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On March 25, Donald Trump signed an executive order declassifying all documentation related to Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI’s 2016 investigation into alleged collusion between Russia and then-presidential candidate Donald Trump. The order has unexpectedly resurrected buried documents that cast new light on the Steele dossier — and when it was known to be false.
It is unclear what new information will be revealed, given substantial previous declassifications, two special counsel investigations, multiple congressional inquiries, several civil lawsuits, and a scathing Justice Department internal review. It has long been confirmed the FBI relied heavily on Steele’s discredited dossier to secure warrants against Trump aide Carter Page, despite grave internal concerns about its origins and reliability, and Steele’s sole “subsource” for all its lurid allegations openly admitted in interviews with the Bureau he could offer no corroboration for any of the dossier’s claims.
Such inconvenient facts and damning disclosures were nonetheless concealed from the public for several years following the dossier’s January 2017 publication by BuzzFeed News, now defunct. In the intervening time, it became the central component of the Russiagate narrative, a conspiracy theory that was a major rallying point for countless mainstream journalists, pundits, public figures, Western intelligence officials, and elected lawmakers. In the process, Steele attained mythological status. For example, NBC News dubbed the former MI6 operative “a real-life James Bond.”
Primetime news networks dedicated countless hours to the topic, while leading media outlets invested enormous time, energy and money into verifying the dossier’s claims without success. Undeterred, legacy reporters relied on a roster of mainstream “Russia experts,” including prominent British and U.S. military and intelligence veterans, and briefings from anonymous officials to reinforce Steele’s credibility and the likely veracity of his dossier. As award-winning investigative journalist Aaron Maté told MintPress News:
Media outlets served as unquestioning stenographers for Steele. If his dossier’s claims themselves weren’t sufficient to dismiss it with ridicule, another obvious marker should have set off alarms. Reading the dossier chronologically, a clear pattern emerges – many of its most explosive claims are influenced by contemporary media reporting. For instance, it was only after Wikileaks published the DNC emails in July 2016 that the dossier mentioned them. This is just one example demonstrating the dossier’s true sources were overactive imaginations and mainstream news outlets.”
Even more damningly, leaked documents reviewed by MintPress News reveal that while Western journalists were hard at work attempting to validate Steele’s dossier and elevating the MI6 spy to wholly undeserved pillars of probity, the now-defunct private investigations firm GPW Group was, in early 2017, secretly unearthing vast amounts of damaging material that fatally undermined the dossier’s content, and comprehensively dismantling Steele’s previously unimpeachable public persona. It remains speculative what impact the firm’s findings might have had if they had been released publicly at the time.
‘Financial Incentives’
“In order to build a profile of Christopher Steele…as well as the broader operations of both Orbis Business Intelligence and Fusion GPS,” which commissioned the dossier on behalf of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee, GPW consulted “a variety of sources.” This included “U.S. intelligence figures,” various journalists, “private intelligence subcontractors” who had previously worked with Steele and Orbis, and “contacts who knew the man from his time with [MI6]…and, in one instance, directly oversaw his work.”
The picture that emerged of Steele sharply contrasted with his mainstream portrayal as a “superstar.” One operative who “acted as Steele’s manager when he began working with [MI6] and later supervised him at two further points” described him as “average, middle of the road,” stating he had never “shined” in any of his postings. Another suggested Steele’s founding of Orbis “was the source of some incredulity” within MI6 due to his underwhelming professional history and perceived lack of “commercial nous.”
Yet another suggested Steele’s production of the dossier reflected his lack of “big picture judgment.” Sources consulted by GPW were even more critical of Fusion GPS chief Glenn Simpson. One journalist described him as a “hack” without “a license or the contacts to do…actual investigations,” instead outsourcing “all” work ostensibly conducted by his firm to others while skimming commissions. They also “openly admitted” to disliking Simpson, described by GPW as “not an uncommon attitude amongst those to whom we spoke.”
