletes indicated in "", an Al Jazeera documentary on illegal performance-enhancing drugs use. (In August 2016, after an investigation, the NFL cleared Matthews and two other of its players of wrongdoing, citing "no credible evidence.")


title: Clay Matthews III

text: Every Friday during the football season, Matthews appeared on Wisconsin's "Afternoon News" with John Mercure on Newsradio 620 WTMJ to discuss football.


title: Clay Matthews III

text: In the 2016 season, Matthews appeared in 12 games and started nine. He recorded 24 tackles, of which 20 were solo, five sacks, and one forced fumble. Despite posting a career-low in tackles and sacks, Matthews was ranked 82nd by his peers on the NFL Top 100 Players of 2017.


title: Clay Matthews III

text: On September 28, 2017, during the Week 4 game against the Chicago Bears, Matthews became the Packers' all-time sacks leader when he sacked the Bears' quarterback Mike Glennon. On December 10, 2017, during a game against the Cleveland Browns, Matthews recorded a key quarterback pressure in overtime. This pressure resulted in an interception to secure a victory for the Packers. Before and after the game, Matthews donned a Clay Matthews Jr. Browns #57 jersey as an homage to his father.


title: Clay Matthews III

text: Matthews finished the 2017 season with 7.5 total sacks and 3 pass deflections. Matthews was double-teamed for most of the season, finishing with 39 total tackles. Matthews forced a fumble and recovered a fumble as well.


title: Clay Matthews III

text: On June 2, 2018, Matthews, who was pitching to Packers offensive lineman Lucas Patrick in the off-season Green & Gold Charity Softball Game, had a ball hit directly back to him. The line drive resulted in a broken nose for Matthews; surgery followed the incident. During the Packers' training camp for 2018, Matthews decided to wear a visor to add additional protection for his rhinoplasty. Matthews wore an Oakley, Inc. style clear visor with a Speedflex revolution helmet. During Week 2 against the Minnesota Vikings, Matthews was called for a controversial roughing the passer penalty that nullified an interception with 1:37 left in the fourth quarter. The game ended in a 29–29 tie. During Week 3 against the Washington Redskins, Matthews was again called for roughing the passer, becoming the first player to commit three roughing-the-passer penalties in the first three games of the season since 2001, as the Packers lost 31–17.


title: Clay Matthews III

text: On October 15, 2018 Matthews recorded his last sack at Lambeau Field. Against the San Francisco 49ers on Monday Night Football, with 3:52 remaining in the 4th quarter, on a 3rd & 10 play from the SF 23, Matthews brought down C. J. Beathard at the SF 11 for a key loss of -12 yards.


title: Clay Matthews III

text: Matthews made his debut with the Rams in Week 1 against the Carolina Panthers, making three tackles and sacking Cam Newton once as the Rams won 30–27. In Week 2 against the New Orleans Saints, Matthews recorded another sack against Teddy Bridgewater as the Rams won 27–9. In Week 3 against the Cleveland Browns, Matthews sacked Baker Mayfield twice in the 20–13 win. In Week 5, after the Rams' 30–29 loss to the Seattle Seahawks, it was announced that Matthews suffered a broken jaw and would undergo surgery. He ended up missing three games, finishing the season with 13 starts.


title: Clay Matthews III

text: In the offseason, on March 19, 2020, Matthews was released by the Rams. He did not play during the 2020 season.


title: Clay Matthews III

text: On September 10, 2020, the Denver Broncos reached out to Matthews in hopes to negotiate a contract, but both sides could not reach an agreement.


title: Clay Matthews III

text: After two seasons out of football, Matthews announced his retirement on September 27, 2022. Matthews had stated he “wished he could’ve finished his career in Green Bay”, the team that drafted him and he had won a Super Bowl with in 2011.


