title: Steele dossier

text: The draft dossier's publication by "BuzzFeed" has always been defended by Jack Shafer,<ref name="Shafer_1/11/2017"></ref> "Politico"s senior media writer, as well as by Richard Tofel of "ProPublica" and the "Columbia Journalism Review". Shafer defended the public's right to know about the allegations against Trump, and saw a parallel in Judge Ungaro's ruling in the defamation suit filed by Aleksej Gubarev. Ungaro wrote that the "privilege exists to protect the media while they gather information needed for the public to exercise effective oversight of the government". She also noted that, before the FBI received any reports from Steele, they had "already opened a counterintelligence investigation into links between Russia and the Trump campaign".<ref name="Johnson_12/19/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: In relation to a defamation lawsuit filed by Gubarev against "BuzzFeed", regarding their publication of the draft dossier, Senior Master Barbara Fontaine said Steele was "in many respects in the same position as a whistle-blower" because of his actions "in sending part of the dossier to Senator John McCain and a senior government national security official, and in briefing sections of the US media". She said that "it was not known who provided the dossier to "BuzzFeed" but Mr Steele's evidence was that he was 'horrified and remains horrified' that it was published at all, let alone without substantial redactions."<ref name="Express_3/21/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: The founders of Fusion GPS felt so alarmed by what sources reported to Steele that they have defended the fact that they and Steele used intermediaries to pass dossier content to the authorities, but, regarding the publication by "BuzzFeed", if it had been up to them, "Steele's reporting never would have seen the light of day." They were also alarmed that the leak of the draft dossier would endanger sources, and Glenn Simpson immediately phoned Ken Bensinger at "BuzzFeed": "Take those fucking reports down right now! You are going to get people killed!"<ref name="Snyder_2/2/2020"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Christopher Burrows said: "We didn't expect the findings on Russia to reach the public."<ref name="Scheuermann_Schmitt_2/7/2019"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: When "BuzzFeed" published the dossier in January 2017, the individual reports were one to three pages long, numbered, and page numbers 1–35 had been handwritten at the bottom. All but one had a typed date at the bottom. Each of the first 16 reports (pre-election memoranda) was assigned a typed number in the heading between 80 and 135, but the numeric order didn't always match the chronological order. The 17th report, known as the "December memo", was numbered 166.<ref name="Bump_10/25/2017"></ref> Of the original reports numbered 1–166, only certain reports were used for the dossier, and it is unknown what happened with the content of the other reports: "For example, the first report is labeled as '080', with no indication given as to where the original 79 antecedents might have gone. The second report is then labeled '086', creating yet another mystery as to 81 through 85, and what content they might contain that would otherwise bolster or contextualize what came before or what follows."<ref name="Weiss_Fitzpatrick_7/25/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: The dossier is based on information from witting and unwitting anonymous sources known to counterintelligence specialist Christopher Steele. Some were later revealed.


title: Steele dossier

text: When CNN reported the existence of the dossier on January 10, 2017,<ref name="Nichols_Dilanian_1/11/2017"></ref> it did not name the author of the dossier, but revealed that he was British. Steele concluded that his anonymity had been "fatally compromised", and, realizing it was "only a matter of time until his name became public knowledge", fled into hiding with his family in fear of "a prompt and potentially dangerous backlash against him from Moscow".<ref name="Staff_1/12/2017"></ref><ref name="Wood_1/12/2017"></ref> His friends later reported that he feared assassination by Russians.<ref name="Riley-Smith_2/20/2020"></ref> "The Wall Street Journal" revealed Steele's name the next day, on January 11.<ref name="Hope_Rothfeld_Cullison_1/11/2017"></ref> Orbis Business Intelligence Ltd, for whom Steele worked at the time the dossier was authored, and its director Christopher Burrows, a counterterrorism specialist, would not confirm or deny that Orbis had produced the dossier. On March 7, 2017, as some members of the U.S. Congress were expressing interest in meeting with or hearing testimony from Steele, he reemerged after weeks in hiding, appearing publicly on camera and stating, "I'm really pleased to be back here working again at the Orbis's offices in London today."<ref name="Withnall_3/7/2017"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Called by the media a "highly regarded Kremlin expert" and "one of MI6's greatest Russia specialists", Steele formerly worked for the British intelligence agency MI6 for 22 years, including four years at the British embassy in Moscow,<ref name="Harding_Sabbagh_11/1/2019"></ref> and headed MI6's Russia Desk for three years at the end of his MI6 career. He entered MI6 in 1987, directly after his graduation from Cambridge University.<ref name="Hughes_Robson_1/12/2017"></ref> He currently works for Orbis Business Intelligence Ltd, a private intelligence company he co-founded in London.<ref name="Neubert_Dilanian_Vinograd_Connor_1/13/2017"></ref><ref name="Behar_1/11/2017"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Sir Andrew Wood, the former British ambassador to Moscow, has vouched for Steele's reputation. He views Steele as a "very competent professional operator... I take the report seriously. I don't think it's totally implausible." He also said "the report's key allegation—that Trump and Russia's leadership were communicating via secret back channels during the presidential campaign—was eminently plausible".<ref name="Harding_Hopkins_1/13/2017"></ref> FBI investigators reportedly treat Steele "as a peer", whose experience as a trusted Russia expert has included assisting the Justice Department, British prime ministers, and at least one U.S. president.<ref name="Hamburger_Helderman_2/6/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Steele's biases and motivations toward Trump appear to have changed over time. Starting in 2007, many years before he started his opposition research on Trump, he repeatedly met Ivanka Trump over several years, had a "friendly relationship" with her, and was "favorably disposed" to the Trump family. They even discussed the possibility of the Trump Organization using the services of Orbis Business Intelligence, but no arrangements were made.<ref name="Macfarlane_12/9/2019"></ref><ref name="Szalai_12/10/2019"></ref> Simpson has also confirmed that "there was no pre-existing animus toward Trump by Steele or Fusion".<ref name="Burleigh_12/18/2019"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Later, as Steele was preparing the dossier before the 2016 election, Bruce Ohr said Steele told him he "was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president",<ref name="Riley-Smith_Sabur_2/2/2018"></ref> attitudes that have been described by Julian Sanchez as "entirely natural, not suggestive of preexisting bias", considering Steele believed his own reporting.<ref name="Sanchez_12/11/2019"></ref> Steele has disputed Ohr's statement, and he told interviewers for Inspector General Horowitz that Ohr's wording was a paraphrase of his sentiments and not an exact quote, and the IG Report continues: "Steele told us that based on what he learned during his research he was concerned that Trump was a national security risk and he had no particular animus against Trump otherwise." Steele told the FBI that he "did not begin his investigation with any bias against Trump, but based on the information he learned during the investigation became very concerned about the consequences of a Trump presidency."


title: Steele dossier

text: Steele first became a confidential human source (CHS) for the FBI in 2013 in connection with the investigation in the 2015 FIFA corruption case, but he considered the relationship as contractual. He said the relationship "was never really resolved and both sides turned a blind eye to it. It was not really ideal." Later, the Inspector General report on the Crossfire Hurricane investigation discusses "divergent expectations about Steele's conduct in connection with his election reporting", as Steele considered his first duty to his paying clients, and not to the FBI. The Inspector General's report states that "Steele contends that he was never a CHS for the FBI but rather that his consulting firm had a contractual relationship with the FBI." Steele said "he never recalled being told that he was a CHS and that he never would have accepted such an arrangement..." This divergence in expectations was a factor that "ultimately resulted in the FBI formally closing Steele as a CHS in November 2016 (although... the FBI continued its relationship with Steele through Ohr)."


title: Steele dossier

text: On May 3, 2021, "The Daily Telegraph" reported that Steele and Orbis Business Intelligence, using new sources not used for the original dossier, continued to supply the FBI with raw intelligence during the Trump presidency. During an interview with the FBI in September 2017, Steele informed the FBI that Orbis had "four discrete, 'hermetically-sealed' main agent networks". His Primary sub-source for the dossier was no longer "active" at the time of the interview with FBI agents, but that another "main agent network is up and running and is now starting to get good information".<ref name="Yorke_5/3/2021"></ref><ref name="Mendick_5/3/2021"></ref> This resulted in "a second dossier for the FBI on Donald Trump". It included further claims of Russian election meddling; "alleged Russian interference linked to Mr Trump and his associates"; claims about the "existence of further sex tapes"; and "further details of Mr Manafort's alleged Russian contacts".


title: Steele dossier

text: In 2019, during Trump's first impeachment inquiry, national security expert Fiona Hill stated Steele may have been "played" by the Russians to spread disinformation.


title: Steele dossier

text: The Inspector General's investigative team examined how seriously the FBI Crossfire Hurricane team had considered "whether Steele's election reports, or aspects of them, were the product of a Russian disinformation campaign". Bill Priestap explained to the OIG that by May 2017, after examining several possibilities for how disinformation could affect Steele's reporting, the FBI "didn't have any indication whatsoever that the Russians were running a disinformation campaign through the Steele election reporting". Priestap further explained that "the Russians ... favored Trump, they're trying to denigrate Clinton ... [and] I don't know why you'd run a disinformation campaign to denigrate Trump on the side." The IG Report said Steele explained how sophisticated the Russians were at planting and controlling misinformation, but Steele "had no evidence that his reporting was 'polluted' with Russian disinformation". The inspector general's report ultimately 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: The Inspector General's report stated that "Steele himself was not the originating source of any of the factual information in his reporting."<ref name="OIG_12/9/2019"></ref> Instead, the report found that Steele relied on a "Primary Sub-source", later revealed as Igor Danchenko,<ref name="Kranish_11/23/2021"></ref> who "used a network of [further] sub-sources to gather the information that was relayed to Steele".<ref name="Sobel_4/24/2020"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: In an Alfa-Bank lawsuit, Steele revealed that he "did not rely on Danchenko alone, instead obtaining information from "one main source and a couple of subsidiary sources". According to Steele: "The dossier was intelligence obtained from 3 sources and approximately 20 sub-sources."


