NYTimes: How a Sensational, Unverified Dossier Became a Crisis for Donald Trump
Thomas Wheat
Tom Jigme Wheat
What We Know
■ In September 2015, a Washington political research firm, Fusion GPS, paid by a wealthy Republican donor who did not like Mr. Trump, began to compile “opposition research” on him — standard practice in politics.
■ Last June, after evidence of Russian hacking of Democratic targets surfaced, Fusion GPS hired a retired British intelligence officer, Christopher Steele, to investigate Mr. Trump’s ties to Russia.
■ After it became clear that Mr. Trump would be the Republican nominee, Democratic clients who supported Hillary Clinton began to pay Fusion GPS for this same opposition research.
■ Mr. Steele, who had long experience in Russia and a network of connections there, compiled dozens of reports detailing what he heard from his contacts. The memos he wrote, mostly one to three pages long, are dated from June to December.
■ The memos contain unsubstantiated claims that Russian officials tried to obtain influence over Mr. Trump by preparing to blackmail him with sex tapes and bribe him with business deals.
They also claim that the Trump campaign met with Russian operatives to discuss the Russians’ hacking and leaking of emails and documents from the Democratic National Committee and from Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chairman, John D. Podesta.
■ Fusion GPS and Mr. Steele shared the memos first with their clients, and later with the F.B.I. and multiple journalists at The New York Times and elsewhere.
The memos, totaling about 35 pages, also reached a number of members of Congress.
■ Last week, when the F.B.I., C.I.A. and National Security Agency gave a classified report on the Russian hacking, leaking and efforts to influence the presidential election to Mr. Obama, Mr. Trump and congressional leaders, they attached a two-page summary of the unverified allegations in the memos.
What We Don’t Know
■ Whether any of the claims in the memos are true. American intelligence agencies have not confirmed them, and Mr. Trump has said they are a complete fabrication.
In addition, one specific allegation — that Mr. Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen met with a Russian official in Prague in August or September — has been denied by both Mr. Cohen, who says he has never been to Prague, and the Russian, Oleg Solodukhin.
■ Who concocted the information in the memos, if it is entirely false or partly so, and with what purpose. If all the information in the dossier is false, it is a very sophisticated fabrication.
■ What exactly prompted American intelligence officials to pass on a summary of the unvetted claims to Mr. Obama, Mr. Trump and Congress. Officials have said they felt the president-elect should be aware of the memos, which had circulated widely in Washington. But putting the summary in a report that went to multiple people in Congress and the executive branch made it very likely that it would be leaked.
What will happen now?
The F.B.I. has been investigating the claims in the memos, and Democrats are demanding a thorough inquiry into the reports that Trump representatives met with Russian officials during the campaign. But as of Jan. 20, Mr. Trump will be in charge of the bureau and the other intelligence agencies, and he may not approve such an investigation.
Why can’t I read the memos on your website?
Because the 35 pages of memos prepared as opposition research on Mr. Trump contain detailed claims that neither the intelligence agencies nor The Times has been able to verify, Times editors decided to briefly summarize the claims and not publish the document.
Why did The Times report extensively on the hacking of the Democratic Party, but not this?
The Times did report before the election that the F.B.I. was investigating claims about Mr. Trump’s ties to Russia — an article that resulted from an extensive reporting effort. The Democratic National Committee and Podesta emails were public, their authenticity was not in doubt, and they contained newsworthy information.
Why did the F.B.I. director write two letters about Clinton’s emails, but not this?
That is a question the director, James B. Comey, may eventually have to answer. His two public statements about the bureau’s investigation of the Clinton emails broke with long F.B.I. tradition.
Why did the news media not raise this during the campaign?
Many reporters from multiple news organizations tried to verify the claims in the memos but were unsuccessful.
So what changed on Tuesday? Why is this now being reported?
CNN broke the news that a summary of the memos had been attached to the classified report by the F.B.I., C.I.A. and National Security Agency on the Russian hacking and leaking, and that it had been given to Mr. Obama, Mr. Trump and congressional leaders last week. That level of official attention prompted news organizations to decide to inform the public about the memos.
Tom Jigme Wheat
These Reports Allege Trump Has Deep Ties To Russia
A dossier making explosive — but unverified — allegations that the Russian government has been “cultivating, supporting and assisting” President-elect Donald Trump for years and gained compromising information about him has been circulating among elected officials, intelligence agents, and journalists for weeks.
The dossier, which is a collection of memos written over a period of months, includes specific, unverified, and potentially unverifiable allegations of contact between Trump aides and Russian operatives, and graphic claims of sexual acts documented by the Russians. BuzzFeed News reporters in the US and Europe have been investigating various alleged facts in the dossier but have not verified or falsified them. CNN reportedTuesday that a two-page synopsis of the report was given to President Obama and Trump.
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3259984-Trump-Intelligence-Allegations.html
Now BuzzFeed News is publishing the full document so that Americans can make up their own minds about allegations about the president-elect that have circulated at the highest levels of the US government.
The document was prepared for political opponents of Trump by a person who is understood to be a former British intelligence agent. It is not just unconfirmed: It includes some clear errors. The report misspells the name of one company, "Alpha Group," throughout. It is Alfa Group. The report says the settlement of Barvikha, outside Moscow, is "reserved for the residences of the top leadership and their close associates." It is not reserved for anyone, and it is also populated by the very wealthy.
The Trump administration's transition team did not immediately respond to BuzzFeed News' request for comment. However, the president-elect's attorney, Michael Cohen, told Mic that the allegations were absolutely false.
"It's so ridiculous on so many levels," he said. "Clearly, the person who created this did so from their imagination or did so hoping that the liberal media would run with this fake story for whatever rationale they might have."
And Trump shot back against the reports a short time later on Twitter.
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His former campaign manager and current senior White House adviser, Kellyanne Conway, also denied the claims during an appearance on Late Night With Seth Meyers,adding that "nothing has been confirmed." She also said Trump was "not aware" of any briefing on the matter.
The documents have circulated for months and acquired a kind of legendary status among journalists, lawmakers, and intelligence officials who have seen them. Mother Jones writer David Corn referred to the documents in a late October column.
Harry Reid spokesman Adam Jentleson tweeted Tuesday that the former Senate Democratic leader had seen the documents before writing a public letter to FBI Director James Comey about Trump's ties to Russia. And CNN reported Tuesday that Arizona Republican John McCain gave a "full copy" of the memos to Comey on Dec. 9, but that the FBI already had copies of many of the memos.
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