After reading the following article I realized the real fake news was Trump discrediting the Steele Russian Dossier because it appears much of it has been corroborated by multiple intelligence agencies both in the U.S. and abroad. The real question is: "Which parts of the Dossier have been found to be true?"
And next "Will we ever be told the truth regarding which parts are true?" My thought is: "We would only be told if it were in the interests of all intelligence agencies both here and abroad because intelligence is NOT gathered for public consumption almost ever".
So, it's hard to say really what happens next.
begin quote from:
Mueller's team met with Russia dossier author - CNNPolitics - CNN.com
www.cnn.com/2017/10/05/politics/special-counsel-russia-dossier-christopher-steele/
3 hours ago - Washington (CNN) Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigators met this past summer with the former British spy whose dossier on alleged ...
Mueller's team met with author of Trump dossier: report | TheHill
thehill.com/.../news/354158-muellers-team-met-with-author-of-trump-dossier-report
9 hours ago - Mueller's team met with author of Trump dossier: report. By Brandon ... unverified dossier on alleged ties between President Trump and Russia.
Robert Mueller's team met with Trump dossier author Christopher Steele
www.washingtonexaminer.com/robert-muellers-team-met...dossier-author.../2636703
Exclusive: Mueller's team met with Russia dossier author
Mueller's team met with Russia dossier author 00:57
Washington (CNN)Special
Counsel Robert Mueller's investigators met this past summer with the
former British spy whose dossier on alleged Russian efforts to aid the
Trump campaign spawned months of investigations that have hobbled the
Trump administration, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Information
from Christopher Steele, a former MI-6 officer, could help
investigators determine whether contacts between people associated with
the Trump campaign and suspected Russian operatives broke any laws.
CNN
has learned that the FBI and the US intelligence community last year
took the Steele dossier more seriously than the agencies have publicly
acknowledged. James Clapper, then the director of national intelligence,
said in a January 2017 statement that the intelligence community had
"not made any judgment that the information in this document is
reliable."
The
intelligence agencies, particularly the CIA, and the FBI took Steele's
research seriously enough that they kept it out of a publicly-released
January report on Russian meddling in the election in order to not
divulge which parts of the dossier they had corroborated and how.
This contrasts with attempts by President Donald Trump and some lawmakers to discredit Steele and the memos he produced.
Ever
since the dossier came to light in January, Trump and his allies have
repeatedly insisted that it is a complete work of fiction. He told The
New York Times this summer that the dossier "was totally made-up stuff."
In a series of tweets earlier this year, Trump said the memos were
written by a "failed spy" who had relied on "totally made-up facts by
sleazebag political operatives."
While
the most salacious allegations in the dossier haven't been verified,
its broad assertion that Russia waged a campaign to interfere in the
election is now accepted as fact by the US intelligence community. CNN
also reported earlier this year that US investigators have corroborated
some aspects of the dossier, specifically that some of the
communications among foreign nationals mentioned in the memos did
actually take place.
At
a news conference this week, Sen. Richard Burr, chairman of the Senate
intelligence committee, expressed frustration that Steele has rebuffed
efforts to meet with his committee.
"The
committee cannot really decide the credibility of the dossier without
understanding things like, who paid for it? Who are your sources and
sub-sources?" the North Carolina Republican said. "We're investigating a
very expansive Russian network of interference in US elections. And
though we have been incredibly enlightened at our ability to rebuild
backwards, the Steele dossier, up to a certain date, getting past that
point has been somewhat impossible."
A representative for Steele did not respond to a request for comment. The special counsel's office declined to comment.
The
dossier is a collection of memos that were initially intended as
political opposition research, sources tell CNN. Steele was hired in the
summer of 2016 by a Washington firm that was already collecting
opposition research about Trump. The project was initially funded during
the GOP primaries by anti-Trump Republicans, but Democrats started
picking up the tab once Trump became the presumptive nominee in the
spring.
In
the weeks before the US intelligence community published a January
report detailing Russian meddling efforts in the 2016 election, top
officials at the FBI, CIA and the Office of the Director of National
Intelligence discussed including parts of the Steele dossier in the
official intelligence document, sources tell CNN.
The
debate came in part because the FBI was concerned about being alone in
shouldering the responsibility of briefing the incoming President about
the allegations. FBI officials hopes that including the dossier
allegations in the intelligence report would show the entire
intelligence community speaking in one voice.
Then-FBI
Director James Comey expressed concerns to his counterparts that if the
FBI alone presented the dossier allegations, then the President-elect
would view the information as an attempt by the FBI to hold leverage
over him.
But the intelligence
community had bigger concerns, sources tell CNN. The classified version
of the report would be disseminated beyond then-President Barack Obama
and the President-elect to other officials including members of
Congress. And if that report included the dossier allegations, the
intelligence community would have to say which parts it had corroborated
and how. That would compromise sources and methods, including
information shared by foreign intelligence services, intelligence
officials believed.
In the end,
the decision was made that the FBI and Comey personally would brief the
incoming President on the allegations. That briefing occurred January 6
in a one-on-one conversation following a broader intelligence briefing
on Russian meddling provided to then-President-elect Trump and his key
staff.
Trump later told The New
York Times in July that he took Comey's briefing on the dossier to be an
attempt to hold it as leverage over the new President.
"In my opinion, he shared it so that I would think he had it out there," Trump said.
Exactly what Comey feared had come to pass.
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