title: Clay Matthews III

text: For charity, Matthews agreed to model and test a Depend adult incontinence brief under his uniform during the 2012 season to benefit the Jimmy V Foundation. Matthews is active in the sports memorabilia circuit; selling exclusive game-used equipment through Fanatics, Inc. and signing autographs exclusively with Waukesha Sportscards in Wisconsin. Matthews and his wife Casey built a large estate in the Oaks of Calabasas gated community, it went on sale in 2020 with an asking price close to $30,000,000. Matthews and his wife Casey Noble-Matthews have three children together: William Clay IV, Madeline Joy and Colton.


title: Clay Matthews III

text: Matthews made an appearance on the February 8, 2011 of "WWE Smackdown", when he ran down to the ring to assist in Edge's World Heavyweight Championship match against Dolph Ziggler as a backup referee, as Vickie Guerrero was the original special referee for that match. Guerrero injured her ankle (kayfabe) after trying to spear Edge, and he won the match and the championship after spearing Ziggler twice, while she was being attended to at ringside for her injury. Shortly after the second spear, Matthews ran down to the ring to make the three-count and give Edge the win. This episode took place in Green Bay, the same week the Green Bay Packers won the Super Bowl XLV after WWE invited the winning team to the show that is taking place in their hometown.


title: Clay Matthews III

text: Matthews and his former Packers teammates Josh Sitton, David Bakhtiari, T. J. Lang, and Don Barclay had cameo appearances in the film "Pitch Perfect 2". He also stars in season 1 episode 21 of "The Mindy Project", as well as making a cameo in the 2015 film "Entourage". Also in 2015, Matthews was primarily featured in an online episode for Houzz. Matthews aided in the renovation of his brother and sister-in-law’s Cleveland, Ohio home. Matthews would frequently call in to "The Dan Patrick Show" during the NFL regular season during his playing career.


title: Clay Matthews III

text: In 2018, Matthews was featured along with his wife Casey on "Tanked". In their aforementioned Calabasas, California estate, an 800 gallon aquarium was installed in his home library, next to his framed uniform worn in Super Bowl XLV.


title: Clay Matthews III

text: Main commercial sponsorships for Matthews during his NFL career included: Nike, Gillette, Verizon, Old Spice, Jack Link's Beef Jerky, Campbell Soup Company, Hyundai, Fathead, State Farm (alongside teammates Aaron Rodgers and B. J. Raji) and The Wonderful Company brand pistachios, even with a peanut allergy.


title: Chlorhexidine

text: Chlorhexidine (CHX) (commonly known by the salt forms chlorhexidine gluconate and chlorhexidine digluconate (CHG) or chlorhexidine acetate) is a disinfectant and antiseptic that is used for skin disinfection before surgery and to sterilize surgical instruments. It may be used both to disinfect the skin of the patient and the hands of the healthcare providers. It is also used for cleaning wounds, preventing dental plaque, treating yeast infections of the mouth, and to keep urinary catheters from blocking. It is used as a liquid or powder.


title: Chlorhexidine

text: Side effects may include skin irritation, teeth discoloration, and allergic reactions, although the risk appears to be the same as other topical antiseptics. It may cause eye problems if direct contact occurs. Use in pregnancy appears to be safe. Chlorhexidine may come mixed in alcohol, water, or surfactant solution. It is effective against a range of microorganisms, but does not inactivate spores.


title: Chlorhexidine

text: Chlorhexidine came into medical use in the 1950s. Chlorhexidine is available over the counter (OTC) in the United States. It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines. In 2020, it was the 273rd most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than 1million prescriptions.


title: Chlorhexidine

text: Chlorhexidine is used in disinfectants (disinfection of the skin and hands), cosmetics (additive to creams, toothpaste, deodorants, and antiperspirants), and pharmaceutical products (preservative in eye drops, active substance in wound dressings and antiseptic mouthwashes). A 2019 Cochrane review concluded that based on very low certainty evidence in those who are critically ill "it is not clear whether bathing with chlorhexidine reduces hospital‐acquired infections, mortality, or length of stay in the ICU, or whether the use of chlorhexidine results in more skin reactions."


