"Excuse me, can
you help me? I'm a spy." (Doctor Who)
First, a bit of
background.
The dirty Trump
dossier made several claims:
One: Russia had
strong blackmail material on Trump and could thus control him;
Two: Most damning in
that material, Trump used prostitutes while he was in Russia, and paid several
of them to urinate on a hotel bed Obama had once slept in;
Three: Russia hacked
DNC (Democratic National Committee) emails and passed them on WikiLeaks, who
published them. The emails were damaging to Hillary and helped Trump win the
election;
Four: Russia wanted
Trump to win the election.
Major media are now
covering the Trump dossier from a new angle---who paid a British ex-spy to
assemble it?
And the answer
everyone already knew---Hillary Clinton's camp and the Democratic National
Committee---is out in the open.
Follow the bouncing
ball. It goes this way:
During the 2016
presidential campaign, the Hillary team and the DNC funneled some $9 million to
a Hillary lawyer, Marc Elias, and his law firm, Perkins-Cole.
That money then went
to a research firm, GPS Fusion, who passed some part of it on to a British
ex-spy, Christopher Steele. Steele had once worked in Russia and allegedly had
many connections there.
Steele put together
the Trump dossier after consulting with a number of Russians and spreading some
money around. He gave the dossier to his employer, GPS Fusion. The dossier
found its way to many media outlets, who sat on it for a while and eventually
decided to run with it and slam Trump without let-up.
Steele also took the
dossier to the FBI (and other intelligence agencies in the US and England). The
FBI offered to pay Steele to keep digging up dirt on Trump!---but when the
dossier went public and the media trumpeted its claims, the FBI withdrew its
offer.
Given that
background, let's go deeper.
The fact that
Hillary's team paid to get damaging info on Trump is no surprise. It's called
opposition research, and many candidates engage in it.
But paying Steele to
put together the dossier and hiding the payments ---that's illegal. It's also a
ruse to parlay the un-vetted dossier into a pretext for: Democrat eavesdropping
on Trump and his associates, as well as Robert Mueller's investigation of
Trump.
The contents of the
dossier are open to question. Is Steele's research accurate?
And here is what no
one is examining in any depth. Steele claims, in the dossier, that he was
talking with a number of well-placed Russian officials. That's where he
obtained his information.
What? Why would these
Russians speak with him? Why would these Russians expose a purported plot,
built by their own colleagues, under Putin's orders, to hand the election to
Trump?
If such a plot
existed, it would be a tightly controlled secret.
Yet, here are Russian
intelligence people spilling the beans to Steele, a former British spy.
And by spilling the
beans, they're risking their own lives, because there is a good chance their
Russian colleagues and superiors will be able to track them down and identify
them, since they've had connections to Steele in the past.
Steele appears to
have pulled off an intelligence op for the ages. He goes to Russia, sits down
with a number of Russian intel people, asks them questions, and they tell him
all about a top-secret plot to sway a US election. No problem.
Keep this in mind as
well. While Steele worked for MI-6, the British spy agency, he was stationed in
Moscow (1990-92) using a diplomatic cover. In order to put together the
numerous Russian sources he was able to tap years later while assembling the
Trump dossier, Steele must have blown his cover to pieces as he cultivated
those Russian intel sources back in the 1990s. Odd, to say the least.
Let's imagine a
similar scenario playing out in the US. During a campaign to elect a president
of Russia, a Russian ex-spy who once worked at the Russian Embassy in
Washington, under diplomatic cover, comes to the US and sits down with a few of
his old pals from the CIA.
Risking their
reputations, careers, and lives, these CIA people tell him that, under orders
from the president of the US, they've been putting together files on one of the
Russian presidential candidates. They tell him they favor this candidate. They
tell him they have important blackmail info on this candidate and can control
him if he wins the Russian election. THEY HAND HIM THE MOST IMPORTANT INFO IN
THE FILES.
Poof. No problem. The
Russian ex-spy returns to Russia with the info.
Really? How likely is
that?
If we bend and twist
credulity, and assume Christopher Steele did extract highly secret info about a
Russian plot to hand the election to Trump and then control Trump as a Russian
asset---if we assume all that to be true, well, we have just uncovered a MAJOR
FRACTURE in the Russian intelligence establishment.
