:ALERTRED:
How former MI6 spy Christopher Steele revealed dossier details to old friend from espionage world
How a former MI6 spy revealed Christopher Steele dossier details to an old friend from the world of espionage
The detached house on a suburban street in Wimbledon was an incongruous venue for a meeting about spies, secrets and the incoming president of the United States.
But it was here, at a £1.7 million South London home, that former MI6 agent Christopher Steele came a week after Donald Trump’s shock election victory in November 2016 on what he saw as a mission of national security.
For months Mr Steele, once in charge of MI6’s Russia desk but now approaching a decade out of the service, had been grappling with astonishing intelligence he had collated about the Trump campaign.
Contracted by a Washington DC-based research firm to investigate Mr Trump before the election, Mr Steele had put feelers out to around 20 sources about his Russia ties that summer and autumn.
What came back was explosive. Allegations of suspect meetings between Trump advisers and Russians, a Kremlin drive to tilt the election in Mr Trump’s favour, and, perhaps most worrying of all, alleged “kompromat” on the candidate himself.
With Mr Trump now heading for the White House for certain, Mr Steele decided it was his obligation - his national duty - to alert the British Government about what he had found.
The Steele dossier would trigger an FBI investigation, eventually taken over by special counsel Robert Mueller.
Mr Mueller’s report later found Trump campaign figures expected to benefit from some Kremlin actions, though said there was no criminal conspiracy.
The Wimbledon house belonged to Sir Charles Farr, the chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee - the body in charge of assessing intelligence.
He had also been one of Mrs May’s top counter-terrorism advisers at the Home Office.
Mr Steele knew Farr personally. They had been acquainted for two decades, regularly crossing paths over the years.
Farr, who died of cancer aged 59 in February this year, had - like Steele - begun his career as an MI6 officer. Farr would know what to do.
Together they looked at what Mr Steele had brought - more than a dozen memos originally sent to his client, Fusion GPS, spelling out in detail the alleged Trump-Kremlin links.
For hours, the pair worked through the information - now collectively known as the ‘Steele dossier’ - line by line.
Farr would ask questions, Mr Steele would spell out what he knew.
Friends close to Mr Steele said that far from being dismissed immediately as faulty or fake - as Mr Trump and his allies now see his dossier - the findings were treated with gravity.
By the end of an exhaustive day of discussion, Farr himself reached his own conclusion. The dossier had to go up the chain of command.
Within days, according to well-placed sources, the allegations were shared with the most senior intelligence figures in the country.
It is understood that Alex Younger, the MI6 chief, and Andrew Parker, the MI5 director general, were informed of the dossier.
Mr Steele’s decision to act had not come overnight.
Ever since the first information on the Trump campaign reached his office in the summer of 2016 he had committed to alerting the FBI. Mr Steele was confident in the raw intelligence coming back from his chain of around half a dozen ‘collectors’, who in turn reached out to their own sources.
The company Mr Steele co-founded, Orbis International, had a long-established relationship with the FBI and was actually working with the bureau on an unrelated project that summer.
Mr Steele met with FBI agents before the US election, spelling out his findings.
Yet as the vote approached, he was unsure they were treating the information seriously enough.
Three times before the election Mr Steele went to Washington DC, partly to meet with his clients Fusion GPS.
Each time he believed he was risking his life.
“He feared that either the Russians or the Trump team had found out what he was doing and that they could take physical reprisals,” a friend of Mr Steele said.
He thought the odds of that were low - Mr Steele is said to have put the chance of an attack at 5 per cent. But it was a possibility nonetheless.
Before the election, his focus had been on alerting the Americans. But afterwards, with Mr Trump no longer a candidate but president-elect, it was a national security issue for Britain.
Around 10 days after Mr Steele’s first meeting with Farr another was scheduled. The venue, again, was Farr’s Wimbledon home.
There were follow-up questions, according to those familiar with the meeting.
But also new information - two new memos Mr Steele had written, one detailing how the Russians were allegedly trying to block Mitt Romney’s possible appointment as US secretary of state.
Britain’s spy chiefs had a decision - should they tell Theresa May? The Prime Minister, installed in Number 10 some four months earlier after the Brexit referendum, was well acquainted with classified information from her Home Office days.
Farr, who had until 2015, headed up the Home Office’s Office Security and Counter Terrorism, was a trusted adviser.