title: Chlorhexidine

text: In endodontics, chlorhexidine has been used for root canal irrigation and as an intracanal dressing but has been replaced by the use of sodium hypochlorite bleach in much of the developed world.


title: Chlorhexidine

text: CHG is active against Gram-positive and Gram-negative organisms, facultative anaerobes, aerobes, and yeasts. It is particularly effective against Gram-positive bacteria (in concentrations ≥ 1 μg/L). Significantly higher concentrations (10 to more than 73 μg/mL) are required for Gram-negative bacteria and fungi. Chlorhexidine is ineffective against polioviruses and adenoviruses. The effectiveness against herpes viruses has not yet been established unequivocally.


title: Chlorhexidine

text: There is strong evidence that chlorhexidine is more effective than povidone-iodine for clean surgery. Evidence shows that it is the most effective antiseptic for upper limb surgery, and there is no data to suggest that alcoholic chlorhexidine increases the risk of tourniquet-related burns, ignition fires or allergic episodes during surgery.


title: Chlorhexidine

text: Chlorhexidine, like other cation-active compounds, remains on the skin. It is frequently combined with alcohols (ethanol and isopropyl alcohol).


title: Chlorhexidine

text: Use of a CHG-based mouthwash in combination with normal tooth care can help reduce the build-up of plaque and improve mild gingivitis. There is not enough evidence to determine the effect in moderate to severe gingivitis. About 20 mL twice a day of concentrations of 0.1% to 0.2% is recommended for mouth-rinse solutions with a duration of at least 30 seconds. Such mouthwash also has a number of adverse effects including damage to the mouth lining, tooth discoloration, tartar build-up, and impaired taste. Extrinsic tooth staining occurs when chlorhexidine rinse has been used for 4 weeks or longer.


title: Chlorhexidine

text: Mouthwashes containing chlorhexidine which stain teeth less than the classic solution have been developed, many of which contain chelated zinc.


title: Chlorhexidine

text: Using chlorhexidine as a supplement to everyday mechanical oral hygiene procedures for 4 to 6 weeks and 6 months leads to a moderate reduction in gingivitis compared to placebo, control or mechanical oral hygiene alone.


title: Chlorhexidine

text: Chlorhexidine is a cation which interacts with anionic components of toothpaste, such as sodium lauryl sulfate and sodium monofluorophosphate, and forms salts of low solubility and antibacterial activity. Hence, to enhance the antiplaque effect of chlorhexidine, "it seems best that the interval between toothbrushing and rinsing with CHX [chlorhexidine] be more than 30 minutes, cautiously close to 2 hours after brushing".


title: Chlorhexidine

text: Chlorhexidine gluconate is used as a skin cleanser for surgical scrubs, as a cleanser for skin wounds, for preoperative skin preparation, and for germicidal hand rinses. Chlorhexidine eye drops have been used as a treatment for eyes affected by "Acanthamoeba" keratitis.


title: Chlorhexidine

text: Chlorhexidine is very effective for poor countries like Nepal and its use is growing in the world for treating the umbilical cord. A 2015 Cochrane review has yielded high-quality evidence that within the community setting, chlorhexidine skin or cord care can reduce the incidence of omphalitis (inflammation of the umbilical cord) by 50% and neonatal mortality by 12%.


title: Chlorhexidine

text: CHG does not meet current European specifications for a hand disinfectant. Under the test conditions of the European Standard EN 1499, no significant difference in the efficacy was found between a 4% solution of chlorhexidine digluconate and soap. In the U.S., between 2007 and 2009, Hunter Holmes McGuire Veterans Administration Medical Center conducted a cluster-randomized trial and concluded that daily bathing of patients in intensive care units with washcloths saturated with chlorhexidine gluconate reduced the risk of hospital-acquired infections.


title: Chlorhexidine

text: Whether prolonged exposure over many years may have carcinogenic potential is still not clear. The US Food and Drug Administration recommendation is to limit the use of a chlorhexidine gluconate mouthwash to a maximum of six months.


