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The Steele Dossier and Disinformation on Trump
I was reading the WSJ editorial this morning about the stonewalling of subpoena requests on the ‘dodgy dossier’ by Mueller and the Justice dept. and I reflected back to conversations with my journalist husband who, during the primary, said, “He’s not going to win, Dahling”…”you don’t want him to win, Dahling”…”there’s a lot of really damaging information on him, Dahling, and when it comes out he’s finished”. Same thing during the general.
The info, bought and paid for by Republicans and then Democrats, from an org (GPS Fusion) that was working for the Russians at the same time was no doubt a smear operation to derail Trump candidacy. But was this a Kremlin objective? I’m betting yes. Either way, they win. They could at best neutralise, at worst cripple an American candidate/president. Journalists like my husband, influence makers all, were hearing the rumours and I’m sure it affected their take on things in their op-eds. From the editorial,
Published in GeneralThe real question is why Democrats and Fusion seem not to want to tell the public who requested the dossier or what ties Fusion GPS boss Glenn Simpson had with the Russians in 2016. All the more so because congressional investigators have learned that Mr. Simpson was working for Russian clients at the same time he was working with Mr. Steele.
Americans deserve to know who paid Mr. Simpson for this work and if the Kremlin influenced the project. They also deserve to know if former FBI director James Comey relied on the dossier to obtain warrants to monitor the Trump campaign. If the Russians used disinformation to spur a federal investigation into a presidential candidate, that would certainly qualify as influencing an election.
Discredited James Comey did whatever Obama told him to. The man is a disgrace to a disgraced organization.
Clintons people pushed the Steele Dossier after Jeb Bush’s PAC masters ( unethical corrupt slime ) started it. Yes the Russians had some fun along the way. They always do.
And I meant to say “objective”, not “directive”.
Hi, DocJay!
And 100% agree with you on Comey. His testimony on Clinton’s interview w/ FBI told it all-it wasn’t recorded, he did not take part in it… we only have the notes of the agents involved. All very shady. Sad when we lose faith in the FBI.
Comey says he was told not to call it an investigation, so he didn’t. Hell, he didn’t actually do an investigation. He started with the conclusion and worked backwards. He wrote the “report” before the most important interviews had been done.
I’m all for efficiency, but that is ridiculous.
This dossier will have some negative impact for the president. Hopefully a lot more egg on other faces too.
In the end no one but Manafort gets tried and for an unrelated issue. We may never know the truth though about the dossier. I’m not holding my breath.
There was collusion, just not the type of collusion Trump’s detractors have been nattering on and on about.
I wonder (and doubt) if we meddle in their affairs clandestinely – they make us look like amateur hour.
If the dossier is actually Russian disinformation put together for them by Fusion GPS to be purchased / used by the Republicans and then the Democrats and various entities in the federal government then are not the Republicans, Democrats and government agencies guilty of colluding with a foreign power to influence an election? Should these entities not be investigated for pure or impure motives?
@melissaosullivan Have you read this article in the Federalist? (link) Frankly, it is not well organized but is well worth a read and a parsing.
There is the confluence of the Steele Dossier and the lobbying to repeal the Magnitsky Act through Fusion GPS. The Magnitsky Act were sanctions applied to Putin’s cronies with the freezing of their assets and making it so that they could not do business world wide. This struck at Putin by showing Putin could not protect them.
Glenn Simpson was a WSJ journalist and one of the heads of Fusion GPS. Fusion relies on the dearth of resources available to news organizations by feeding them stories with slants and with false information, i.e., a fake news source. One such taker is Ken Dillanian, NBC’s national security and intelligence reporter. The currency being traded in is scoops.
“What these records and other accompanying documents also suggest is that Russia’s attempt to “hack” the 2016 election was hardly just about the election, and that a main target and beneficiary of that effort—which is ongoing—is the American press.”
“[J]ournalism is in trouble. So they [Fusion GPS – Simpson] got out of a damaged and dying business and picked up a new line of work. Yes, the Fusion GPS crew is employed by lots of bad people, but so is a large part of Washington, representing the interests of some of the foulest regimes and people imaginable.
“The real problem is with those journalists hiding behind brand names, whose purpose at one time was to provide Americans the news and opinion that would help us make choices about how we live at home and influence others abroad. What they’ve done instead over the last nine months—the lifetime of the Trump-Russia narrative—is posture as heroes while dismantling the public credibility of a vital American institution.”
Who was Steele? An ex-MI6 agent. From everything I’ve read about him, he is well regarded in intelligence circles. And no doubt has extensive contacts throughout western intelligence agencies. Do you think he’s simply going to take a compilation of material from the FSB and provide it as final product? It doesn’t seem likely to me.
I think what FSB very well might have done was plant material with western intelligence agencies that then came in to be part of the dossier. The value to FSB of this are deniability and also to see what flows of information there were which can be valuable.
What evidence do I have for this? Really none other than some sense of who Steele is and how such games may be played.
Melissa,
With the Dems, I have often thought we have underexplored the psychological concept of projection. They may have been colluding with the Russians to obtain ‘disinformation’, a Russian specialty, to use against Trump. Why not accuse Trump of the very crime they are committing.
Comey and his pal Mueller are too cute by half.
Regards,
Jim
Not convincing at all, in my opinion. Our intelligence services seem to be dominated by political operatives, and I doubt ours led the way there among western countries.
Hang On–thank you for referring me to that article! I had not seen it but will read it now! Curiouser and curiouser…
Our services are increasingly. (Just checked, you are American. So it is “our”.)
I think Steele’s sources were European intelligence services – not NSA, CIA, etc. Steele evidently pulled this dossier together working out of Europe.
The original field notes from the FBI interviews are preserved in the file. The field notes are always preserved in the file. There’s a special envelope designed for that very purpose. If they aren’t there, then we’re into a Sandy Burglar – scenario. Subpoena the actual, original field notes. Then subpoena the “302” reports made by the agents who conducted the interviews. They’re there, too, unless…
Maybe Fusion GPS did it on spec? Put together a dossier and see if they can sell it to some schmuck with more money than sense? It is not as if either party is lacking in people with that set of qualifications.
And I see no reason to put any credence into Steele’s reputation among people who insist on anonymity. That’s a little too indirect for my taste.
Or maybe Fusion GPS’s relationship with the Russian FSB is a little closer than helping oppose the Magnitsky Act? Maybe Steele is just a cut-out whose only purpose is to obscure where the “data” came from.
I have noticed far more Russian involvement with the Hillary campaign for a long time. But rarely does the media ever say that.
Is this dossier the thing that CNN pointed too on the Buzzfeed site. If so did anybody read it? I did and it was amateur hour college BS. If that is what passes for espionage in our government then we are in worse shape than I thought.
To Thatcher: Yes! The very same discredited doc!
I read it as well and was thoroughly underwhelmed. From my memory there wasn’t much to it.