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Faced with libel lawsuit, dossier drafter Christopher Steele hedges on linking Trump to Russia
The Washington Times ^ | December 20, 2017 | Rowan Scarborough

Posted on 12/21/2017 6:01:40 AM PST by LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget

Christopher Steele, the former British spy who fueled an ongoing investigation into President Trump’s administration, was a lot more confident of his charges when he wrote his now-notorious 2016 dossier than he is today in defending it in a libel lawsuit.

While Mr. Steele stated matter-of-factly in his dossier that collusion between Mr. Trump and the Russian government took place, he called it only “possible” months later in court filings. While he confidently referred to “trusted” sources inside the Kremlin, in court he referred to the dossier’s “limited intelligence.”

In recent weeks, the dossier of opposition research has taken on added importance in the debate over the FBI and special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into suspected Russia coordination and whether it is biased against Trump people. Congressional Republicans are demanding that the FBI explain how the deeply contested, Democrat-financed document took on such importance in a major government investigation.

Mr. Steele wrote 35 pages of memos in which he said Trump aides were part of a vast conspiracy with Moscow to interfere in the election against Hillary Clinton. The unverified charges were spread by Fusion GPS, the Washington-based political research firm that first commissioned the report. Mr. Steele bragged to Mother Jones magazine that he started the Mueller investigation by convincing FBI agents that summer about the credibility of his dossier.

It was later revealed that the campaign of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton helped fund the dossier, meaning that in essence her paid agent was spreading unsubstantiated charges to get to the FBI to investigate her opponent, critics say.

Now that Mr. Steele must defend those charges in a London courtroom, his confidence level has shifted down several notches.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: christophersteele; dossier; fbi; fusiongps; jamescomey; motherjones; peterstrzok; robertmueller; rowanscarborough; russia; steeledossier; trumpdossier; trumprussia
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To: InterceptPoint

“document that was, according to Steele, not to be disclosed. I think that is new news. What other purpose would it have? To launch an FBI Investigation”

Makes perfect sense and you make it easy to understand. Short and sweet.


21 posted on 12/21/2017 6:47:29 AM PST by MayflowerMadam
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To: mewzilla

I guess we’ll have to wait & see how it all shakes out. I think it’s good so far - under oath, Steele is backing off of what he’s previously said about the dossier ... suddenly it’s not such a black and white indictment of Trump collusion any more and he’s hedging on sources, conclusions, etc.


22 posted on 12/21/2017 6:50:56 AM PST by Qiviut (Obama's Legacy in two words: DONALD TRUMP)
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To: ptsal

“Use the Michael Flynn, Scooter Libby, or Martha Stewart approach....find a simple lie to a Federal LEO and the bust the doors down at 3:00am.”

Start with, “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.”


23 posted on 12/21/2017 6:51:11 AM PST by EQAndyBuzz (We're CNN. We're not lying, we're just incompetent!)
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To: marron
Nice deconstruction........raises important questions.

Fusion is taking in millions from DNC and the Russians (they were also on contract to the Russians).Fusion (apparently) rec'd $9 million ....and apparently paid a hundred grand to Steele. So where did the rest of the money go?

This smells like money laundering.........and espionage. We see here.....modern age espionage is done in a hyper-legal way.....with all the IRS forms properly filed, the boxes checked, i’s dotted and t’s crossed. Its all right out in the open.

===========================================

When you look at all the crimes swirling in the DC Swamp, things seems to have been done nonchalantly, lots of evidence left in plain sight. It's b/c "sure-thing" Hillary was not supposed to lose. The Clintons had bought and paid for everything in sight....to assure her win. Yet not even the entire alphabet of butt-protection.....including the MSM, FBI,DNC...... could save the hide of the tainted Hillary.....she is that bad.

=============================================

Fox reported:

<><> (1) Nellie Ohr worked last year for Fusion GPS, which commissioned the salacious anti-Trump dossier.

<><> (2) Fusion's secret police investigated Donald Trump on behalf of "sure-thing" Hillary and the "impartial" DNC.

<><> (3) Fusion was paid indirectly by the Clinton campaign and the DNC.

<><> (4) British ex-spy Christopher Steele and Russian sources put together the salacious dossier.

<><> (5) the phony dossier was likely used by the FBI to fraudulently obtain FISA warrants to surveil Team Trump.