title: Chlorhexidine

text: When ingested, CHG is poorly absorbed in the gastrointestinal tract and can cause stomach irritation or nausea. If aspirated into the lungs at high enough concentration, as reported in one case, it can be fatal due to the high risk of acute respiratory distress syndrome.


title: Chlorhexidine

text: At physiologic pH, chlorhexidine salts dissociate and release the positively charged chlorhexidine cation. The bactericidal effect is a result of the binding of this cationic molecule to negatively charged bacterial cell walls. At low concentrations of chlorhexidine, this results in a bacteriostatic effect; at high concentrations, membrane disruption results in cell death.


title: Chlorhexidine

text: It is a cationic polybiguanide (bisbiguanide). It is used primarily as its salts (e.g., the dihydrochloride, diacetate, and digluconate).


title: Chlorhexidine

text: Chlorhexidine is deactivated by forming insoluble salts with anionic compounds, including the anionic surfactants commonly used as detergents in toothpastes and mouthwashes, anionic thickeners such as carbomer, and anionic emulsifiers such as acrylates/C10-30 alkyl acrylate crosspolymer, among many others. For this reason, chlorhexidine mouth rinses should be used at least 30 minutes after other dental products. For best effectiveness, food, drink, smoking, and mouth rinses should be avoided for at least one hour after use. Many topical skin products, cleansers, and hand sanitizers should also be avoided to prevent deactivation when chlorhexidine (as a topical by itself or as a residue from a cleanser) is meant to remain on the skin.


title: Chlorhexidine

text: Chlorhexidine topical is sold as Betasept, Biopatch, Calgon Vesta, ChloraPrep One-Step, Dyna-Hex, Hibiclens, Hibistat Towelette, Scrub Care Exidine, Spectrum-4 among others.


title: Chlorhexidine

text: Chlorhexidine gluconate mouthwash is sold as Dentohexin, Paroex, Peridex, PerioChip, Corsodyl and Periogard, among others.


title: Chlorhexidine

text: Hexoralettene N contains benzocaine, menthol and chlorhexidine hydrochloride. It is used as oral antiseptic candies.


title: Chlorhexidine

text: In animals, chlorhexidine is used for topical disinfection of wounds, and to manage skin infections. Chlorhexidine-based disinfectant products are used in the dairy farming industry.


title: Chlorhexidine

text: Post-surgical respiratory problems have been associated with the use of chlorhexidine products in cats.


title: Korean wave

text: The Korean wave or K-wave (, , a neologism, literally meaning "wave/flow of Korea") is the increase in global popularity of South Korean culture since the 1990s. First driven by the spread of K-dramas and K-pop across East, Southeast and South Asia during its initial stages, the Korean Wave has since evolved from a regional development in Asia into a global phenomenon, carried by the Internet and social media and the proliferation of K-pop music videos on YouTube. While some sources attribute the term "Hallyu," a variation of a Japanese expression using "ryu" (流) as a postfix to refer to '~way', '~style' or '~group', to being first used by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in South Korea in 1999, when the ministry produced a music CD titled in Chinese "韓流—Song from Korea", other scholarly sources attribute the term's ascendance from Korean television dramas first airing on Chinese television in 1997, naming the phenomenon "hanliu" (), meaning "Korean wave". The term was adopted by Chinese media to refer to the success of South Korean popular culture in China. The term was reintroduced in Japan as "hanryu" or "kanryu" by the "Asahi Shimbun" in 2001. These two terms, "Hallyu" and "Korean wave", were included in the "Oxford English Dictionary" ("OED") in 2021.


title: Korean wave

text: Since the turn of the 21st century, South Korea has emerged as a major exporter of popular culture and tourism, aspects which have become a significant part of its rapidly developed economy. The growing popularity of Korean pop culture in the world was at least partly driven and funded by the South Korean government supporting its creative industries since the end of the 1990s through subsidies and funding for start-ups, as a form of accruing soft power with the goal of becoming a leading global exporter of culture, a niche that the United States has dominated for nearly a century. In 2014, the South Korean government allocated 1% of its annual budget to cultural industries and raised a $1 billion fund to nurture popular culture.


