The Steele dossier, also known as the Trump–Russia dossier, is a controversial political opposition research report on the 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump compiled by counterintelligence specialist Christopher Steele. It was published without permission in 2017 as an unfinished compilation of "unverified, and potentially unverifiable" memos that were considered by Steele to be "raw intelligence – not established facts, but a starting point for further investigation". The dossier was written from June to December 2016 as reports from his sources were received, and contains allegations of misconduct, conspiracy, and cooperation between Trump's presidential campaign and the government of Russia prior to and during the 2016 election campaign. U.S. intelligence agencies have reported that Vladimir Putin personally ordered the whole Russian election interference operation, that the Russians codenamed Project Lakhta.
While the dossier played a significant role in initially highlighting the general friendliness between Trump and the Putin administration, the corroboration status of specific allegations is highly variable. The following allegations have been publicly corroborated by U.S. intelligence agencies, the January 2017 ODNI report, and the Mueller report: "that the Russian government was working to get Mr. Trump elected"; that Russia sought "to cultivate people in Trump's orbit"; that Trump campaign officials and associates had secretive contacts with Russian officials and agents; that Putin favored Trump over Hillary Clinton; that Putin personally ordered an "influence campaign" to harm Clinton's campaign and to "undermine public faith in the US democratic process"; and that he ordered cyberattacks on both parties. Some other allegations are plausible but not specifically confirmed, and some lack evidence and are considered dubious.
The dossier was based on reports from initially anonymous sources known to Steele and his "primary sub-source", Igor Danchenko. Steele, a former head of the Russia Desk for British intelligence (MI6), wrote the report for the private investigative firm Fusion GPS, that was paid by Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC). The dossier's 17 reports allege that there was a "well-developed conspiracy" of "cooperation" between Trump campaign members and Russian operatives to aid Russia's election interference efforts to benefit Trump. It also alleges that Russia sought to damage Hillary Clinton's candidacy. It was published by BuzzFeed News on January 10, 2017, without Steele's permission. Their decision to publish the reports without verifying the allegations was criticized by journalists. However, a judge defended BuzzFeeds action on the basis that the dossier was part of an official proceeding, and therefore "protected by fair reporting privilege".
Generally, when the dossier was released with its "explosive, but largely unverified, claims", "former intelligence officers and other national-security experts" urged "skepticism and caution". While compiling the dossier, Steele passed his findings to both British and American intelligence agencies. The U.S. intelligence community took the allegations seriously, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigated every line of the dossier and identified and spoke with at least two of Steele's sources. The Mueller report contained passing references to some of the dossier's allegations but little mention of its more sensational claims. Both the 2019 OIG report and the 2023 Durham report raised doubts about the dossier's reliability and sources, with the latter stating that "the FBI was not able to corroborate a single substantive allegation contained in the Steele Reports".
While the dossier played a central and essential role in the seeking of FISA warrants on Carter Page, according to James Clapper, John Brennan, and Robert S. Litt, it "played no role" in the January 6, 2017, intelligence community assessment of the Russian actions in the 2016 election, and according to the Senate Intelligence Committee, the dossier was not used to "support any of [the assessment's] analytic judgments". Also, it was not the trigger for the opening of the Russia investigation into whether the Trump campaign was coordinating with the Russian government's interference in the 2016 presidential election. The dossier is a factor in several conspiracy theories promoted by Trump and his supporters. Many mainstream sources have described the dossier as "discredited".
History Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch of private intelligence firm Fusion GPS hired Steele in May 2016, initially paying him $30,000 for a month's work.
Two research operations
Prior to the work with Steele, The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative news outlet, funded research into multiple Republican candidates, including Trump. From October 2015 to May 2016, they hired Fusion GPS to investigate Trump's domestic business and entertainment activities. This was based on public sources and investigative reporter Wayne Barrett's files. Despite some media reports, this was not connected to the dossier information. Searchable version
From April to December 2016, the Clinton campaign and the Democrats hired Fusion to investigate Trump's Russian connections. They subcontracted the work to Steele and Orbis Business Intelligence, which produced the eponymous dossier.
The Washington Free Beacon operation does not produce the dossier
In October 2015, before the official start of the 2016 Republican primary campaign, the founders of Fusion GPS were seeking political work and wrote an email to "a big conservative donor they knew who disliked Trump, [and] they were hired". He arranged for them to use The Washington Free Beacon, an American conservative political journalism website, for their general opposition research on several Republican presidential candidates, including Trump. It is primarily funded by Republican donor Paul Singer. The Free Beacon and Singer were "part of the conservative never-Trump movement". Although Singer was a big supporter of Marco Rubio, Rubio denied any involvement in Fusion GPS's initial research and hiring.
