EXCLUSIVE: Christopher Steele contends that more evidence to support his disputed dossier's claims may still surface so long as Donald Trump remains active in politics. 'I don't think this book is finished,' he tells GStephanopoulos. 'By a long shot.'
-- and malign its author. Trump himself repeatedly lashed out at Steele and the report. At one point, then-President Trump tweeted of Steele:"This man should be extradited, tried, and thrown into jail. A sick lier [sic] who was paid by Crooked Hillary & the DNC!"
The dossier did deal a series of blows to Steele's credibility in both media and government investigations, most notably a December 2019 Justice DepartmentChristopher Steele, author of the so-called"Steele dossier," is seen in a scene from the ABC News documentary,"Out of the Shadows: The Man Behind the Steele Dossier," airing Oct. 18, 2021.
Steele said he knew within the first month of his reporting that"supporters of Hillary Clinton" were funding Fusion GPS's work, and by extension his own. "He was the lead Russianist at MI6 prior to leaving the government and an extremely well-regarded investigator, researcher, and, as I say, we're friends and share interest in Russian kleptocracy and organized crime issues," Simpson testified regarding Steele."I would say that's broadly why I asked him to see what he could find out about Donald Trump's business activities in Russia.
"One was, there was a large-scale Russian interference campaign in the American election in 2016," he said. Very little corroborating evidence has emerged to support the dossier. But neither, Steele points out, has there been much concrete contradictory evidence either."The common refrain when people were speaking about the dossier is, 'Well, we don't know if that's not true,'" Meier said."People who are intelligence operatives anchor their reports to rumors, to hearsay, to bar talk, to smoke. That's the world that Christopher Steele operated in.
Skeptics of Steele's reporting, however, suggest he may have fallen victim to another trademark of Russian spy craft: disinformation. Speaking to congressional investigators in October 2019, Fiona Hill, a former National Security Council official in the Trump administration and a longtime friend of Steele's, called Steele's dossier a"rabbit hole."
The supposed"pee tape" never emerged. But the claim may be the public's most enduring symbol of Steele's work -- particularly after it became a favorite of late-night comics. For his part, Trump has repeatedly and firmly denied this specific allegation. At a press conference the day after BuzzFeed published Steele's dossier, Trump told reporters that he was"a germaphobe." As recently as last week, TrumpPressed by Stephanopoulos on how he can assess the likelihood of a seemingly outlandish allegation without concrete evidence, Steele cited his lengthy career as a British intelligence officer focused on Russia.
"I don't know to what extent they were able to look into it. I don't know what evidence they gathered," Steele said."I haven't seen any, if you like, report on that aspect. So, from my point of view, I think it's still an open question." "I'm prepared to accept that not everything in the dossier is 100% accurate," Steele replied."I have yet to be convinced that that is one of them."
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