The Steele dossier is likely to come under intense scrutiny on Monday, when the Justice Department inspector general releases a report of the FBI’s surveillance of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
Michael Horowitz, the inspector general, is expected to detail the FBI’s relationship with Christopher Steele, the former British spy who authored the dossier. The bureau relied on unverified information from Steele in applications for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants against Page.
Comprised of 17 memos dated from June 2016 to December 2016, Steele’s Democrat-funded dossier has hardly stood the test of time since it was published on Jan. 10, 2017.
The special counsel’s report debunked several of Steele’s most troubling allegations and cast doubt on many others. But some of the dossier’s most ardent defenders, including Fusion GPS, the firm that hired Steele, are defending the document. Fusion’s co-founders, Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch, wrote in a book released last week that the dossier’s broad outlines of Russian interferences in the 2016 election were “prescient.”
While Steele’s dossier did accurately describe some of Russia’s activities, his Trump-specific allegations were further off the mark.
Here is an analysis of 23 of the dossier’s factual claims, in chronological order. Some are quoted directly from the dossier while others are paraphrased.
June 20, 2016
“The Russian authorities had been cultivating and supporting US Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump for at least 5 years.”
“The Kremlin had been feeding Trump and his team valuable intelligence on his opponents, including Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, for several years.”
“The Kremlin’s cultivation operation on Trump had also comprised offering him various lucrative real estate development deals in Russia.”
Russians sought to “exploit Trump’s personal obsessions and sexual perversions to obtain suitable ‘kompromot’ [compromising material] on him.” Kremlin operatives filmed Trump in compromising positions in a Moscow hotel.
“The Clinton dossier was controlled exclusively by chief Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, who was responsible for compiling/handling it on the explicit instructions of Putin himself.”
July 19-30
“There was a well-developed conspiracy of co-operation between [the Trump campaign] and the Russian leadership.”
“This was managed on the Trump side by the Republican candidate’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, who was using foreign policy advisor, Carter Page, and others as intermediaries.”
“The Russian regime had been behind the recent leak of embarrassing e-mail messages, emanating from the [DNC], to the WikiLeaks platform.”
“The operation had been conducted with the full knowledge and support of Trump and senior members of the campaign team.”
“Russian diplomatic staff in key cities like New York, Washington and Miami were using the emigre ‘pension’ distribution system as cover.”
July 19
Igor Sechin, a crony of Putin’s and the CEO of Russian oil giant Rosneft, met secretly with Carter Page during a trip that the Trump campaign adviser made to Moscow in early July. Sechin allegedly brought up the possibility of removing Ukraine-related sanctions against Russia, which Page allegedly “reacted positively” to. Page also met secretly with senior Kremlin official Igor Divyekin.
“An intelligence exchange had been running between [the Trump team and Kremlin] for at least 8 years.”
“Putin’s priority requirement” in the information exchange with Trump world was to obtain information about Russian oligarchs and their families. Trump and his associates supplied the information.
“The Kremlin had more intel on Clinton and her campaign.”
Aug. 10
Carter Page “conceived and promoted” the idea of releasing hacked DNC emails through WikiLeaks.
Sept. 14
“The Kremlin had further ‘kompromat’ on candidate Clinton and had been considering releasing this via ‘plausibly deniable’ channels after the Duma (legislative) elections were out of the way in mid-September.”
Russian diplomat Mikhail Kalugin was withdrawn from Washington at short notice because of his “heavy involvement in the US presidential election operation.” Kalugin took part in the veterans’ pension “ruse” to help fund the active measures campaign.
Sept. 14
Trump participated in sex parties in St. Petersburg and paid bribes to make the stories “disappear.” Azerbaijani-Russian billionaire Aras Agalarov would know the details.
Oct. 20
“Clandestine meeting between…Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen and Kremlin representatives in August 2016.” The meeting took place in Prague.
A Kremlin-controlled cultural exchange group called Rossotrudnichestvo “was being used as cover for this relationship and its office in Prague may well have been used to host the Cohen meeting/s.”
“Konstantin Kosachev (head of the Foreign Relations Committee) is an important figure in the Trump campaign-Kremlin liaison operation.”
Mid-October
Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin offered Carter Page a 19 percent brokerage stake on a deal involving the Russian oil giant in return for getting sanctions lifted if Trump was elected president. Page expressed interest in the proposal.
Dec. 13
“A company called XBT/Webzilla and its affiliates had been using botnets and porn traffic to trasmit viruses, plant bugs, steal data and conduct ‘altering operations’ against the Democratic party leadership. Entities linked to one Aleksej Gubarev were involved and he and another expert, both recruited under duress by the FSB, Seva Kapsugovich, were significant players in this operation.”
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