The ripple effect from the publishing in January by far-left BuzzFeed of the phony, discredited “Trump Dossier” written by anti-Trump British MI6 agent Christopher Steele (shown) is still being felt. As a result of a London lawsuit against Steele, the former British spy was forced to admit that his information, which was obtained from various unnamed Kremlin sources, was never verified as accurate. But that hasn’t deterred Democrats determined to harm or destroy the Trump presidency from using it as fodder for their attacks.
Steele, a confirmed socialist, wrote a series of memos about information he said he had gleaned from various “Kremlin insiders,” a “trusted compatriot,” “former top level Russian intelligence officers still active inside the Kremlin,” and two other unnamed sources he referred to as “sources A and B.” But Steele stumbled when, in memo #16, he claimed that members of the Russian spy service FSB were to meet with one of Trump’s people in a conspiracy to defame Hillary Clinton. Wrote Steele:
According to [my] Kremlin advisor, these meetings were originally scheduled for [Trump’s attorney Michael] Cohen in Moscow but shifted to what was considered an operationally “soft” EU country [the Czech Republic] when it was judged too compromising for him to travel to the Russian Capital.
The only problem is that, when confronted with the charge, Cohen proved conclusively that he wasn’t either in Russia or in Europe at the time but was instead on the West Coast. As the Washington Times noted, a single lie is sufficient to prove Steele to be a liar:
This fundamental inaccuracy on Mr. Steele’s part would indicate the entire foundation for his report is suspect since he makes a wide array of other charges based on these same sources.
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Said Cohen: “I don’t think there is a shred of accuracy in the entire document other than the proper spellings of President-elect Trump’s name and my name. The document is worthless, inaccurate and not worth the paper it’s printed on.”
The Times went one step further: It hired Kent Clizbe, a former counterintelligence office with the CIA, to evaluate the validity of Steele’s claims. Said Clizbe:
The entire file [16 memos] reads like an opposition researcher telling a client what they want to hear. It seems likely that the researcher [Steele] has sources in Russia maybe with the access [he] claimed. But it appears that they are telling him, or he reported, what his clients wanted to hear….
The title of page 7, “Extensive Conspiracy Between Trump’s Campaign Team and the Kremlin” is ludicrous in the extreme. The subsequent description of the Trump campaign conducting close and continuing collaboration, liaisons with Kremlin officers to conduct the WikiLeaks and other operations does not seem plausible at all.
Another of Steele’s targets was Carter Page, an advisor to the Trump campaign on energy issues. Steele’s sources accused Page of a series of crimes, including teaming up with former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort to help Russia hack into Democratic Party computers, meeting in Moscow with two of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s people to plot against Hillary Clinton, and working out a “shady deal” with a Russian “oligarch.”
The problem with that tale is that Page says he has never met Manafort, knew nothing about Russian hacking when it was happening, never met the two Putin people, and never completed said “shady deal” with said “oligarch.”
This denial didn’t deter Yahoo from publishing the tale as fact. It was then picked up, also without verification, by the Voice of America.
Nor did it deter the Clinton campaign from turning the phony allegations into a campaign slogan pumped out on September 23, 2016: “Hillary for America Statement on Bombshell Report About Trump Aide’s Chilling Ties to Kremlin.”
In March 2017, Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee happily read extensively from the phony discredited dossier during a hearing featuring former FBI Director James Comey and NSA head Michael Rogers. Said committee member Representative Adam Schiff (D-Calif.):
According to Steele’s Russian sources, the campaign has offered documents damaging to Hillary Clinton, which the Russians would publish through an outlet that gives them deniability like WikiLeaks….
According to Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer, who is reportedly held in high regard by U.S. intelligence, Russian sources tell him that Page has also had a secret meeting with [the] CEO of the Russian gas giant, Rosneft. [That CEO] is reported to be a former KGB agent and close friend of Putin’s.
Far left Representative Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), also on the same committee as Schiff, attempted to lend additional credibility to the discredited dossier:
I want to take a moment to turn to the Christopher Steele dossier.… My focus is to explore how many claims within Steele’s dossier are looking more and more likely, as though they were accurate.
Still another Democrat, Representative Andre Carson from Indiana, gave credit to Steele for exposing the details on the phony conspiracy charges: “There’s a lot in the dossier that is yet to be proven but increasingly, as we’ll hear throughout the day, [Steele’s] allegations are checking out.”
California Democrat Representative Maxine Waters weighed in on the matter as well, saying, “Oh, I think it should be taken a look at. I think they should really read it, understand it, analyze it and determine what’s fact, what may not be fact.”
Now that Steele’s dossier on Trump has been discredited, perhaps the investigation should focus on Schiff, Castro, Carson, and Waters instead. Said a former Trump campaign advisor:
After all, they routinely shopped around false claims from the debunked Steele dossier, which listed sources including senior Kremlin officers. If anyone should be investigated in Washington, it ought to be Adam Schiff [and the others along with their staffers].
Image of Christopher Steele: Screenshot of Telegraph video that accompanied the Telegraph article at this site
An Ivy League graduate and former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American magazine and blogs frequently at LightFromTheRight.com, primarily on economics and politics. He can be reached at [email protected].
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