Ivanka Trump attends U.S. President Donald Trump's strategy and policy forum with chief executives of major U.S. companies at the White House in Washington, February 3, 2017. Kevin Lamarque | Reuters

Steele since has become a target of President Trump and Trump's allies, who say Steele's dossier, which contains unverified and salacious claims about Trump, was a "hoax" that was used in 2016 to unfairly spark an FBI investigation of Trump campaign contacts with Russians. That probe bedeviled the Trump administration into this year and led to the IG's inquiry into the origins of the investigation. The White House had no immediate comment on either the IG report detailing Steele's "relationship" with a Trump family member, or the possibility that Ivanka Trump was that particular person whom Steele said he had some kind of contact with. Ivanka Trump is a senior White House advisor, as is her husband, Jared Kushner. The couple, who wed in 2009, have three children. ABC News reported that Steele and Ivanka Trump, who was a senior executive at the Trump Organization at the time they first met, kept in touch after their first encounter, and exchanged emails and discussed possibly working together after he left that spy agency and moved into private practice conducting business intelligence.