Donald Trump Pee Tape Dossier Author: ‘Why Would I Invent This?’ — Russia Findings Shocked FBI, New Book Says
The author of the private intelligence dossier containing the now-infamous Donald Trump “pee tape” allegations, and detailing extensive and deep ties between Trump and Russia, was stunned by his own findings about Trump’s Russia connections. However, he remains confident that “70 to 90 percent” of the material in the dossier will be proven true, according to a new book about the connections between Trump and Russia in the 2016 presidential election.
Fifty-three-year-old former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele has been baffled by skepticism over his findings after his 30-year career as a top British spy and expert on the inner workings of Russian intelligence services, according to the book Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win by Guardian newspaper reporter Luke Harding, to be published in the United States and nine other countries on Thursday.
“I’ve been dealing with this country (Russia) for thirty years. Why would I invent this stuff?” Harding quotes Steele as saying, according to an excerpt of the book published Wednesday by the Guardian.
Read the full, 6,000-word excerpt from Harding’s forthcoming book, a chapter titled “How Trump Walked Into Putin’s Web,” by visiting this link.
Steele met with a team of FBI investigators in September of 2016 to discuss the findings that would later appear in his dossier, and he described their reactions as “shock and horror,” the book reports.
Christopher Steele believes his dossier on Trump-Russia is 70-90% accurate
https://t.co/WDs8azx8RE pic.twitter.com/Qel66KBeux
— alien (@spcrcr) November 15, 2017
The FBI already knew Steele and considered him highly credible after he shared his report with them in 2010 outlining corruption in FIFA, the governing body of global soccer which decides which countries will host its cash-cow international tournaments, including the World Cup. Steele’s findings and the subsequent FBI investigation led to dozens of indictments in the FIFA case and the arrests of seven top executives in the multi-billion dollar soccer organization.
The “Steele Dossier” — which may be accessed in full online at this link — has become most noteworthy for the “pee tape” story, which claims that Trump has been compromised by his own “perverted sexual acts” that were reportedly filmed by Russian spies. For more details on the “pee tape” allegations and what they mean to the ongoing Russia investigation, see the Inquisitr article at this link.
But the dossier also contains numerous allegations of extensive financial ties between Trump and Russia, including an alleged episode in which Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page is said to have brokered a deal channeling $11 billion worth of shares in the Russian state-owned oil giant Rosneft secretly to Trump in exchange for easing economic sanctions against Russia.
Indeed, within days after taking office in January, Trump secretly pressured the State Department to roll back sanctions against Russia. Though that effort failed due to resistance from career State Department officials, Trump has since delayed enforcing sanctions on Russia, and Trump-appointed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson simply eliminated the State Department office, which was charged with making sure sanctions were in place and functioning.
And while speaking at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vietnam over the weekend, Trump signaled that sanctions could soon be lifted, saying that Russia “has been very, very heavily sanctioned,” and that “it’s now time to get back to healing a world that is shattered and broken.”
The Steele dossier itself was passed to then-FBI Director James Comey by Arizona Republican Senator John McCain in December, after McCain attended a conference on international relations in Halifax, Canada — a conference also attended by Steele.
The FBI treated the dossier seriously due to Steele’s longstanding and highly regarded reputation within the intellignece community, Harding’s book says.
“Here was a pro, a well-connected Brit, who understood Russian espionage and its subterranean tricks. Steele was regarded as credible,” Harding wrote.
Steele himself has called his discoveries about the ties between Trump and Russia “a life-changing experience,” the book says.
[Featured Image by Alex Brandon/AP Images]
