The infamous “Steele dossier” was part of the DNC electoral strategy. The dossier was produced by Fusion GPS in tight coordination with other parts of the DNC public relations machine and the Obama’s FBI/DOJ apparatus. Because of that, it contained some non-public or not widely known information that might have made an impression that there were jewels in the garbage. No, there weren’t. The Steele dossier was obviously fake garbage. Neither Vyacheslav Trubnikov (4-star general, former SVR Director (1996-2000), recipient of the top military award Hero of Russia, Russian Ambassador to India (2004-2009), now board member of the Russian Council) nor Vladislav Surkov (former Deputy Prime Minister of Russia, board member of Skolkovo, now Putin’s Assistant) were his sources. Steele just learnt their names from the press before his meeting with Kathleen Kavalec. The only thing that deserved an FBI investigation was who shopped it to the FBI. But Comey, McCabe, Bruce Ohr, and others already knew the who, and they feared HER. So, somebody called it “unverified”. From the beginning, it was as “unverified” as the claim that the Earth is flat.
Fusion GPS had a reputation for injecting false evidence into its dossiers. Notice that Fusion GPS was looking for dirt on Trump since September 2015, paid for by a wealthy Republican donor. It didn’t find anything that could have stopped Trump from becoming the leading candidate by April 2016 when the DNC law firm Perkins Coie hired it. If they wanted to dig up dirt, they would have hired somebody else who might succeed where Fusion GPS failed. This simple logic suggested that the DNC hired Fusion GPS to manufacture and disseminate dirt on Trump. The DNC supplied Fusion GPS with confidential information during the campaign, as shown below. That indicates that the DNC also used Fusion GPS to entrap the Trump campaign.
Between May 6 and June 14 “As a Democratic Party contractor, he [Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS] had been briefed on the Russian hack of the DNC—a development that was not yet public,” — according to Isikoff, The Russian Roulette (p. 145). Isikoff had learned that from Glenn Simpson himself, who saw that as natural. If the DNC really hired Fusion GPS to do opposition research, or even to manufacture smears about Trump’s past, it wouldn’t brief Simpson on its network hack. In fact, Simpson would be nearly the last person in the world for the DNC to share sensitive, non-public information.
The June 9 meeting between Don Jr. and Veselnitskaya, including the unexplained and provocative emails from sleazebag Rob Goldstone, was an exemplary entrapment attempt. (See Publicist Who Arranged Trump Tower Meeting Admits ‘I Didn’t Know What I Was Even Talking About’ by Aaron Klein, 2016 Trump Tower Meeting Looks Increasingly Like a Setup by Russian and Clinton Operatives by Lee Smith, or Russian-American Lobbyist at Trump Tower Meeting Described Knowing Hillary Clinton, Associates by Chuck Ross.) Trump Jr. indeed met Veselnitskaya, a private lawyer for another Fusion GPS client, and a group of Hillary’s associates on that date. He discussed that meeting with Emin Agalarov, who once employed Goldstone, and said he had disregarded Goldstone’s nonsense about a Russian “crown prosecutor.” Despite the Russian-sounding name, Emin Agalarov grew up in New Jersey, and was probably a US citizen or permanent resident. Notice that Fusion GPS was connected to Obama’s DOJ at the hip through Bruce and Nellie Ohr. Fusion GPS hired Steele in early June.
See how the “Steele reports” fit into the DNC agenda and complements other DNC activities from June – September 2016.
Steele report 2016/080, dated by June 20, 2016
At that time, Hillary was still under investigation for her illegal unsecured home email server and the leaks from it. She used that server with her BlackBerry when she traveled abroad, including to Russia. In this Steele report, the intent of the following fragment might be to shift the blame to Trump for any confidential data that Hillary disclosed through use of that illegal server.
Steele: “A dossier of compromising material on Hillary CLINTON has been collated by the Russian Intelligence Services over many years and mainly comprises bugged conversations she had on various visits to Russia and intercepted phone calls rather than any embarrassing conduct. The dossier is controlled by Kremlin spokesman, PESKOV, directly on PUTIN’S orders. However it has not as yet been distributed abroad, including to TRUMP. Russian intentions for its deployment still unclear.”
Since that time, the security breach in the DNC network has become known. Guccifer2 and DCLeaks.com published some old (2015 or earlier) documents. On June 14, the DNC, CrowdStrike, and Washington Post officially launched the false narrative that the breach was conducted by Russian intelligence. The following fragment develops the narrative and extends it to reach Trump.
