Steele dossier
The Steele dossier, also known as the Trump–Russia dossier, is a controversial political opposition research report on the 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump compiled by counterintelligence specialist Christopher Steele. It was published without permission in 2017 as an unfinished compilation of "unverified, and potentially unverifiable" memos that were considered by Steele to be "raw intelligence – not established facts, but a starting point for further investigation". The dossier was written from June to December 2016 as reports from his sources were received, and contains allegations of misconduct, conspiracy, and cooperation between Trump's presidential campaign and the government of Russia prior to and during the 2016 election campaign. U.S. intelligence agencies have reported that Putin personally ordered the whole Russian election interference operation, that the Russians codenamed Project Lakhta.
While the dossier played a significant role in initially highlighting the general friendliness between Trump and the Putin administration, the [|corroboration status of specific allegations] is highly variable. The following allegations have been publicly corroborated by U.S. intelligence agencies, the January 2017 ODNI report, and the Mueller report: "that the Russian government was working to get Mr. Trump elected"; that Russia sought "to cultivate people in Trump's orbit"; that Trump campaign officials and associates had secretive contacts with Russian officials and agents; that Putin favored Trump over Hillary Clinton; that Putin personally ordered an "influence campaign" to harm Clinton's campaign and to "undermine public faith in the US democratic process"; and that he ordered cyberattacks on both parties. Some other allegations are plausible but not specifically confirmed, and some are dubious in retrospect but not strictly disproven.
The dossier was based on reports from initially anonymous sources known to Steele and his "primary sub-source", Igor Danchenko. Steele, a former head of the Russia Desk for British intelligence, wrote the report for the private investigative firm Fusion GPS, that was paid by Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee. The dossier's 17 reports allege that there was a "well-developed conspiracy" of "cooperation" between Trump campaign members and Russian operatives to aid Russia's election interference efforts to benefit Trump. It also alleges that Russia sought to damage Hillary Clinton's candidacy. It was published by BuzzFeed News on January 10, 2017, without Steele's permission. Their decision to publish the reports without verifying the allegations was criticized by journalists. However, a judge defended BuzzFeeds action on the basis that the dossier was part of an official proceeding, and therefore "protected by fair reporting privilege".
Generally, when the dossier was released with its "explosive, but largely unverified, claims", "former intelligence officers and other national-security experts" urged "skepticism and caution". While compiling the dossier, Steele passed his findings to both British and American intelligence agencies. The U.S. intelligence community took the allegations seriously, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation investigated every line of the dossier and identified and spoke with at least two of Steele's sources. The Mueller report contained passing references to some of the dossier's allegations but little mention of its more sensational claims. Both the 2019 OIG report and the 2023 Durham report raised doubts about the dossier's reliability and sources, with the latter stating that "the FBI was not able to corroborate a single substantive allegation contained in the Steele Reports".
While the dossier played a central and essential role in the seeking of FISA warrants on Carter Page, according to James Clapper, John Brennan, and Robert S. Litt, it "played no role" in the January 6, 2017, intelligence community assessment of the Russian actions in the 2016 election, and according to the Senate Intelligence Committee, the dossier was not used to "support any of analytic judgments". Also, it was not the trigger for the opening of the Russia investigation into whether the Trump campaign was coordinating with the Russian government's interference in the 2016 presidential election. The dossier is a factor in several conspiracy theories promoted by Trump and his supporters. Many mainstream sources have described the dossier as "discredited".
History
Two research operations and confusion between them
The opposition research conducted by Fusion GPS on Donald Trump occurred in two distinct phases, each with different clients:- The client for the first phase was The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative news outlet, which funded research into multiple Republican candidates, including Trump. This phase, from October 2015 to May 2016, was focused on Trump's domestic business and entertainment activities; was performed by Fusion GPS and used public sources and investigative reporter Wayne Barrett's files.
- The clients for the second phase were the Democratic Party and Clinton campaign. This phase, from April to December 2016, was focused on Trump's Russian connections; it was subcontracted by Fusion GPS to Steele and Orbis Business Intelligence and used Steele's own source network and public sources. Only this second phase produced the dossier.
''The Washington Free Beacon'' operation does not produce the dossier
In October 2015, before the official start of the 2016 Republican primary campaign, the founders of Fusion GPS were seeking political work and wrote an email to "a big conservative donor they knew who disliked Trump, they were hired". He arranged for them to use The Washington Free Beacon, an American conservative political journalism website, for their general opposition research on several Republican presidential candidates, including Trump. It is primarily funded by Republican donor Paul Singer. The Free Beacon and Singer were "part of the conservative never-Trump movement". Although Singer was a big supporter of Marco Rubio, Rubio denied any involvement in Fusion GPS's initial research and hiring.This phase used public sources, but early in their investigation, they also received help from Wayne Barrett who gave them his files on Trump. They contained findings about "Trump's past dealings, including tax and bankruptcy problems, potential ties to organized crime, and numerous legal entanglements. They also revealed that Trump had an unusually high number of connections to Russians with questionable backgrounds."
For months, Fusion GPS gathered information about Trump, focusing on his business and entertainment activities. When Trump became the presumptive nominee on May 3, 2016, the conservative donor stopped funding the research on him.
Due to media confusion over who produced the dossier, the Free Beacon issued a statement in October 2017 to debunk some false assumptions:
Although the source of the Steele dossier's funding had already been reported correctly over a year before, and the Free Beacon had issued a statement to this effect in October 2017, a February 2, 2018, story by the Associated Press contributed to confusion about its funding by stating that the dossier "was initially funded" by The Washington Free Beacon, so the AP posted a correction the next day: "Though the former spy, Christopher Steele, was hired by a firm that was initially funded by the Washington Free Beacon, he did not begin work on the project until after Democratic groups had begun funding it."
By the spring of 2016, researchers at Fusion GPS had become so alarmed by what they had already learned about Trump that they felt the need "to do what they could to keep Trump out of the White House".