title: Steele dossier

text: BBC correspondent Paul Wood, writing in "The Spectator", wrote: "Steele had '20 to 30' sources for the dossier and in two decades as a professional intelligence officer he had never seen such complete agreement by such a wide range of sources."<ref name="Wood_8/12/2020"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Simpson has said that, to his knowledge, Steele did not pay any of his sources.<ref name="Raju_Herb_Polantz_11/16/2017"></ref><ref name="Williams_Beavers_1/18/2018"></ref> According to investigative reporter Jane Mayer of "The New Yorker", Orbis has a large number of paid "collectors" (also called subsources) whose information came from a network of often unwitting sub-subsources. Since payment of these sub-subsources can be seen as bribery or might encourage exaggeration, they are unpaid. Steele testified that these sub-subsources "were not paid and were not aware that their information was being passed to Orbis or Fusion GPS".


title: Steele dossier

text: According to British journalist Luke Harding, Steele's sources were not new, but trusted, proven, and familiar sources.<ref name="NPR.org_11/21/2017"></ref> Howard Blum said Steele leaned on sources "whose loyalty and information he had bought and paid for over the years". Steele later informed the Inspector General's investigators that "this source network did not involve sources from his time as a [redacted] and was developed entirely in the period after he retired from government service."


title: Steele dossier

text: In January 2017, the Primary Sub-source, later identified as Ukrainian-born and Russian-trained attorney Igor Danchenko, was contacted by the FBI for an interview. About a week and a half later, in exchange for legal immunity, he agreed to answer questions about his working relationship with Steele, as well as his opinion on the accuracy of the Steele dossier.<ref name="Goldman_Savage_7/24/2020"></ref> He was interviewed for three days by the FBI<ref name="Savage_Goldman_7/17/2020"></ref> and said that Steele misstated or exaggerated certain information. Danchenko has said "he did not know who Mr. Steele's client was at the time and considered himself a nonpartisan analyst and researcher".


title: Steele dossier

text: The FBI found that he was "truthful and cooperative", but the FBI's Supervisory Intel Analyst said that "it was his impression that the Primary Sub-source may not have been 'completely truthful' and may have been minimizing certain aspects of what he/she told Steele". He also "believed that there were instances where the Primary Sub-source was 'minimizing' certain facts but did not believe that he/she was 'completely fabricating' events". He added that he "did not know whether he could support a 'blanket statement' that the Primary Sub-source had been truthful". Starting in March 2017, Danchenko became a paid confidential human source for the FBI. During this time he lied to the FBI several times during interviews and was terminated in October 2020.


title: Steele dossier

text: In July 2020, Danchenko was unmasked after declassification of the interview report by Attorney General William P. Barr, who "has repeatedly been accused of abusing his powers to help Mr. Trump politically". Lindsey Graham had also "asked the F.B.I. to declassify the interview report".<ref name="Goldman_Savage_7/25/2020"></ref> Immediately after Barr's unmasking of Danchenko, Graham posted it to the Senate Judiciary Committee's web site.<ref name="Filkins_10/7/2020"></ref> The declassification order was criticized by former law enforcement officials as an unmasking that could endanger other sources and make the FBI's work harder. About two weeks after he was unmasked, Danchenko received a subpoena from Alfa-Bank, and his lawyer revealed that his client "fears for his life", since Russian agents are known to kill such informers.


title: Steele dossier

text: The outing of Danchenko also brought to light an inaccuracy in the dossier that describes him as a "Russian-based" source. In fact, although he traveled to Russia in 2016 to gather information, and his source network is mostly in Russia, he is a Ukrainian-born and Russian-trained lawyer, researcher, and expert in Russian politics who lives in the United States.


title: Steele dossier

text: Danchenko has defended his sources: "I have a longstanding relationship with most of my sources ... and have no reason to believe that any of them fabricated information that was given to me. More importantly, I have yet to see anything credible that indicates that the raw intelligence I collected was inaccurate."


title: Steele dossier

text: On November 4, 2021, Danchenko was arrested and charged with five counts of making false statements to the FBI on five separate occasions regarding the sources of material he provided for the Steele dossier.<ref name="Goldman_Savage_11/4/2021"></ref><ref name="DOJ_11/3/2021"></ref> These included Danchenko having allegedly obscured his relationship with Charles Dolan Jr. and having allegedly fabricated contacts with Sergei Millian.<ref name="Barrett_Jackman_11/4/2021"></ref> In November 2021, CNN's Marshall Cohen stated that recent "revelations about Dolan, Millian and Galkina raise grave questions about where Danchenko got his information, or if he perhaps made some of it up". On October 14, 2022, the judge dropped one charge,<ref name="Cohen_10/14/2022"></ref> and four days later, Danchenko was acquitted of the other four charges.<ref name="Cohen_10/18/2022"></ref><ref name="Rizzo_10/18/2022"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Right-wing columnist and attorney Andrew C. McCarthy reacted to what he described as the "if not irrational, then exaggerated" reactions by Trump supporters to these reports of arrests. He urged them to be cautious as John Durham's "indictments narrowly allege that the defendants lied to the FBI only about the identity or status of people from whom they were getting information, "not about the information itself"."<ref name="McCarthy_12/11/2021"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: During his trial, two FBI officials revealed that Danchenko was "an uncommonly valuable" confidential human source for several years whose role went far beyond the Steele dossier:


title: Steele dossier

text: Olga Galkina, labelled by the FBI as "Source 3", was alleged to be an unwitting sub-source in Danchenko's network of sources and "stood as the dossier's most important contributor". She is an old friend of Danchenko and a middle school classmate. On October 28, 2020, "The Wall Street Journal" described her as a Russian public-relations executive with many past jobs in government and the private sector that enabled her to build a "vast network" of sources.<ref name="Cullison_Gauthier-Villars_10/28/2020"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Galkina stated in an affidavit that "she had no idea Danchenko had used 'private discussions or private communications' as dossier material. 'I believe that Mr. Danchenko identified me as Sub-Source 3 to create more authoritativeness for his work'."<ref name="Kessler_11/17/2021"></ref><ref name="Cohen_11/18/2021"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: According to the "Wall Street Journal", she was Steele's source for the hacking accusations against Webzilla; the source of the allegations about a secret meeting in Prague involving Michael Cohen and three colleagues.


title: Steele dossier

text: Sergei Millian was alleged to be an unwitting sub-source in Danchenko's network of sources. He was described in the IG Report as sources D and E, and "Person 1". As an unwitting source, he was alleged to have confided in a compatriot, who then passed that information on to Steele. That information was used in Reports 80, 95, and 102. He denies being a dossier source.<ref name="Helderman_Hamburger_2/7/2019"></ref> Although Steele told the FBI that Person 1 was a "boaster" and "egoist" who "may engage in some embellishment",<ref name="Klein_10/19/2021"></ref> the FBI omitted these "caveats about his source" from the FISA application.


title: Steele dossier

text: In November 2021, Millian's alleged involvement as a source was brought into question. Igor Danchenko is alleged to have lied to Steele about Millian's involvement: "Danchenko told the FBI that he knew Steele believed that he had direct contact with Millian and that he 'never corrected' Steele about that 'erroneous belief'."<ref name="CL_9/2/2022"></ref> On November 12, 2021, following the November 4 indictment of Igor Danchenko, "The Washington Post" corrected and removed the "parts of two stories regarding the Steele dossier" that identified Millian as a source.<ref name="Farhi_11/12/2021"></ref> CNN reported that "Millian has since said he was 'framed' by Danchenko and has publicly denied that they ever spoke, though there is no indication in the indictment that Millian ever denied it to the FBI or under oath." In October 2022, judge Anthony Trenga cast doubt on Millian and two 2020 emails he wrote denying he talked to Danchenko: The "emails lack the necessary 'guarantees of trustworthiness' as the government does not offer direct evidence that Millian actually wrote the emails, and, even if he did, Millian possessed opportunity and motive to fabricate and/or misrepresent his thoughts."<ref name="Savage_Goldman_10/9/2022"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Dolan, who was "well-known among Russia experts," was another unwitting source for Danchenko. He was a public relations executive and Democratic party operative who had been active in Bill and Hillary Clinton's campaigns. While working for Ketchum, a PR firm in New York, he "helped handle global public relations for the Russian Federation for eight years ending in 2014". He also became acquainted with Danchenko and allegedly "fed the dossier before he fought against it". Danchenko had also introduced Olga Galkina, another one of Danchenko's sources, to him. The two had regular interactions "including in ways that indicated they supported Mrs. Clinton's campaign".


title: Steele dossier

text: Dolan's involvement as an unwitting source for Danchenko came to light in connection with Danchenko's indictment. Danchenko is accused of lying to the FBI by stating that "he did not discuss information in the dossier with the individual" [Dolan], "when in fact, the indictment claims, some of the material was 'gathered directly' from" him.


title: Steele dossier

text: Information allegedly from Dolan that ended up in the dossier were "rumors about Paul Manafort's dismissal as Trump's campaign chairman...Two days later, the indictment alleges, that information appeared in one of Steele's reports." Both men had also met in Moscow in June 2016, where Dolan had stayed at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel and toured the presidential suite where Trump had stayed in 2013. According to the Danchenko indictment, "a hotel staff member told [Dolan] that Mr. Trump had stayed there — but Mr. Dolan and another person on the tour told the F.B.I. that the staff member did not mention any salacious activity." After meeting in Moscow, Danchenko flew "to London to provide information that would later appear in the dossier, the indictment claims, setting forth the timeline of these encounters without stating that Dolan was the source for specific claims about the purported tape."


title: Steele dossier

text: Dolan later stated "that he believed the analyst [Danchenko] 'worked for FSB'... Dolan later admitted to the FBI... that he had 'fabricated' the basis of certain details he had provided to Danchenko. He also reportedly said he was unaware of the specifics of Danchenko's work, or that the information they were trading would be transmitted to the FBI. Dolan's 'historical and ongoing involvement in Democratic politics,' the indictment asserts, 'bore upon' his 'reliability, motivations, and potential bias as a source of information' for Steele’s reports."


