{"id":12182,"date":"2020-02-06T10:00:40","date_gmt":"2020-02-06T18:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=12182"},"modified":"2020-02-05T12:01:25","modified_gmt":"2020-02-05T20:01:25","slug":"why-was-the-steele-dossier-not-dismissed-as-a-fake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/why-was-the-steele-dossier-not-dismissed-as-a-fake\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Was The Steele Dossier Not Dismissed As A Fake?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>Please\u00a0read\u00a0the\u00a0following\u00a0article\u00a0by\u00a0my\u00a0colleague\u00a0Paul\u00a0Gregory\u00a0in\u00a0Defining\u00a0Ideas<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A cursory examination of the Steele Dossier should have convinced the CIA or the FBI that it was fake news. Any residual doubt would have vanished after learning that its author, Christopher Steele, was an opposition researcher paid by the Democrats to dig up dirt on Trump. That our most sophisticated government officials acted as if the Dossier were legitimate leads to only one conclusion. They were a knowing and willing&nbsp; part of the Democratic and media smear of a presidential contender, and then president, that paralyzed U.S. politics for three years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We now know that the Steele Dossier is bogus. Inspector General Michael Horowitz drove the final stake through its heart. He&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/storage\/120919-examination.pdf\">found<\/a>&nbsp;that the Dossier was compiled from hearsay and third-hand gossip from two low-level sources and that they denied the testimony attributed to them. The only \u201cverified\u201d information that Horowitz found was available from public sources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let\u2019s review the story of the Steele Dossier and ask whether clear-thinking unbiased persons in media or government would have taken the charges in the Dossier so seriously as to use it as the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/politics\/wp\/2017\/10\/25\/what-the-trump-dossier-says-and-what-it-doesnt\/\">roadmap<\/a>&nbsp;to Russian government officials\u2019 purported alliance with Trump employees and campaign aides to help his election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The widespread use of the term \u201croadmap\u201d is telling. It suggests, yes, there&nbsp; must be something to the charge that Trump colluded with an enemy power. We\u2019ll find proof if we follow the clues that Steele has given us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hoover.org\/research\/why-was-steele-dossier-not-dismissed-fake\">Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Please\u00a0read\u00a0the\u00a0following\u00a0article\u00a0by\u00a0my\u00a0colleague\u00a0Paul\u00a0Gregory\u00a0in\u00a0Defining\u00a0Ideas A cursory examination of the Steele Dossier should have convinced the CIA or the FBI that it was fake news. Any residual doubt would have vanished after learning that its author, Christopher Steele, was an opposition researcher paid by the Democrats to dig up dirt on Trump. That our most sophisticated government officials acted [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-3au","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11743,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/mueller-report-confirms-the-steele-dossier-belongs-in-the-dustbin-of-history\/","url_meta":{"origin":12182,"position":0},"title":"Mueller report confirms the Steele dossier belongs in the dustbin of history","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 28, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Please read this piece by my colleague Paul Roderick Gregory in The Hill The Trump dossier \u2014 compiled by Christopher Steele, commissioned by Fusion GPS and paid for by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee \u2014 has tied up U.S. politics for more than two years with its\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Mueller&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Mueller","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/mueller\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10926,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/did-the-fbi-vouch-for-the-crazy-russian-deal-from-the-steele-dossier\/","url_meta":{"origin":12182,"position":1},"title":"Did The FBI Vouch For The Crazy Russian Deal From The Steele Dossier?","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 31, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Paul Roderick Gregory \/\/ Forbes The media\u2019s promotion of an unverified dossier against Republican candidate, Donald Trump, failed to cement Hillary Clinton\u2019s expected victory in November. If that were the whole story, the dossier would have faded from public view, the new President Trump would not have spent his first\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;FBI&quot;","block_context":{"text":"FBI","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/fbi\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11478,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/one-person-can-invalidate-the-steele-dossier-and-no-one-seems-to-bother\/","url_meta":{"origin":12182,"position":2},"title":"One Person can (In)validate the Steele Dossier and No One Seems to Bother","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 29, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Please read this piece by my colleague Paul Roderick Gregory in Ricochet Christopher Steele deliberately constructed his Trump dossier to be unverifiable. As long as it remains invalidated, it hangs over the Trump administration, even though the Clinton campaign was\u00a0identified\u00a0as its funder and Steele\u00a0refused to vouch\u00a0for it under oath. Apparently\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Donald Trump&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Donald Trump","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/donald-trump\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10696,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/steele-dossier-farce-shows-why-trump-relies-on-twitter\/","url_meta":{"origin":12182,"position":3},"title":"Steele dossier farce shows why Trump relies on Twitter","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 27, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 The Hill By Paul R. Gregory, opinion contributor \u2014 10\/27\/17 The media refrain on the Trump dossier has been that \u201cconsiderable amounts of it have been proven.\u201d No one had explained exactly what has been proven, however, until The Washington Post decided to answer the question itself. Per the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12127,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-steele-dossier-bacillus\/","url_meta":{"origin":12182,"position":4},"title":"The Steele Dossier Bacillus","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 8, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review In 2016, Hillary Clinton presidential candidate hired an ex-intelligence officer and foreign national, British subject Christopher Steele, to use Russian sources to find dirt (\u201copposition research\u201d) on her then political opponent Donald Trump. So much for the worry about \u201cforeign interference\u201d in U.S. elections.\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12554,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/steeles-dossier-clown-show-or-the-greatest-russian-coup\/","url_meta":{"origin":12182,"position":5},"title":"Steele&#8217;s dossier: &#8216;Clown show&#8217; or the greatest Russian coup?","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 6, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"The following article is from my colleague, Paul Roderick Gregory, in The\u00a0Hill The known details of the so-called Steele dossier point to a peculiar ambiguity. To expert analysts, it always appeared to be low-quality political opposition research. Yet, it turned American against American, paralyzed our government \u2014 and may be\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12182"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12182"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12186,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12182\/revisions\/12186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}