During an interview with The Hill’s John Solomon, Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska acknowledged that he paid Christopher Steele (who was hired through an intermediary by the Clinton campaign to compile the infamous and discredited “Steele Dossier” alleging Team Trump colluded with Russia in 2016) for a research project.
“It was a research project to support one of the cases against me in London,” Deripaska told Solomon. “But my understanding was that lawyers trust him for some reason and he was for quite a time on retainer.”
Steele was hired initially by Deripaska in 2012, but the oligarch was unaware he had been working for the FBI. It should be noted that the Trump administration levied sanctions against Deripaska and he is engaged in a legal battle with the State Department over them and his inability to get a visa to come to the U.S.
The suggestion that Deripaska had paid Steele has been around for more than a year. In February 2018, Lee Smith published an article at Tablet Magazine that included a letter from then-Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R-IA) asking questions regarding Steele’s own connections to Russian officials. – read more