Glenn Simpson arrives at a House Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill on Oct. 14, 2019. Pablo Martinez Monsivais | AP – Editing by MintPress
GPW also scrutinized “credibility and perceptions of the dossier in Russia,” specifically whether Steele‘s claims that high-ranking Kremlin-linked sources in Moscow provided him with information had any merit. The firm consulted “Western and Russian journalists, former officials from the FSB and the Russian security services more broadly, a former high-ranking official at the CIA who oversaw the agency’s Russian operations, and several private-sector intelligence practitioners operating in Moscow” for this purpose:
The prevailing sentiment from our contacts was one of extreme skepticism as to the accuracy of…the [dossier]. Most found it unimaginable…senior Russian officials would risk life imprisonment (or worse) by speaking to a former foreign intelligence official about such sensitive issues. At the very least…it would have cost Steele a great deal more…than he could afford…Former intelligence operatives (from both the U.S. and Russian services) seriously doubted Steele would have been able to retain Russian sources from his time in MI6.”
GPW also examined “possible sources for the dossier” that had been hypothesized in the media to date. Among them was former FSB General Oleg Erovinkin, who was found dead in his car in Moscow in December 2016. After the dossier’s release, the Daily Telegraph suggested his death was “mysterious” and could have resulted from providing information to Steele. A former high-ranking official in U.S. intelligence mockingly dismissed the proposition, noting that career security and intelligence officer Erovinkin was “unlikely to have needed the money.”
While conceding that financial incentives could encourage such a breach…[if] Steele had offered Erovinkin £100,000, the mooted budget for the entire project, ‘Erovinkin would have said he needed to see three more zeros before opening his mouth. It’s just a ridiculous proposition to think he would speak to a former intelligence officer from the UK, or anyone else for that matter, for such a paltry sum of money.’”
Overall, GPW concluded: “The quality and level of the sourcing was greatly exaggerated in order to give the dossier and its allegations more credibility.” This impression was reinforced by “informed sources from both government and the private sector” in Russia who were “very dismissive” of the dossier’s content. Many pointed to “woeful inaccuracies” contained therein “and its author’s general lack of understanding around Russian politics and business.” This “deficiency was particularly acute with respect to the dossier’s coverage of Alfa Bank.”
‘Reputational Damage’
GPW’s investigation also proved prescient in other areas. For example, several knowledgeable sources the company consulted — including former senior Russian and U.S. intelligence officials — suggested the dossier’s “most likely sources” were Russian émigrés, “providing…their own views.” They also noted the Steele dossier’s “hyperbole and inaccuracies” were “typical of the hyperactive imaginations of the subcontractors widely used in the business intelligence sector.” This was not confirmed until July 2020.
That month, the Senate Judiciary Committee released notes taken by FBI agents during February 2017 interviews with Igor Danchenko, Steele’s “subsource” and the dossier’s effective author. A Washington think tank journeyman jailed years earlier on multiple public intoxication and disorderly conduct charges and investigated by the FBI for potentially serving as a Kremlin agent, Danchenko admitted he had been fed much of the dossier’s salacious content by his Russian drinking buddies, who lacked any high-level access. Steele then embroidered their dud information further.
Other striking passages in the leaks refer to a conversation between GPW and “a source from within the business intelligence sector in London [who] knows Christopher Steele well, both socially and professionally, and is familiar with his company.” They relayed various details and “commentary” gleaned “directly from speaking to Steele.” For example, they noted that contrary to its self-description as a “leading corporate intelligence consultancy,” Orbis was “not a major operation” and seemed to employ just two junior analysts “who looked like recent graduates.”
The source revealed that “other, larger firms in the sector were approached before Steele and turned the work down before he took it on,” and the dossier was his solo project. “The rest of the company wasn’t involved at all, either to help on the research side of things or to look through the product before it went out,” and “Steele basically collated the information himself.” They further suggested the dossier’s sources let their imaginations run wild, believing their claims would never see the light of day:
I think they got carried away — they didn’t think the material would ever be made public because at that point it was very unlikely that Trump was going to get into power…Steele was rather naive about the whole thing. He didn’t think that it would get exposed in the way it did.”
