![]() Steele was in no position to travel to Moscow to study Mr. officer, and the varied tactics he and his intelligence operatives used to smear, blackmail or bribe their targets.Īs a former spy who had carried out espionage inside Russia, Mr. The former journalist and the former spy, according to people who know them, had similarly dark views of President Vladimir V. When he stepped down in 2009, he started his own commercial intelligence firm, Orbis Business Intelligence. Steele, in his early 50s, had served undercover in Moscow in the early 1990s and later was the top expert on Russia at the London headquarters of Britain’s spy service, MI6. Steele, a former British intelligence officer with whom he had worked before. The Washington Post reported that the Democratic National Committee had been hacked, apparently by Russian government agents, and a mysterious figure calling himself “Guccifer 2.0” began to publish the stolen documents online. In June, the tenor of the effort suddenly changed. Trump’s past in business and entertainment, a rich target. For months, Fusion GPS gathered the documents and put together the files from Mr. It is routine work and ordinarily involves creating a big, searchable database of public information: past news reports, documents from lawsuits and other relevant data. But in presidential elections, the firm is sometimes hired by candidates, party organizations or donors to do political “oppo” work - shorthand for opposition research - on the side. The identity of the donor is unclear.įusion GPS, headed by a former Wall Street Journal journalist known for his dogged reporting, Glenn Simpson, most often works for business clients. The person described the opposition research work on condition of anonymity, citing the volatile nature of the story and the likelihood of future legal disputes. Trump put up the money to hire a Washington research firm run by former journalists, Fusion GPS, to compile a dossier about the real estate magnate’s past scandals and weaknesses, according to a person familiar with the effort. The story began in September 2015, when a wealthy Republican donor who strongly opposed Mr. The episode also offers a glimpse of the hidden side of presidential campaigns, involving private sleuths-for-hire looking for the worst they can find about the next American leader. But it is possible to piece together a rough narrative of what led to the current crisis, including lingering questions about the ties binding Mr. Parts of the story remain out of reach - most critically the basic question of how much, if anything, in the dossier is true. Clapper suggested that intelligence officials had nonetheless shared it to give policy makers “the fullest possible picture of any matters that might affect national security.” ![]() Steele’s dossier that the intelligence agencies have “not made any judgment that the information in this document is reliable.” Mr. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, issued a statement decrying leaks about the matter and saying of Mr. Late Wednesday night, after speaking with Mr. ![]() Trump denounced the unproven claims Wednesday as a fabrication, a Nazi-style smear concocted by “sick people.” It has further undermined his relationship with the intelligence agencies and cast a shadow over the new administration. Word of the summary, which was also given to President Obama and congressional leaders, leaked to CNN Tuesday, and the rest of the media followed with sensational reports. The consequences have been incalculable and will play out long past Inauguration Day. Trump in an appendix to a top-secret intelligence report. Last week, the explosive details - unsubstantiated accounts of frolics with prostitutes, real estate deals that were intended as bribes and coordination with Russian intelligence of the hacking of Democrats - were summarized for Mr. WASHINGTON - Seven months ago, a respected former British spy named Christopher Steele won a contract to build a file on Donald J.
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