If you are looking for enlightenment, don’t bother to read Ms Mayer’s piece on Christopher Steele, “The Man Behind the Trump Dossier”. The long, boring and carefully staged piece by Jane Mayer in the New Yorker (March 5, 2018) is a classical case of journalistic whitewash akin to the “oppo” research the subject of her article produced. Read the whole piece and learn only what a top spy Christopher Steele was and why we should believe him without reservation. Nowhere does Ms Mayer actually come to terms with the facts Mr. Steele was at one time a well respected MI 6 spy—but who in more recent times had turned himself into a well-paid “propaganda salesman” for politicians. Yes he did spend a part of his career as a spy in Russia. But for this present “dossier” he sat in his London office and composed a ten page commercial document without ever leaving his London office. She fails miserably to distinguish between Steele the “former British spy”, and the current grubby, street-corner-gossip—flogger—who made himself a member of the nouveau riche of London as a “political information entrepreneur”.
This latter person (who does not appear in Mayer’s piece) was the actual author responsible for the so called Steele (Trump) Dossier—not the former spy. No where does Mayer make clear that Steele was actively hawking his opposition research for huge personal profits. She ignores the greed motive. The fact that at the juncture where his original Republican client backed out, Steele (now with a salable product in hand) moved with uncommon alacrity to aggressively hawk his work to the media and to potential new purchasers in the roiling political arena of the USA in 2016. And what a lucrative process that was. Steel made himself a rich man and a fortune selling his political opposition “research”.
Mayer, like the rest of the left wing zealots and Trump haters would like to emphasize Steele’s former occupation as a legitimate British spy, rather than the money grubbing reality of his present employment as the self promoting hawker of his own sleazy product. She completely ignores the fact of Steel’s transformation —like many who go through the “revolving door” in DC—from a poorly paid government official into a high paid political entrepreneur. His motives changed and so did the kind of product he produced. His lucrative private business was suppling “dirt” to politicians on their political opponents.
Steele’s operation in the US 2016 election era was hugely profitable at a time when the Clinton campaign was desperate for anything to undermine the popularity of their opponent Mr. Trump. Nearly $7 billion dollars was eventually spent during the 2016 election season by all candidates. And the Clinton campaign, funded with foreign money through the Clinton Global Initiative was awash in the stuff. The Clinton’s and the DNC would eventually spend as much as $1.2 billion dollars in their attempt to win the election. Steele who only to provide just the kind of dirty info they wanted—- would get a good chunk of that cash. The “dirt” need not be accurate or verifiable. This oppo research information would have only a very short “shelf life”. It’s only requirement was that it had to be sensational enough to arouse a starkly divided and susceptible electorate. Steele must have been buoyed by these considerations into a sloppy carelessness concerning the accuracy of his product, being well aware that once the election was over...no one would bother to check on the veracity of his “opposition research” offerings. It was a great way to make a fast buck—turning a list of old Russian informants and one’s past reputation derived from a legitimate credible career into ready cash. So it must be clear to any observer that the commercial product Steel was motivated to produce (more at the supermarket tabloid trash level than “research”) certainly did not (nor need it) rise to the level of his former British spy-service-level of “intelligence” gathering. Real “intelligence requires that the raw data gathered by first person observations or interrogations must be field-verified then checked, cross referenced, and rechecked by others for accuracy. Steele’s commercial dossier information had no need to be accurate. It would never be used by a nation-state to make formal decisions of an existential nature. This kind of information would be useful for one or two months and then pass into oblivion.
The “research” materials Steele generated—sitting at his ornate desk in London—was not “intelligence”. It was rumor, innuendo, unfounded suspicions and bar-stool gossip for which Steele paid his informants with funds supplied by the DNC and the well heeled Clinton campaign. It was a “pay for information” operation. Steel made it known he was looking for sleaze and would pay for it. And what do you expect? He got what he paid for. As a persona non grata in Russia (where he had been outed as a British agent) he could not enteto even make cursory verifications of his informants statements. We can be assured he never went to Russia. He must have been wildly jubilant with his London deal— just sitting in his London office collecting unverified data, composing a brief ten page dossier, then hawking it in the USA. Then sitting back to collect bulging monthly checks.
Ms Mayer does not wish to inform her readers concerning the real Christopher Steele and the actual character of his dossier. She, like Steele, prefers to produce better paying “opposition research” rather than real “intelligence”.
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