title: Steele dossier

text: Dolan told authorities that Clinton campaign officials "did not direct, and were not aware of" his contacts with Danchenko. Journalist Stanley-Becker stated "new allegations make Dolan one of the most mysterious figures in the saga of the Steele dossier".<ref name="Stanley-Becker_11/6/2021"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: One of the findings of the 2019 Inspector General's report related to conflicting accounts of sourced content in the dossier. When Steele's Primary Sub-source was later interviewed by the FBI about the allegations sourced to them, he gave accounts that conflicted with Steele's renderings in the dossier and implied that Steele "misstated or exaggerated" their statements. FBI agent Peter Strzok wrote that "Recent interviews and investigation, however, reveal Steele may not be in a position to judge the reliability of his subsource network."


title: Steele dossier

text: The IG found it difficult to discern the causes for the discrepancies between some allegations and explanations later provided to the FBI by the sources for those allegations. The IG attributed the discrepancies to three possible factors:


title: Steele dossier

text: The Supervisory Intel Analyst believed this key sub-source (not the Primary Sub-source) "may have been attempting to minimize his/her role in the [dossier's] election reporting following its release to the public".


title: Steele dossier

text: The FBI's Supervisory Intel Analyst said that "it was his impression that the Primary Sub-source may not have been 'completely truthful' and may have been minimizing certain aspects of what he/she told Steele". He also "believed that there were instances where the Primary Sub-source was 'minimizing' certain facts but did not believe that he/she was 'completely fabricating' events". He added that he "did not know whether he could support a 'blanket statement' that the Primary Sub-source had been truthful".


title: Steele dossier

text: The veracity of allegations can vary widely, with some allegations publicly confirmed,<ref name="Sciutto_Perez_2/10/2017"></ref><ref name="Cullison_Volz_4/19/2019"></ref> others unconfirmed,<ref name="Lee_12/26/2017"></ref> but, according to James Clapper and Fox News host Shepard Smith, none are disproven.<ref name="MSNBC_5/22/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Trump and Putin have repeatedly denied the allegations, and Trump has labeled the dossier "discredited", "debunked", "fictitious", and "fake news".<ref name="Sengupta_4/20/2018"></ref><ref name="Breuninger_1/13/2018"></ref><ref name="Stefansky_11/11/2017"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Below, the allegations are simply presented as they are, but in the section after this one, the widely varying verification status for a number of allegations is examined, sometimes with conflicting reports for or against their veracity, including whether some sources have rejected them.


title: Steele dossier

text: The dossier describes two different Russian operations. The first was an attempt, lasting many years, to find ways to influence Trump, probably not so much "to make Mr. Trump a knowing agent of Russia", but most likely to make him a source the Russians could use. This operation utilized kompromat (Russian: short for "compromising material") and proposals of business deals. The second operation was very recent and involved contacts with Trump's representatives during the campaign to discuss the hacking of the DNC and Podesta.


title: Steele dossier

text: Simpson has described his own and Steele's confidence in Steele's work: "Nothing that I have seen disproves anything in the dossier. Which isn't to say I think it's all true. I don't think Chris thinks it's all true, either. But there's a difference between things being fake or a hoax or a fraud or a lie and things being incorrect." Steele, the author of the dossier, said he believes that 70–90% of the dossier is accurate, although he gives the "golden showers" allegation a 50% chance of being true.


title: Steele dossier

text: The Senate Intelligence Committee wrote that the FBI made "efforts to corroborate the information in the dossier memos, but the Committee found that attempt lacking in both thoroughness and rigor". The FBI stopped all efforts to corroborate the dossier in May 2017 when the Special Counsel's Office took over the Russia investigation.


title: Steele dossier

text: The following content describes how some allegations have been corroborated, while others remain unverified, with sometimes conflicting reports for or against their veracity. In some cases there are discrepancies between sources and their allegations.


title: Steele dossier

text: Source(s) for Report 80 (June 2016) alleged that the Kremlin had been cultivating Trump for "at least five years".


title: Steele dossier

text: Luke Harding writes that documents show Czechoslovakia spied on Trump during the 1970s and 1980s, when he was married to Ivana Trump, his Czechoslovakia-born first wife. Harding writes that the Czechoslovakian government spied on Trump because of his political ambitions and notability as a businessman. It is known that there were close ties between Czechoslovakia's StB and the USSR's KGB.<ref name="Harding_10/29/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Harding also describes how, already since 1987, the Soviet Union was interested in Trump. In his book "Collusion", Harding asserts that the "top level of the Soviet diplomatic service arranged his 1987 Moscow visit. With assistance from the KGB." Then-KGB head Vladimir Kryuchkov "wanted KGB staff abroad to recruit more Americans". Harding proceeds to describe the KGB's cultivation process, and posits that they may have opened a file on Trump as early as 1977, when he married Czech model Ivana Zelníčková; the Soviet spies may have closely observed and analyzed the couple from that time on.<ref name="Harding_11/19/2017"></ref><ref name="NPR_Harding_11/21/2017"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Jonathan Chait has written that 1987 is a year where Russians courted and praised Trump when they invited him to consider building in Moscow. He then visited Moscow in July 1987, and was likely under surveillance, but he did not build anything.<ref name="Chait_7/8/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: On April 26, 2016, George Papadopoulos, a Trump campaign foreign policy advisor, held a breakfast meeting with Joseph Mifsud,<ref name="Shane_10/30/2017"></ref> a man described by James B. Comey as a "Russian agent". Mifsud, who claimed "substantial connections to Russian officials", said he had just returned from Moscow, where he learned the Russians had "dirt" on Clinton in the form of thousands of her emails. This occurred concurrently with the Hillary Clinton email controversy, but before the hacking of the DNC computers had become public knowledge.<ref name="Kelly_11/13/2017"></ref><ref name="LaFraniere_Mazzetti_Apuzzo_12/30/2017"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Papadopoulos later bragged "that the Trump campaign was aware the Russian government had dirt on Hillary Clinton". According to John Sipher, "court papers show he was, indeed, told by a Russian agent that the Kremlin had derogatory information in the form of 'thousands of e-mails'."<ref name="Sipher_1/11/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Papadopoulos sent emails about Putin to at least seven Trump campaign officials. Trump national campaign co-chairman Sam Clovis<ref name="Helderman_11/2/2017"></ref> encouraged Papadopoulos to fly to Russia and meet with agents of the Russian Foreign Ministry, who reportedly wanted to share "Clinton dirt" with the Trump campaign.<ref name="Winter_Connor_Dilanian_Ainsley_10/30/2017"></ref><ref name="Apuzzo_Schmidt_10/30/2017"></ref> When Donald Trump Jr. learned of the offer, he welcomed it by responding: "If it's what you say, I love it..." Later, on June 9, 2016, a meeting in Trump Tower was held, ostensibly for representatives from Russia to deliver that dirt on Clinton.<ref name="CNN_Staff_7/15/2017"></ref><ref name="Bertrand_8/31/2017"></ref> Instead, the meeting was used to discuss lifting of the Magnitsky Act economic sanctions that had been imposed on Russia in 2012, a move favored by candidate Trump.


title: Steele dossier

text: On January 6, 2017, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released the intelligence community assessment of the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. It stated that Russian leadership favored Trump over Clinton, and that Putin personally ordered an "influence campaign" to harm Clinton's electoral chances and "undermine public faith in the US democratic process", as well as ordering cyber attacks on the Democratic and Republican parties.<ref name="ODNI_1/6/2017"></ref> John Brennan and James Clapper testified to Congress that Steele's dossier played no role in the intelligence community assessment,<ref name="Samuels_2/4/2018"></ref><ref name="Benner_Barnes_12/19/2019"></ref> testimony that was reaffirmed by an April 2020 Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee report.<ref name="Lambe_4/21/2020"></ref> The committee found that the Steele dossier was not used by the assessment to "support any of its analytic judgments".<ref name="Jalonick_Tucker_4/21/2020"></ref> In a December 2020 interview with Chris Wallace of Fox News, Brennan said: "The Steele dossier was not used in any way to undergird the judgments that came out of the intelligence community assessment about the Russian actions in the 2016 election... There was so much other evidence and intelligence to support those judgments."<ref name="Blitzer_12/6/2020"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: "Newsweek" said "the dossier's main finding, that Russia tried to prop up Trump over Clinton, was confirmed by" the ODNI assessment. ABC News stated that "some of the dossier's broad implications—particularly that Russian President Vladimir Putin launched an operation to boost Trump and sow discord within the U.S. and abroad—now ring true."


title: Steele dossier

text: The Mueller Report backed "Steele's central claim that the Russians ran a 'sweeping and systematic' operation... to help Trump win". James Comey said:


title: Steele dossier

text: "Lawfare" has noted that the "Mueller investigation has clearly produced public records that confirm pieces of the dossier. And even where the details are not exact, the general thrust of Steele's reporting seems credible in light of what we now know about extensive contacts between numerous individuals associated with the Trump campaign and Russian government officials."<ref name="Grant_Rosenberg_12/14/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: In "The New Yorker", Jane Mayer said the allegation that Trump was favored by the Kremlin, and that they offered Trump's campaign dirt on Clinton, has proven true. Mayer also wrote that the CIA had a Russian government official working as "a human source inside the Russian government during the campaign, who provided information that dovetailed with Steele's reporting about Russia's objective of electing Trump and Putin's direct involvement in the operation." The spy had access to Putin and could actually take pictures of documents on Putin's desk. Because of the dangers imposed by Trump's recent careless disclosures of classified information to Russian officials, the CIA feared their spy was in danger, so the government official and his family were discretely exfiltrated during a family vacation to Montenegro.<ref name="Hohmann_9/10/2019"></ref><ref name="Sciutto_9/9/2019"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: In February 2019, Michael Cohen implicated Trump before the U.S. Congress, writing that in late July 2016, Trump had knowledge that Roger Stone was communicating with WikiLeaks about releasing emails stolen from the DNC in 2016.<ref name="Elfrink_Flynn_2/27/2019"></ref><ref name="Daub_2/27/2019"></ref> Stone denied this and accused Cohen of lying to Congress.<ref name="Swan_2/27/2019"></ref> Stone was later convicted before being pardoned by Trump, and it was confirmed that Stone had been in contact with WikiLeaks.


