October 26, 2017 British Involvement In "Trump Dossier" Needs Further Investigation We noted back in July that the only relevant "collusion with the Russians" during the 2016 election cycle was the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton smear campaign against Donald Trump: Hillary Clinton campaign cut-out hires the (former?) British intelligence agent Steele to pay money to (former?) Russian intelligence agents and high-level Kremlin employees for dirt about Donald Trump. They deliver some fairy tales. The resulting dossier is peddled far and wide throughout Washington DC with the intent of damaging Trump. There was never evidence that Steele indeed talked to any Russian, or really had contact with his claimed sources. He has been for years persona non grata in Moscow and could not visit the country. Yesterday, our assertion that Clinton campaign cut-outs paid for the dossier, was finally confirmed: Clinton campaign, DNC paid for research that led to Russia dossier Marc E. Elias, a lawyer representing the Clinton campaign and the DNC, retained Fusion GPS, a Washington firm, to conduct the research.

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After that, Fusion GPS hired dossier author Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer with ties to the FBI and the U.S. intelligence community, according to those people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Told ya so ... Michael Sussmann, a lawyer from the same firm that hired Fusion GPS on order of Democrats, hired the Crowdstrike cyber-outlet to investigate the leak of DNC emails. Crowdstrike and the DNC denied the FBI access to the relevant servers but asserted that "Russian hacking" was the source of the leak. The "Trump dossier" was opposition research ordered up and paid for by the Clinton/DNC mafia. Most of its content was obviously fake or patched together from publicly known facts. But it took up to now for U.S. media to point that out. The fake dossier, paid for by the Democrats, was used by the FBI under Obama to get FISA warrants to spy on Republican party operatives. We noted in January that the dossier was additionally used by the British and American deep state to sabotage Trump's plans for better relations with Russia (see original for source quotes): The "former" desk officer for Russia in the British MI6 Christopher Steele was the one who prepared the 35 pages of obviously false claims about Russian connections with and kompromat against Trump. There are so many inconsistencies in these pages that anyone knowledgeable about the workings in Moscow could immediately identify it as fake.

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Steele spread the fakes throughout the press corps in Washington DC but no media published them because these were obviously false accusations. Steele then decided to hand the papers to the FBI and to talk to its agents hoping they would start an official investigation. He cleared his move (or was ordered to proceed?) at the highest level of the British government:

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When Steele's first move with the FBI in October did note deliver the hoped for results an attempt to stove pipe them through Senator John McCain was launched. A "former" British ambassador to Moscow arranged the hand over:

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The MI6 is well known for launching fakes on behalf of the British government. Even the second, more official handover to the FBI still did not result in the hoped for publication of the allegations. But by that time Clinton was widely expect to win the election anyway so no further steps were taken. After Trump unexpectedly won the election a new effort was launched to publish the smears. The Director of National Intelligence decided (or was ordered to) "brief" the President, the President elect and Congress on the obviously dubious accusations. It was this decision that made sure that the papers would eventually be published. As the NYT noted:

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Only after Clapper or others leaked to CNN about the briefing of Obama, Trump and Congress, did CNN publish about the 35 pages:

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The attack was a deep state attempt to stage a coup against Trump: After the election the Democrats stopped paying for new Steele reports. But by then efforts to make the fake Steele reports public and to thereby sabotage Trump policies turned into high gear. McCain had already been involved in distributing the report and it was he or the Brits who who paid for the last fake report Steele delivered: Let me remind you of the basic facts about the Dossier--It consists of 13 separate reports. The first is dated 20 June 2016. That date is important because it shows that it took a little more than two months [after the Democrats started paying] for Fusion GPS to generate its first report on Trump's alleged Russian activities. If Fusion GPS already had something in the can then I would expect them to have put something out in early May. Eleven more reports were generated between 26 July and 19 October 2016. That tracks with the letter from Perkins Coie that the engagement by the Clinton Campaign ended at the end of October. But there is a big problem and unanswered question--The Dossier includes a final report that is dated 13 December 2016. Who paid for this? Was it John McCain? The purpose of the final fake report Steele added to the dossier was to provide "evidence" that Trump was involved in the "Russian hacking" of the DNC: After Donald Trump was elected, Christopher Steele prepared an additional memorandum (dated 13 December 2016) that made the following claims: Michael Cohen[, President Donald Trump's longtime personal lawyer,] held a secret meeting in Prague, Czechoslovakia in August 2016 with Kremlin operatives.

Cohen, allegedly accompanied by 3 colleagues (Not Further Identified), met with Oleg SOLODUKHIM to discuss on how deniable cash payments were to be made to hackers who had worked in Europe under Kremlin direction against the Clinton campaign and various contingencies for covering up these operations and Moscow's secret liaison with the Trump team more generally.

In Prague, Cohen agreed (sic) contingency plans for various scenarios to protect the operation, but in particular what was to be done in the event that Hillary Clinton won the Presidency.

Sergei Ivanov's associate claimed that payments to hackers had been made by both Trump's team and the Kremlin. ...

Christopher Steele passed a copy of the December memo to a senior UK Government national security official and to Fusion GPS (via encrypted email) with the instruction to give a hard copy to Senator McCain via David Kramer. Michael Cohen, Trump's lawyer, denies to have been in Prague. The meeting Steele "reported" did not happen. The intent of this December Steele report was to further the meme of "Russian hacking" by providing fake evidence for alleged Trump involvement in it. But the report is false. Trump/Cohen did not hire "Russian hackers". Who's interest was it to plant this meme? Was this a British attempt to divert attention from their own hacking? The Brits are knee deep involved in the Steele reports. There is the hiring of a (former?) British MI-6 agent to make up the dossier. Who came up with his name? The dossier was first peddled to McCain by a (former?) British ambassador. The British government green-lighted pushing the report to the FBI. It was one of the customers of the last Steele report. The source said that Mr Steele spoke to officials in London to ask for permission to speak to the FBI, which was duly granted, and that Downing Street was informed. The last Steele report was not paid for by the DNC. It was delivered to British government and to John McCain. The purpose of this last report was to plant false evidence that Trump paid for "Russian hacking". There is a strong cooperation between U.S. and British intelligence. Why were the highest levels of the British government involved in the "private investigation" that resulted in the Steele dossier. Did the Brits act on their own initiative or were they cut-outs for U.S. intelligence circles, especially for Obama's consigliere and CIA director John Brennan? It his time for Congress to dig deeper into the undue British influence in this whole affair. Posted by b on October 26, 2017 at 7:26 UTC | Permalink Comments next page » next page »