title: Korean wave

text: The success of the Korean wave is also due to the development of social networking services and online video sharing platforms, which have allowed the Korean entertainment industry to reach a sizable overseas audience since the 2000s. Korean dramas have enjoyed widespread availability via streaming services which often offer subtitles in multiple languages. Many K-dramas have been adapted throughout the world, achieving notable popularity in some countries. K-dramas have attracted attention for their fashion, style, and culture all over the world.


title: Korean wave

text: The Korean wave has become an influential global phenomenon since the start of the 21st century, heavily impacting the contemporary cultures, music industry, film industry, television industry, and behavioral aspects of various people throughout the world. Interest in the Korean wave is led by the popularity of K-pop, with stand-out acts such as BTS and Blackpink, followed by K-dramas.


title: Korean wave

text: As the popularity of K-pop songs such as "Gangnam Style", "Dynamite", and "Butter", and K-dramas such as "Descendants of the Sun", "Vincenzo", "Squid Game" and "Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha" accomplished international success, South Korea has become recognized as a hub of both economic and soft power. The South Korean mass media and entertainment industries are considered to have high production values with cutting edge technology and talent.


title: Korean wave

text: However, the Korean wave has also been criticized for its alleged racism and sexism as well as the exploitation and treatment of artists and musicians within the Korean entertainment industry. Such pressures have led to high-profile suicides such as Song Yoo-jung, Choi Jin-sil, Kim Jong-hyun, Goo Hara, Cha In-ha, Sulli, and Oh In-hye, among others. In 2019, the Burning Sun scandal highlighted widespread sex trafficking involving a few Korean celebrities and idols that had been ongoing for years, and the ensuing cover-up attempts. Various Korean dramas have also been condemned for attempts to take advantage of the Korean wave to distort, rewrite or whitewash Korea's history, and especially South Korea's historical periods and dictatorship era.


title: Korean wave

text: The Korean term for the phenomenon of the Korean Wave is "Hanryu" (Hangul: 한류), more commonly romanized as "Hallyu". The term is made of two root words: "han" (한/韓) meaning "Korean", and "ryu" (류/流) meaning "flow" or "wave", and referring to the diffusion of Korean culture.


title: Korean wave

text: This term is sometimes applied differently outside of Korea; for example, overseas, "Hallyu" drama refers to Korean drama in general, but in Korea, "Hallyu" drama and Korean drama are taken to mean slightly different things. According to researcher Jeongmee Kim, the term "Hallyu" refers only to dramas that have gained success overseas, or feature actors that are internationally recognised.


title: Korean wave

text: The Korean wave encompasses the global awareness of different aspects of South Korean culture including film and television (particularly K-dramas), K-pop, manhwa, the Korean language, and Korean cuisine. American political scientist Joseph Nye defines the Korean wave as "the growing popularity of all things Korean, from fashion and film to music and cuisine."


title: Korean wave

text: With acts like BTS breaking chart records in the West, the Korean Wave is now turning itself into a power player in global entertainment industry and international soft power arena. South Korea is one of few countries from Asia that has been able to break into an American mainstream entertainment market that was previously dominated by domestic, British, and European brands. As per Afshin Molavi, the global pop culture once dominated by the West is now more globalized. According to cultural historian and writer Paula Lee, historically it is unusual for a nation which is not a great power in geopolitics to export culture solely based on its own strength.


title: Korean wave

text: The soft power of Korean wave is able to break racial prejudice and fulfill the missing representation of Asians in western media. People from East and Southeast Asia are able to see the remarkable success achieved by K-pop idols as their own.


title: Korean wave

text: As per the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Innovation Index 2021, K-pop has become one of the cornerstones of creativity in South Korea.