Igor Danchenko leaves Albert V. Bryan United States Courthouse Alexandria, Va., Nov. 4, 2021. Manuel Balce Ceneta | AP – Editing by MintPress
In other investigative briefs, GPW noted it was unusual that “Steele would have permitted (or indeed facilitated) the distribution of such questionable material under his name,” given the dossier’s apparent falsity. The firm postulated that “in sharing the material with U.S. government figures,” the former MI6 operative “may have thought he was currying favor with them by doing so,” but ultimately, “he never intended for the dossier to be made public in the manner it was.”
One possible answer to this question is found in a defamation case brought against Orbis by Petr Aven, Mikhail Fridman, and German Khan in Britain in May 2018. In July 2020, a British court ruled that the dossier’s allegations against them and Alfa Bank were “inaccurate and misleading,” awarding damages “for the loss of autonomy, distress and reputational damage.” During the trial, Steele made a notable disclosure:
Fusion’s immediate client was law firm Perkins Coie…it engaged Fusion to obtain information necessary for Perkins Coie to provide legal advice on the potential impact of Russian involvement on the legal validity of the outcome of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. Based on that advice, parties such as the Democratic National Committee and [“Hillary for America”] could consider steps they would be legally entitled to take to challenge the validity of the outcome of that election.”
In essence, the dossier was commissioned by Clinton’s campaign as a contingency in the event she lost the election. However, as GPW’s source close to Steele noted, when the MI6 operative took on the work, the prevailing perception was that “it was very unlikely” Trump would win. As a result, Steele may have had the motivation to fill the dossier with unverified material, believing it would never be used for its intended purpose. He also had a commercial incentive to exaggerate his high-level access. A serving CIA official told GPW:
Steele was known to have been ‘up and down the alley’ pitching for business – a reference to the major defense firms, such as Lockheed Martin, which are located close to one another in Arlington, Virginia. She did not know which firms Steele had worked for in particular, if any, but he has visited several of them in person at their headquarters.”
A core mystery at the heart of the Steele dossier saga has never been satisfactorily resolved — one that Trump’s latest declassification order could help illuminate. In his December 2019 report on Crossfire Hurricane, Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz criticized the FBI’s use of the dossier to obtain warrants against Carter Page but insisted Steele’s assorted claims “played no role” in the bureau opening its investigation of Trump’s campaign, reportedly on July 31, 2016.
As extensively documented by Aaron Maté, this claim is difficult to reconcile with the numerous contacts and meetings between Steele and senior FBI and Justice Department officials in the weeks leading up to that date. The former MI6 officer provided material that would later comprise the dossier to senior U.S. government officials, including Victoria Nuland, prior to the official opening of Crossfire Hurricane. Nuland reportedly encouraged the bureau to investigate the contents.
According to the FBI’s electronic communications that initiated Crossfire Hurricane, the probe’s founding predicate was a vague tip provided to the bureau by Australian diplomat Alexander Downer. He claimed that low-level Trump campaign staffer George Papadopoulos had “suggested” to him over drinks in London that “the Trump team had received some kind of suggestion [emphasis added] from Russia that it could assist…with the anonymous release of information during the campaign that would be damaging” to Clinton. The EC further acknowledged that “It was unclear whether he or the Russians were referring to material acquired publicly or through other means. It was also unclear how Mr. Trump’s team reacted to the offer.”
As Maté told MintPress News, this was an “extraordinarily thin basis upon which to investigate an entire presidential campaign.” He added that “upon officially opening Crossfire Hurricane, FBI officials immediately took investigative steps that mirrored the claims in the Steele dossier, even though they were supposedly unaware of it.” The FBI’s first probes into individual Trump campaign figures — Carter Page, Michael Flynn, and Paul Manafort — began in August 2016. All are mentioned in the dossier. Maté concludes:
To accept the official timeline, one has to stipulate that the FBI investigated a Presidential campaign, and then a President, based on a low-level volunteer having ‘suggested’ Trump’s campaign had received ‘some kind of suggestion’ of assistance from Russia. One would also have to accept that the Bureau was not influenced by the far more detailed claims of direct Trump-Russia connections – an alleged conspiracy that would form the heart of the investigation – advanced in the widely-circulating Steele dossier.”
Original article: mintpressnews.com