========================================

ANALYSIS The nefarious nature of the so called “Russian dossier” has come to light, and perpetrators of its salacious (lewd and crude) allegations against President Trump shown for the slanderous falsehoods that they always were. The perps all look like denizens of a Third World banana republic rather than a world-class republic.

Potential charges include:
<><> conspiracy to file false FEC discloses regarding payment to the Russians,
<><> making-up slanderous untrue allegations,
<><> participating in a slanderous action as the basis for a FISA warrant,
<><> filing false affidavits to the FiSA court,
<><> wire-tapping a candidate during an election,
<><>tapping phones at Trump's business/residence
<><> Money-laundering, tax evasion.

24 posted on 12/21/2017 6:51:30 AM PST by Liz (One side in this conflict has 8 Trillion bullets; the other side doesnt know which bathroom to use.)
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To: marron

There is no evidence presented at this point which says Steele himself wrote the document. If you go and read his background/resume...he did have the experience and training to write something like this.

For 40-odd pages....without any real truth to the business....any idiot could probably write the material in two weeks. Maybe he used some of the $9 million to travel off to some exotic places....claim interviews....stay in some fine Helsinki hotels and sip hefty-priced whiskey along the way.

I think someone ought to go and produce some movie over the whole dossier.


25 posted on 12/21/2017 6:53:13 AM PST by pepsionice
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To: EQAndyBuzz

Yup...another good ice-breaker.


26 posted on 12/21/2017 6:58:36 AM PST by ptsal ( Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please. - M. Twain)
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To: pepsionice

I don’t think he got the $9 million. I think some of that money is filtering into other pockets. Like, some of the people whose names are in the news. I had seen a figure of $168k that he supposedly was paid, but I don’t remember where I saw it or what that was based on. I had already thought that they maybe paid somebody $10k to write it, so I was off by quite a bit. Still, I think Fusion is a kind of cutout, receiving money from various sources, and doling it out to various recipients, with some double-book accounting to cover it.

Remember, they were also on Russia’s payroll. So where does that money go? Is there anything real about Fusion? Is it just a means of getting your underlings paid for their dirty work, while the big money gets kicked back to people whose names we probably know?


27 posted on 12/21/2017 7:10:28 AM PST by marron
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To: Texas Fossil
The issue now is not "what did the seditious conspiracy do in the past", the issue now is "how far are they willing to go?"

They have the generals, without a doubt. No one who got a third or fourth star since 1989 is free of globalist sympathies.

Since the members of this cabal have all committed multiple serious felonies, and since exposure and conviction could break the back of one (or both) major parties, what's to say they won't go for broke and try a coup?

28 posted on 12/21/2017 7:11:15 AM PST by Jim Noble (Single payer is coming. Which kind do you like?)
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To: marron

It wouldn’t surprise me if this came out of some French political thriller writer, and Steele paid the guy twenty-thousand for a month of effort.

The nine-million likely got cut up into dozens of expenses....all charged off on a company credit card. Someone likely pretended to be a Russian-hooker, and they dispensed ten-thousand for a weekend interview at some fancy hotel in Warsaw. Someone else pretended to be another hooker, and was dispensed another ten-thousand along the way. The Brit tax folks can’t prove nothing on the expense accounts and the money likely just kept shifting hour-by-hour.

The real audit that ought to be done here by the Brit IRS....is to make Fusion explain where the money went.


29 posted on 12/21/2017 7:22:44 AM PST by pepsionice
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To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Berosus; Bockscar; cardinal4; ColdOne; Convert from ECUSA; ...
Steele had better not have been lying about having been a British spy -- he's lied about so much so far -- because he's the iceberg to Hitlery's Titanic, which means he can't even survive starting his car. Thanks LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget.

30 posted on 12/21/2017 7:34:25 AM PST by SunkenCiv (www.tapatalk.com/groups/godsgravesglyphs/, forum.darwincentral.org, www.gopbriefingroom.com)
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To: marron

Its convenient to believe Steele, that the dossier is based on Russian sources. Because that means Hillary was colluding with Russia to throw the election.

But being as it is a fake document, it required no input from anyone at all.

My question is, did Steele even write it, or was he merely paid a fee to sign it and lend his name to it?

For all we know, it was written by Fusion. They received (apparently) $9 million for writing it, paid supposedly a hundred grand to Steele... which for a couple hours of work is a pretty good lick.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

my first take is the actual author of the dossier could be former spook, nellie ohr


31 posted on 12/21/2017 7:34:37 AM PST by thinden
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To: pepsionice

I think some of these people pocketed million dollar chunks. Some of the ones whose faces are on TV. That’s just me.


