Russia Dossier

This page is intended to keep track of the intelligence found in the Cristopher Steele dossier on Trump and his Russian connections.

Each week we will break down a page of the Dossier, review the veracity of every claim, and chart out the grand totals.

What we’ve learned so far is that the Dossier is mostly filled with unverified information, but many parts of the Dossier has been proven correct, despite Fox News and Republican media’s false statements to the contrary.

Click on a link to get a detailed description of every claim made in that report.

  1. Kompromat
  2. Indications of Extensive Conspiracy
  3. Carter Page
  4. Political Fallout From DNC Hack
  5. Growing Backlash in Kremlin
  6. Evolving Russian Tactics
  7. Reaction in Trump Camp
  8. Cohen’s Secret Liaison With The Kremlin
  9. The Demise of Paul Manafort
  10. Appendix A: About Russian Cyber Crime

Totals

   1        5         10         15         20
Verified                        12                
Probable                          13              
Unknown                             15          
Unlikely 1                                      
Debunked                                        

About the Dossier

The “Russian Dossier” was compiled by former MI6 agent Cristopher Steele on behalf of Fusion GPS. The project was originally started and paid for by the conservative website Free Beacon as opposition research, then later picked up by Marc E. Elias, a lawyer representing both the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

After the hacks of Democratic National Committee, Fusion GPS hired the British private intelligence firm Orbis Business Intelligence, with co-founder Cristopher Steele leading the investigation and producing memos from June 2016 to December 2016.

The Washington Post reported that Elias’ firm did not inform Clinton’s campaign or the DNC of the research firm’s role, and noted it is “standard practice” for political campaigns to hire researchers using law firms in order to guarantee the protection of “attorney-client and work product privileges.

As some point, Steele took the dossier to the FBI, who took it serious enough they reached an agreement to pay Mr. Steele to continue his research, though that plan was scrapped after the dossier was published.

We first learned of the existence of the dossier just before the 2016 election from a Mother Jones article, and then in January 2017 CNN reported that both Trump and then-President Barack Obama were shown a document during an intelligence briefing that it exists, with a summary of the details, including Russia may have compromising information on Trump.

Shortly after Buzzfeed threw journalistic ethics aside and released the entire dossier, changing the narrative and allowed most of the news media to be consumed with the more salacious details, such as the infamous pee tape.

The dossier can be read in full here.

One thing we have to remember is that this is raw data, this means that it is an accurate reporting of what the source reported, not that the information is accurate. This is only an early step in the process and the information still needs to be vetted and investigated. Some of it will be false, some of it will be true, and some we may never know. So keep this in mind when reviewing the dossier.

About the Scoring

We will give each detail in the dossier a score from accurate to inaccurate: verified, probable, unknown, unlikely, debunked.

  • Verified: There is sufficient evidence beyond a reasonable doubt the information is correct.
  • Probable: There is no direct evidence, but enough data has been compiled to make a reasonable inference the information is correct, which should still be met with skepticism.
  • Unknown: There is not enough evidence at this time to indicate a conclusion and should be met with skepticism.
  • Unlikely: There is no direct evidence, but enough data has been compiled to make a reasonable inference the information is incorrect, which should still be met with skepticism.
  • Debunked: There is sufficient evidence beyond a reasonable doubt the information is incorrect.

About the Sources

The Dossier lists five sources of the information, listed alphabetically A through E.

  • Source A: Senior Russian Foreign Ministry figure, identity unknown.
  • Source B: Former top level Russian intelligence officer still active inside the Kremlin, identity unknown.
  • Source C: Senior Russian financial official, identity unknown.
  • Source D: Sergei Millian, a Belarusan American businessman with close ties to Trump.
  • Source E: Sergei Millian, a Belarusan American businessman with close ties to Trump.