Talk:Steele dossier/Archive 25

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Republican position on Ukraine - Remove

completely immaterial to this article Jaygo113 (talk) 00:41, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

I can't agree with that. It seems quite relevant. Andre🚐 01:05, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Indeed. The sanctions were Western retaliation for Russia's aggression in Ukraine and Crimea, and the dossier describes the lifting of those sanctions as a quid pro quo condition for Russia's aid toward helping Trump win. Trump, very publicly, even before the election, vowed he would lift the sanctions. He was blocked by Congress but was finally successful in lifting sanctions on Deripaska (something that, BTW, may have helped to partially "make whole" Manafort's large debt to Deripaska). See Steele dossier#Trump's attempts to lift sanctions. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 01:23, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Deripaska was indicted by the justice dept. earlier this yr: [1] Andre🚐 01:25, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

"Trump, very publicly, even before the election, vowed he would lift the sanctions." In point of fact, there was no such "very public vow" (if there had been, I'm sure that you would have reproduced it); to the contrary, I previously linked to a January 27, 2017 WaPo article in which Trump publicly threw cold water on suggestions of Russian sanctions relief. You're entitled to your own opinions—even speculative opinions about possible backroom deals—but not your own alternative facts. Also, Chris Hayes and Eric Swalwell on MSNBC are notably partisan sources, and, as discussed previously, sanctions on Deripaska himself were never lifted according to the United States Department of the Treasury. (I believe that you are aware of the latter distinction and perhaps used exaggerated rhetoric above to better make your point, but it's still worth correcting, lest passers-by take the comment literally.) Best regards,TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 05:20, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

TheTimesAreAChanging, regarding the lifting of sanctions, you mention Trump's later backpedaling, after "Mr. Trump had previously expressed a willingness to lift sanctions against Russia".[2] He often did that when something he did met resistance.

Maybe I remember it incorrectly, but I recall, during the campaign in 2016, Trump was public about his desire to lift the sanctions. That's how Russia knew, before he was elected. That's how Steele knew. Trump knew that Putin wanted the sanctions lifted. Whatever the case, it cannot be denied that Trump shared Putin's desire and wanted to lift them as soon as he became president, so I won't retract that part of my statement. The following source backs up that it had to have been public knowledge: "Mr. Trump had previously expressed a willingness to lift sanctions".

On January 28, 2017, just after Trump took office, The New York Times wrote this about Trump's hourlong telephone call to Putin: "Still, although Mr. Trump had previously expressed a willingness to lift sanctions against Russia, the issue did not come up, according to officials on both sides." (bolding added) The article describes how multiple European allies pressed Trump to not lift sanctions against Russia. They would not have done that if they did not know his intentions to lift them.

In a June 2, 2017, NPR interview, ("Trump Administration Made Secret Efforts To Ease Russia Sanctions"), Michael Isikoff described how "Almost as soon as President Trump took office, his top aides told the State Department to develop proposals to lift penalties on Russia that had been imposed by the Obama administration." They were carrying out Trump's orders. Fortunately, "congressional leaders ...co-sponsor legislation to codify the sanctions. And that basically would make it very difficult for the Trump administration to lift them."[3]

Also there was the issue of Michael Flynn's secret call to Sergei I. Kislyak, intercepted by the FBI. After consultation with the Trump team, he relayed Trump's wishes by calling Kislyak and essentially saying (paraphrased): "Don't react strongly to Obama's sanctions. Soon we will be in power and they will no longer be an issue for you." Flynn lied multiple times about that phone call and was convicted, but of course Trump pardoned him.

The Deripaska issue is a bit more complicated as the sanctions, whether on himself, his family, or on Rusal or other companies he's affiliated with, affected him and thus were often imprecisely referred to as sanctions on him. Maybe I'm guilty of doing that above. Crucify me. Maybe I should say "Deripaska-affiliated sanctions". There are many sources about this, so I won't get into it here.

Reading list (in no particular order):

Trump Administration to Lift Sanctions on Russian Oligarch’s Companies, U.S. Lifts Sanctions On Rusal, Other Firms With Links To Deripaska, Deripaska and Allies Could Benefit From Sanctions Deal, Document Shows, How a McConnell-backed effort to lift Russian sanctions boosted a Kentucky project

Oleg Deripaska, International sanctions during the Russo-Ukrainian War, List of people and organizations sanctioned during the Russo-Ukrainian War, Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act

Enough for now. Once again, TheTimesAreAChanging, I appreciate your comments and serious, civil, attempts to reach for clarity. I learn something every time. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 21:22, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Good info about Flynn. Michael Flynn Case: Separating the Wheat from the Chaff, and the Proper from the Improper. Updated with analysis of declassified Flynn-Kislyak transcripts -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 00:07, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

It's easy to take events in isolation and form a misleading conclusion. President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton both tried to improve relations with Russia. But articles in reliable sources show that the Trump administrations increased sanctions against Russia: Brookings,[4] Carnegie,[5] The American Presidency Project,[6] There is anyway an implicit assumption in your argument: that sanctions are so beneficial, that only a Russian agent would oppose them.

Flynn incidentally told Moscow that the expulsion of Russian diplomats would be reversed and lied about the conversation. But Obama only expelled the diplomats after the election, and would not have done so have Clinton won. It was an attempt to embarrass Trump.

TFD (talk) 19:27, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

add "Conspiracy Theory" to description.

