Steele Dossier

The Steele dossier, also known as the Trump–Russia dossier,[1] 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"[a] memos that were considered by Steele to be "raw intelligence – not established facts, but a starting point for further investigation". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steele_dossier re Russian Interference In The 2016 Election

• It was based on information from initially anonymous sources known to the author, counterintelligence specialist[14] Christopher Steele,[15] and his "primary sub-source", Igor Danchenko.
• The United States intelligence community and most experts have treated the dossier with caution due to its unverified allegations.[23] While compiling the dossier, Steele passed his findings to both British and American intelligence services.[13][24] The U.S. intelligence community took the allegations seriously,[25] 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.[3] The Robert Mueller report contained passing references to some of the dossier's allegations but little mention of its more sensational claims.[3] Both the 2019 OIG report[26]: 172  and the 2023 Durham report[27]: 99  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".[27]: 99 
• While Steele's documents played a significant role in initially highlighting the general friendliness between Trump and the Putin administration, the veracity status of specific allegations is highly variable. Some have been publicly confirmed,[c] others are plausible but not specifically confirmed,[28][29] and some are dubious in retrospect but not strictly disproven.[30][31][32] While the dossier played a central and essential role in the seeking of FISA warrants on Carter Page,[33] it did not play any role in the January 6, 2017, intelligence community assessment of the Russian actions in the 2016 election,[34][35][36] and 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.[37] The dossier is a factor in several conspiracy theories promoted by Trump[38] and his supporters.[37][39] Many mainstream sources have described the dossier as "discredited".