Steele: “Source A confided that the Kremlin had been feeding TRUMP and his team valuable intelligence on his opponents, including Democratic presidential candidate Hillary CLINTON, for several years.”
Steele Report 2016/094, dated July 19, 2016
Notice that this and the following “reports’” numbers are out of sequence.
The internal DNC emails, showing that the DNC mistreated Bernie in favor of Hillary, were transferred to WikiLeaks in the first half of July; around July 14 according to Mueller’s indictment. On July 18th, the DNC — in coordination with the Fake News — pinned the blame directly on Putin and on Trump by allegations of collusion (examples 1, 2). This “report” is the first one to mention Carter Page. It might be based on the July 7 article that WaPo wrote about Page’s visit to Moscow and his desire for a better US attitude toward Russia, China, and Iran in July 7. The WaPo sentence “Page refused to say whether his Moscow trip included a meeting with Russian officials” might have inspired Steele to invent such a meeting(s):
Steele: “TRUMP advisor Carter PAGE holds secret meetings in Moscow with SECHIN and senior Kremlin Internal Affairs official, DIVYEKIN”
Steele Report 2016/095, dated July 19, 2016
This “report” seems to have been written to support and exploit the new DNC allegations of Russian government involvement with the DNC emails transfer to WikiLeaks, launched in the media by the DNC a day before. It is unlikely that Steele or Fusion GPS learned this party line twist from the media and then wrote the report within one day. Thus, the DNC either developed this strategic move with Fusion GPS, or at least told it, as part of its team. Fusion GPS can be considered the actual author of the “Steele dossier,” even if Steele typed the text.
Steele: “Inter alia, Source E, acknowledged that the Russian regime had been behind the recent leak of embarrassing e-mail messages, emanating from the Democratic National Committee (DNC), to the WikiLeaks platform.
…
Further evidence of extensive conspiracy between TRUMP’s campaign team and Kremlin, sanctioned at highest levels and involving Russian diplomatic staff based in the US… – TRUMP associate admits Kremlin behind recent appearance of DNC e-mails on WikiLeaks, as means of maintaining plausible deniability. Agreed exchange of information established in both directions. TRUMP’s team using moles within DNC and hackers in the US as well as outside in Russia.”
Notice that the party line is set in stone, yet by mentioning “moles within DNC,” Steele hedges the possibility that the DNC would admit that the source of the leaked emails is a DNC insider. That suggests that the DNC knew, or strongly suspected, that an insider provided the DNC emails to WikiLeaks.
The July 7 WaPo article also mentioned Paul Manafort. Lo and behold – both are next to each other in this “report”:
Steele: “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.”
Steele Report 2016/086, dated July 26, 2015 (sic!)
Here, in addition to the out of sequence number, intelligence charlatan Steele wrote the wrong year. Such blunders didn’t prevent Comey, McCabe, Brennan, or Clapper from treating this garbage as “unverified” intelligence. This “report” suddenly abandons most of the plot lines of the previous one, and it is exclusively devoted to allegations about Russian cyber capacities and offensive operations. It also shows the influence of the EU and CrowdStrike’s thinking.
Steele: “In terms of the success of Russian offensive cyber operations to date, a senior government figure reported that there had been only limited success in penetrating the “first tier” foreign targets. These comprised western (especially G7 and NATO) governments, security and intelligence services and central banks, and the IFls. To compensate for this shortfall, massive effort had been invested, with much greater success, in attacking the “secondary targets”, particularly western private banks and the governments of smaller states allied to the West. S/he mentioned Latvia in this regard.”
Steele Report 2016/097, dated July 30, 2016
This “report” supports and exploits the DNC Trump-Russia narrative that was pushed in the MSM. Here, Steele forgets his legend – that the information is received from a collector who periodically visits Russia and meets his sources.
Steele: “Kremlin concerned that political fallout from DNC e-mail hacking operation is spiralling [sic] out of control. Extreme nervousness among TRUMP’s associates as result of negative media attention/accusations. …
Speaking in confidence to a trusted associate in late July 2016, a Russian emigre figure close to the Republican US presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign team commented on the fallout from publicity surrounding the Democratic National Committee (DNC) e-mail hacking scandal. The emigre said there was a high level of anxiety within the TRUMP team as a result of various accusations levelled against them and indications from the Kremlin that President PUTIN and others in the leadership thought things had gone too far now and risked spiralling [sic] out of control.”