More heat than light and getting into off-topic forum territory
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
none of the claims were verified. this has been testified to in court. not one of these claims has been proven true. there is pnly a theory, that there was a conspiracy between Trump and Russia. This has been disproven. Jaygo113 (talk) 00:50, 18 October 2022 (UTC) That's actually not true, a number of the statements from the dossier have been corroborated. The dossier is not a conspiracy theory. Andre🚐 01:05, 18 October 2022 (UTC) Mueller was never able to prove "conspiracy" or "coordination". They were not disproven, and many things that would fall under "collusion" were proven: lying about connections to Russia, welcoming Russian aid, aiding and abetting, never criticizing Putin, telling Kislyak that he did not mind that Russia interfered in the election, etc. Roger Stone revealed that Trump knew about the WikiLeaks/stolen DNC documents connection and when they would be released. Some things happened there that could be considered "coordination". Manafort shared voting data with Russian agents, and that could also be considered collusion. There were myriad secretive links between Trump's campaign and Russians, many of them known intelligence agents. Trump and his campaign lied about these connections and some people were convicted for lying. Trump pardoned them. Read Links between Trump associates and Russian officials. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 01:49, 18 October 2022 (UTC) Of course there were a lot of similarities between the Steele dossier and a conspiracy theory: they both present unsupported claims that no reasonable person would believe. But the definition does not extend to official views. For example, Bush's inference that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11 was not only false but irrational, yet is not called a conspiracy theory. TFD (talk) 02:36, 18 October 2022 (UTC) TFD, the conspiracy accusation is certainly an unproven, but not unlikely, conspiracy theory. It's unproven, not disproven. Steele should never have used that word. He should have said "collusion" (which he never did), because that, even though not a legal term and not synonymous with "conspiracy", was much easier to prove. There is abundant evidence of that, with opinions in RS notoriously split on the issue. Mueller presented plenty of evidence of collusion but used other words. He also specifically explains why he only investigated "conspiracy" and not collusion. See Mueller report#Conspiracy or coordination vs collusion and Mueller report#False "no collusion" claims. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 21:35, 18 October 2022 (UTC) The conspiracy was that there was knowing communication between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin in order to put Trump into office. That's no different from saying there was communication between al Qaeda and the Bush administration to carry out 9/11. In both cases, conspriracists put together information, both true, false and unproved, to form an extremely improbable hypothesis, when better alternatives are available, and either ignore or fit in all new information as confirmation of the theory. The hallmark of conspiricism is its irrationality, predicated on a belief in an evil cabal that has limitless knowledge and power. For example, the fact that a minor official in the Trump campaign asked a diplomat for help in arranging a meeting between Trump and Putin was used as evidence they were in communication. But if that were true, why would the official ask a third party for help setting up a meeting? The distinction between conspiracy and collusion is a smokescreen because there's do definition for collusion. TFD (talk) 23:02, 18 October 2022 (UTC) Unless I'm mistaken, an illegal "conspiracy" requires an actual oral or written agreement or plan in the form of "Let's agree that you do this, and then I'll do that." It's nearly impossible to prove as those who engage in such activities always maintain plausible deniability, ergo Mafia methodology. Mere knowledge of the other's activities is not enough. If Mueller had proven "coordination", then a conspiracy would have been obvious. He failed to prove either. The existing "cooperation" between the Russians and the campaign wasn't enough either. That just amounted to collusion, which, although highly disloyal to American interests and national security, is not illegal. Already right after the 2013 Miss Universe contest in Moscow, there is public evidence that Trump and been discussing his plans on running for president in 2016, which was long before Americans knew of those plans. Right after that, Russian intelligence started their hacking operations which ultimately resulted in the breaching and stealing of information from both the GOP and Democrats, but they only released information on the Dems. When one looks at the dossier's allegation of "a well-developed conspiracy of co-operation" between Trump & Russia, one notices that the "conspiracy" is unproven, but the "co-operation" part is proven, and that's what really counts. Who cares if two thieves "plan" (conspire) to rob a bank? What counts is if they actually do it. If they are charged with "conspiracy" to rob the bank, and the prosecution fails to prove conspiracy, they are still convicted of robbing the bank. In principle, that's what's happened here. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 23:21, 18 October 2022 (UTC) There's the concept of working "hand in glove," the Trump campaign welcomed the Russian help and did so knowingly. This is a fact. Several of the members of the Trump campaign worked directly with and directly facilitated the cooperation of GRU assets. This is a fact. A smoking gun wasn't found that Trump called Vlad Putin on a Nokia burner phone and horse-traded with him. Or anything close to that. TFD attempts to straw man a conspiracy theory. There was a group that conspired to put Trump in office: his campaign. They coordinated with and collaborated with various foreign nationals in an illegal way. These are facts. Trump himself kept his hands clean just like any other organized crime boss. Andre🚐 23:25, 18 October 2022 (UTC) In fact conspiracy does not require "an actual oral or written agreement," except in some jurisdictions. "The essential elements of conspiracy are similar in [the UK and U.S.] The first element is the agreement which forms the backbone of a conspiracy charge. It must involve at least two people. The crime is complete upon making of the agreement. Although the act of agreeing may be considered to be a wholly mental operation, it is usually manifested in the spoken or written words of the conspirators, or by some other overt action." (Juliet R. Amenge Okoth, The Crime of Conspiracy in International Criminal Law, Springer 2014, p. 42.)[7] The prosecution may prove a conspiracy existed by the behavior of the individuals either before or after the crime. This could include carrying out a bank robbery together or "working hand in glove." See also U.S. v. Amiel 95 F.3d 135 (2d Cir. 1996): "A tacit understanding will suffice to show agreement for purposes of a conspiracy conviction. There need not be any written statement or even a speaking of words which expressly communicates agreement." In this case one person provided counterfeit art which the other sold. Both were aware they were distributing counterfeit art and that the other was aware of this, although no discussion every took place. Mueller of course was aware of the definition of conspiracy and determined that there was no evidence of an agreement, implicit or explicit, between Trump and Putin. He noted however that collusion was undefined, hence he would not comment on it. TFD (talk) 01:56, 19 October 2022 (UTC) Mueller did find evidence that individuals from the Trump campaign, such as Manafort, Stone, Don Jr. Kushner, Papadapolous, had direct contact with Russians as well as Wikileaks to coordinate the release of the hacked material and to share data. He did not establish coordination to the standard of evidence required to charge Trump, but no evidence, is not the same as no conclusive proof. On obstruction of justice he established a case but was curtailed by Sessions, Barr and Rosenstein. Manafort and Stone were convicted before they were pardoned. Mueller did not note that "collusion was undefined." In fact he showed evidence of coordination and he obtained several convictions before his investigation was shut down by Barr. Andre🚐 02:25, 19 October 2022 (UTC) Mueller wrote, "Like collusion, coordination does not have a settled definition in federal criminal law. We understood coordination to require an agreement—tacit or express—between the Trump Campaign and the Russian government on election interference. That requires more than the two parties taking actions that were informed by or responsive to the other’s actions or interests. We applied the term coordination in that sense when stating in the report that the investigation did not establish that the Trump Campaign coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities." He later wrote, "even as defined in legal dictionaries, collusion is largely synonymous with conspiracy as that crime is set forth in the general federal conspiracy statute, 18 U.S.C. § 371. See Black’s Law Dictionary 321 (10th ed. 2014) (collusion is “[a]n agreement to defraud another or to do or obtain something forbidden by law”)." All you're left with then is the conspiracy theorist's proclivity to assume that any connection between two individuals proves conspiracy. For example, the fact that Lee Harvey Oswald had defected to Russia, renounced his U.S. citizenship, embraced Marxism and applied to join the U.S. Communist Party was used by conspiracy theorists to prove he was a Russian agent. That's a strong connection but there was no conspiracy. You're using the same arguments that Birchers did in the 1960s with even less evidence. TFD (talk) 03:09, 19 October 2022 (UTC) Ah, but see, aside from your spurious analogy, your quote of Mueller shows both that a) Mueller did not consider collusion undefined, and b) your prior statement "In fact conspiracy does not require "an actual oral or written agreement,",", leaves out importantly, a tacit agreement, but otherwise is true: Mueller had determined that he needed to prove an agreement—tacit or express—between the Trump Campaign and the Russian government on election interference. He also stated collusion is largely synonymous with conspiracy. He did not find "no collusion" and was very clear on this point. He failed to establish proof of the conspiracy but he found evidence of coordination. And in fact, Mueller obtained a number of convictions of Trump's associates. Contrary to your flawed personal attack, there is considerable evidence of, as Mueller stated, actions that were informed by or responsive to the other’s actions or interests. Andre🚐 03:19, 19 October 2022 (UTC) I notice you haven't conceded your statement that "criminal "conspiracy" requires an actual oral or written agreement or plan" is false. You're just tailoring your replies to new information so that no conclusion can be reached. You now claim that Mueller considered "collusion" to be defined, but have failed to cite what his definition was. You also now say that "Mueller had determined that he needed to prove an agreement—tacit or express." So you seem to now agree that your original definition of conspiracy was false. Even so, Mueller did not say he had to prove any of this. All he had to do was to find some evidence of conspiracy in order to report it. But he found none, as he said. Many things can never be proved. But a reasonable approach is to say that where no evidence exists, we can reject the theory. Maybe there are fairies living in my garden. I cannot prove there are none. TFD (talk) 03:49, 19 October 2022 (UTC) That wasn't my statement: that was Valjean's statement. I think I did just say what Mueller was looking for. Again, Valjean's statement, not mine. He did report his evidence and he also charged several people with crimes and obtained convictions. The evidence is there, and it's not charitable or fair to call it fairy dust. The evidence is well-represented in Wikipedia. To claim still that Mueller found no evidence is simply incorrect. Andre🚐 04:22, 19 October 2022 (UTC) Mueller did not charge anyone with conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. You can't just say Mueller found evidence without saying what it was. TFD (talk) 04:59, 19 October 2022 (UTC) Mueller found evidence of collusion/cooperation/obstruction, but not conspiracy/coordination. Mueller did find what we all saw... "the two parties taking actions that were informed by or responsive to the other’s actions or interests", which was less than "conspiracy". He could not make a criminal charge out of that. