Former MI6 agent Christopher Steele – the author of the largely unverified “Steele Dossier,” worked as a subcontractor for Russian billionaire and aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska at the same time he was pontificating that Donald Trump’s alleged (and still unproven) ties to Russia amounted to treason, according to The Hill‘s John Solomon.
Steele’s firm, Orbis Business Intelligence, was hired by a law firm working for Deripaska in 2012, marking the beginning of a relationship which extended at least throughout 2016 according to Solomon. Steele was tasked with researching a business rival of Deripaska, however Steele’s work for the Russian billionaire evolved to the point where the former British spy was interfacing with the Obama administration on his behalf.
To that end, Steele and twice-demoted DOJ official Bruce Ohr communicated extensively about the Russian Oligarch as recently as February 2016, which included efforts to obtain a Visa for Deripaska to attend an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting int he US.
Deripaska is now banned from the United States as one of several Russians sanctioned in April in response to alleged 2016 election meddling.
Ohr, meanwhile, was demoted twice after the DOJ’s Inspector General discovered that he lied about his involvement with opposition research firm Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson – who employed Steele. Ohr’s CIA-linked wife, Nellie, was also employed by Fusion as part of the firm’s anti-Trump efforts, and had ongoing communications with the ex-UK spy, Christopher Steele as well.- READ MORE
[divider][/divider]An MSNBC panelist falsely claimed on Saturday that the Steele dossier “keeps getting corroborated” by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and reporters.
Paul Butler, a law professor at Georgetown University, made the claim in a panel discussion despite new developments earlier this week that cast doubt on allegations in the dossier about Michael Cohen, a former attorney for Trump.
Lanny Davis, the Clinton-connected attorney for Michael Cohen, said Wednesday that the former Trump lawyer had never been to Prague, as the infamous Steele dossier alleges.
“Thirteen references to Mr. Cohen are false in the dossier, but he has never been to Prague in his life,” Davis said Wednesday in an interview on Bloomberg.
Despite that major blow to the dossier, Butler asserted in a panel discussion with MSNBC host Joy Reid that the salacious document has been corroborated.
“The Steele dossier keeps getting corroborated by Mueller and reporters. It says that there were two go betweens the Trump campaign and Russia. The first one was Manafort, and when Manafort resigned from the campaign, Michael Cohen took it over. We know Manafort is now just chilling, waiting to get through the second trial get his pardon from Trump. So Cohen is the man, if you believe the dossier,” Butler said. – READ MORE
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