4 ms·

Christopher Steele, the Man Behind the Dossier

37 points by rafaelc 9y ago

nickthemagicman 9y ago
I love how the dossier is so accurate that people have to do ad hominem attacks on Steele as a person instead of attacking the dossier. Literally no one in Congress or anywhere else has been able to find a single thing wrong with it. There's some terrifying stuff in there including a mysterious 20 percent share in a Russian oil company. The pee tapes. Etc etc. Really hoping Mueller brings alot of this to light.
- jfnixon 9y ago
  No one can prove a negative.
  - nickthemagicman 9y ago
    No one can even cast doubt on it...its like no one can disprove the theory of gravity because the evidence is too strong.
Depllo 9y ago
>Several months after Steele signed the deal, he learned that, through this chain, his research was being jointly subsidized by the Clinton campaign and the D.N.C. In all, Steele was paid a hundred and sixty-eight thousand dollars for his work. >nonpartisan Fact Checker blog at the Washington Post, awarded Nunes’s statement four Pinocchios—his rating for an outright lie. “There is no evidence that Clinton was involved in Steele’s reports or worked with Russian entities to feed information to Steele,” Kessler wrote. 2 + 2 = 5, apparently.
- threeseed 9y ago
  Not sure what you mean. Those statements aren't contradictory. Clinton campaign paid for the report but wasn't involved in it's production. Pretty standard for opposition research.
  - Depllo 9y ago
    But I was only paying for the hitman officer!
    - binaryorganic 9y ago
      There’s absolutely nothing illegal about paying for oppo research, and there doesn’t look to be anything illegal about the research itself, so I’m not sure what you’re suggesting.
      - pasbesoin 9y ago
        I have yet to read this, although I caught the second half of NPR's "Fresh Air" interview with the author, this morning. (And I definitely intend to listen to the whole thing, and to read this.) However, from months' worth of reporting from other sources, I gather that Steele and co.'s opposition research was initially contracted by Republican interests competing against Trump in in the primaries. And I gather, from what I already knew and what I heard further about this in the portion of the Fresh Air interview that I did hear, that Steel's information and resulting concern about Trump, went back several years. Long before Trump became a presidential candidate. So far, as far as the reporting I've been following, we've yet to encounter anything in the so-called Steele dossier, that's been disproved. Given all the political opposition to Steele (I name it political, because it does appear to be entirely partisan-based opposition to him, regardless of the legitimate concerns he's raised). Given that, it's a bit remarkable that this dossier has not yet been disproved in any significant aspect. You have to think there are a lot of resources being devoted to doing so. P.S. I just looked up the URL for that "Fresh Air" show. https://www.npr.org/2018/03/06/591130207/journalist-charts-the-bizarre-twists-and-turns-of-the-trump-russia-dossier https://www.npr.org/2018/03/06/591130207/journalist-charts-t...
        jfnixon 9y ago
        "we've yet to encounter anything in the so-called Steele dossier, that's been disproved." I have a tape of politician X performing unspeakable acts with a killer whale. Can you disprove my claim?
J-dawg 9y ago
> one of his two phones rang > he kept his phones in a Faraday bag—a pouch, of military-tested double-grade fabric, designed to block signal detection. I guess he doesn't keep them in the bag all the time.
- leephillips 9y ago
  But it was double-grade fabric.
fuddcoinn 9y ago
one of the issues with the info about Steele that has come out is if he had been'employed'or rendered services to the FBI while also doing the same with MI5 then some rather serious laws were broken. I'm sure with today's state of the rule of law it'll easily be swept aside.

37 points by rafaelc 9y ago

I love how the dossier is so accurate that people have to do ad hominem attacks on Steele as a person instead of attacking the dossier. Literally no one in Congress or anywhere else has been able to find a single thing wrong with it. There's some terrifying stuff in there including a mysterious 20 percent share in a Russian oil company. The pee tapes. Etc etc. Really hoping Mueller brings alot of this to light.

jfnixon 9y ago
No one can prove a negative.
- nickthemagicman 9y ago
  No one can even cast doubt on it...its like no one can disprove the theory of gravity because the evidence is too strong.

Depllo 9y ago

>Several months after Steele signed the deal, he learned that, through this chain, his research was being jointly subsidized by the Clinton campaign and the D.N.C. In all, Steele was paid a hundred and sixty-eight thousand dollars for his work. >nonpartisan Fact Checker blog at the Washington Post, awarded Nunes’s statement four Pinocchios—his rating for an outright lie. “There is no evidence that Clinton was involved in Steele’s reports or worked with Russian entities to feed information to Steele,” Kessler wrote. 2 + 2 = 5, apparently.

threeseed 9y ago
Not sure what you mean. Those statements aren't contradictory. Clinton campaign paid for the report but wasn't involved in it's production. Pretty standard for opposition research.
- Depllo 9y ago
  But I was only paying for the hitman officer!
  - binaryorganic 9y ago
    There’s absolutely nothing illegal about paying for oppo research, and there doesn’t look to be anything illegal about the research itself, so I’m not sure what you’re suggesting.
    - pasbesoin 9y ago
      I have yet to read this, although I caught the second half of NPR's "Fresh Air" interview with the author, this morning. (And I definitely intend to listen to the whole thing, and to read this.) However, from months' worth of reporting from other sources, I gather that Steele and co.'s opposition research was initially contracted by Republican interests competing against Trump in in the primaries. And I gather, from what I already knew and what I heard further about this in the portion of the Fresh Air interview that I did hear, that Steel's information and resulting concern about Trump, went back several years. Long before Trump became a presidential candidate. So far, as far as the reporting I've been following, we've yet to encounter anything in the so-called Steele dossier, that's been disproved. Given all the political opposition to Steele (I name it political, because it does appear to be entirely partisan-based opposition to him, regardless of the legitimate concerns he's raised). Given that, it's a bit remarkable that this dossier has not yet been disproved in any significant aspect. You have to think there are a lot of resources being devoted to doing so. P.S. I just looked up the URL for that "Fresh Air" show. https://www.npr.org/2018/03/06/591130207/journalist-charts-the-bizarre-twists-and-turns-of-the-trump-russia-dossier https://www.npr.org/2018/03/06/591130207/journalist-charts-t...
      - jfnixon 9y ago
        "we've yet to encounter anything in the so-called Steele dossier, that's been disproved." I have a tape of politician X performing unspeakable acts with a killer whale. Can you disprove my claim?

J-dawg 9y ago

> one of his two phones rang > he kept his phones in a Faraday bag—a pouch, of military-tested double-grade fabric, designed to block signal detection. I guess he doesn't keep them in the bag all the time.

leephillips 9y ago
But it was double-grade fabric.

fuddcoinn 9y ago

one of the issues with the info about Steele that has come out is if he had been'employed'or rendered services to the FBI while also doing the same with MI5 then some rather serious laws were broken. I'm sure with today's state of the rule of law it'll easily be swept aside.