Court filings from the Durham inquiry recently revealed that some information in the dossier originated from Charles Dolan, 71, a public relations executive with expertise in Russian affairs who had a decades-long political relationship with the Clinton family. (Anti-Trump Republicans initially funded Fusion GPS’ research during the 2016 GOP primaries, but the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee picked up the tab before Steele got involved.)īut Democratic involvement in Steele’s work was much deeper than previously known. Nearly a year passed before the full truth came out about the financing: The money flowed from Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign to law firm Perkins Coie, to the research company Fusion GPS, and then ultimately to Steele, who got $168,000. Mother Jones first revealed the existence of the dossier a few days before the 2016 election, and said the memos were part of an “opposition research project” underwritten by Democrats. The Russia investigation: Everything you need to know They paid for the research, funneled information to Steele’s sources, and then urged the FBI to investigate Trump’s connections to Russia. Two special counsel investigations, multiple congressional inquiries, civil lawsuits in the US and the United Kingdom, and an internal Justice Department review have now fully unspooled the behind-the-scenes role that some Democrats played in this saga. Trump swiftly rejected Steele’s claims and said a “group of opponents … put that crap together.” Nearly five years later, it’s clearer than ever that he wasn’t too far off about the origins of the dossier. Legitimate questions are now being raised about the dossier – how it was used by Democrats as a political weapon against Trump, how it was handled by the FBI and US intelligence agencies, and how it was portrayed in the mainstream media. Still, none of it added up to the collusion suggested in Steele’s memos. The candidate himself and his closest advisers even welcomed the Kremlin’s interference in the election. To be clear, multiple US government inquiries uncovered dozens of contacts between Trump campaign associates and Russians, which have since been acknowledged. Durham alleges that Steele’s primary source, a US-based foreign policy analyst, repeatedly lied to the FBI about where he got his information. These revelations have triggered a reckoning around the Steele dossier, particularly in the wake of two recent indictments secured by John Durham, the special counsel appointed during the Trump administration to investigate the FBI’s Russia probe. They also raise serious questions about the political underpinnings of some key explosive claims about Trump by shedding new light on the involvement of some well-connected Democrats in the dossier, and separate efforts to prod the FBI to investigate ties between Trump’s campaign and Russia. The central allegations, that Trump conspired with the Kremlin to win the 2016 election and that Russia had compromising information on him, were given a veneer of credibility because they originated from a retired British spy, Christopher Steele, who had a solid reputation.īut five years later, the credibility of the dossier has significantly diminished.Ī series of investigations and lawsuits have discredited many of its central allegations and exposed the unreliability of Steele’s sources. When it came to light in January 2017, just days before Donald Trump took office, the so-called Steele dossier landed like a bombshell and sent shockwaves around the world with its salacious allegations about Trump and his supposed ties to Russia.
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