I heard Alysia Camerota of CNN claim that the Steele Dossier is mostly true!
Another blunder by CNN.
The Trump-Steele Dossier came about during the Republican nomination campaign. Unnamed GOP political activists desperate to gather any compromising information, true or false, on Donald Trump were first to initiate the “research”. These Republican moneybags hired a former British spy, Christopher Steele, who was trained at Cambridge University. As a student, Steele was known as a “confirmed socialist”. Upon graduation, Steele joined the British intelligence service. He served in the prestigious MI6, and was assigned to covert work in Russia. After several years in Russia his undercover status was compromised, and he was forced to repost in a similar capacity in Paris and later he also served in Afghanistan. But by 2105, the time he worked for US based Republican operatives, he was operating his own intelligence agency in London, known as: Orbis Business Intelligence, Ltd.
Thus by 2015 Steele had moved into a second act in his career, having transferred his allegiance from dangerous and low paying British espionage abroad, into a career centered on personal monetary gain. His new business would pay much, much, more than his earlier government stipend. He and his partner in London passed through the now infamous “revolving door from government to business”. In the business world Orbis sold their expertise and contacts to the highest bidder. Sounds familiar!
As noted above, early on, one of these interested parties was anti-Trump GOP elements competing in the hotly contested 2015 primary campaign. Steele and Orbis were hired and paid handsomely ($15,000 dollars per month and expenses) for some early unflattering documents on Trump. But when Trump unexpectedly won the primary contest to become the GOP standard bearer, Orbis’ Republican clientele were no longer interested in Trump “dirt”, and closed their bank books. Steele and his partner may have been hooked on the flow of cash. They were also well-aware of the massive income available from an American presidential campaign awash in money. They figured that they still had a good deal going, if they could find another client to pay for their “research”.
Like any alert CEO, Steele went into a marketing mode with samples of his most “interesting” information..trying to find a buyer. He contacted various groups in the USA, but few were willing. Finally, his marketing activities paid off when he came in contact with former journalist Glenn Simpson—once a Roll Call reporter—-who like Steele had turned in his journalist’s spiral notebook for a glossy business card. Simpson helped move Steele into the lucrative US presidential campaign. Massive amounts of money were available to political activists and “experts”. Recall that Hillary. Clinton was to spend more than $1.2 billion dollars on her campaign. Simpson and Steel had much in common both had similar goals—they were in the game for personal profit. Both men envisioned a massive windfall of cash in the process of providing the kind of ‘opposition”information that their moneyed and desperate clients would pay for
Simpson, the former journalist, was at the time the head of Fusion GPS, a Washington-based opposition research firm. Fusion had been hired to provide ‘opposition research, ( i.e. ‘to dig up dirt” on Donald Trump) for the Clinton campaign and the DNC. As in many other similarly somewhat ethically challenged activities all pay-offs flowed through a law firm—that could hide their source of cash behind a “lawyer-client” relationship, as in this case where Perkins Cole a legal firm represented the Clinton campaign. Perkins Cole, using Clinton funds would ultimately pay Steele’s Orbis firm and foreign Russian “sources” more than $13 million dollars for the thirty-five page “Trump dossier” which Steele generated. That is about $371,000 dollars per page. Making nearly $400,000 dollars per page of document was an irresistible monetary incentive for Steele and Orbis.
You can imagine that with this amount of cash in play that the question of the document’s VALIDITY was very low in the concerns of the suppliers. With that much money available, and with clients desperate for “ dirt” one needs little imagination to appreciate the powerful incentive Steele had to “provide” the exact kind of scurrilous “information” that his desperate political clients wanted and would pay for. There was no incentive of course for the truth or for a good character report.
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So Steele had a strong demand for his product with clients that had plenty of cash. But Steele did have a problem. It is true he had once been a British spy in Russia and no doubt, had contacts there. The problem was that Steele had been OUTED as a British agent sometime in the late 90s and had been reposted to Paris and then Afghanistan. He may have had knowledge of old informants in Russia—but he had powerful enemies there too. The Putin government was not an organization with which to play dangerous games. Steele could not safely go back to Russia to personally interview any of his old sources. So how did he accomplish his “research”? By second and third hand proxy. Steele accepted the cash from the Clintons, Fusion, and Perkins Cole and continued to sit in his plush Grosvenor Square Orbis office in London, and live sumptuously in his Georgian mansion in the suburbs. He simply sent his inquiries and plenty of MONEY to his old Russian contacts to dig up dirt on Trump. These “sources’ were paid with his lucrative “DNC and Clinton” expense accounts. Steele’s “dossier” is thus based on the second and third hand accounts of informants in Russia who had a powerful monetary incentive to provide dodgy information..the more dodgy the better.
Try to imagine the underlying motivations in this situation. A man in London with plenty of money to spend was willing to pay handsomely for embarrassing information on Mr. Trump’s activities in Russia. The more damaging and bizarre the story the more likely the payment. Steele was not on site to actually question sources face to face or verify any of the information. Given the incentives outlined above—there is reason to expect that Steele’s primary, secondary or third hand sources did nothing but simply make up much of the information they provided. In fact Steele’s own motivation was the same as that of his “sources”..the more bizarre and potentially damning the better, Truth or validity did not play a big role in this equation at all.
This kind of “pay for dirt”, although derived from “former British MI6 spy” with a good reputation, the data supplied had no relationship at all to MI6 quality of intelligence provided by an actual British government agent. Active agents would not have a monetary incentive to produce compromising information, nor would they attempt to provide verifiable information from afar. They would be posted in the field and actually interview their sources. This was not the case with the Trump dossier. This “dossier” information was as different from actual “foreign intelligence gathering” by a active CIA or MI6 agent as a $10 “Rolex” (purchase on many a corner in Manhattan) is from a REAL Rolex watch. The fake one will look good for a few days, but don’t expect it stay shiny or to keep time.
Steele’s 35 page document was tailored for a short term Presidential campaign. When the campaign was over...and Trump lost (as was widely expected) the short-comings of the Steele intelligence would be apparent, and no harm would have been done. The loser candidate would fade back into private life. No national government would have depended upon the information to make existential decisions which would inform foreign policy, war or peace, life or death. “Steele dossier” information was only designed to knock out one candidate and support another. No long term harm was envisioned by Orbis in putting out “garbage” and receiving a huge pay check for it. They assumed Trump would lose and no one would bother to investigate them.
I won’t bother retelling here all the actual errors, misstatements, odd spellings and untruths that have been noted by professional intelligence gatherers. Such as the glaring statement regarding President Trumps personal attorney, who was supposedly having a sinister meeting in Prague,...when he was actually in Los Angeles at that time—-and had never even been in Czechoslovakia .
Therefore...when someone claims that the “dossier” is true—understand they have intentionally ignored the facts or have not examined the facts.
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