title: Steele dossier

text: At the Helsinki summit meeting in July 2018, Putin was asked if he had wanted Trump to win the 2016 election. He responded "Yes, I did. Yes, I did. Because he talked about bringing the U.S.-Russia relationship back to normal."<ref name="Friedman_7/17/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Dossier source(s) allege that Manafort, who had worked for Russian interests in Ukraine for many years, "managed" a "well-developed conspiracy of co-operation between [the Trump campaign] and the Russian leadership". The "conspiracy" is not proven, but the "co-operation" is seen as proven.


title: Steele dossier

text: While the Mueller investigation did not "produce enough evidence"<ref name="O'Brien_4/1/2019"></ref> to prove the existence of a formal written or oral "conspiracy",<ref name="Morais_4/18/2019"></ref><ref name="Savage_4/20/2019"></ref> some consider the actions of Manafort, Trump's welcoming of Russian help,<ref name="Megerian_4/18/2019"></ref> and the myriad secret contacts between other Trump campaign members and associates with Russians<ref name="Yourish_Buchanan_1/26/2019"></ref><ref name="Leonnig_Helderman_5/17/2019"></ref> to be the alleged "co-operation" with the Russian's "'sweeping and systematic' operation in 2016 to help Trump win", that "The Guardian"s Luke Harding and Dan Sabbagh describe as "Steele's central claim".


title: Steele dossier

text: CNN described Manafort's role in its report of intercepted communications among "suspected Russian operatives discussing their efforts to work with Manafort... to coordinate information that could damage Hillary Clinton's election prospects... The suspected operatives relayed what they claimed were conversations with Manafort, encouraging help from the Russians."<ref name="Perez_Brown_Prokupecz_8/3/2017"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: These reported intercepts are considered "remarkably consistent with the raw intelligence in the Steele Dossier... [that] states that the 'well-developed conspiracy of co-operation between [the Trump campaign] and the Russian leadership... was managed on the TRUMP side by the Republican candidate's campaign manager, Paul MANAFORT'."<ref name="Goodman_6/15/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: On February 10, 2017, CNN reported that "the dossier details about a dozen conversations between senior Russian officials and other Russian individuals", and that some of those communications had been "intercepted during routine intelligence gathering" and corroborated by U.S. investigators. They "took place between the same individuals on the same days and from the same locations as detailed in the dossier". Due to the classified status of intelligence collection programs, it was not revealed which of the specific conversations mentioned in the dossier were intercepted.


title: Steele dossier

text: U.S. officials said the corroboration gave "US intelligence and law enforcement 'greater confidence' in the credibility of some aspects of the dossier as they continue to actively investigate its contents".


title: Steele dossier

text: In January 2020, Erik Wemple, "The Washington Post"s media critic, criticized this February 2017 CNN report as "vague," asking "CNN to point us to any subsequent reporting—by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, for instance, or the Horowitz report—that shores up the Sciutto-Perez story about confirmed communications from the dossier."


title: Steele dossier

text: Dossier source(s) allege that Trump "hated" Obama so much that when he stayed in the Presidential suite of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Moscow, he employed "a number of prostitutes to perform a 'golden showers' (urination) show in front of him" in order to defile the bed used by the Obamas on an earlier visit. The alleged incident from 2013 was reportedly filmed and recorded by the FSB as kompromat. The 2020 Senate Intelligence Committee report assessed the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Moscow as a "high counterintelligence risk environment" with Russian intelligence on staff, "government surveillance of guests' rooms", and the common presence of prostitutes, "likely with at least the tacit approval of Russian authorities". A Marriott executive told the committee that after Trump's 2013 stay at the hotel, he overheard two hotel employees discussing what to do with an elevator surveillance video they said showed Trump "with several women" whom one of the employees "implied to be 'hostesses.'" Committee investigators interviewed the two employees, but they said they could not recall the video.<ref name="Schmidt_8/23/2020"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Thomas Roberts, the host of the Miss Universe contest, confirmed that "Trump was in Moscow for one full night and at least part of another. (November 8–10).<ref name="Kirell_4/24/2018"></ref> According to flight records, Keith Schiller's testimony, social media posts, and Trump's close friend, Aras Agalarov, Trump arrived by private jet on Friday, November 8, going to the Ritz-Carlton hotel and booking into the presidential suite, where the "golden showers" incident is alleged to have occurred.<ref name="Silver_Pismennaya_7/13/2017"></ref> The next day, Facebook posts showed he was at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel.<ref name="Smith_4/23/2018"></ref> That evening he attended the Miss Universe pageant, followed by an after-party. He then returned to his hotel, packed, and flew back to the U.S.<ref name="Silver_4/23/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: James Comey wrote in his book "" that Trump asked him to have the FBI investigate the pee tape allegation "because he wanted to convince his wife that it wasn't true".<ref name="Levitz_4/12/2018"></ref> Comey did not know if the "golden showers" allegation was true, but he came to believe it was possible.<ref name="Aggeler_4/13/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Regarding the "golden showers" allegation, Michael Isikoff and David Corn have stated that Steele's "faith in the sensational sex claim would fade over time... As for the likelihood of the claim that prostitutes had urinated in Trump's presence, Steele would say to colleagues, 'It's 50–50'."<ref name="Isikoff_Corn_3/17/2018"></ref> The book "Russian Roulette" says that Steele's confidence in the truth of "the Ritz-Carlton story was 'fifty-fifty'. He treated everything in the dossier as raw intelligence material—not proven fact."<ref name="Mayer_3/13/2018"></ref> In their 2019 book, the founders of Fusion GPS report that Steele received the "hotel anecdote" from seven Russian sources.<ref name="Ewing_11/22/2019"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: "Slate" journalist Ashley Feinberg investigated a 25-second video of the purported occurrence (that she described as a 'pee tape'). She concluded that the tape was "fake", but it was "very far from being an obvious fake". A key "discrepancy", according to Feinberg, was that the video apparently showed the presidential suite at the Ritz-Carlton in Moscow as it appeared post-renovation in February 2016, despite the purported occurrence being in November 2013, before the renovation occurred. The video had been in circulation since at least January 25, 2019.<ref name="Feinberg_9/25/2019"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: A footnote in the Mueller Report suggests that Trump may have heard that Russia had incriminating tapes of his behavior. On October 30, 2016, Michael Cohen exchanged a series of text messages with Giorgi Rtskhiladze, a businessman who had worked with Cohen on Trump's real estate projects. Rtskhiladze reported that he had successfully stopped the "flow of tapes from Russia but not sure if there's anything else. Just so you know..." Rtskhiladze told investigators that these were compromising tapes of Trump. Cohen told investigators he spoke to Trump about the issue. Rtskhiladze later told investigators "he was told the tapes were fake, but he did not communicate that to Cohen." "Rolling Stone" reported that "Rtskhiladze's description of the tapes' content tracks with the unverified information included in the Steele dossier".<ref name="Stuart_4/18/2019"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: The Senate Intelligence Committee Report indicated that "Cohen has testified that he became aware of allegations about a tape of compromising information in late 2013 or early 2014...related to Trump and prostitutes." Cohen then "asked a friend, Giorgi Rtskhiladze, to see if Rtskhiladze could find out if the tape was real". The Report added that "Cohen...would have been willing to pay...to suppress the information if it could be verified, but Cohen was never shown any evidence."


title: Steele dossier

text: On June 15, 2013, five months before the 2013 Miss Universe contest in Moscow, Trump was accompanied on a visit to the Las Vegas nightclub "The Act" by Crocus Group owner Aras Agalarov, his son Emin, Ike Kaveladze, Rob Goldstone, Michael Cohen, Keith Schiller, and others, where Trump was photographed and the group stayed "for several hours". The club featured "risque performances" and, according to Cohen, Trump watched a golden showers performance "with delight".<ref name="Zoellner_9/6/2020"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: The Agalarovs were also linked to several other events involving Trump, including the invitation to share "dirt" on Clinton at the Trump Tower meeting<ref name="Sheth_3/14/2018"></ref> and knowledge of Trump's alleged sexual activities in Russia, both in St. Petersburg and the Moscow Ritz Carlton. The dossier's sources reported that Aras Agalarov "would know most of the details of what the Republican presidential candidate had got up to" in St. Petersburg. In 2013, when Trump stayed at the Ritz Carlton hotel, "multiple sources" reported that the offer to "send five women to Trump's hotel room that night"<ref name="Corn_Isikoff_3/8/2018"></ref> came from a Russian who was accompanying Emin Agalarov".<ref name="Raju_Herb_11/10/2017"></ref> A footnote in the Mueller Report describes how Giorgi Rtskhiladze reported that he had successfully stopped the "flow of... compromising tapes of Trump rumored to be held by persons associated with the Russian real estate conglomerate Crocus Group" [owned by Agalarov].


