Russian Dossier Appears To Be Based On Hearsay Collected By Intermediaries Via Through Third Countries

Christopher Steele, CBS

Washington Times: Steele boasted to friends of his ‘professional’ work on Russia-Trump dossier

Christopher Steele, the former British spy who wrote the discredited Russia-Trump dossier, has told friends that his 16 memos — 35 pages in length — were close to flawless.

“I’ve been dealing with this country for 30 years,” he said. “Why would I invent this stuff?”

He called his dossier “a life-changing experience” for anyone who reads it.

He told this to Luke Harding, a reporter for Britain’s left-leaning Guardian newspaper who has written an homage to the man and his dossier. Together, the two fueled the FBI’s 18-month-old investigation into the Trump campaign for suspected coordination with Kremlin hacking of Democratic Party computers.

“The dossier, Steele told friends, was a thoroughly professional job, using professional methods,” Mr. Harding says in the book “Collusion.”

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WNU Editor: The key sentences that explain how the dossier's information was collected are the following ....

.... Mr. Harding explains the dossier’s sourcing as a complicated arrangement: intermediaries who talked to Kremlin sources and then reported back to Mr. Steele.

But in the dossier, Mr. Steele seemed to describe his contacts as firsthand informants.

“Normally an intelligence officer would debrief sources directly,” the Harding book says. “Since Steele could no longer visit Russia, this had to be done by others or in third countries. There were intermediaries, subsources, operators — a sensitive chain. Only one of Steele’s sources on Trump knew of Steele.

“Steele put out his Trump-Russia queries and waited for answers. His sources started reporting back.

Bottom line .... he threw at money at people and waited for their response. No wonder the FBI has not been able to verify the Russian dossier, much of it can be classified simply as hearsay. As for Christopher Steele, some in Congress now want a deeper investigation on him .... Christopher Steele: Republicans urge Justice Department to investigate author of Trump-Russia dossier (The Independent).