Steele dossier

The Steele dossier, also known as the Trump–Russia dossier, is a controversial political opposition research report on the 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump compiled by counterintelligence specialist Christopher Steele. It was published without permission in 2017 as an unfinished 35-page compilation of "unverified, and potentially unverifiable" memos that were considered by Steele to be "raw intelligence – not established facts, but a starting point for further investigation". The dossier was written from June to December 2016 as reports from his sources were received, and contains allegations of misconduct, conspiracy, and cooperation between Trump's presidential campaign and the government of Russia prior to and during the 2016 election campaign. U.S. intelligence agencies have reported that Putin personally ordered the whole Russian election interference operation, that the Russians codenamed Project Lakhta.

While the dossier played a significant role in initially highlighting the general friendliness between Trump and the Putin administration, the corroboration status of specific allegations is highly variable. The following allegations have been publicly corroborated by U.S. intelligence agencies, the January 2017 ODNI report, and the Mueller report: "that the Russian government was working to get Mr. Trump elected"; that Russia sought "to cultivate people in Trump's orbit"; that Trump campaign officials and associates had secretive contacts with Russian officials and agents; that Putin favored Trump over Hillary Clinton; that Putin personally ordered an "influence campaign" to harm Clinton's campaign and to "undermine public faith in the US democratic process"; and that he ordered cyberattacks on both parties. Some other allegations are plausible but not specifically confirmed, and some are dubious in retrospect but not strictly disproven.

The dossier was based on reports from initially anonymous sources known to Steele and his "primary sub-source", Igor Danchenko. Steele, a former head of the Russia Desk for British intelligence (MI6), wrote the report for the private investigative firm Fusion GPS, that was paid by Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC). The dossier's 17 reports allege that there was a "well-developed conspiracy" of "cooperation" between Trump campaign members and Russian operatives to aid Russia's election interference efforts to benefit Trump. It also alleges that Russia sought to damage Hillary Clinton's candidacy. It was published by BuzzFeed News on January 10, 2017, without Steele's permission. Their decision to publish the reports without verifying the allegations was criticized by journalists. However, a judge defended BuzzFeed's action on the basis that the dossier was part of an official proceeding, and therefore "protected by fair reporting privilege".

The United States intelligence community and most experts have treated the dossier with caution due to its unverified allegations. While compiling the dossier, Steele passed his findings to both British and American intelligence agencies. The U.S. intelligence community took the allegations seriously, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigated every line of the dossier and identified and spoke with at least two of Steele's sources. The Mueller report contained passing references to some of the dossier's allegations but little mention of its more sensational claims. Both the 2019 OIG report and the 2023 Durham report raised doubts about the dossier's reliability and sources, with the latter stating that "the FBI was not able to corroborate a single substantive allegation contained in the Steele Reports".

While the dossier played a central and essential role in the seeking of FISA warrants on Carter Page, according to James Clapper, John Brennan, and Robert S. Litt, it "played no role" in the January 6, 2017, intelligence community assessment of the Russian actions in the 2016 election, and according to the Senate Intelligence Committee, the dossier was not used to "support any of [the assessment's] analytic judgments". Also, it was not the trigger for the opening of the Russia investigation into whether the Trump campaign was coordinating with the Russian government's interference in the 2016 presidential election. The dossier is a factor in several conspiracy theories promoted by Trump and his supporters. Many mainstream sources have described the dossier as "discredited".

The opposition research conducted by Fusion GPS on Donald Trump occurred in two distinct phases, each with different clients:

From April to early May 2016, The Washington Free Beacon and the DNC/Clinton Campaign were independently both clients of Fusion GPS. This overlap contributed to the media's confusion.

In October 2015, before the official start of the 2016 Republican primary campaign, the founders of Fusion GPS were seeking political work and wrote an email to "a big conservative donor they knew who disliked Trump, [and] they were hired". He arranged for them to use The Washington Free Beacon, an American conservative political journalism website, for their general opposition research on several Republican presidential candidates, including Trump. It is primarily funded by Republican donor Paul Singer. The Free Beacon and Singer were "part of the conservative never-Trump movement". Although Singer was a big supporter of Marco Rubio, Rubio denied any involvement in Fusion GPS's initial research and hiring.