She also may have known Mr Steele, who served for 22 years before leaving MI6 in 2009. Mrs May’s role in dealing with the inquest into the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, the ex-Russian intelligence officer poisoned on British soil in 2006, would likely have made her aware of Mr Steele’s work.
There was a regular flow of sensitive documents - marked official, classified, secret or top secret - in Mrs May’s in-tray during her early time in Downing Street, according to figures familiar with her workload.
The most sensitive were printed on yellow paper. Sources familiar with the events said that Mr Steele’s information was “marked up to the top”.
And yet Mrs May was not briefed on the dossier, insiders at Number 10 insist.The exact reason is unknown. Mr Trump himself was also in the dark.
The president-elect would only be briefed on the Steele dossier on January 6, when James Comey, then FBI director, requested a one-on-one meeting in Trump Tower.
But then, just days later, the situation being changed again. Buzzfeed had got its hands on the full Steele dossier and published the lot, unredacted, on its website on January 10.
Even the most salacious of claims - that Mr Trump had asked prostitutes to perform a lurid sex act in a Moscow hotel room in 2013, something he has always since denied - were there for everyone to read.
Any doubt about how the president-elect would react was expelled the following day.
Speaking at a press conference, Mr Trump did little to hide his fury, calling Buzzfeed a “failing pile of garbage” and labelling his own intelligence agencies “disgraceful” for allowing the material to leak out.
“That’s something that Nazi Germany would have done and did do,” he added.
A fortnight later Mrs May flew to Washington.
Standing side-by-side with Mr Trump just days after his inauguration, she heaped praise on the new US president.
“I’m delighted to be able to congratulate you on what was a stunning election victory,” Mrs May said, adding later: “We have already struck up a good relationship.”
And to seal their newfound friendship, an offer - an invitation on behalf of the Queen of a UK state visit. Next month, two and a half years later, it will finally be taken up.
@88m3 @ADevilYouKhow @wire28 @dtownreppin214
@DonKnock @dza @wire28 @BigMoneyGrip @Dameon Farrow @re'up @Blackfyre @Cali_livin @NY's #1 Draft Pick
How former MI6 spy Christopher Steele revealed dossier details to old friend from espionage world
How a former MI6 spy revealed Christopher Steele dossier details to an old friend from the world of espionage
The detached house on a suburban street in Wimbledon was an incongruous venue for a meeting about spies, secrets and the incoming president of the United States.
But it was here, at a £1.7 million South London home, that former MI6 agent Christopher Steele came a week after Donald Trump’s shock election victory in November 2016 on what he saw as a mission of national security.
For months Mr Steele, once in charge of MI6’s Russia desk but now approaching a decade out of the service, had been grappling with astonishing intelligence he had collated about the Trump campaign.
Contracted by a Washington DC-based research firm to investigate Mr Trump before the election, Mr Steele had put feelers out to around 20 sources about his Russia ties that summer and autumn.
What came back was explosive. Allegations of suspect meetings between Trump advisers and Russians, a Kremlin drive to tilt the election in Mr Trump’s favour, and, perhaps most worrying of all, alleged “kompromat” on the candidate himself.
With Mr Trump now heading for the White House for certain, Mr Steele decided it was his obligation - his national duty - to alert the British Government about what he had found.
The Steele dossier would trigger an FBI investigation, eventually taken over by special counsel Robert Mueller.
Mr Mueller’s report later found Trump campaign figures expected to benefit from some Kremlin actions, though said there was no criminal conspiracy.
The Wimbledon house belonged to Sir Charles Farr, the chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee - the body in charge of assessing intelligence.
He had also been one of Mrs May’s top counter-terrorism advisers at the Home Office.
Mr Steele knew Farr personally. They had been acquainted for two decades, regularly crossing paths over the years.
Farr, who died of cancer aged 59 in February this year, had - like Steele - begun his career as an MI6 officer. Farr would know what to do.
Together they looked at what Mr Steele had brought - more than a dozen memos originally sent to his client, Fusion GPS, spelling out in detail the alleged Trump-Kremlin links.
For hours, the pair worked through the information - now collectively known as the ‘Steele dossier’ - line by line.
Farr would ask questions, Mr Steele would spell out what he knew.