There was no political fallout for Russia. The other way around, the Obama administration decided to refrain from any diplomatic action that might displease Putin. From WaPo’s mislabeled article Obama’s secret struggle to punish Russia for Putin’s election assault (WaPo, June 2017): “As brazen as the [imaginary] Russian attacks on the election seemed, Obama and his top advisers feared that things could get far worse. They were concerned that any pre-election response could provoke an escalation from Putin.” The only “Russian attacks” were that RT supported Bernie more than Hillary.
Trump has been receiving negative media attention and accusations all the time. The scandal exploded at the DNC convention on July 25-28. It was caused by the disclosure in the leaked emails of the DNC’s machinations to help Hillary against Bernie. There was no concern in the Trump campaign. The reader of this “report” is asked to believe that in July 27-30 the following events happened:
- The Kremlin analyzed the media reaction to the alleged hacking and Putin decided “things had gone too far”
- Putin confided this decision to a “Russian emigre figure close to … the Trump campaign”
- The “Russian emigre figure” conveyed this information to a “trusted associate”
- The “trusted associate” transferred it to Steele
Each of these events is unlikely or impossible, but the reader is asked to believe that all of them were real and happened within 3-4 days! Is anybody in the FBI or CIA so naïve? No, of course not. They needed a predicate to start a full-blown investigation against the Trump campaign, which the FBI did the next day. Another bizarre idea in this text:
Steele: “Source close to TRUMP campaign however confirms regular exchange with Kremlin has existed for at least 8 years, including intelligence fed back to Russia on oligarchs’ activities in US”
There was no Trump campaign even 2 years prior. The intent behind its insertion into the report could be providing the FBI with a pretext to investigate Trump personally, not only the Trump campaign. It might be intended to assist Fusion GPS in its Prevezon assignment by painting the oligarchs as victims of Putin and, worse, Trump!
Steele Report 2016/100, dated August 5, 2016
This “report” says that the Kremlin regrets the alleged intervention:
Steele: “Head of PA IVANOV laments Russian intervention in the US presidential election and black PR against CLINTON and the DNC. Vows not to supply intelligence to Kremlin PR operatives again. … Premier MEDVEDEV’s office furious over DNC hacking and associated anti-Russian publicity. Want good relations with US and ability to travel there.”
The following fragment channels the dreams of the DNC and the Hillary campaign in their PR language:
Steele: “According to the first source, close to IVANOV, there had been talk in the Kremlin of TRUMP being forced to withdraw from the presidential race altogether as a result of recent events, ostensibly on grounds of his psychological state and unsuitability for high office.”
Steele Report 2016/101, dated August 10, 2016
This “report” flatly contradicts the previous one, dated five days earlier. Now the Kremlin is celebrating, rather than lamenting:
Steele: “RUSSIA/US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: SENIOR KRMELIN FIGURE OUTLINES EVOLVING RUSSIAN TACTICS IN PRO-TRUMP, ANTI-CLINTON OPERATION [the header]
…
Russian leadership, including PUTIN, celebrating perceived success to date in splitting hawks and elite”
Steele Report 2016/105, dated August 22, 2016
The efforts of the DNC to enlist the Ukrainian government into its unholy war against Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump bore fruit. In June 2016, the FBI, headed by Director Comey, signed an evidence sharing agreement with a Ukrainian government agency called National Anti-Corruption Bureau. Within a few weeks, on August 15, The Wall Street Journal published a “black ledger” – alleged payments from ousted Ukrainian President Yanukovich to Manafort, who worked as Yanukovich’s consultant before and when he was President. Later, the “black ledger” was judged to be a fabrication. The nature and timing of the FBI – NABU agreement suggests that its purpose was receiving dirt on Manafort to use it against Trump. Somebody needs to dig deeper – who authorized this agreement and what else was shared?
This “report” was written to support and/or exploit that foreign operation:
Steele: “Ex-Ukrainian President YANUKOVYCH confides directly to PUTIN that he authorised kick-back payments to MANAFORT, as alleged in western media. Assures Russian President however there is no documentary evidence/trail
…
PUTIN and Russian leadership remain worried however and sceptical that YANUKOVYCH has fully covered the traces of these payments to former campaign manager”
Just imagine – Putin and Russian leadership have nothing to worry about, except whether Yanukovich “has fully covered traces” of his payments to Manafort. Manafort was advising him openly, so he didn’t need any kick-back payments and covered traces. Manafort advised Yanukovich when Yanukovich was appointed Prime Minister and when he was elected President of Ukraine.