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 06:05, 19 October 2022 (UTC) Mueller carefully contrasted two different situations, one prosecutable and the other not: "We understood coordination to require an agreement—tacit or express—between the Trump Campaign and the Russian government on election interference. That requires more than the two parties taking actions that were informed by or responsive to the other’s actions or interests. We applied the term coordination in that sense when stating in the report that the investigation did not establish that the Trump Campaign coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities." Prosecutable: "coordination to require an agreement—tacit or express—between the Trump Campaign and the Russian government" (unproven) Not prosecutable: "the two parties taking actions that were informed by or responsive to the other’s actions or interests" (what RS told us was happening). Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:15, 19 October 2022 (UTC) TFD, sorry about the delay in replying. Thanks so much for that excellent comparison of various definitions and shades of understanding by different people. I guess the meaning of my formulation matches that of Juliet R. Amenge Okoth almost exactly. Steele must have worked with aspects from other definitions, most likely "may prove a conspiracy existed by the behavior of the individuals either before or after the crime" and "A tacit understanding... There need not be any written statement or even a speaking of words which expressly communicates agreement." In that sense, Steele was right, but Mueller chose a different definition. Steele's rough draft was never intended for publication and was not a legal document, so hanging him up for his informal use of language is a bit unfair, but so be it. Six months before the FBI came to the same conclusions, using other evidence, as the central themes of Steele's reporting in June and July 2016, Steele's sources reported on backchannel goings on between the Trump campaign and Russians that was alarming and revealed a security threat to American democracy and election security, so he immediately turned over what he had for them to work with and confirm, if possible. He wasn't in a position to do that. Much of what his sources said was largely unconfirmable, but it explained what was obviously happening, so that lends credibility to much of the reporting. He was certainly acting more patriotically than Trump and his crew, who lied about everything and never alerted the FBI. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 06:05, 19 October 2022 (UTC) Patriotically? He was paid to generate opposition research by a political campaign. Mr Ernie (talk) 14:21, 19 October 2022 (UTC) It's odd to describe a foreign citizen as an American patriot. TFD (talk) 15:05, 19 October 2022 (UTC) LOL! Yes, I understand that framing is a bit odd: "He was certainly acting more patriotically than Trump and his crew". Trump should have been acting patriotically, but instead, it was Steele who acted as Trump should have acted. As an American ally, Steele's discoveries made him very concerned that Trump, then a candidate, was being blackmailed by Russia, and he became "very concerned about whether this represented a national security threat". Steele believed the intelligence community "needed urgently to know—if it didn't already—that the next possible U.S. president was potentially under the sway of Russia". By contrast, the Trump campaign lied to the FBI (with several convictions for doing so) about all their secretive contacts with Russians. Steele was more loyal to American interests than Trump. That's what I meant. The "opposition research" bit is a red herring and has no relation to patriotism. It's what all campaigns do. It usually turns up evidence of skeletons in the closet, not evidence of a disloyal alliance with America's most formidable enemy to do its will and undermine American society and its national security in nearly every way possible. Steele was justifiably freaked out. This was an unthinkable situation, but it was happening. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:15, 19 October 2022 (UTC) Steele, a foreign national, was paid by a US political campaign to generate opposition research on another US candidate. Steele's information, laundered up from Russian nationals, was improperly used to obtain a top secret surveillance program on another US citizen. That's not very patriotic. Mr Ernie (talk) 18:02, 19 October 2022 (UTC) Mr Ernie, it was Republicans who first started the opposition research against Trump (so you're accusing them of being not very patriotic as they were doing what Steele did). The FISA thing had nothing to do with Steele. Blame the FBI. On February 4, 2018, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) affirmed that the Russia probe would have happened without the dossier: "So there's going to be a Russia probe, even without a dossier." You can't blame Steele for that either. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) Except that's not true as we know - Steele was paid by the Washington Free Beacon first - and it was not the basis of the Russia investigation, it was Papadapolous and other intelligence tipoffs. Andre🚐 23:45, 19 October 2022 (UTC) It is odd to see how confident you are when you say clearly incorrect things. Per the article Steele “did not begin work on the project until after Democratic groups had begun funding it,” and the Horowitz report said the dossier played a “central and essential role” in the FISA application against Page, which is what I was referring to in my previous comment. Combined with your baseless comments at AN saying parts of the Biden laptop have been confirmed to be inauthentic, I think you need to more carefully familiarize yourself with the facts before you comment. Mr Ernie (talk) 01:05, 20 October 2022 (UTC) You are incorrect, about the laptop part (various files were unable to be authenticated) and here. Please see our article and the section, Research funded by conservative website, the dossier was funded by the Free Beacon - Steele himself is irrelevant as it is the dossier itself. Horowitz was speaking narrowly about Page, as we know, the FISA thing was not the start of the Russia investigation, and there were several investigations including a counterintelligence component. You are simply mistaken on the facts. Andre🚐 01:31, 20 October 2022 (UTC) Let me quote you - “Steele was paid by the Washington Free Beacon first” - this is outright false. Can you support your own comment? Mr Ernie (talk) 02:57, 20 October 2022 (UTC) Mr Ernie, that's a common mistake, so don't get hung up on it. The point is that it was Republicans who first started the opposition research against Trump, so you're essentially accusing them of being "not very patriotic" as they were performing opposition research even before Steele got involved. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 03:01, 20 October 2022 (UTC) Can you help me inform Andre? My comments don’t seem to be getting through. The details are important. Mr Ernie (talk) 03:08, 20 October 2022 (UTC) I was talking about the Steele dossier being funded. I didn't mean Steele the person. It was his organization and the dossier itself. I apologize for the inexact wording. Andre🚐 03:10, 20 October 2022 (UTC) I see it as more like what U.S. and British intelligence did before the War in Iraq. Intelligence wasn't chosen for its reliability, but for its persuasiveness. We know for example that Trump wanted to build a hotel in Moscow but Russian officials didn't want to meet him. That gets spun as Trump being recruited by the KGB. If Russia hadn't resonated with the public, his opponents would have found or invented something else. Certainly the Republicans have done the same. Kerry was swiftboated, Obama wasn't really American. I just don't think the way to counter that is to copy their methods in an article that is supposed to be neutral and accurate. TFD (talk) 18:07, 19 October 2022 (UTC) TFD, you always have a metaphor or an analogy, but very often incendiary, and ones that do not bear much resemblance to the case at hand. Kerry was swiftboated - a war hero was unfairly besmirched, and he lost the election. Trump was the exact opposite - a criminal's rap failed to stick, and he won the election. Obama is yet another situation: unfairly besmirched as the "other," but won 2 terms despite it. None of these are related nor is anyone "copying the methods" of swiftboaters. And again you use a straw man - we weren't at all talking about Trump being recruited. Andre🚐 23:47, 19 October 2022 (UTC) Trump has not (per Oct 19 2022) been indicted for anything, much less convicted, so this comment is a blatant BLP violation. Please step back from this topic. Mr Ernie (talk) 01:07, 20 October 2022 (UTC) Trump was impeached twice, and he is currently the subject of several cases, it is not a BLP violation whatsoever but the opinion of many RS. In fact, various RS have stated that he is guilty of felonies such as obstruction of justice, and predict that he will be indicted. I've made no change to the article and I stand by the comments- please step back from asking me to step back or questioning my facts with more incorrect facts and spin. Andre🚐 01:34, 20 October 2022 (UTC) Broadwater, Luke; Feuer, Alan; Haberman, Maggie (2022-03-28). "Federal Judge Finds Trump Most Likely Committed Crimes Over 2020 Election". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-10-20. Trump Prosecutors See Evidence for Obstruction Charges - BloombergAndre🚐 01:51, 20 October 2022 (UTC) What do RS say? Slatersteven (talk) 10:12, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Strange disclaimer