title: Steele dossier

text: Dossier source(s) allege that the Russians possess kompromat on Trump that can be used to blackmail him, and that the Kremlin promised him the kompromat will not be used as long as he continues his cooperation with them. Trump's actions at the Helsinki summit in 2018 "led many to conclude that Steele's report was more accurate than not... Trump sided with the Russians over the U.S. intelligence community's assessment that Moscow had waged an all-out attack on the 2016 election... The joint news conference... cemented fears among some that Trump was in Putin's pocket and prompted bipartisan backlash."<ref name="Bertrand_9/30/2019"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: At the joint press conference, when asked directly about the subject, Putin denied having any kompromat on Trump. Even though Trump was reportedly given a "gift from Putin" the weekend of the pageant, Putin argued "that he did not even know Trump was in Russia for the Miss Universe pageant in 2013 when, according to the Steele dossier, video of Trump was secretly recorded to blackmail him."<ref name="Mackey_7/16/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: In reaction to Trump's actions at the summit, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) spoke in the Senate: "Millions of Americans will continue to wonder if the only possible explanation for this dangerous and inexplicable behavior is the possibility—the very real possibility—that President Putin holds damaging information over President Trump."<ref name="Blake_7/17/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Several operatives and lawyers in the U.S. intelligence community reacted strongly to Trump's performance at the summit. They described it as "subservien[ce] to Putin" and a "fervent defense of Russia's military and cyber aggression around the world, and its violation of international law in Ukraine" which they saw as "harmful to US interests". They also suggested he was either a "Russian asset" or a "useful idiot" for Putin,<ref name="Sheth_8/30/2019"></ref> and that he looked like "Putin's puppet".<ref name="Sheth_8/27/2019"></ref> Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper wondered "if Russians have something on Trump",<ref name="CNN_7/19/2018"></ref> and former CIA director John Brennan, who has accused Trump of "treason", tweeted: "He is wholly in the pocket of Putin."<ref name="Sevastopulo_Hille_7/20/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Former acting CIA director Michael Morell has called Trump "an unwitting agent of the Russian federation", and former CIA director Michael V. Hayden said Trump was a "useful fool" who is "manipulated by Moscow".<ref name="Boot_1/13/2019"></ref> House Speaker Nancy Pelosi questioned Trump's loyalty when she asked him: "[Why do] all roads lead to Putin?"<ref name="DeBonis_Kim_10/17/2019"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: According to former KGB major Yuri Shvets, Trump became the target of a joint Czech intelligence services and KGB spying operation after he married Czech model Ivana Zelnickova<ref name="Smith_1/29/2021"></ref> and was cultivated as an "asset" by Russian intelligence since 1977: "Russian intelligence gained an interest in Trump as far back as 1977, viewing Trump as an exploitable target."<ref name="Palma_2/2/2021"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Trump was not viewed as an actual agent (spy) but as an asset: "We're talking about Trump being a self-interested businessman who's happy to do a favour if it works to his own best interests."<ref name="Conversation_2/5/2021"></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.


title: Steele dossier

text: Max Boot<ref name="Boot_8/1/2020"></ref> described what he sees as more "evidence of Trump's subservience to Putin", and he tied it to new government confirmations of rumors about Trump's alleged "dalliances with Russian women during visits to Moscow" that leave "him open to blackmail", rumors mentioned in the 2020 Senate Intelligence Committee report: While the Senate Intelligence Committee report extensively explored the possibility of Russian kompromat, much of the discussion was redacted in the public version of the report. Ultimately, the Senate Intelligence Committee "did not establish" that Russia had kompromat on Trump.<ref name="Blake_8/21/2020"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Dossier source(s) allege that "Romanian hackers" controlled by Putin hacked the DNC servers and that the Trump campaign cooperated with Russia.


title: Steele dossier

text: Russian hackers used the Guccifer 2.0 persona and claimed to be Romanian, like the Romanian hacker who originally used that identity.<ref name="Franceschi-Bicchierai_6/21/2016"></ref><ref name="Schwartz_5/24/2013"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: The Mueller Report confirmed that the dossier was correct that the Kremlin was behind the appearance of the DNC emails on WikiLeaks, noting that the Trump campaign "showed interest in WikiLeaks's releases of documents and welcomed their potential to damage candidate Clinton".<ref name="Kessler_4/24/2019"></ref> It was later confirmed that Roger Stone was in contact with Wikileaks.<ref name="Tucker_Long_Balsamo_4/29/2020"></ref><ref name="Samuelsohn_Gerstein_11/12/2019"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Thirteen Russian nationals and three companies have been charged for their efforts to interfere in the 2016 election and to support Trump's campaign. According to an indictment cited by "The New York Times", "The Russians stole the identities of American citizens, posed as political activists and used the flash points of immigration, religion and race to manipulate a campaign in which those issues were already particularly divisive," beginning in 2014. By 2016, they were "supporting the presidential campaign of then-candidate Donald J. Trump" and denigrating Clinton, concluded the U.S. government.<ref name="Apuzzo_LaFraniere_2/16/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: According to CNN, "former top Trump campaign officials have corroborated special counsel Robert Mueller's finding that the Trump campaign planned some of its strategy around the Russian hacks, and had multiple contacts with Kremlin-linked individuals in 2016."<ref name="Polantz_Perez_11/21/2019"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: On February 19, 2020, numerous sources revealed that lawyers for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told Westminster Magistrates' Court Trump had Dana Rohrabacher visit Assange at the Ecuadoran Embassy in London on August 16, 2017. There, he made a "quid pro quo" offer of a presidential pardon to Assange, in exchange for Assange covering up Russian involvement by declaring that "Russia had nothing to do with the DNC leaks": "[Lawyer] Edward Fitzgerald... said he had evidence that a quid pro quo was put to Assange by Rohrabacher, who was known as Putin's favorite congressman."


title: Steele dossier

text: Dossier source(s) allege that Carter Page "conceived and promoted" the idea of [the Russians] leaking the stolen DNC emails to WikiLeaks during the 2016 Democratic National Convention for the purpose of swinging supporters of Bernie Sanders "away from Hillary CLINTON and across to TRUMP". (Reports 95, 102)


title: Steele dossier

text: In July 2016, in an "error-ridden message", WikiLeaks urged Russian intelligence to act swiftly to reach this timeline goal: <ref name="Sanger_Rutenberg_Lipton_7/15/2018"></ref> "The New York Times" reported that Assange told "Democracy Now!" "he had timed their release to coincide with the Democratic convention".<ref name="Savage_7/26/2016"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: The leaks started the day before the DNC national convention, a timing that was seen as suspicious by David Shedd, a former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, who said: "The release of emails just as the Democratic National Convention is getting underway this week has the hallmarks of a Russian active measures campaign."<ref name="Engel_7/26/2016"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Dossier source(s) allege that Russia-friendly president Yanukovych, whom Manafort advised for over a decade, had told Putin he had been making supposedly untraceable kickback payments to Manafort. After Yanukovych fled to Russia in 2014 under accusations of corruption, a secret "black ledger" was found in the former Party of Regions headquarters. It showed that Yanukovych and his ruling political party had set aside $12.7 million in illegal and undisclosed payments to Manafort for his work from 2007 to 2012.<ref name="Kramer_McIntire_Meier_8/14/2016"></ref> Manafort has denied receiving the payments.<ref name="Rhodan_8/15/2016"></ref> Manafort was accused of receiving $750,000 in "illegal, off-the-books payments from Ukraine's pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych before he was toppled".<ref name="Reevell_3/21/2017"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: From 2006 to at least 2009, Manafort had a $10 million annual contract with Putin ally and aluminum magnate, Oleg Deripaska, a contract under which Manafort had proposed he would "influence politics, business dealings and news coverage inside the United States, Europe and former Soviet republics to benefit President Vladimir Putin's government".<ref name="Horwitz_Day_3/22/2017"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: On November 2, 2017, Carter Page testified, without a lawyer, for more than six hours before the House Intelligence Committee that was investigating Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections. He testified about his five-day trip to Moscow in July 2016.<ref name="Prokop_2/2/2018"></ref> According to his testimony, before leaving he informed Jeff Sessions, J. D. Gordon, Hope Hicks, and Corey Lewandowski, Trump's campaign manager, of the planned trip to Russia, and Lewandowski approved the trip, responding: "If you'd like to go on your own, not affiliated with the campaign, you know, that's fine."<ref name="Raju_Herb_Polantz_11/8/2017"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Dossier source(s) allege that Page secretly met Rosneft chairman Igor Sechin on that July trip. Page denied meeting Sechin or any Russian officials during that trip, but he later admitted under oath that he met with Sechin's senior aide, Andrey Baranov, who was Rosneft's chief of investor relations.<ref name="Afkhami_2/5/2018"></ref> According to Harding, Baranov was "almost certainly" "relaying Sechin's wishes". David Corn and Michael Isikoff wrote that the FBI was not able to find evidence that Page met with Sechin or was offered a 19 percent stake in the giant energy conglomerate in exchange for the lifting of U.S. sanctions and that "Mueller's report noted that his 'activities in Russia ... were not fully explained'".<ref name="Corn_11/19/2021"></ref> "Newsweek" has listed the claim about Page meeting with Rosneft officials as "verified".<ref name="Maza_1/10/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text:
Jane Mayer said this part of the dossier seems true, even if the name of an official may have been wrong. Page's congressional testimony confirmed he met with Andrey Baranov, who was Rosneft's chief of investor relations, and Page conceded under questioning by Adam Schiff that the "potential sale of a significant percentage of Rosneft" might have been "briefly mentioned".<ref name="House_Intel_11/2/2017 ">
 MR. SCHIFF: Dr. Page, this is my specific question: Did you or did you not discuss with Mr. Baranov in July a potential sale of a significant percentage of Rosneft?
 MR. PAGE: I can't recall any discussion.


title: Steele dossier

text: MR. PAGE: He may have briefly mentioned it when we were looking up from this Portugal—Ronaldo, whoever the—you know, the goals that are being scored. That may have come up. But I have no definitive recollection of that. And, certainly, what never came up, certainly, was my involvement in any—that type of a transaction.</ref> However, Page insisted that "there was never any negotiations, or any quid pro quo, or any offer, or any request even, in any way related to sanctions".<ref name="Raju_Herb_Polantz_11/7/2017"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: CNN noted that his admissions to the House Intelligence Committee did confirm the Steele dossier was right about Page attending high-level meetings with Russians and possibly discussing "a sale of a stake in Rosneft", even though he denied doing so at the time.<ref name="Samuelsohn_Cheney_Bertrand_4/23/2019"></ref><ref name="Cohen_6/14/2019"></ref> In April 2019, the Mueller Report concluded that their investigation did not establish that Page coordinated with Russia's interference efforts.