Friends close to Mr Steele said that far from being dismissed immediately as faulty or fake - as Mr Trump and his allies now see his dossier - the findings were treated with gravity.
By the end of an exhaustive day of discussion, Farr himself reached his own conclusion. The dossier had to go up the chain of command.
Within days, according to well-placed sources, the allegations were shared with the most senior intelligence figures in the country.
It is understood that Alex Younger, the MI6 chief, and Andrew Parker, the MI5 director general, were informed of the dossier.
Mr Steele’s decision to act had not come overnight.
Ever since the first information on the Trump campaign reached his office in the summer of 2016 he had committed to alerting the FBI. Mr Steele was confident in the raw intelligence coming back from his chain of around half a dozen ‘collectors’, who in turn reached out to their own sources.
The company Mr Steele co-founded, Orbis International, had a long-established relationship with the FBI and was actually working with the bureau on an unrelated project that summer.
Mr Steele met with FBI agents before the US election, spelling out his findings.
Yet as the vote approached, he was unsure they were treating the information seriously enough.
Three times before the election Mr Steele went to Washington DC, partly to meet with his clients Fusion GPS.
Each time he believed he was risking his life.
“He feared that either the Russians or the Trump team had found out what he was doing and that they could take physical reprisals,” a friend of Mr Steele said.
He thought the odds of that were low - Mr Steele is said to have put the chance of an attack at 5 per cent. But it was a possibility nonetheless.
Before the election, his focus had been on alerting the Americans. But afterwards, with Mr Trump no longer a candidate but president-elect, it was a national security issue for Britain.
Around 10 days after Mr Steele’s first meeting with Farr another was scheduled. The venue, again, was Farr’s Wimbledon home.
There were follow-up questions, according to those familiar with the meeting.
But also new information - two new memos Mr Steele had written, one detailing how the Russians were allegedly trying to block Mitt Romney’s possible appointment as US secretary of state.
Britain’s spy chiefs had a decision - should they tell Theresa May? The Prime Minister, installed in Number 10 some four months earlier after the Brexit referendum, was well acquainted with classified information from her Home Office days.
Farr, who had until 2015, headed up the Home Office’s Office Security and Counter Terrorism, was a trusted adviser.
She also may have known Mr Steele, who served for 22 years before leaving MI6 in 2009. Mrs May’s role in dealing with the inquest into the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, the ex-Russian intelligence officer poisoned on British soil in 2006, would likely have made her aware of Mr Steele’s work.
There was a regular flow of sensitive documents - marked official, classified, secret or top secret - in Mrs May’s in-tray during her early time in Downing Street, according to figures familiar with her workload.
The most sensitive were printed on yellow paper. Sources familiar with the events said that Mr Steele’s information was “marked up to the top”.
And yet Mrs May was not briefed on the dossier, insiders at Number 10 insist.The exact reason is unknown. Mr Trump himself was also in the dark.
The president-elect would only be briefed on the Steele dossier on January 6, when James Comey, then FBI director, requested a one-on-one meeting in Trump Tower.
But then, just days later, the situation being changed again. Buzzfeed had got its hands on the full Steele dossier and published the lot, unredacted, on its website on January 10.
Even the most salacious of claims - that Mr Trump had asked prostitutes to perform a lurid sex act in a Moscow hotel room in 2013, something he has always since denied - were there for everyone to read.
Any doubt about how the president-elect would react was expelled the following day.
Speaking at a press conference, Mr Trump did little to hide his fury, calling Buzzfeed a “failing pile of garbage” and labelling his own intelligence agencies “disgraceful” for allowing the material to leak out.
“That’s something that Nazi Germany would have done and did do,” he added.
A fortnight later Mrs May flew to Washington.
Standing side-by-side with Mr Trump just days after his inauguration, she heaped praise on the new US president.
“I’m delighted to be able to congratulate you on what was a stunning election victory,” Mrs May said, adding later: “We have already struck up a good relationship.”
And to seal their newfound friendship, an offer - an invitation on behalf of the Queen of a UK state visit. Next month, two and a half years later, it will finally be taken up.
@88m3 @ADevilYouKhow @wire28 @dtownreppin214
@DonKnock @dza @wire28 @BigMoneyGrip @Dameon Farrow @re'up @Blackfyre @Cali_livin @NY's #1 Draft Pick
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