We have uncovered a
volatile rebellion in the Russian ranks, a rebellion against Putin himself.
This rebellion is so relentless, the Russian instigators are willing to risk
life and limb to forward it.
Their hostility
toward Putin is so great, they've picked this operation---Russia influencing
the US election on behalf of Trump---to torpedo the president of Russia.
If you were Putin,
what could you do? The answer is obvious, and what you could do would be quite
effective:
"All right, men,
I've brought you here because I trust you, and I'd better be right in that
trust. I want you to collect every shred of information that exists on this
British spy, Steele, going all the way back to when he was first stationed in
Moscow. I want to know everyone he knew, everyone he had coffee and drinks and
lunches and dinner with---every single Russian. I want you to unearth every
detail, and find out who he tapped a year ago, when he put together this Trump
dossier. Give me names. Don't fail."
Of course, these
Russians who supposedly handed over key information to Steele already knew, at
the time, that this would happen. They would be hounded and most likely
exposed. But...they didn't care. They were willing to go to the wall.
OR...Steele never
accumulated all the information in the Trump dossier. He made unwarranted leaps
of inference. He inflated information. He invented key facts. He wanted to
satisfy his employers, GPS Fusion, Hillary Clinton, and the DNC. They wanted
dirt on Trump, and he gave them dirt.
For example, Steele
claims, in the Trump dossier, that he discovered Russians hacked the DNC
servers, extracted thousands of emails, and passed them on WikiLeaks. The
implication is, Russian operatives told Steele about the plot.
As we know, there has
been a great deal of discussion around this point. Was there a hack of DNC
emails, or was it a leak from inside the DNC? Without trying to draw a final
conclusion from myriad technical and political analysis, I'll point to a
statement, published in The Nation, by a several analysts from the Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS):
"For more than a
year, we have been pointing out that any data acquired by a hack would have had
to come across the Internet. The blanket coverage of the Internet by the NSA,
its UK counterpart GCHQ, and others would be able to produce copies of that
data and show where the data originated and where it went. But US intelligence
has produced no evidence that hacking by Russia led to it acquiring the DNC
e-mails and passing them on to WikiLeaks."
That's a cogent
point. If Steele really did extract a confession from Russian intelligence
officials pointing to a Russian hack of the DNC emails, why doesn't the NSA or
GCHQ confirm it and show us the evidence?
All in all, Steele
has built a Trump dossier based on his highly questionable access to Russian
intelligence professionals. If at this point, he cares about convincing us he's
on the level, he'll have to do a lot of talking. At a recent photo op, he
declined to comment on anything more than how happy he was to get back to work
for his current private-sector company, Chawton Holdings. Otherwise, he was a
silent bland egg.
That isn't going to
cut it.
We're left with a
fantastical story about his penetration of Russian higher-ups. Daniel Craig
could play the Steele role in a Netflix series, and a bunch of good Russian
actors who've been hanging around since the early James Bond movies, hoping for
work, could step in, but beyond that, Steele has nothing to offer.
I'm working on the
Netflix script. Here are the first few lines:
Steele: Hi, Ivan,
remember me?
Ivan: Why, it's Chris
Steele! Haven't seen you in years. Let's see, you were working for MI-6 in the
old days here in Moscow, right? Pretending you were a diplomat. Yes, we had a
few lunches back then.
Steele: Right. Look,
I was wondering whether you can tell me anything about a super-secret file you
guys are building on Donald Trump. This is the off the record, of course.
Ivan: Sure. We're
blackmailing him. If we can help him win the election, he'll be under our
control, completely. This is a Putin operation. I don't like it myself. I think
it's over the top. Anything I can do to put a thorn in Putin's side, I'm ready
to help. It's a little noisy here in the restaurant. Why don't we go over to my
office and I'll show you all the data.
Steele: That'd be
great.
Ivan: We also hacked
the DNC and stole thousands of emails. We're leaking them to Julian Assange. Be
sure to keep my name out of it.
Steele: Of course.
Ivan: Putin wants
Trump to win. I don't like Trump or Putin. I prefer Hillary. I assume you do,
too.
Steele: Well, sure.
I'm working for her. That's why I'm here.
Ivan: Wonderful...
It's a sure-fire hit.
It's so believable.
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