title: Korean wave

text: During a 2021 conference on South Korea's Soft Power organized by Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), acknowledging the Korean Wave Joseph Nye said, "even though there is no country has been more successful than South Korea over the past 60 years, so many Koreans think they are weak and lagging behind. That affects their optimism and creativity". After BTS won Artist of the Year at the 2021 American Music Awards, President Moon Jae-in remarked, “Korean culture is dominating the world and it is boosting the country’s national status and diplomacy."


title: Korean wave

text: According to Ramon Pacheco Pardo who is Professor of International Relations at King's College London, the large number of Korean travellers and expatriates abroad influenced the development of more universal Korean content that helped it crack the Western market during the 2010s. Korean artists also bypassed traditional media channels through extensive use of social media and YouTube to reach a global audience.


title: Korean wave

text: An early mention of Korean culture as a form of soft power can be found in the writings of Kim Gu, leader of the Korean independence movement and president of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea. Towards the end of his autobiography, he wrote the following:


title: Korean wave

text: In 1961, which was after the Korean War (1950–53) and the 1953 Korean Armistice Agreement, South Korea's economy began to fully recover from the war and experienced a period of rapid economic growth known as the Miracle on the Han River.


title: Korean wave

text: In the film industry, screen quotas were introduced in South Korea during Park Chung-hee's presidency, restricting the number of foreign films shown in cinemas. These were intended to prevent competition between domestic films and foreign blockbuster movies. However, in 1986, the Motion Pictures Exporters Association of America filed a complaint to the United States Senate regarding the regulations imposed by the South Korean government, which was compelled to lift the restrictions. In 1988, Twentieth Century Fox became the first American film studio to set up a distribution office in South Korea, followed by Warner Brothers (1989), Columbia (1990), and Walt Disney (1993).


title: Korean wave

text: By 1994, Hollywood's share of the South Korean movie market had reached a peak of around 80 percent, and the local film industry's share fell to a low of 15.9 percent. That year, president Kim Young-sam was advised to provide support and subsidies to Korean media production, as part of the country's export strategy. According to South Korean media, the former president was urged to take note of how total revenues generated by Hollywood's "Jurassic Park" had surpassed the sale of 1.5 million Hyundai automobiles; with the latter a source of national pride, this comparison reportedly influenced the government's shift of focus towards culture as an exportable industry. At this time, the South Korean Ministry of Culture set up a cultural industry bureau to develop its media sector, and many investors were encouraged to expand into film and media. Thus, by the end of 1995 the foundation was laid for the rise of Korean culture.


title: Korean wave

text: In July 1997, the Asian financial crisis led to heavy losses in the manufacturing sector, prompting a handful of businesses to turn to the entertainment sector.


title: Korean wave

text: According to "The New York Times", South Korea began to lift restrictions on cultural imports from its former colonial ruler Japan in 1998. With an aim of tackling an impending "onslaught" of Japanese movies, anime, manga, and J-pop, the South Korean Ministry of Culture made a request for a substantial budget increase, which allowed the creation of 300 cultural industry departments in colleges and universities nationwide.


title: Korean wave

text: In February 1999, the first local big-budget film, "Shiri," was released and became a major commercial success. It grossed over US$11 million, surpassing the Hollywood blockbuster "Titanic".


title: Korean wave

text: Around this time, several Korean television dramas were broadcast in China. On 19 November 1999, one of China's state-controlled daily newspapers, the "Beijing Youth Daily", published an article acknowledging the "zeal of Chinese audiences for Korean TV dramas and pop songs". In February 2000, S.M. Entertainment's boy-band H.O.T. became the first modern K-pop artist to give an overseas performance, with a sold-out concert in Beijing. As the volume of Korean cultural imports rapidly increased, China's State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television responded with a decision to restrict and limit the number of Korean TV dramas shown to Chinese audiences.


title: Korean wave

text: In April 2000, Byun Hyuk's film debut "Interview" (2000), hailed as the first "Asian Dogme" film and being the seventh film officially produced using Danish's avant-garde movement Dogme 95, who co-founded by Thomas Vinterberg and Lars von Trier.