Can an adult person believe that Steele had sources with 24/7 access to Putin? Steele and Fusion GPS might have intentionally made the dossier so absurd in order to claim it as a joke. Also, if Steele can gather so much information about Putin’s confidential conversations for a meager $168k, why do we need to finance the CIA with a $15B annual budget? Brennan, Comey, McCabe and their accomplices knew the Steele reports were fake, but they still used them in FISA applications, presidential briefs, and other security business.
As a former officer in KGB foreign intelligence, Putin was well known for secrecy. The same people who believe (or pretend to believe) that Steele’s sources had intimate access to Putin, admit:
WaPo, June 2017: For spy agencies, gaining insights into the intentions of foreign leaders is among the highest priorities. But Putin is a remarkably elusive target. A former KGB officer, he takes extreme precautions to guard against surveillance, rarely communicating by phone or computer, always running sensitive state business from deep within the confines of the Kremlin.
Equally important, Ukraine has been at war with Russia since 2014. Thus, the idea to depict Manafort’s work for an elected President of Ukraine (even deposed and accused of crimes) sounds a bit extravagant, if not absurd. The source of this idea is … Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS:
“Paul Manafort, a former adviser to Mr. Dole’s presidential campaign, has advised a Ukrainian metals billionaire and his close political ally, Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich. Mr. Yanukovich, who favors closer ties with Mr. Putin’s administration, is embroiled in a power struggle with pro-Western Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko.”
How Lobbyists Help Ex-Soviets Woo Washington, Glenn Simpson and Mary Jacoby, April 2007, WSJ (paywall)
Notice that the article was written in 2007, long before the war, when Russia and Ukraine were parts of the post-Soviet whole, separated only by a formal border. At that time, mixing up advisers/lobbyists working for Russian and Ukrainian officials made sense. In 2016, when Steele re-used his old work, it became unsound. Such absurdities can be lost only on the Fake News, compelled to toe the party line. The ordinary folks have just gotten used to it by the repetition in the Fake News.
Steele Report 2016/112, dated September 14, 2016
The Trump server — Alfa bank hoax is described in my PJ Media article. It has been executed by Fusion GPS, Perkins Coie, James Baker of the FBI, and Indiana University Professor Jean Camp (who received a federal grant). This hoax led to multiple investigations of Trump, apparently including wiretapping Trump Tower.
There were two other “Steele reports” dated September 14, three more dated October, and one dated December 13 (i.e., when the attempt to reverse the election’s outcome started). Multiple versions of the “Steele dossier” have been floating around. This version of the Steele dossier was published by BuzzFeedNews on January 10, 2017. Upon publication, it was immediately dismissed as garbage even by such anti-Trump figures as Bob Woodward. But the MSM (appropriately called the Fake News), which was dumpster diving into this garbage and presenting its picks as plausible intelligence, was not happy about this publication. DailyCaller reported that CNN’s Jack Tapper sent emails to the BuzzFeed editor-in-chief: “That was pretty uncollegial … Not to mention irresponsible … Collegiality wise it was you stepping on my dick .…” (from “Tappergram”)
From the National Review, Dec 2017
Was the Steele Dossier Used to Obtain a FISA Warrant Against Trump’s Campaign?
(YES)
“The Clinton campaign generated the Steele dossier through lawyers who retained Fusion GPS. Fusion, in turn, hired Steele, a former British intelligence agent who had FBI contacts from prior collaborative investigations. The dossier was steered into the FBI’s hands as it began to be compiled in the summer of 2016. A Fusion Russia expert, Nellie Ohr, worked with Steele on Fusion’s anti-Trump research. She is the wife of Bruce Ohr, then the deputy associate attorney general — the top subordinate of Sally Yates, then Obama’s deputy attorney general (later acting AG). Ohr was a direct pipeline to Yates. Burce Ohr met personally with Steele.”
Was the Steele Dossier the FBI’s ‘Insurance Policy’?
“Clinton campaign propaganda appears to have triggered Obama administration spying on Trump’s campaign.
…
At some point, though, perhaps early on, the FBI and DOJ learned that the dossier was actually a partisan opposition-research product. By then, they were dug in. No one, after all, would be any the wiser: Hillary would coast to victory, so Democrats would continue running the government; FISA materials are highly classified, so they’d be kept under wraps. Just as it had been with the Obama-era’s Fast and Furious and IRS scandals, any malfeasance would remain hidden.”