This phase used public sources, but early in their investigation, they also received help from Wayne Barrett who gave them his files on Trump. They contained findings about "Trump's past dealings, including tax and bankruptcy problems, potential ties to organized crime, and numerous legal entanglements. They also revealed that Trump had an unusually high number of connections to Russians with questionable backgrounds."
By April 2016, Fusion was investigating Trump, Paul Manafort and Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, paid for by the Beacon. Steele had also hired Fusion to investigate Manafort, unrelated to politics, for a law firm asset recovery case. When Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee in May, the conservative donor stopped funding the research on him. Fritsch had, since March, been courting another possible client from the other side of the aisle.
The dossier itself and the research within was not funded by the Free Beacon.
By the spring of 2016, researchers at Fusion GPS had become so alarmed by what they had already learned about Trump that they felt the need "to do what they could to keep Trump out of the White House".
Democratic Party operation produces dossier Hiring and initial reports
The second operation of opposition research was indirectly funded by the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign, working through their attorney of record, Marc Elias of Perkins Coie. In an October 2017 letter, Perkins Coie general counsel Matthew Gehringer described how, in March 2016, Fusion GPS approached Perkins Coie and, knowing the Clinton campaign and the DNC were its clients, inquired whether its clients wished to pay Fusion GPS "to continue research regarding then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, research that Fusion GPS had conducted for one or more other clients during the Republican primary contest." In April 2016, Elias hired Fusion GPS to perform opposition research on Trump.
Simpson had some reservations, as he did not like the idea of helping Hillary Clinton. In an email, Simpson said, "The only way I could see working for HRC is if it is against Trump."
Steele was former British intelligence. Prior to and during his engagement with Simpson, Steele had been a paid confidential human source (CHS) for the FBI for information unrelated to the Russia investigation.
The DNC and Clinton campaign paid Perkins Coie $12.4 million during the 2016 campaign. This led Trump to inflate the cost of the dossier to $12 million. According to Fusion GPS, Perkins Coie paid them $1.02 million in fees and expenses, and Fusion GPS paid $168,000 to Steele's firm, Orbis Business Intelligence, to produce the dossier. Despite that, Trump and his son Donald Trump Jr. continued to claim for more than a year that Steele was paid "millions of dollars" for his work.
Orbis was hired between June and November 2016, and Steele produced 16 reports during that time, with a 17th report added in December. The reports were like "prepublication notes" based on information from Steele's sources and were not released as a fully vetted and "finished news article". Steele believes 70–90 percent of the dossier is accurate.
Steele delivered numbered reports individually to Fusion GPS. The first report, dated June 20, 2016, was sent to Washington by courier and hand-delivered to Fusion GPS. The names of the sources were redacted and replaced with descriptions to help Fusion GPS judge their credibility.
Steele had more difficulty obtaining intelligence for the report in late July. Harding believes that sources felt pressure from the Kremlin in light of increased scrutiny of Trump's Russia ties.
Passing reports to intelligence agencies
Steele was troubled by the intelligence from his sources suggesting mutually beneficial information exchanges between the Trump campaign and Russians. Steele felt what he had unearthed had significance that transcended partisan politics. Howard Blum described Steele's rationale for becoming a whistleblower as an altruistic one.
Steele decided on his own to pass the information to British and American intelligence services, because he believed the findings were a matter of national security. In 2018, Steele told a UK parliamentary investigation that Theresa May's British government covered up the evidence he provided them of Trump's Russian ties and failed to act, and that Boris Johnson suppressed a report about it prepared by Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee. After long delay, the report was published on July 21, 2020.
According to Simpson's testimony, Steele, who enjoyed a good working reputation "for the knowledge he had developed over nearly 20 years working on Russia-related issues for British intelligence, approached the FBI because he was concerned that Trump, then a candidate, was being blackmailed by Russia, and he became "very concerned about whether this represented a national security threat". Steele believed the intelligence community "needed urgently to know—if it didn't already—that the next possible U.S. president was potentially under the sway of Russia".
In early July 2016, Steele called seasoned FBI agent Michael Gaeta, who was stationed in Rome, and asked him to come to London so he could show him his findings. Because he was assigned to the U.S. embassy in Rome, Gaeta sought and was granted approval for the trip from Victoria Nuland, who was then the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs. When he arrived in London on July 5, 2016, he met with Steele at his office, and he was given a copy of Steele's first report, dated June 20, 2016 (Report 80). His reaction was "shock and horror". Alarmed by what he read, Gaeta remarked, "I have to show this to headquarters".