32 posted on 12/21/2017 7:36:22 AM PST by marron
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To: LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget
When all is said and done it'll turn out Hillary, Steele and traitors in the FBI were colluding with Russian rogue agents.
33 posted on 12/21/2017 7:39:52 AM PST by GOPJ (EVERY hellhole in the world is run by self appointed 'elites'...think about THAT FBI traitors.)
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To: LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget

Sometimes the myriad scandals overwhelm you.

They were running guns to the Mexican cartel. They were running guns to the Hondurans during their effort to overthrow that government.

They allowed Hezbollah to run drugs into the country, and money out. In effect, Obama was funding Hezbollah.

They set up a fake treaty and fake inspections to cover for sheltering, defending, and funding Iran’s nuke.

They overthrew several governments and replaced them with Muslim Brotherhood. They started a war in Syria that killed half a million people, and used some of the most horrible people on earth to do the dirty work.

They effectively switched sides in the war on terror.

Then there is the dirty land deals with China (involving the Bundys), the whole Uranium One episode, the effort to bring in “carbon credit trading” which is money laundering on a stratospheric scale.


34 posted on 12/21/2017 7:49:31 AM PST by marron
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To: marron

Well, they can just ask Steele in court who his “sources” were. Since he was a private contractor and not part of the government, he can’t claim “national security”, and since he’s not a journalist, he can’t even claim privilege to protect “confidential sources”. Either he names the sources, admits there were none, or goes to jail for contempt.


35 posted on 12/21/2017 8:13:17 AM PST by Boogieman
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To: pepsionice; marron; Liz
There is no evidence presented at this point which says Steele himself wrote the document. If you go and read his background/resume...he did have the experience and training to write something like this.

For 40-odd pages....without any real truth to the business....any idiot could probably write the material in two weeks. Maybe he used some of the $9 million to travel off to some exotic places....claim interviews....stay in some fine Helsinki hotels and sip hefty-priced whiskey along the way.

I think someone ought to go and produce some movie over the whole dossier.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

if you've followed the xlintonista regime for very long, you may remember hildabeast's penchant for scripting everything in her life.

from the DNC daily talking points through bubba's presidential campaigns, through hildabeast's presidential campain including "the dossier" everything is staged.

note all her campaign rallys that have a few dozen peep showing up, but tight camera shots make it look like the place is full.

optical illusions

imo, her theatrics really took root in bubba's first presidential campaign, when hildabeast arranged for her Arkie TV/Movie producers Harry Thomason & Linda Bloodworth Thomason (Designing Women, Evening Shade, Hearts Afire) scripted bubba's entire campaign.

from TV commercials to the DNC convention, all were Thomason production.

imo, hildabeast has taken it to a new higher level of controlled manipulation today as we look at the dossier.

bottom line: her life is an ACT.

36 posted on 12/21/2017 8:21:32 AM PST by thinden
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To: thinden

No question....she’s about as authentic as a zirconium “diamond ring.”


37 posted on 12/21/2017 8:28:01 AM PST by Liz (One side in this conflict has 8 Trillion bullets; the other side doesnt know which bathroom to use.)
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To: SERKIT
Since this was a pornographic fantasy piece written out of whole cloth by Fusion-GPS employees

Only if they're Anon on 8Chan posting fanfic p*ssporn to embarrass Rick Wilson, who was too clueless to grasp that they were mocking his reputedly porn-addled son. He apparently took it literally and ran with it, all over the country. That is the genesis of the Russian prostitutes violating the sacrosanct "Obama Bed" by peeing on it as an approving Donald Trump looked on.

38 posted on 12/21/2017 8:28:57 AM PST by RegulatorCountry
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To: InterceptPoint; Flick Lives

I suspect the Dossier was an FBI invention. It being ‘paid for’ by anyone is just a cover story and possibly some kind of money laundering.


39 posted on 12/21/2017 8:35:01 AM PST by jjotto ("Ya could look it up!")
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To: marron
All good points:

Right now, it's looking more and more like Nellie Ohr wrote most of the dossier, and Steele the front-man to lend it “credibility.”

40 posted on 12/21/2017 9:21:43 AM PST by mojito (Zero, our Nero.)
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