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. According to Jeff Montgomery in Law360: "Judge Craig A Karsnitz ruled that the articles ... were either true or protected under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act." Mike Leonard, writing for Bloomberg Law, wrote that the judge said that Page admitted the articles about his potential contacts with Russian officials were essentially true.


title: Steele dossier

text: Dossier source(s) allege that Sechin "offered PAGE/TRUMP's associates the brokerage of up to a 19 per cent (privatised) stake in Rosneft" (worth about $11billion) in exchange for Trump lifting the sanctions against Russia after his election.


title: Steele dossier

text: According to Harding, Sechin and Divyekin set this offer up as a carrot and stick scheme, in which the carrot was the brokerage fee ("in the region of tens and possibly hundreds of millions of dollars"), and the stick was blackmail over purported "damaging material on Trump" held by the Russian leadership.<ref name="Harding_2/3/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: About a month after Trump won the election, according to "The Guardian", Carter Page traveled to Moscow "shortly before the company announced it was selling a 19.5% stake" in Rosneft. He met with top Russian officials at Rosneft, but denied meeting Sechin. He also complained about the effects of the sanctions against Russia.<ref name="Kirchgaessner_4/23/2017"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: On December 7, 2016, Putin announced that a 19.5% stake in Rosneft was sold to Glencore and a Qatar fund. Public records showed the ultimate owner included "a Cayman Islands company whose beneficial owners cannot be traced", with "the main question" being "Who is the real buyer of a 19.5 percent stake in Rosneft?... the Rosneft privatization uses a structure of shell companies owning shell companies."


title: Steele dossier

text: Michael Horowitz's 2019 inspector general report "said Steele's claims about Page 'remained uncorroborated' when the wiretaps ended in 2017".<ref name="Wemple_1/3/2020"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: The dossier says Page, claiming to speak with Trump's authority, had confirmed that Trump would lift the existing sanctions against Russia if he were elected president. On December 29, 2016, during the transition period between the election and the inauguration, National Security Advisor designate Flynn spoke to Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak, urging him not to retaliate for newly imposed sanctions; the Russians took his advice and did not retaliate.<ref name="Miller_Entous_Nakashima_2/2017"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Within days after the inauguration, new Trump administration officials ordered State Department staffers to develop proposals for immediately revoking the economic and other sanctions. One retired diplomat later said, "What was troubling about these stories is that suddenly I was hearing that we were preparing to rescind sanctions in exchange for, well, nothing."<ref name="Dilanian_3/4/2018"></ref> The staffers alerted Congressional allies who took steps to codify the sanctions into law. The attempt to overturn the sanctions was abandoned after Flynn's conversation was revealed and Flynn resigned.<ref name="Isikoff_6/1/2017"></ref><ref name="Siegel_6/2/2017"></ref> In August 2017, Congress passed a bipartisan bill to impose new sanctions on Russia. Trump reluctantly signed the bill, but then refused to implement it.<ref name="Porter_1/30/2018"></ref> After Trump hired Manafort, his approach toward Ukraine changed; he said he might recognize Crimea as Russian territory and might lift the sanctions against Russia.


title: Steele dossier

text: Among those sanctioned were Russian oligarchs like Oleg Deripaska, "who is linked to Paul Manafort", parliament member Konstantin Kosachev, banker Aleksandr Torshin, and Putin's son-in-law. Preparation for the sanctions started already before Trump took office.<ref name="Gordon_Hall_Kumar_Stone_4/6/2018"></ref> In January 2019, Trump's Treasury Department lifted the sanctions on companies formerly controlled by Deripaska. Sanctions on Deripaska himself remained in effect.<ref name="CNBC_1/27/2019"></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". McClatchy reported in 2018 that a phone of Cohen's was traced to the Prague area in late summer 2016. The April 2019 Mueller Report states "Cohen had never traveled to Prague".<ref name="Bort_Dickinson_Kroll_4/18/2019"></ref> The December 2019 Horowitz Report stated that the FBI "concluded that these allegations against Cohen" in the dossier "were not true".


title: Steele dossier

text: In April 2018, McClatchy DC Bureau, citing two sources, reported that investigators working for Mueller "have traced evidence that Cohen entered the Czech Republic through Germany, apparently during August or early September of 2016", a claim that "The Spectator" reported in July 2018 was "backed up by one intelligence source in London".<ref name="Cockburn_7/3/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: In August 2018, "The Spectator" reported that "one intelligence source" saying "Mueller is examining 'electronic records' that would place Cohen in Prague."<ref name="Wood_8/25/2018"></ref> In December 2018, McClatchy reported that a phone of Cohen's had "pinged" cellphone towers in the Prague area in late summer 2016, citing four sources, leading to foreign intelligence detecting the pings. McClatchy also reported that during that time an Eastern European intelligence agency had intercepted communications between Russians, one of whom mentioned that Cohen was in Prague.<ref name="Stone_Gordon_12/27/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: The "Washington Post" sent a team of reporters to Prague in an attempt to verify that Cohen had been there for the purposes alleged in the Dossier. According to reporter Greg Miller in November 2018, they "came away empty".<ref name="C-SPAN_11/16/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: In April 2019, "The New York Times" reported that when the FBI attempted to verify the dossier's claims, the Prague allegation "appeared to be false", as "Cohen's financial records and C.I.A. queries to foreign intelligence services revealed nothing to support it."


title: Steele dossier

text: Also in April 2019, the Mueller Report mentioned that "Cohen had never traveled to Prague" and presented no evidence of the alleged Prague meeting,<ref name="Drobnic_Holan_7/26/2019"></ref> thus contradicting the dossier and the McClatchy report.<ref name="Bauder_4/20/2019"></ref> Glenn Kessler, fact-checker for "The Washington Post", has said that "Mueller does not indicate he investigated whether Cohen traveled to Prague; he simply dismisses the incident in Cohen's own words". McClatchy responded to the Mueller Report by stating that it did not refer to evidence that Cohen's phone had pinged in or near Prague.<ref name="Hall_4/18/2019"></ref><ref name="Blake_4/22/2019"></ref> McClatchy stood by its December 2018 reporting, stating that there was a "possibility that Cohen was not there but one of the many phones he used was".


title: Steele dossier

text: The Associated Press described a December 2019 Horowitz Report mention of an inaccuracy in the dossier regarding Michael Cohen that may have been the Prague allegation.<ref name="Tucker_4/16/2020"></ref> Matt Taibbi wrote that news reports of the Cohen-Prague allegation were "either incorrect or lacking factual foundation".<ref name="Taibbi_12/17/2019"></ref> CNN interpreted the Horowitz Report as saying that the dossier's Cohen-Prague allegation was untrue.<ref name="Polantz_12/9/2019"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: In August 2020, the testimony of David Kramer was publicized, where he said Steele was uncertain about the "alleged Cohen trip to Prague". Kramer said: "it could have been in Prague, it could have been outside of Prague. He also thought there was a possibility it could have been in Budapest... [but Steele] never backed off the idea that Cohen was in Europe."


title: Steele dossier

text: In 2015, Trump had taken a hard line in favor of Ukraine's independence from Russia. He initially denounced Russia's annexation of Crimea as a "land grab" that "should never have happened", and called for a firmer U.S. response, saying "We should definitely be strong. We should definitely do sanctions."<ref name="Crowley_8/3/2016"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: With the hirings of Paul Manafort and Carter Page, Trump's approach toward Ukraine reversed. Manafort had worked for Russian interests in Ukraine for many years, and after hiring Manafort as his campaign manager, Trump said he might recognize Crimea as Russian territory and might lift the sanctions against Russia. At the time Trump appointed Carter Page as a foreign policy advisor, Page was known as an outspoken and strongly pro-Russian, anti-sanctions person whose views aligned with Trump's, and who had complained that his own, as well as his Russian friends', business interests were negatively affected by the sanctions imposed on Russia because of its aggression in Ukraine and its interference in the 2016 elections.<ref name="Isikoff_9/23/2016"></ref><ref name="Mider_3/30/2016"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Dossier source(s) allege that "the Trump campaign agreed to minimize US opposition to Russia's incursions into Ukraine".<ref name="Bertrand_9/22/2017"></ref> Harding considers this allegation to have been confirmed by the actions of the Trump campaign: "This is precisely what happened at the Republican National Convention last July, when language on the US's commitment to Ukraine was mysteriously softened." "The Washington Post" reported that "the Trump campaign orchestrated a set of events" in July 2016 "to soften the language of an amendment to the Republican Party's draft policy on Ukraine."<ref name="Rogin_7/18/2016"></ref> In July 2016, the Republican National Convention did make changes to the Republican Party's platform on Ukraine: initially the platform proposed providing "lethal weapons" to Ukraine, but the line was changed to "appropriate assistance".