The dossier contains far more allegations than are presented below, but this article can deal with only those that have been mentioned in multiple reliable sources. This disclaimer is general to everything on Wikipedia, and feels out of place in this article. 107.127.0.21 (talk) 12:00, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Good catch. Now gone. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 17:30, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

It is not "controversial"

The opening sentence describes the report as "controversial". It is not; it has been discredited by every reliable source cited. There is no controversy over the Steele Report; its main allegations are garbage, almost universally acknowledged as such, and conspiracy-theory material. Insulation2 (talk) 17:17, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

In March there was a use of the words "largely discredited" which didn't last, and some discussion about the Wording in first sentence. I believe it's likely that the first sentence has been discussed at other times as well. Are you intending to make a specific proposal? Peter Gulutzan (talk) 18:46, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

Controversial seems like the correct term. Remember, it was an unfinished document leaked without the author's permission. Difficult to term it as purposely deceitful when it was raw intelligence not ready for release. Since then, they have found that the main thrust of Russian interference was correct. Collusion is another matter. O3000, Ret. (talk) 20:09, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

I would support restoring the "largely discredited" description in the lead, per the recent overwhelmingly negative coverage it has received now that we are several years post publication. Mr Ernie (talk) 21:06, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

I'd be damned pissed if someone leaked an unfinished doc of mine. Most raw intelligence leads nowhere. Some of his led to a correct conclusion that Putin interfered with a US election -- and I wish one side in that election would stop trying to dismiss such an important fact by focusing on parts of an unfinished doc that are not proved, and were never claimed to have been proved by the author. Seriously, does that side care? Forest/Trees. O3000, Ret. (talk) 23:13, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

The final report would have been the same except with more detail. I too am sorry that I was unable to read it. TFD (talk) 00:16, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Please do not make assumptions like that. You have no idea how the author would have completed and edited his work. WP:BLP applies everywhere. O3000, Ret. (talk) 01:20, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Then stop defending the author. He produced a report that lacked credibility. The Democrats used the false information against Trump and their most partisan supporters believed it. Unfortunately for them, no one else did. It's the Democratic version of Trump's claims about the 2020 election being stolen. TFD (talk) 03:41, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

He did not produce a report. It was leaked before it was a complete report. The rest of your claim shows bias on your part. O3000, Ret. (talk) 13:10, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

• Actually, much of the report has been confirmed, and not much in the report has been specifically discredited. Andre🚐 05:17, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
  • Per RS, the Steele Dossier is "discredited" or "largely discredited" (NYT, AP). Mr Ernie (talk) 13:28, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
    • Mr Ernie, what is your point by repeating that? We know that description has been used in RS, and we document that fact. End of story. Why do you keep harping on about it (again, again, again)? Do you have a reason for doing that? Are you implying it is some final nail in the coffin for every allegation in the dossier? Are you implying that no allegations are true or that all the allegations are false? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 17:04, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
      • I was pointing out to Andrevan and anyone who reads his comment that the "not much in the report has been specifically discredited" line is not supported by the 2 RS that I linked. It could be that some editors may be still going off of what was contemporaneously reported around the time of the Dossier's publication and not what has developed since. Both the NYT and that AP piece were published within the last year, and the time that has elapsed has allowed for further study by RS. As long as editors come here and claim things that RS does not support I'll try my best to point them to sources where they can get more up to date. Mr Ernie (talk) 18:27, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
        • I guess this comes down to what is meant by "discredited." As noted below by NadVolum, "discredited" doesn't have a "clear cut meaning here." What meaning do you attribute to it? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 19:02, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

"Discredited" is in the second sentence, which seems like a very prominent location: "Five years later, it was described by mainstream media as "largely discredited",[4][5] "deeply flawed",[6] and "largely unverified".[7]" There is no need to change that. Also, the OP's comment is mostly false. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 05:55, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

I am unsure how being discredited means it is not controversial, surely being made up would be controversial? Slatersteven (talk) 13:18, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

I don't think anyone has shown any of it was made up. I think controversial is fine since there definitely is controversy about it. I don't think discredited actually has a clear cut meaning here. NadVolum (talk) 14:45, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

I was erring on the worst-case scenario side of things, that we can show it was all falsified, even then it would still be a controversy and thus controversial. In fact, if anything that would make it even more controversial. Slatersteven (talk) 14:48, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

NadVolum, you're right that "discredited" doesn't have a "clear cut meaning here." It's a dubious description used by a few journalists (not sure if it's more than 3-4) who are revealing their ignorance, but we still document their use of the term. We really should attribute those claims/descriptions because of their dubious nature. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 17:00, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Are there any sources that any reasonable people believe the report? TFD (talk) 15:59, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Does that matter, a lie can be controversial due to it being lie. That is what this is about " It is not "controversial"" , not "it is not true". Slatersteven (talk) 16:03, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Believe every speculation is correct? Of course not. Believe many portions are valid? Yes. Read the article. None of which affects the use of the term "controversial" since "public disagreement" obviously still exists, as we are demonstrating here. O3000, Ret. (talk) 16:33, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Correct. The dossier will always be controversial. Just because some sources make overly broad and provably false claims that imply it is all/completely "discredited" (a claim, not a fact) does not mean it isn't controversial. On the contrary. No "reasonable" person who has examined the dossier's claims and the evidence for and against each one (IOW read this article) would believe or disbelieve every allegation. Some (especially the central claims) proved to be clearly true (and predated the FBI's confirmations by six months), many are unconfirmed and will likely never be confirmed, and a few (such as a few typos) may be false, but we aren't even sure about that. "Reasonable people" can disagree and that means it is controversial. Subject matter experts in the intelligence community still tend to give it more credit than some writers. It is political opposition research, and that is always controversial. Can we close this thread yet? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:48, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

TFD, just to make sure you get the point... NO "reasonable people" completely dis"believe the report". Reasonable people believe its central allegations and recognize that most of the other allegations may be true (they explain actual events), but also recognize that we just don't know for sure. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:54, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Valjean and O3000. Andre🚐 22:35, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

It is not reasonable to believe things with no evidence whatsoever. Trump supporters believe lots of unsupported alternative facts. Do you consider them reasonable? TFD (talk) 22:45, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

But there's tons of evidence. Just, a lot of it is circumstantial so it can't be used by prosecutors. Andre🚐 22:47, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

TFD, yes and no. "to believe things with no evidence whatsoever" is not the case. "Whatsoever" is wrong. There are many states of "evidence" from disproven, unlikely, neutral, likely, to proven. Many are neutral, likely, and/or proven. Few are unlikely or disproven. That leaves us with a situation where the "reasonableness" of belief or disbelief isn't an absolute, except for absolute disbelief, which is unreasonable for nearly 100% of the allegations.