title: Korean wave

text: "My Sassy Girl" (2001) was a major international breakthrough for Korean films. It became a box office hit across East Asia, and its DVD release also drew a large cult following across Southeast Asia and parts of South Asia. It also spawned a number of international remakes, including a Hollywood remake and several Asian film remakes, as well as television adaptations and a sequel.


title: Korean wave

text: However, several other countries in Asia were also experiencing a growth in the popularity of Korean dramas and pop songs. In 2000 in the Indian state of Manipur, where Bollywood movies were banned by separatists, consumers gradually turned their attention to Korean entertainment. According to Agence France-Presse, Korean phrases were commonly heard in the schoolyards and street markets of Manipur. Many Korean dramas and films were smuggled into Manipur from neighbouring Burma, in the form of CDs and DVDs. Popularity in Korean products subsequently spread to other parts of Northeast India including Assam, Meghalaya, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura, Mizoram, and Nagaland.


title: Korean wave

text: In 2002, following the reversal of a decades-long embargo on media between the two countries, BoA's album "Listen to My Heart" became the first album by a Korean musician to sell a million copies in Japan. Following this success, other K-pop artists also ventured into the Japanese music industry as well.


title: Korean wave

text: On 8 June 2001, Shinhwa's fourth album "Hey, Come On!" was released to success throughout Asia. The group became particularly popular in China and Taiwan.


title: Korean wave

text: In 2002, "Winter Sonata" (produced by Korean channel KBS2) became the first drama to equal the success of the 2001 Taiwanese adaptation of the manga, "Hana Yori Dango", called "Meteor Garden". "Winter Sonata" attracted a cult following in Asia, and sales of merchandise, including DVD sets and novels, surpassed US$3.5 million in Japan. This drama marked the initial entrance of the Korean Wave in Japan. In 2004, former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi noted that the male protagonist of the drama was "more popular than I am in Japan". Other Korean dramas released in subsequent years such as "Dae Jang Geum" (2003) and "Full House" (2004) saw comparable levels of success.


title: Korean wave

text: Since 2002, television programming trends in Asia began to undergo changes as series from both South Korea and Taiwan began to fill prime time slots previously reserved for Hollywood movies.


title: Korean wave

text: The breakthrough for K-pop came with the debuts of TVXQ (2003), SS501 (2005), Super Junior (2005), the early success of Big Bang (2007–present), and other artists hailed by a BBC reporter as "household names in much of Asia." In 2003, South Korean girl group Baby V.O.X. released a Chinese single entitled "I'm Still Loving You" and topped various music charts in China, making a huge fanbase there. Both "I'm Still Loving You" and their subsequent Korean single "What Should I Do" also charted in Thailand.


title: Korean wave

text: Meanwhile, the popularity of Korean television continued to spread across the continent. Reports about Asian women traveling to South Korea to find love inspired by Korean romance dramas began to appear in the media, including in The Washington Post.


title: Korean wave

text: In Nepal, Bhutan, and Sri Lanka, Korean dramas began to increasingly take up airtime on TV channels in these countries with "Winter Sonata" and "Full House" credited to igniting the interest in Korean pop culture in these countries. Korean fashion and hairstyles became trendy amongst youth in Nepal and led to a Korean language course boom in the country which has persisted to today. Korean cuisine experienced a surge of popularity in Nepal with more Korean eateries opening in the country throughout the early to mid 2000s. Similarly, Korean cuisine also became popular in Sri Lanka and Bhutan with Korean restaurants opening to satisfy the demand in these countries.


title: Korean wave

text: By the late 2000s, many Taiwanese musicians had been superseded by their K-pop counterparts, although a small number of groups such as F4 and Fahrenheit continued to maintain fan bases in Asia.


title: Korean wave

text: In the United States, Korean culture has spread outwards from Korean American communities, most notably those in Los Angeles and New York City. The overall reception of Korean culture in the United States is rather lukewarm compared to that in Asia; Mnet Media said that its employees' attempt to pitch over 300 K-pop music videos to American producers and record labels was unsuccessful, there being "relationships so they would be courteous, but it was not a serious conversation." Attempted US debuts by artists such as BoA and Se7en failed to gain traction, being labelled by a CNN reporter as "complete flops."