title: Steele dossier

text: NPR reported that "Diana Denman, a Republican delegate who supported arming U.S. allies in Ukraine, has told people that Trump aide J.D. Gordon said at the Republican Convention in 2016 that Trump directed him to support weakening that position in the official platform."<ref name="Johnson_12/4/2017"></ref> J. D. Gordon, who was one of Trump's national security advisers during the campaign, said he had advocated for changing language because that reflected what Trump had said.<ref name="Murray_Acosta_Schleifer_3/4/2017"></ref> Although the Trump team denied any role in softening the language, Denman confirmed that the change "definitely came from Trump staffers".<ref name="Bertrand_2/5/2017"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Kyle Cheney of "Politico" sees evidence that the change was "on the campaign's radar" because Carter Page congratulated campaign members in an email the day after the platform amendment: "As for the Ukraine amendment, excellent work."<ref name="Cheney_4/1/2018"></ref> Paul Manafort falsely said that the change "absolutely did not come from the Trump campaign".<ref name="Mak_Corse_8/3/2016"></ref> Trump told George Stephanopoulos that people in his campaign were responsible for changing the GOP's platform stance on Ukraine, but he denied personal involvement.<ref name="ABC_Trump_Stephanopoulos_7/31/2016"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Dossier source(s) allege that, as part of a "quid pro quo" agreement, "the TRUMP team had agreed... to raise US/NATO defense commitments in the Baltics and Eastern Europe to deflect attention away from Ukraine, a priority for PUTIN who needed to cauterise the subject." Aiko Stevenson, writing in "HuffPost", noted that some of Trump's actions seem to align with "Putin's wish list", that "includes lifting sanctions on Russia, turning a blind eye towards its aggressive efforts in the Ukraine, and creating a divisive rift amongst western allies." During the campaign Trump "called NATO, the centrepiece of Transatlantic security, 'obsolete', championed the disintegration of the EU, and said that he is open to lifting sanctions on Moscow."<ref name="Stevenson_1/18/2017"></ref> Harding adds that Trump repeatedly "questioned whether US allies were paying enough into Nato coffers". Jeff Stein, writing in "Newsweek", described how "Trump's repeated attacks on NATO have... frustrated... allies... [and] raised questions as to whether the president has been duped into facilitating Putin's long-range objective of undermining the European Union."<ref name="Stein_12/21/2017"></ref> Trump's appearances at meetings with allies, including NATO and G7, have frequently been antagonistic; according to the "Los Angeles Times", "The president's posture toward close allies has been increasingly and remarkably confrontational this year, especially in comparison to his more conciliatory approach to adversaries, including Russia and North Korea."<ref name="Stokols_7/11/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Dossier source(s) allege that "a leading Russian diplomat, Mikhail KULAGIN" participated in U.S. election meddling, and was recalled to Moscow because the Kremlin was concerned his role in the meddling would be exposed. The BBC later reported that U.S. officials in 2016 had identified Russian diplomat Mikhail Kalugin as a spy and that he was under surveillance, thus "verifying" a key claim in the dossier. Kalugin was the head of the economics section at the Russian embassy. He returned to Russia in August 2016. McClatchy reported that the FBI was investigating whether Kalugin played a role in the election interference. Kalugin has denied the allegations.<ref name="Hall_Stone_Gordon-Goldstein_2/15/2017"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: The validity of the accusation that Aleksej Gubarev's "XBT/Webzilla and its affiliates had been using botnets and porn traffic to transmit viruses, plant bugs, steal data and conduct 'altering operations' against the Democratic Party leadership" has been confirmed by an unsealed report by FTI Consulting in the defamation suit(s) Gubarev had filed against others.<ref name="Rosenberg_3/14/2019"></ref><ref name="Hall_3/14/2019"></ref><ref name="Helderman_Hamburger_Nakashima_3/15/2019"></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." XBT has denied the allegations, and "findings do not prove or disprove claims made about XBT in the dossier, but show how the company could have been used by cyber criminals, wittingly or unwittingly".


title: Steele dossier

text: According to the "Wall Street Journal", Steele's source for the hacking accusations against Webzilla was Olga Galkina, who was involved in a "messy dispute" with the firm "after being fired in November 2016".


title: Steele dossier

text: Steele and the dossier became "the central point of contention in the political brawl raging around" the Special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. Russian intelligence agencies may have sought to create doubt about the veracity of the dossier.<ref name="Mendick_1/20/2019"></ref> Those who believed Steele considered him a hero who tried to warn about the Kremlin's meddling in the election, and people who distrusted him considered him a "hired gun" used to attack Trump. Glenn Kessler described the dossier as "a political Rorschach test. Depending on your perspective, it's either a hoax used to defame a future president or a credible guide to allegations about Trump's involvement with Russia." According to former "New York Times" reporter Barry Meier, some MI6 officials said that Steele "had a tendency to become obsessed and go down rabbit holes chasing targets of questionable value".


title: Steele dossier

text: Following the dossier's release, Steele completely avoided on-camera interviews until he participated in an ABC News documentary that was aired on Hulu on October 18, 2021. In that documentary, Steele maintained that his sources were credible and that it was typical in intelligence investigations to "never get to the point where you're 99% certain of the evidence to secure a conviction". Steele also acknowledged that one of his sources had faced repercussions; he confirmed that the source was still alive, but he would not provide further details.<ref name="Pellish_Herb_10/18/2021"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: The dossier's "broad assertion that Russia waged a campaign to interfere in the election is now accepted as fact by the US intelligence community."<ref name="Perez_Prokupecz_Brown_10/25/2017"></ref> With the passage of time and further revelations from various investigations and sources, it is becoming clearer that the overall thrust of the dossier was accurate:<ref name="Donn_6/29/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Shepard Smith said: "Some of the assertions in the dossier have been confirmed. Other parts are unconfirmed. None of the dossier, to Fox News's knowledge, has been disproven."<ref name="Hutzler_8//16/2018"></ref> In some cases, public verification is hindered because information is classified.<ref name="Berke_6/8/2017"></ref><ref name="Truscott_8/18/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: According to Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff, a major portion of the dossier's content is about Russian efforts to help Trump, and those allegations "turned out to be true".


title: Steele dossier

text: The Inspector General investigation by Michael E. Horowitz, published December 9, 2019, expressed doubts about the dossier's reliability and sources:


title: Steele dossier

text: Adam Goldman and Charlie Savage described the dossier as "deeply flawed". They have also described it as a "compendium of rumors and unproven assertions". Ryan Lucas described it as an "explosive dossier of unsubstantiated and salacious material about President Trump's alleged ties with Russia".


title: Steele dossier

text: The process of evaluating Steele's information has been explained by Bill Priestap, at the time the Assistant Director of the FBI Counterintelligence Division:


title: Steele dossier

text: On January 11, 2017, Paul Wood, of BBC News, wrote that the salacious information in Steele's dossier was also reported by "multiple intelligence sources" and "at least one East European intelligence service". They reported that "compromising material on Mr. Trump" included "more than one tape, not just video, but audio as well, on more than one date, in more than one place, in both Moscow and St. Petersburg". While also mentioning that "nobody should believe something just because an intelligence agent says it",<ref name="Lange_1/11/2017"></ref> Wood added that "the CIA believes it is credible that the Kremlin has such "kompromat"—or compromising material—on the next US commander in chief" and "a joint taskforce, that includes the CIA and the FBI, has been investigating allegations that the Russians may have sent money to Mr Trump's organisation or his election campaign".<ref name="Wood_compromising_1/12/2017"></ref><ref name="Drum_1/12/2017"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: On January 12, 2017, Susan Hennessey, a former National Security Agency lawyer now with the Brookings Institution, said: "My general take is that the intelligence community and law enforcement seem to be taking these claims seriously. That itself is highly significant. But it is not the same as these allegations being verified. Even if this was an intelligence community document—which it isn't—this kind of raw intelligence is still treated with skepticism."<ref name="Hennessey_Wittes_1/12/2017"></ref> Hennessey and Benjamin Wittes wrote that "the current state of the evidence makes a powerful argument for a serious public inquiry into this matter".


title: Steele dossier

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


title: Steele dossier

text: On March 30, 2017, Paul Wood reported that the FBI was using the dossier as a roadmap for its investigation.<ref name="Bertrand_3/30/2017"></ref> On January 13, 2019, Sonam Sheth reported that the Senate Intelligence Committee was also using it as a roadmap for their investigation into Russia's election interference.<ref name="Sheth_1/13/2019"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: On April 18, 2017, CNN reported that, according to U.S. officials, information from the dossier had been used as part of the basis for getting the FISA warrant to monitor Page in October 2016. The Justice Department's inspector general revealed in 2019 that in the six weeks prior to its receipt of Steele's memos, the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane team "had discussions about the possibility of obtaining FISAs targeting Page and Papadopoulos, but it was determined that there was insufficient information at the time to proceed with an application to the court." The IG report described a changed situation after the FBI received Steele's memos and said the dossier then played a central role in the seeking of FISA warrants on Carter Page in terms of establishing FISA's low bar for probable cause: "FBI and Department officials told us the Steele reporting 'pushed [the FISA proposal] over the line' in terms of establishing probable cause."<ref name="Herridge_Hymes_Segers_Quinn_12/9/2019"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Mimi Rocah, Dan Goldman, and Barbara McQuade debunked three false arguments made by "National Review"'s Andrew C. McCarthy against the FBI's use of the dossier when seeking a FISA warrant on Carter Page. They explained why the FBI was justified in doing so and would have been "derelict" if it had not: "[McCarthy] misses the point. Even if the specific details in the Steele dossier are not directly confirmed, the fact that other evidence unrelated to the dossier corroborates the dossier's main allegations is sufficient to support a finding of probable cause."


title: Steele dossier

text: Officials told CNN this information would have had to be independently corroborated by the FBI before being used to obtain the warrant,<ref name="Perez_Prokupecz_Raju_4/18/2017"></ref><ref name="Nakashima_Barrett_Entous_4/11/2017"></ref> but CNN later reported "it's now clear that this level of verification never materialized". Steele told the FBI that Person 1 was a "boaster" and "egoist" who "may engage in some embellishment", "caveats about his source" that the FBI omitted from its FISA application. In his testimony before Congress, Glenn Simpson "confirmed that the FBI had sources of its own and that whatever the FBI learned from Steele was simply folded into its ongoing work".<ref name="Dreyfuss_1/12/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

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


title: Steele dossier

text: On October 11, 2017, it was reported that Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee (SJC), had said: "As I understand it, a good deal of his information remains unproven, but none of it has been disproven, and considerable amounts of it have been proven."<ref name="Hosenball_Landay_10/11/2017"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: On October 25, 2017, James Clapper said that "some of the substantive content of the dossier we were able to corroborate in our Intelligence Community assessment which from other sources in which we had very high confidence."<ref name="Eisen_Goodman_9/24/2018"></ref><ref name="Tatum_10/26/2017"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: On October 27, 2017, Robert S. Litt, a former lawyer for the Director of National Intelligence, was quoted as stating the dossier "played absolutely no role" in the intelligence community's determination that Russia had interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.<ref name="Bertrand_10/27/2017"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: On November 15, 2017, Adam Schiff said much of the dossier's content is about Russian efforts to help Trump, and those allegations "turned out to be true", something later affirmed by the January 6, 2017, intelligence community assessment released by the ODNI.<ref name="Tau_11/15/2017"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: On December 7, 2017, commentator Jonathan Chait wrote that as "time goes by, more and more of the claims first reported by Steele have been borne out", with the mainstream media "treat[ing] [the dossier] as gossip" whereas the intelligence community "take it seriously".<ref name="Chait_12/7/2017"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: On January 29, 2018, a House Intelligence Committee minority report stated that "multiple independent sources... corroborated Steele's reporting".