There are indications that many of the unproven allegations are more likely true than false. For example the pee tape. Lack of evidence is not evidence of lack. There is more evidence for the existence of some unproven claims than against them, so leaving the door open while not explicitly "believing" the allegations is a reasonable position. Closing the door is unreasonable and usually based on political beliefs, not an examination of the evidence.

Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. The pee tape allegation doesn't even get close to being an "extraordinary" claim. It is thoroughly consistent with Trump's other known behaviors and the strategies of Russian intelligence. It is also consistent with other similar activities where multiple intelligence agencies say that Russia has multiple tapes of Trump's sexual activities in multiple locations in Russia. Those are their allegations. Trump has never denied being a playboy. That is no proof that the pee tape allegation is true. We don't know, but we do know that Trump took the allegation seriously enough to have his fixer, Cohen, do what he usually does. He sought to track down the alleged tapes so they could be destroyed. An innocent person does not act that way. Also, an innocent man does not repeatedly lie about it when the lies were unnecessary. That's a big red flag that caused Comey, an unbeliever in that allegation, to change his mind and become a "maybe peeliever."

The other unproven allegations are likewise not extraordinary, and they usually explain known events.

Your comparison to belief in the strongly disproven "election fraud" claims is grossly improper. I'm surprised you'd do that. Unproven and disproven are very different things. To quote you: "It is not reasonable to believe things with no evidence whatsoever." Every serious attempt to examine proposed "evidence" of fraud, even by GOP leadership and Trump's Attorney General, DOJ appointees, and judges, found no legitimate evidence of any form of widespread election fraud. None. It is totally unreasonable to believe Trump's Big Lie. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:29, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

There is no pee tape. It is unreasonable of you to still believe it exists. Mr Ernie (talk) 19:23, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

We don't know, but Trump acted as if it existed. It is unreasonable to full-heartedly believe it exists or that it doesn't exist. Neither position aligns with the available evidence. Extreme positions like yours aren't helpful. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 23:36, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Why are we calling it "pee tape?" That's tawdry. Why not call it the "alleged Russian prostitute video"? That is both more descriptive and NPOV. It might help focus any further discussion of the matter. SPECIFICO talk 23:43, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

I think it should be called the "alleged kompromat video(s)." And I do believe it exists in some form, though perhaps the details of what it is are not correct. Steele also still believes it probably exists[8]. It's not reasonable to say it definitively doesn't exist since nothing has actually falsified the claim that it does exist that I am aware of. Andre🚐 23:46, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

That source says “there is no evidence to support the existence of the tape,” but you say you believe it exists? Typically that’s called a fringe view. Mr Ernie (talk) 23:54, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

You have no evidence I ate my breakfast this morning. Are you sure Steele made up the story or was fooled by someone and that Trump would not do such a thing? NadVolum (talk) 00:06, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

That is my view but I did not say that view belongs in the article. The article should state that there is no evidence of the tape. Andre🚐 00:12, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

Mr Ernie, please, read more carefully before making false claims about my beliefs. AGF and don't do that anymore. How many times do I have to repeat to you that "We don't know"? "I" am part of "we". That means "I don't know." It also means that you don't know that it doesn't exist either. I think it likely exists, and that the available evidence points more to its existence than to its nonexistence, but we don't know. I do not depend on what one source says. I form my opinions from the totality of the sources. Unlike you, I am open to what the evidence says and wouldn't be surprised if we someday get evidence that it really does exist. I also wouldn't be surprised if no conclusive evidence ever appears, but "the truth will out." These things tend to get exposed if there is really something to them, and Trump is likely still nervous about that. That may explain his fixation on bringing it up out of the blue in odd situations. That reveals he's thinking about it.

We do know that Trump acted as if it existed and that he lied repeatedly about the matter. Innocent people don't act that way. It is his own actions that make me, like Comey and others, a "maybe peeliever." That is not an unreasonable position. We neither believe nor disbelieve. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 00:13, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

I'd have thought even the most narcissistic psycho would know better than to go on about the elections being stolen by now so I don't know how much I can infer by reasoning about his actions. NadVolum (talk) 16:43, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Misleading Lede

The decision issued by Judge Ursula Ungaro did not "defend" the publication by Buzzfeed. It simply held that the defamation case could not proceed under New York state law because the issue had been part of a government investigation. The judge did not weigh in on the merits of the dossier, nor "defend" it. She simply held that the defamation case could not be presented, because of prior government action. Buzzfeed subsequently apologized to the Russian who brought the defamation action, and redacted his information from their site. The reference (#27) should be maintained, while the language regarding the court "defending" the publication should be deleted due to it being both incorrect and lending itself to the false impression that the court defended the veracity of the work. Gulbenk (talk) 18:50, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

The sentence is clearly about the publication of the dossier, not its allegations or veracity, but we could tweak it to make it clearer.

Our article currently contains the following about Judge Ungaro's reaction to the publication:

• BuzzFeed's decision to publish the reports without verifying their allegations was criticized by journalists and defended by a court ruling.
• Ungaro wrote that the "privilege exists to protect the media while they gather information needed for the public to exercise effective oversight of the government". She also noted that, before the FBI received any reports from Steele, they had "already opened a counterintelligence investigation into links between Russia and the Trump campaign".
• On December 19, 2018, Judge Ursula Ungaro sided with BuzzFeed News in the defamation suit filed by Gubarev, defending BuzzFeed's privilege to publish and the public's right to know about the allegations against Trump.

The current wording in the lead is a short summary of: "defending BuzzFeed's privilege to publish and the public's right to know about the allegations against Trump." That's why "defend" is a good word, but, as suggested, we can tweak it to make sure no one misunderstands.

How about this:

• change from "and defended by a court ruling" to "and a court ruling defended its publication by BuzzFeed and the public's right to know about the allegations against Trump.

Will that work for you? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me)

I can see that more work is required here. The ruling itself had to do with a principal in (NY) law that a civil action (for defamation, here) cannot be brought if there has been a government investigation (even if the facts of that investigation were/are not made public). That part of the ruling is controlling. Then there is the judge's aside (dicta) about the 1st amendment protections accorded the press. That is an expression of the court's opinion that goes beyond the facts before the court. It is simply the individual view of the judge, and not binding in subsequent cases as legal precedent. It is that part, the part that was not part of the binding legal precedent, where the judge opined about the right to place the unsubstantiated dossier in the public arena. It is not an opinion about the veracity of the document. It does not defend the dossier in any way. It is a restatement about the wide latitude granted to the press through the 1st amendment.

