<p>The media went wild when BuzzFeed published a gossipy dossier about President Trump on January 10th, just 10 days before his inauguration. ;</p>
<p>The 35-page document, which Trump called a &ldquo;failing pile of garbage,&rdquo; contained details on real estate financing schemes and sexual acts &ndash; all based on information from unidentified sources &#8211; and accused the Trump campaign of conspiring with Russia to hack Democratic Party computers.</p>
<p>The dossier was compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British M16 officer and Russia analyst. He went into hiding the day after the document was published and wasn&#8217;t seen until March 7th.</p>
<p>Most of the dossier&#8217;s contents remain unverified, but the document has re-emerged as part of the ongoing Russia investigation. </p>
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<p><a href="https://punchingbagpost.com/fbi-used-fake-report-to-obtain-warrant-on-carter-page/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><strong>As I wrote in a previous article</strong></a>, the FBI used the dossier to convince a FISA court to allow them to monitor former Trump adviser Carter Page (whose name appears in the dossier). Page calls the dossier &ldquo;completely false.&rdquo; He has plans to sue Obama officials for civil rights violations. &ldquo;The mistakes are so laughable and humorous they&rsquo;re beyond words.&#8221; ;</p>
<p>Many lawmakers remain skeptical of the unverified document. When Congress returned to Capitol Hill after a 2-week Easter recess, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) decided to take a closer look at the &ldquo;dodgy dossier.&rdquo; ;</p>
<p>The 83-year-old Senator discovered that Steele was hired to compile opposition research in June, after Trump won the Republican nomination. He was hired by Glenn Simpson, founder of Washington-based, Democratic Party-linked research firm Fusion GPS. His work was funded by Hillary Clinton supporters. ;</p>
<p>Steele&rsquo;s report was circulated to reporters and Democrats before it was published on Jan 10th. <em>BuzzFeed&rsquo;s</em> editor has since admitted that he didn&rsquo;t think the dossier was true when his liberal site published it. The document was essentially a &ldquo;data dump of negative campaign research on Mr. Trump,&rdquo; reports <em>Newsmax. ;</em></p>
<p>Carter Page isn&rsquo;t the only one seeking legal action as a result of the dossier. ;</p>
<p>Aleksej Gubarev, CEO of XBT Holdings, is suing for defamation. The document accuses him of hacking Democrats&rsquo; computers with &ldquo;botnets and porn traffic to transmit viruses, plant bugs, steal data.&rdquo;  ;The charge is &ldquo;one of the most reckless and irresponsible moments in modern journalist,&rdquo; argues Gubarev. ;</p>
<p>Michael Cohen (Trump&rsquo;s personal attorney) is also thinking about suing <em>BuzzFeed</em> and Christopher Steele.</p>
<p>The dossier accuses Cohen of conspiring with Russian agents. &ldquo;I believe the entire dossier to be inaccurate, and worse, completely fabricated. I applaud Aleksej Gubarev in bringing legal action against both Christopher Steele and <em>BuzzFeed</em> for creating and disseminating this fake dossier/information without a scintilla of fact checking. I am currently in discussions with foreign and domestic counsel to file similar actions.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Senator Grassley is trying to learn more about Fusion GPS, but the company has refused to answer his questions. He&rsquo;s also looking into the possibility that the FBI made arrangements to pay Steele. ;</p>
<p>The former British spy has a close relationship with the FBI. Grassley suspects Andrew McCabe, the FBI&rsquo;s second in command, &ldquo;could have significant influence over the ongoing investigation into allegations of collusion between Trump campaign associates and Russia.&rdquo; ;</p>
<p>Grassley&rsquo;s aides say the Senate probe must be incredibly thorough because the unverified dossier is still being quoted and used as evidence in Washington.</p>
<p>&ldquo;When political opposition research becomes the basis for law enforcement or intelligence efforts, it raises substantial questions about the independence of law enforcement and intelligence from politics,&rdquo; wrote Grassley.</p>
<p>&#8212;</p>
<p>When a London court forced Steele to talk about his research, he admitted that many of the charges contained in the dossier are unverified. He blames <em>BuzzFeed</em> for publishing it and says his opposition research was never supposed to go public.</p>
<p>He also ;admitted that the charges against Gubarev came from &#8220;unsolicited intelligence&#8221; that &#8220;needed to be analyzed and further investigated/verified.&#8221; ;</p>
<p>Steele&#8217;s court filing blames Fusion for sharing his research when it had no authority to do so. &#8220;At all material times Fusion was subject to an obligation not to disclose to third parties confidential intelligence material provided&#8221; by Steele.</p>
<p>The ;fact that Steele included &#8220;raw intelligence&#8221; in the document raises many questions about his research techniques for the entire project. ;</p>