Just as the phony Dossier that kicked off the phony Russian collusion investigation was fading into the background, it is being brought back into the mainstream news – this time by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.
For reasons that are not clear, Stephanopoulos conducted a one-on-one interview with Christopher Steele – a former British intelligence officer and the guy who reportedly prepared the document based on information he obtained from Russian operatives. Steele, who has stayed in the shadows all these years, has suddenly decided to talk about the Dossier. Why now? Is a good question. Unfortunately, Stephanopoulos never got an answer to that one.
And why would ABC find the interview newsworthy at this time? Was there more salacious stuff to be revealed? Apparently not.
The fraudulent Steele Dossier was allegedly passed on to Hillary Clinton campaign operatives – and from there it went to the FBI. Then FBI Director James Comey & Co. jumped on the document to gain permission to surveil Trump operatives. They used the unvetted and unverified Dossier to launch the infamous Russian collusion investigation which — after 18 months and $35 million of taxpayer money – determined that no one associated with the Trump campaign had conspired with Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
The Dossier-triggered scandal may arguably be the most successful dirty trick in presidential campaign history. As later events would reveal, it was the Clinton campaign that paid for the bogus Dossier – and then hand fed it to operatives in the FBI who were predisposed to undermine the Trump presidency in the hope of an impeachment and removal from office. That was the “Insurance policy” that the married FBI agent Peter Strzok alluded to in texts with his paramour, fellow FBI agent Lisa Page – who was emotionally unhinged over Trump’s election.
Unfortunately for the Clinton folks, they left their fingerprints all over the Dossier. After it was totally discredited, the spotlight was turned on those who created the hoax. Those involved are still under investigations today. It is no small irony that those who set up the phony Dossier to falsely accuse Trump of conspiring with Russians — the Clinton campaign — conspired with Russians.
If Democrats and the media thought that the re-emergence of Steele would breathe life into the old story, they may be badly mistaken. Steele is far from a credible witness. He made one concession that brought down the credibility of everything he said in that interview – and everything that he said in the past. And – for that matter – everything the Clinton campaign, the media and the anti-Trump cabal within the FBI had said over many months.
Steele said that he was not 100 percent certain that the claims made in the Dossier were 100 percent true. Could he assure the public that ANY of the damaging claims were true? Nope. He did believe that Trump’s then- personal attorney Michael Cohen was in Prague, as detailed in the Dossier. While Steele said he thought it was possibly true, he could not explain – when asked by Stephanopoulos – why all the hard evidence proved that Cohen could not possibly have been in Prague – and why Cohen – who had a falling out with Trump– has not supported that detail.
Steele still believes that the reported so-called “golden showers” tape exists. That is the one that reportedly shows women prostitutes urinating on Trump. It has never surfaced – according to Steele’s personal conspiracy theory – because Russian President Vladimir Putin was using it to blackmail Trump. Trump has dismissed the existence of the tape saying that everyone knows he is a bit of a germaphobe.
If Steele’s interview was designed to resurrect all the old idle debunked gossip about Trump, it may backfire. Revisiting those issues is more likely to expose the skullduggery of the Clinton campaign and the unethical – if not criminal – complicity of the FBI just as the ongoing investigations into those matters are beginning to mature.
So, there ‘tis.