So... if we are talking about the court's ruling, it has everything to do with a previous government investigation barring a civil action.

If we are talking about the court's statement, regarding BuzzFeed, that is about their right to publish an unverified document under the protections granted by the 1st Amendment.

The court was "defending" the 1st amendment, not Buzzfeed.

YOUR SUGGESTION - "and a court ruling defended its publication by BuzzFeed and the public's right to know about the allegations against Trump.

MY SUGGESTION - "and a statement by the court that the 1st Amendment protects the publication of even unverified allegations against Trump"

Gulbenk (talk) 20:50, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

I think I understand some of your point(s). Obviously, it is not about the veracity of the document or its allegations, and with some tweaks we can make sure no one gets that idea. It is also not a court ruling, but the judge's opinion. Both the ruling and judge's opinion were favorable to BuzzFeed. That should be fixed. (We also know it's also related to the 1st Amendment although it's not mentioned, so we don't need to mention it either. It's also too broad a concept to give any real information. We need to keep the focus on the exact aspects justifying publication.) The court was defending BuzzFeed's action. In spite of all the criticism, the law and public good were on their side.

Now we need to look at the context here. The lead sums up content in the body. The immediate circumstances are documentation of the attacks on BuzzFeed for publishing the dossier before vetting its content (and some of that criticism was justified). This was not normal journalistic practice, BUT, OTOH, this was not a normal situation, and the judge noted that. The dossier was already "out there" and was subject to investigation by the FBI, so this provided clarity to the public about its actual contents and what was going on. Secrecy and censorship would be counterproductive. BuzzFeed's action was actually, according to the judge, for the public good, and that is a factor in legal judgments. The public had a right to know so it could "exercise effective oversight of the government."

So we've got a balance situation where criticism is not presented as if it was the only reaction to BuzzFeed's actions. We also document the other side of the coin, the positive support provided by the court ruling and the judge's commentary. We need to maintain that balance. The focus is on the publication by BuzzFeed, nothing else. We document the "what was 'bad' and 'good' about their action. The part we're tweaking is the "good" part.

Here's the original:

• BuzzFeed's decision to publish the reports without verifying their allegations was criticized by journalists and defended by a court ruling.

Here's my latest suggestion:

• BuzzFeed's decision to publish the reports without verifying their allegations was criticized by journalists but also defended in a court statement explaining that BuzzFeed's action was for the public good as the public had a right to know so it could "exercise effective oversight of the government".

That leaves out mention of Trump and the allegations, keeps focus on the "for and against" factors, and cites the judge. Are we getting closer? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 22:52, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Sorry about the delay in my response. Real life intervenes sometimes. This is progress, and that is appreciated. Not mentioning the First Amendment is pretty impossible. It is the raison d'être regarding "freedom of the press". That is the specific freedom that allows for the publication of this unverified document. The 1st amendment does not "defend" BuzzFeed or the document, it "allows" publication. The correct wording is that

..."was criticized by journalists, but allowed by the Court which cited 1st Amendment protections assuring freedom of the press.

Then there is the court's finding about defamation. It pivots on a technical issue in NY law. Nothing to do with First Amendment rights. But I should note that there is a phrase or term, regarding that court judgement, that has been corrupted in this article (and perhaps intentionally in several national newspaper accounts). The "fair and true" requirement ("fair report privilege" in our article) does not mean either that the document is true or a fair presentation of the facts. For the defamation action to fail, Buzzfeed had to convince the court that the dossier a was true and fair reproduction of the document under government scrutiny. If Buzzfeed had published a paraphrasing or summary of the document, their defense would have faltered. So, the court wasn't weighing in on anything more than an "apples and apples" comparison. Gulbenk (talk)

Keep in mind this is for the lead, so we can't summarize everything in the body. We just need to show the contrast in reception of BuzzFeed's action, and we do that good enough for the lead. Neither the source nor the go into an extensive explanation of the first amendment, and, as mentioned, just saying "first amendment" is far too broad to be informative. What we say is much more specific and informative. I'll go ahead and install the revised version as an improvement that serves the needs for the lead.-- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:17, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

References

Held off on this for nearly 3 years - I whisper Blumenthal, Blumenthal, Blumenthal

This violates our WP:BLP policy. If there are specific concerns that can be documented by reference to reliable sources, they may be stated below SPECIFICO talk 20:39, 18 December 2022 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Now that the lead debate has stabilized after years of poor craftmanship and total lack of read of the press bias. The second dossier got buried because by the time it emerged, it was clear in the public sphere what both were, drafts of opposition research, of poor and repitiouse quality. That the media went with the first as fact for another year and buried the existence of the second is interesting in the arc of a bogus news story. How to communicate that to a reader who does not understand the Mainstream Media feedback loop via the Clinton world. In 2016 terms.... Blumenthal is the Clintons in the dark toad, who gives the NYT the whisper preview of hit and feeds other whispers to the Clintons. Mooks team would edit the hit, in a now familiar feedback loop with the NYT. James Carvel pounds the hit into sand with the old line media as the hit breaks into so many pieces that its creditability is suspect but it has 2000 references in the medai already, but James is the one with creditability who puts the story in press epoxy. There seems to be a FBI, DNC and social media component that is external to the Steele dossier, yes Frenchman, we don't talk about that yet....another 3 years away in wiki time. Connection to Christopher Steele and the second Steele Dossier "Journalist and former Clinton aide Cody Shearer had created a so-called second dossier that was filled with notes from his conversations journalists and other sources. Shearer gave these notes to Blumenthal and several other journalists. Blumenthal passed on the notes to Jonathan Winer at the State Department, who had a previous relationship with Christopher Steele. In September 2016 Blumenthal discussed Steele's report with Winer and told him that the information was similar to information he had received from Shearer. Winer then gave the notes to Steele, who then passed them on to the FBI in October and said it came from a friend of the Clintons." Needs Expansion. 2601:248:C000:3F:DC09:68E3:B469:8138 (talk) 15:51, 18 December 2022 (UTC) I was tempted to just delete this section as a partisan, conspiratorial, violation of WP:NOTFORUM, but I want to investigate and exhaust any missed opportunities. If you can write more specifically, without the partisan views, please provide suggested wording, with the RS we can use to back it up. What do you have? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 17:58, 18 December 2022 (UTC) I was reminded of Tom Lehrer's 'I got it from Agnes' by all the allusion and handing from one person to another. How about just getting rid of all the aspersions? NadVolum (talk) 19:00, 18 December 2022 (UTC) Yes, without anything new in RS since 2018 about Max Blumenthal and the dossier, we're left with Blumenthal's attempts to cover up his role by going full conspiracy mode in his tweets, which seem to imply that the focus on the proven Russian interference is wasted effort or something like that. He seems to be a "Russiagate denialist" now. That's all I can find, and among my myriad Google alerts is this "blumenthal steele dossier" alert. It's been a long time since that was triggered, and nothing in a RS. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 19:22, 18 December 2022 (UTC) Wrong man. It was Max's father Sidney Blumenthal. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 01:31, 22 December 2022 (UTC) What I see here is WP:BLP violations. O3000, Ret. (talk) 19:58, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

"Research funded by conservative website" is extraneous, unclear, and ultimately confusing

Both the title and the content of the section "Research funded by conservative website" are confusing.

