WHAT IS THE STEELE DOSSIER?
We often hear of the “Russian dossier” or the “Steele dossier”...the irrational left continues to consider this scurrilous political-opposition document to have credence. It is even suggested that the Mueller investigation is using this as a “roadmap” for its inquiry. I hope not. But if you understand the “dossier’s” source, how it came about, the cost, who paid for it and the motives of the parties involved, as well as the second and third hand origin of its content you can no longer hold those beliefs.
Yesterday (December 7, 2017) I watched Ohio Representative Jim Jordan effectively grill FBI Director Christopher Wray during a Congressional hearing on TV. Jordan was impressive. He was clear, coherent and sincere in his query to Wray. Although Wray basically stonewalled the Committee, Rep Jordan got his message out. Wray pointedly failed to answer the question Jordan had most prominently in his mind. Did top agent Peter Strzok whose anti-Trump motivations were exposed (through emails to his mistress) use the “dossier” to justify his application to the FISA in support an FBI spy operation on the Trump campaign team. To do so would mean that the Obama Administration (still in power at the time ) was using its foreign intelligence gathering institutions to gather data on its political domestic opposition. This of course would have been “as wrong as it gets” according to Representative Jim Jordan.
The following day, Jordan appeared on CNN’s “New Day” morning program where he was interviewed by Alysia Camerota. Representative Jordan, again in his coherent and sincere way laid out his hypotheses that the Steele dossier was the improper vehicle by which the Obama Administration and the Deep State elements of the FBI and Justice Department used as all or part of its evidence to the FISA court to initiate telephone taps and electronic domestic spying on American citizens. Domestic spying on political enemies is a grievous act in any democracy. To compound that awful decision our intelligence agencies were using, not an actual intelligence agency generated document, but an unverified, opposition research document paid for and generated by the Clinton team during the past election!
During the interview Camerota was unable to punch any holes in Jordan’s argument. Finally in desperation repeated the claims of the “never Trump irrational resistance” that the “dossier” was NOT a discredited document and that “much of it was true! Jordan was shocked—set back on his heels. “Clueless Camerota” was simply repeating the mantra of the left. Her statement left him nonplussed. He just smiled in disbelief that anyone could make that claim.
To grasp Jordan’s very likely thesis, which strikes at the very heart of the on-going Russia investigation— one must first evaluate the facts regarding the source and motivations of the “Steele Dossier”.
The Trump-Steele Dossier came about during the Republican nomination campaign. Unnamed GOP political activists were desperate to gather any compromising information true or false on Donald Trump. These Republican moneybags hired a former British spy, Christopher Steele, a Cambridge University graduate who as a student was known as a “confirmed socialist”. Upon graduation Steele moved from Cambridge to MI6 and was assigned to covert work in Russia. After several years his covert status was compromised in Russia, and he served in a similar capacity in Paris and also in Afghanistan. But by 2105 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 the dangerous and low paying British espionage abroad to personal monetary gain for an act which would pay..much much more than his government stipend. He and his partner in London passed through the revolving door from government to business into circumstances where Orbis sold their expertise and contacts to the highest bidder. Sounds familiar.
One of these interested parties was anti-Trump Republican GOP elements competing in the hotly contested 2015 primary campaign. Steele and Orbis were paid handsomely for these initial 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 were hooked on the flow of cash and the massive income available from an American presidential campaign awash with money. They figured that they still had a good deal going if they could find another client to pay for their “research”.
Steele went into a marketing mode with his information..trying to sell it to various groups in the USA but few were interested until with help from a former journalist (Glenn Simpson former Roll Call reporter) who like Steele had turned in his notebook for a business card. Simpson helped move Steele into the lucrative Presidential campaign. Recall that Hillary. Clinton was to spend more than one billion dollars on her campaign. Simpson who, like Steel was now in the game for personal profit and both men envisioned a massive windfall of cash in providing the kind of information that their desperate clients awash in cash would pay anything for.
Simpson, the former journalist, was at the time the CEO of Fusion GPS, a Washington-based opposition research firm. Fusion had been hired to provide ‘opposition research, ( to dig up dirt on Donald Trump) for the Clinton campaign and the DNC via the law firm of Perkins Cole.. Perkins Cole using Clinton funds would ultimately pay Steele and his partner more than $13 million dollars for the thirty-five page Trump dossier. That is about $371,000 dollars per page. Nearly 400,000 grand per page of dirt was the massive monetary incentive for digging up “unflattering information” on Clinton’s opponent Donald Trump. The question of the document’s validity was very low on in the concerns of the suppliers. With that much money available, and with clients desperate for “ dirt” one needs little imagination to grasp the massive incentive Steele had to “provide” the exact kind of “information” that his desperate political clients had.
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But Steele did have a problem. It is true he had once been a British spy in Russia in the 90s 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 must have had informants there—but had powerful enemies there too. The Putin government was not one to play with. Steele could not safely go back to personally interview any of his sources. So how did he accomplish his “research”? By proxy. Steele continued to sit in his plush Grosvenor Square Orbis office in London and simply sent inquiries and MONEY to his Russian contacts to dig up dirt on Trump. He paid these “sources” with his lucrative “DNC and Clinton” expense account to interview and report on Donald Trump activities in Moscow.
Try to imagine the underlying motivations in this situation. A man in London 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 or verify any of this information. There is no reason to expect that his primary sources simply made up much of the information they provided to Steele. In fact Steele’s own motivation was the same as that of his second and third hand “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”, though coming from a “former British MI6 spy” had no relationship at all to actual MI6 quality of information provided by a British government agent . This “dossier” information was as different from actual “foreign intelligence gathering” by the CIA or MI6, as a $10 “Rolex” you can buy on any corner in Manhattan is from a real Rolex watch. The fake will look good for a few days but don’t expect it 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 expected...the short comings of the information would be apparent and no harm would have been done. The loser would fade back into private life. No national government would have depended upon the info to make critical existential decisions which would inform foreign policy, war or peace, life or death. This “dossier” information was only designed to knock out one candidate and support another. No harm was envisioned by Orbis in putting out “garbage” and getting a great pay day for it.
I won’t bother retelling all the actual errors and lies 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—like Ms Camerota of CNN— understand they have intentionally ignored the facts or have not examined the question.
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