The central mystery involving what has become known as Russiagate is the lack of any real understanding of what exactly took place. It is alleged in some circles that Moscow somehow interfered in the 2016 Presidential election and might even have tilted the result in favor of candidate Donald Trump. Others suspect that the tale is politically motivated in an attempt to exonerate Hillary Clinton and find Donald Trump or his associates guilty of collusion with an unfriendly foreign government.

Caught in between are those who are not completely convinced by either narrative and are demanding evidence to confirm that there was a sequence of events involving Russia and various American individuals that demonstrates both intent and actual steps taken which would lend credibility to such a hypothesis. So far, in spite of a year and a half of highly intrusive investigation, there has been remarkably little evidence of anything apart from the unchallengeable fact that someone took files from John Podesta as well as the Democratic National Committee (DNC) computers and the stolen information wound up at WikiLeaks.

One of the most damaging revelations made regarding Donald Trump consisted of the so-called “Dossier,” which had been compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele. Initial reports suggested that Steele’s investigation was commissioned initially by a Republican opponent of Trump, possibly Jeb Bush, and later it was possibly continued by someone connected to the Democratic Party. This genesis of the document was widely reported at the time but no “names” were attached to the claims even though the identities of those who had commissioned the work were known to some journalists who had uncovered additional details relating to the investigation.