According to documents declassified by President Trump in his final full day in office, CHRISTOPHER STEELE, the author of the Dossier, admitted to the FBI that he leaked the Russia collusion story during the height of the 2016 election to help Hillary Clinton overcome her never ending email scandal and also because he believed Donald Trump’s election would be bad for U.S. relations with Britain, his home country.
In September 2017, nearly a year after Steele had been terminated as an informant, he was interviewed by the FBI and that report provided conclusive information about Steele’s motives in working for both the FBI and the opposition research firm for Hillary Clinton’s campaign. The document, which was obtained by Just the News, “reads at times like a confession from the now-infamous former MI6 agent and author of the anti-Trump dossier”.
In the fall of 2016 then-FBI Director James Comey’s decision to reopen the Clinton email investigation became Steele’s tipping point for leaking the anti-Trump collusion research that his company Orbis Intelligence had gathered and given to the FBI.
“STEELE explained that as the election season went on, they as a company were riding two horses — their client and the FBI — and after FBI Director James Comey’s reopening of the HILLARY CLINTON investigation, they had to pick one horse and chose the business client relationship over the relationship with the FBI,” the interview report stated.
“They followed what their client wanted, and they spoke to the press,” the report noted.
Steel FBI Debriefing Interview Report (September 18-19, 2017) PDF
2017 Notes on the FBI Interview of Christopher Steele
Christopher Steele and his partner, Christopher Burrows suggested the FBI deserved some of the blame for the decision to leak to the news media and Sen. JOHN MCCAIN‘s office.
“STEELE and BURROWS described the overall situation as being one where it was ‘your [FBI] fault’ and ‘our fault,'” the memo reported, adding that Burrows was also upset the FBI had not paid Steele for his anti-Trump work.
The two British citizens told the FBI that concerns about the impact of a Trump presidency also motivated them.
“STEELE and BURROWS described President TRUMP as their ‘main opponent’ and indicated that they were fearful about how Trump’s presidency negatively impacted the historical US-US alliance and the US-UK special relationship,” the memo stated.
The 26-page report also discussed in detail Steele’s reliance on his primary sub-source, an Eastern-Europe-born academic who had worked at the Brookings Institution, a U.S. liberal think tank.
Former Trump National Security Council Russia expert Fiona Hill, who was a impeachment witness against Trump in 2019 was the individual who had introduced Steele to his sub-source in 2011, well after the FBI had opened up its probe on the source.
The report stated that, “The primary sub-source was introduced to STEELE and ORBIS by FIONA HILL in or around 2011 . . . Emphasizing the sensitivity, Steele explained that Hill now worked for the National Security Council. Hill has a very high opinion of the primary sub-source.”
