Greg Olear looks at the evidence.
Steele Will Meet with Justice Department Officials
Christopher Steele, the former MI6 agent behind the Trump dossier. has agreed to be questioned by U.S. officials over his relationship with the FBI, the London Times reports.
The Steele Dossier Holds Up So Far
Lawfare: “The Mueller investigation has clearly produced public records that confirm pieces of the dossier. And even where the details are not exact, the general thrust of Steele’s reporting seems credible in light of what we now know about extensive contacts between numerous individuals associated with the Trump campaign and Russian government officials.”
“However, there is also a good deal in the dossier that has not been corroborated in the official record and perhaps never will be—whether because it’s untrue, unimportant or too sensitive. As a raw intelligence document, the Steele dossier, we believe, holds up well so far. But surely there is more to come from Mueller’s team. We will return to it as the public record develops.”
Lawyer Was Told Russia Had ‘Trump Over a Barrel’
Senior Justice Department lawyer Bruce Ohr says a former British spy told him at a breakfast meeting two years ago that Russian intelligence believed it had Donald Trump “over a barrel,” the AP reports.
Ohr “also says he learned that a Trump campaign aide had met with higher-level Russian officials than the aide had acknowledged.”
“The previously unreported details of the July 30, 2016, breakfast with Christopher Steele, which Ohr described to lawmakers this week in a private interview, reveal an exchange of potentially explosive information about Trump between two men the president has relentlessly sought to discredit.”
Christopher Steele’s Other Report
“The FBI possesses a secret report asserting that Vladimir Putin’s former media czar was beaten to death by hired thugs in Washington, DC — directly contradicting the US government’s official finding that Mikhail Lesin died by accident,” BuzzFeed News reports.
“The report, according to four sources who have read all or parts of it, was written by the former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, who also wrote the famous dossier alleging that Russia had been ‘cultivating, supporting and assisting’ Donald Trump. The bureau received his report while it was helping the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police Department investigate the Russian media baron’s death.”
The Trump-Russia Dossier Grows In Significance
The Guardian: “Nine months after its first appearance, the set of intelligence reports known as the Steele dossier, one of the most explosive documents in modern political history, is still hanging over Washington, casting a shadow over the Trump administration that has only grown darker as time has gone by.”
“The fact that Steele’s reports are being taken seriously after lengthy scrutiny by federal and congressional investigators has far-reaching implications.”
Dossier Author In Talks with Senate Intelligence
“Christopher Steele, the former British intelligence operative who authored a 35-page dossier alleging that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, has been in talks with the Senate Intelligence Committee about speaking to its leaders,” three sources familiar with the situation told NBC News.
Mueller’s Team Met with Dossier Author
“Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators met this past summer with the former British spy whose dossier on alleged Russian efforts to aid the Trump campaign spawned months of investigations that have hobbled the Trump administration,” CNN reports.
“Information from Christopher Steele, a former MI-6 officer, could help investigators determine whether contacts between people associated with the Trump campaign and suspected Russian operatives broke any laws.”
GOP Staffers Hunt for Trump Dossier Author
Politico: “Two Republican House Intelligence Committee staffers traveled to London earlier this summer to track down the former British intelligence operative who compiled a controversial dossier on President Trump and Russia.”
“The previously unreported trip underscores the importance of the 35-page dossier Christopher Steele wrote last year to Congressional probes into possible collusion between Moscow and the 2016 Trump campaign.”
“The London trip has also angered Democrats in both chambers of Congress, who were not consulted by their colleagues before the investigators knocked on Steele’s door. Democrats fear House investigators are more interested in discrediting the dossier than trying to substantiate its allegations.”
U.K. Was Given Trump-Russia Dossier
“The UK government was given details last December of allegedly extensive contacts between the Trump campaign and Moscow,” The Guardian reports.
“Reports by Christopher Steele, a former MI6 officer, on possible collusion between the the Trump camp and the Kremlin are at the centre of a political storm in the US over Moscow’s role in getting Donald Trump elected.”
“It was not previously known that the UK intelligence services had also received the dossier but Steele confirmed in a court filing earlier this month that he handed a memorandum compiled in December to a ‘senior UK government national security official acting in his official capacity, on a confidential basis in hard copy form.'”
“The court papers say Steele decided to pass on the information he had collected because it was ‘of considerable importance in relation to alleged Russian interference in the US presidential election,’ that it ‘had implications for the national security of the US and the UK’ and ‘needed to be analysed and further investigated/verified.'”
Senate May Interview Author of Trump Dossier
The Senate Intelligence Committee “is in talks to interview Christopher Steele, the former British intelligence operative who compiled the dossier that alleges a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia,” three sources with direct knowledge told NBC News.
“Steele, however, remains concerned about his safety and is not inclined to leave London. He is also concerned about how he might be treated by the Trump administration.”
FBI Planned to Pay Spy Who Wrote Trump Dossier
“The former British spy who authored a controversial dossier on behalf of Donald Trump’s political opponents alleging ties between Trump and Russia reached an agreement with the FBI a few weeks before the election for the bureau to pay him to continue his work,” the Washington Post reports.
“While Trump has derided the dossier as ‘fake news’ compiled by his political opponents, the FBI’s arrangement with Steele shows that bureau investigators considered him credible and found his line of inquiry to be worthy of pursuit.”