Yes, Fusion GPS had done prior Trump oppo research on behalf of The Free Beacon. But given that none of that research formed the basis for, or was ever included in the Steele Dossier—its inclusion in this article is questionable. Worse, the presentation of the information is painfully convoluted and ultimately opaque.

The only rationale I can see for including it is that the Steele Dossier was incorrectly attributed in part to the Beacon-funded research—an error by the AP (and others) that was subsequently corrected.

Assuming that is the reason for including it, then it could be made a lot clearer—from the title on. My suggestions would be:

1. Change the title to something like "Misattribution to research funded by The Free Beacon"
2. State clearly at the beginning, in Wikivoice, that a misattribution occurred and that none of the research funded by the Beacon ended up in the dossier (right now, that is only stated in the Beacon's press release, near the end of the section).
3. Greatly trim and streamline the section—there's no need to go into any detail or length about the research done, since it's irrelevant to the dossier (and thus to the article). It might be appropriate to the articles about Fusion GPS or the Free Beacon, but not to this one.

Look forward to any and all thoughts and collaboration—thanks! ElleTheBelle 20:37, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

I disagree, it's relevant, not misattributed. Fusion GPS was originally hired by Washington Free Beacon, that is relevant background, and it did form the basis for the subsequent investigation. Please provide a citation for otherwise or the AP correction you say was corrected. I also oppose trimming or streamlining this. Andre🚐 21:48, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

Hi ElleTheBelle. We always welcome suggestions for improvement, and you touch on some good points. Let me start by explaining the reasoning behind that section. It is part of the "History" section, and sources that discuss it always do so in the context of the dossier, hence it all belongs here. It is important prehistory to the dossier, even though none of it ended up in the dossier. The confusion was a big problem in the media, and we clear that up here. Can we do it better? The fact you brought your concerns here indicates that we should, so we'll try.

I have tried to rework some wordings, split paragraphs up into smaller bites, alter some headings, and changed some levels, all to make it clearer. I hope it's better now. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 21:55, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

See also section

I removed a link, Trump: The Kremlin Candidate?, that is already linked in the article. Not sure why this edit was reverted with the edit summary that it isn't linked? Malerooster (talk) 18:11, 25 February 2023 (UTC) ps, I removed 2 more links that are linked below the section. If an editor wants to go against MOS, that is fine, just state why here so it can be discussed, thank you. --Malerooster (talk) 18:15, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

None of the links in a template count as article content, that's why your deletions are all wrong. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 21:38, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Can some of these links be added to the further reading section? Ideally, there shouldn't be ANY see also links. --Malerooster (talk) 18:38, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Are you joking?

1. Maybe. Sometimes a listing in the See also section can be moved to the Further reading section. (Any nominations?)
2. BS. There is no such policy. See also sections are sometimes quite large (in excess of 30 links).

A See also section is for "tangentially" related stuff, not necessarily "directly" related. A book on a topic other than the dossier, but with some good chapters about it, would qualify for the See also section, not necessarily the Further reading section. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 21:38, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

I have restored the status quo version per BRD. Let's see the results of this discussion before making any changes. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 21:47, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

That's fine. I wouldn't say BS though, since many high-quality and comprehensive articles do not have a See also section. I know this is a poorly written article, but I am sure you agree that we can do better than the current status quo. --Malerooster (talk) 22:30, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Indeed! I wholly agree about improvement. Any suggestions are always welcome. Since you write "poorly written", I suspect you can be more specific. That would be most helpful. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 22:36, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

I can't help you. --Malerooster (talk) 22:40, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Unsupported claim.

In the section on "Two Research operations and confusion between them", the following claim is made with no supporting documentation, other than claims made by Free Beacon themselves (which doesn't even come close to Wikipedia's sourcing requirements):

"The first operation, from October 2015 to May 2016, was domestic research funded by The Washington Free Beacon based on public sources, none of which ended up in the dossier. It was later misattributed as research for what became the Steele dossier."

There is absolutely no doubt that the Steele dossier included publicly sourced information. There has never been independent evidence to demonstrate that the research funded by free Beacon did not also end up in the dossier, and there is no reliable reporting that states this. It is known that the Free Beacon research did include Trump-Russia links, and it would be surprising if the more comprehensive (but perhaps problematic) later efforts included none of this information.

Battling McGook (talk) 08:16, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Battling McGook , I can see how this is confusing. That section is a lead for the two following subsections, and they are well-sourced. Do you have a suggestion on how we can avoid this happening again? (This is the first time anyone has said anything.) I have now tweaked the headings and bolded the operations. Maybe that will help. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 19:35, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

It's not merely confusing. This claim: "none of which ended up in the dossier" is not supported by any source as far as I can tell. If no source backs this up, it must be removed. Battling McGook (talk) 01:43, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Okay, Battling McGook, since the paraphrase (what we are supposed to do most of the time) is confusing, let's use an exact quote and attribute it. Check out the result now. I hope that fixes the problem. If you find anything else that is confusing, please bring it to our attention. We don't want any confusion or inaccuracies.

Even though many editors have developed this article (articles here are never "finished"), and 325 editors currently watch it, we are only human, so "many eyes" help. Thanks for catching that issue. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 02:13, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

This is much better. I still have a problem with the word "misattributed" in the following sentence, as it has the appearance of agreeing with Free Beacon's claim. The issue is further clouded by Fusion GPS claim that that the second investigation was going "to continue research". We don't want to get bogged down in literal or figurative interpretations of Free Beacon's claim about what they received versus the Steele dossier (i.e. it could be that there is no exactly matching text, or it could be that there is literally no subject matter overlap). The point is that it remains unknown to what degree these efforts are related, and there are descriptions from two parties that appear to be in conflict (again depending on strict interpretations). Maybe something like "Despite this claim, some outlets continued to attribute Steele dossier research to Free Beacon." Battling McGook (talk) 02:44, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Okay, let's look at "misattributed" in context:

The first operation, from October 2015 to May 2016, was domestic research funded by The Washington Free Beacon based on public sources. According to the Free Beacon, "none of the work product that the Free Beacon received appears in the Steele dossier". It was later misattributed as research for what became the Steele dossier.

It is a fact that, until more revelations came out, the media confused the first and second operations. It was often stated that the dossier started as a product of the Republican oppo research on Trump. That was a false assumption, and with time the media got it sorted out. They were two completely different operations. The dossier was an exclusive product of the work for the Clinton campaign.

We could assume, but not write in the article, that the info about Trump's Russian connections contained in the "voluminous files"[9] Fusion GPS got from Wayne Barrett, may have later gotten into Steele's hands. Maybe he even started by looking at those leads. That would have supplemented the info from his Russian sources. That is pure speculation for this talk page, and cannot be used for this article. We have zero info about that. We can only write that in the beginning Barrett's files helped Fusion GPS. Later, after the Republican operation stopped, Fusion GPS changed clients and the focus of their investigation and sought help from Steele. He was the top Russia expert.

There is no evidence in the dossier that most of its info came from anyone other than Steele's sources. Some things were publicly available, but the background was from his sources and not public. Unfortunately for us, and for the Clinton campaign (for whom the dossier was mostly useless), much of the background info was of the type that is nearly impossible to corroborate without interviewing the sources, and they were unwitting sources whose lives would be endangered if anyone talked to them and sought to corroborate what was said in private. They would of course deny everything. That info will likely always remain unconfirmed, which does not mean false. Yet it does have value as it explains the background of many public events.