title: Steele dossier

text: On January 29, 2018, Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said "little of that dossier has either been fully proven or conversely, disproven".<ref name="Wheeler_2/1/2018"></ref><ref name="Glasser_1/29/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

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


title: Steele dossier

text: During his April 15, 2018, ABC News interview with George Stephanopoulos, former FBI Director James Comey described Steele as a "credible source, someone with a track record, someone who was a credible and respected member of an allied intelligence service during his career, and so it was important that we try to understand it, and see what could we verify, what could we rule in or rule out."<ref name="Keneally_4/15/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: In May 2018, former career intelligence officer James Clapper believed that "more and more" of the dossier had been validated over time.<ref name="O'Hehir_5/26/2018"></ref><ref name="Bowden_5/26/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: When DOJ Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz issued a report in December 2019 on the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, the report noted that the "FBI Intel Section Chief told us that the CIA viewed the Steele reporting as 'internet rumor'".


title: Steele dossier

text: Steele, the author of the dossier, said he believes that 70–90% of the dossier is accurate, although he gives the "golden showers" allegation a 50% chance of being true. In testimony to Congress, Simpson quoted "Steele as saying that any intelligence, especially from Russia, is bound to carry intentional disinformation, but that Steele believes his dossier is 'largely not disinformation'." Steele has countered the suggestion that the Russians deliberately fed his sources misinformation that would undermine Trump: "The ultimate Russian goal was to prevent Hillary Clinton from becoming president, and therefore, the idea that they would intentionally spread embarrassing information about Trump—true or not—is not logical."


title: Steele dossier

text: Other observers and experts have had varying reactions to the dossier. Generally, "former intelligence officers and other national-security experts" urged "skepticism and caution" but still took "the fact that the nation's top intelligence officials chose to present a summary version of the dossier to both President Obama and President-elect Trump" as an indication "that they may have had a relatively high degree of confidence that at least some of the claims therein were credible, or at least worth investigating further".<ref name="Tracy_1/11/2017"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Vice President Joe Biden told reporters that, while he and Obama were receiving a briefing on the extent of election hacking attempts, there was a two-page addendum that addressed the contents of the Steele dossier.<ref name="Hensch_1/12/2017"></ref> Top intelligence officials told them they "felt obligated to inform them about uncorroborated allegations about President-elect Donald Trump out of concern the information would become public and catch them off-guard".<ref name="Lederman_1/12/2017"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: On January 11, 2017, "Newsweek" published a list of "13 things that don't add up" in the dossier, writing that it was a "strange mix of the amateur and the insightful" and stating that it "contains lots of Kremlin-related gossip that could indeed be, as the author claims, from deep insiders—or equally gleaned" from Russian newspapers and blogs.<ref name="Matthews_1/11/2017"></ref> Former UK ambassador to Russia Sir Tony Brenton said certain aspects of the dossier were inconsistent with British intelligence's understanding of how the Kremlin works, commenting: "I've seen quite a lot of intelligence on Russia, and there are some things in [the dossier] which look pretty shaky."<ref name="SkyNews_1/13/2017"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: In his June 2017 Senate Intelligence Committee testimony, former FBI director James Comey said "some personally sensitive aspects" of the dossier were unverified when he briefed Trump on them on January 6, 2017.<ref name="Comey_6/8/2017"></ref> Comey also said he could not say publicly whether any of the allegations in the dossier had been confirmed.


title: Steele dossier

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


title: Steele dossier

text: In June 2019, investigators for Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz found Steele's testimony surprising<ref name="Bertrand_7/9/2019"></ref> and his "information sufficiently credible to have to extend the investigation".<ref name="Hosenball_7/9/2019"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: In November 2019, the founders of Fusion GPS published a book about the dossier and had this to say about its veracity:


title: Steele dossier

text: David A. Graham of "The Atlantic" has noted that in spite of Trump's "mantra that 'there was no collusion'... it is clear that the Trump campaign and later transition were eager to work with Russia, and to keep that secret."<ref name="Graham_1/10/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: Adam Goldman and Charlie Savage of "The New York Times" have described the impact of some of the flaws in the dossier:


title: Steele dossier

text: The FBI Operation Crossfire Hurricane investigation into Russian interference, that started on July 31, 2016, was not triggered by the dossier, but the dossier is still the subject of the Russia investigation origins counter-narrative, a conspiracy theory pushed by Trump and Fox News.


title: Steele dossier

text: In January 2018, ABC News described how the FBI would not open an investigation based on one document like Steele's unverified report but it still needed to investigate its allegations "rather than accept them as evidence". The Russian interference investigation was opened because of previously existing concerns: John Brennan testified he was already "aware of intelligence and information about contacts between Russian officials and U.S. persons that raised concerns" and it was that knowledge that "served as the basis for the FBI investigation to determine whether such collusion [or] cooperation occurred". ABC wrote that "For the FBI, the dossier was essentially just another tip" that must be investigated.


title: Steele dossier

text: The Mueller Report, a summary of the findings of the Special Counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections, contained passing references to some of the dossier's allegations but little mention of its more sensational claims. It was a major subject of the Nunes memo, the Democratic rebuttal memo,<ref name="Jalonick_Day_2/25/2018"></ref> and the Inspector General report on the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.


title: Steele dossier

text: The investigations led to Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson being interviewed in August 2017 by Congress.<ref name="Lucas_8/23/2017"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: John Durham has been investigating whether FBI agents "mishandled classified information" about operation Crossfire Hurricane when they questioned Steele. The IG report documents that a case agent mentioned Papadopoulos to Steele. The FBI has no "established guidelines for how to address the disclosure of sensitive or classified information to sources", and the Inspector General "concluded that the case agent should not be faulted".


title: Steele dossier

text: Durham sought to get more information by seeking access to evidence gathered in a British lawsuit filed by the founders of Alfa-Bank. A July 21, 2020, court filing shows that Durham has sought the lifting of "a protective order on evidence that had been gathered". "Politico" wrote that legal experts said this move was "highly unusual... and suggests the British government was not involved in, or cooperating with, Durham's criminal investigation".<ref name="Bertrand_12/12/2020"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: The Russia investigation origins counter-narrative<ref name="Kilgore4/4/2017"></ref> is a right-wing alternative narrative,<ref name="Smerconish_10/12/2019"></ref><ref name="Walsh_7/15/2018"></ref> sometimes identified as a conspiracy theory,<ref name="Timm_9/25/2019"></ref> concerning the origins of the Special Counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. These conspiracy theories<ref name="Blake_1/2/2018"></ref><ref name="Shear_Benner_Fandos_8/17/2018"></ref> have been pushed by Trump,<ref name="Kruzel_7/23/2018"></ref> Fox News,<ref name="Rupar_03/22/2019"></ref> GOP politicians like Representative Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), and Trump's Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe.<ref name="Robertson_3/27/2019"></ref> On November 2, 2020, the day before the presidential election, "New York" magazine reported that:


title: Steele dossier

text: The conspiracy theory falsely claims the dossier triggered the Russia investigation and was used as an excuse by the FBI to start it. It also aims to discredit Steele and thus discredit the whole investigation.<ref name="Lamond_Dessel_10/17/2019"></ref> The real trigger for the July 31 opening of the investigation was two connected events: the July 22 release by WikiLeaks of Democratic National Committee emails stolen by Russian hackers and the July 26 revelation by the Australian government of the bragging by Papadopoulos of Russian offers to aid the Trump campaign by releasing those emails.<ref name="Savage_12/1/2021"></ref><ref name="NCA_11/18/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: The dossier could not have had any role in the opening of the Russia investigation on July 31, 2016, as top FBI officials received the dossier the following September.<ref name="Goldman_Savage_4/9/2019"></ref> Instead, it was the activities of George Papadopoulos that started the investigation.<ref name="Brannen_8/20/2019"></ref> The investigation by Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz into Russian interference and alleged FISA abuses found that "none of the evidence used to open the [original Crossfire Hurricane FBI] investigation" came from the C.I.A. or Trump–Russia dossier.<ref name="Goldman_Savage_11/22/2019"></ref> On February 4, 2018, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) affirmed that the Russia probe would have happened without the dossier: "So there's going to be a Russia probe, even without a dossier." Also in February 2018, the Nunes memo stated: "The Papadopoulos information triggered the opening of an FBI counterintelligence investigation in late July 2016 by FBI agent Pete Strzok."<ref name="Bush_Alcindor_Wellford_Sreenivasan_2/2/2018"></ref>


title: Steele dossier

text: The founders of Fusion GPS did not expect their connections to Bruce and Nellie Ohr, Steele, Hillary Clinton, and the FBI to "become public and subsequently provide the framework for a deep-state conspiracy theory".


title: Steele dossier

text: The dossier also figures as part of the Spygate conspiracy theory and conspiracy theories related to the Trump–Ukraine scandal. According to "The Wall Street Journal", President Trump's actions in the Trump–Ukraine scandal stemmed from his belief that Ukraine was responsible for the Steele Dossier.<ref name="Weber_10/17/2019"></ref><ref name="Puko_Ballhaus_10/16/2019"></ref> Trump has insinuated that the dossier had its origins in Ukraine, that the Clintons were involved, that Hillary Clinton's email server is currently secreted in Ukraine,<ref name="Bump_10/22/2019"></ref> and that Clinton's deleted emails are in Ukraine.