title: Korean wave

text: That said, Korean culture products (series such as "Jumong" being particularly well received by audiences in the Muslim world) have seen increasing popularity, with a dedicated and growing global fanbase, particularly after Psy's video for "Gangnam Style" went viral in 2012–13 and was the first YouTube video to reach over a billion views. YouTube has been a vital platform in the increasing international popularity of K-pop, overriding the reluctance of radio DJs to air foreign-language songs in reaching a global audience. KCON, originally a one-day event dedicated to K-Pop in Irvine, California in 2012, has now expanded into eight countries spanning over multiple days and locations.


title: Korean wave

text: K-pop has influenced the foreign diplomacy of South Korea, used as a means to promote Korean culture to foreign countries. South Korea's former President Park Geun-hye intended to allocate at least 2 percent of the national budget to further develop South Korea's cultural industry and to seek more cultural exchange with North Korea. Cuisine and cosmetic products are two of the most recognizable features of South Korean culture overseas. The cultural boom has also propelled tourism growth; South Korea welcomed over 12 million visitors in 2013, with 6 million tourists from China alone.


title: Korean wave

text: Korean skincare products have gained widespread popularity in Asia. Amorepacific and LG Household & Health Care have become the top two beauty companies in the Asia-Pacific region. China has become the largest market for Korean cosmetics, and South Korea accounts for 25% of China's cosmetic imports. In Sri Lanka, European beauty products have largely been replaced in favour of Korean cosmetic and skincare products which have become popular because of their cheaper prices and their suitability for Asian skin. Similarly, Korean products have become popular in Singapore because they meet the concerns of Asians and that they have been designed for Asian people. The popularity of K-pop in Cambodia has also led to the influx of Korean beauty products into the Cambodian market. Korean cosmetic and skincare products have also become popular in Thailand, Malaysia, and Japan, among other countries. Recent political issues between South Korea and China have led Amorepacific to look elsewhere and revamp its products to specifically target Muslim and darker-skinned women in Southeast Asia. In 2017, Innisfree released a range of darker-toned cushions to match skin tones of Southeast Asian women.


title: Korean wave

text: K-dramas and K-pop raised the awareness of Korean beauty products and brands which increased the demand among Indian women that lead to opening of many specialized e-commerce stores. As of 2020, Korean consumer labels are on high demand in India from food to cosmetics and toys apart from household electronics. Indian music streaming services Gaana and JioSaavn confirmed increasing demand for K-pop. As per Spotify user streaming data, BTS is one of the Top 5 artist in India with a growing K-pop fan base that represent top 22% of the global listeners. Of all genre, K-pop has 25% share for newly discovered artist category among 18 to 24 years age group of listeners. Demand for K-pop lead to Spotify promoting diverse set of K-pop artist during World Music Day 2020 campaign apart from well known ones like BTS.


title: Korean wave

text: As per Netflix streaming data for the year 2020 in Asia, "" became the most watched K-pop documentary in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Thailand. In the Korean drama category, "Kingdom" (Season 2) was most watched in Hong Kong and Thailand. For audience in India, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, it was "". "Start-Up" became the highest viewed in Indonesia, "What's Wrong with Secretary Kim" in Japan and "It's Okay to Not Be Okay" in Taiwan respectively. Korean zombie movie "Alive" became the top horror title in Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Japan, Philippines, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Korean travel documentary "Twogether" topped the reality TV show category in Thailand and Taiwan. The strong global demand for wellness, health, and beauty from Eastern cultures is one of the success factor influencing sales of Korean cosmetic brands. The COVID-19 lockdown in India proved to be an inflection point in 2020 when Korean drama moved from a niche segment to mainstream due to over the top media services such as Netflix, Rakuten Viki, and YouTube.