Since the problem seems to be the wording "It was later misattributed as research for what became the Steele dossier.", maybe we should reword that to remove any ambiguity. Let's try this:

In the beginning, the media sometimes falsely assumed that the dossier started as a product of this research.

To make it easier, here it is in context (I already made some small tweaks to the "second operation"):

The first operation (for Republicans), from October 2015 to May 2016, was domestic research funded by The Washington Free Beacon based on public sources. According to the Free Beacon, "none of the work product that the Free Beacon received appears in the Steele dossier". In the beginning, the media sometimes falsely assumed that the dossier started as a product of this research.
The second operation (for Democrats), from April 2016 to December 2016, was Trump–Russia research funded by the Clinton campaign and DNC. Only this second operation produced the dossier.

I have also harmonized the two headings:

1. First operation: Research funded by Republicans does not produce dossier
2. Second operation: Research funded by Democrats produces dossier

Does that wording work for you? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 07:01, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Further improvements.

You are the only person in a very long time who has questioned this subject matter, and that shows it is not worded good enough. Because of the early confusion in the media, we even had a mention of this in the lead to clear up the confusion. At some point that was removed as it was no longer necessary, leaving what was in the body. I still think it could be worded better because it did confuse you, and that's not good. Part has been improved, but there may be more to do. Let's look at what we know about the two operations and see what can cause confusion and what can be reworded:

Opposition research on Donald Trump was in two distinct operations, and here are some of the variables: client and funding, topic(s), researchers, and sources. Are there more variables? We should include each factor in each description.

1. The first operation

1. Client and funding: Republicans
2. Topic(s): domestic business and entertainment activities
3. Researchers: Fusion GPS
4. Sources: Barrett's files and public sources

Improved sentence:

• The Republican operation focused on Trump's domestic business and entertainment activities; was performed by Fusion GPS; and used Wayne Barrett's files and public sources.

2. The second operation

1. Client and funding: Democrats
2. Topic(s): Trump's Russian connections
3. Researchers: Steele/Orbis
4. Sources: Steele's network of subsources and some public sources

Improved sentence:

• The Democratic operation was focused on Trump's Russian connections; was subcontracted to Steele/Orbis; and used Steele's own source network and public sources.

When used with what we have, it would look like this:

The Republican operation, from October 2015 to May 2016, focused on Trump's domestic business and entertainment activities; was performed by Fusion GPS; and used Wayne Barrett's files and public sources. According to the Free Beacon, "none of the work product that the Free Beacon received appears in the Steele dossier". In the beginning, the media sometimes falsely assumed that the dossier started as a product of this research.

The Democratic operation, from April 2016 to December 2016, was focused on Trump's Russian connections; was subcontracted to Steele/Orbis; and used Steele's own source network and public sources. Only this second operation produced the dossier.

I hope that is less confusing. Please help us develop and improve this. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 17:00, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

I have now installed this improved version. It is less confusing, and with some altered headings it's even better. No content has been lost. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 04:39, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

References

Seeking more insights from Battling McGook

Battling McGook, you seem to have an insightful and inquisitive mind, and you make some comments above that make me want to explore your thinking about the subject matter under investigation by Fusion GPS and later by Steele's sources. Maybe you have some insights and sources that we can use to improve this article. Let me start with some info to seed the discussion.

The first phase of work done by Fusion GPS for Republicans focused on Trump's business and entertainment activities, largely from public sources. They also received Wayne Barrett's files on Trump that contained findings about "Trump's past dealings, including tax and bankruptcy problems, potential ties to organized crime, and numerous legal entanglements. They also revealed that Trump had an unusually high number of connections to Russians with questionable backgrounds." This alarmed researchers at Fusion GPS. Keep in mind that the Russian hackings were happening around this time.

Then Trump became the presumptive nominee and Singer stopped funding the research by Fusion GPS, so they sat there with all this research and unanswered questions. As a business, they sought another client and approached the Clinton campaign, whose lawyer, Marc Elias, hired them to perform opposition research, something that all campaigns do. Since they had already done what they could with the available public information, and the Russia questions looked like a good avenue to research, Fusion GPS approached Steele, who was an old acquaintance. (The Clinton campaign knew nothing of this subcontracting until later.)

They subcontracted Steele (Orbis Business Intelligence), whom they knew was Britain's top expert on Russia, and they knew he could start chasing down the leads they had and get even more information from his network. Steele then contacted his main sub-source Danchenko, a paid "collector", who had his network of unwitting and unpaid sub-subsources. Even though Danchenko was so valuable a source that the FBI hired him, and he did amazingly well for them, Galkina, an old friend of Danchenko's and an unwitting source, was later considered "the dossier's most important contributor". She had been in many different and important positions and had contacts everywhere, all the way into the Kremlin.

BBC correspondent Paul Wood, writing in The Spectator, wrote: "Steele had '20 to 30' sources for the dossier and in two decades as a professional intelligence officer he had never seen such complete agreement by such a wide range of sources."

After the election, Steele, on his own, continued to research the Trump-Russia connections. On May 3, 2021, The Daily Telegraph reported that Steele and Orbis Business Intelligence, using new sources not used for the original dossier, continued to supply the FBI with raw intelligence during the Trump presidency. During an interview with the FBI in September 2017, Steele informed the FBI that Orbis had "four discrete, 'hermetically-sealed' main agent networks". His Primary sub-source for the dossier was no longer "active" at the time of the interview with FBI agents, but that another "main agent network is up and running and is now starting to get good information". This resulted in "a second dossier for the FBI on Donald Trump". It included further claims of Russian election meddling; "alleged Russian interference linked to Mr Trump and his associates"; claims about the "existence of further sex tapes"; and "further details of Mr Manafort's alleged Russian contacts".

What do you think of that info? Do you have any insights and sources we can use? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 03:30, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

I don't want to get involved in a major rewrite effort. And a lot that I would have to offer is useless, because it would be considered primary research. For example, I know that Free Beacon continued paying Fusion GPS long after they claimed their Trump research stopped. They don't count that because it wasn't Trump research... but it WAS Paul Manafort research. So I know that Free Beacon was paying Fusion to research Manafort, and Fusion was paying Steele to research Manafort, and that this ended up in the Steele dossier. But the only thing I have found that says this is the Congressional interview of the boss/chief editor at Free Beacon. There's no secondary (news) sources that covered this fact at all. So based on Wikipedia rules as I understand them, this can't go into the article.

I don't want to get into some giant Wikipedia fight about how articles can and should be sourced. And this is also why I didn't directly edit the article for the changes I wanted. So, yeah, like I said, I don't want to get involved in any larger effort to rewrite this. Battling McGook (talk) 02:12, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Hi Battling McGook. Thanks for returning. Would you mind providing the sources you have found? No need to worry. Maybe you're onto something, and with more people searching, we might be able to figure out a way to use this. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 02:43, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Here's three different copies of the House interview where Free Beacon Chariman was interviewed by the House select committee on intelligence, on Dec 12, 2017. The third is from the most official source but isn't text searchable. Pages 14, 15 (and elsewhere) describes their ongoing research into Manafort.

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6884135-Interview-Transcript-of-Michael-Goldfarb

https://d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net/static/2020/05/mg17.pdf

https://www.odni.gov/files/HPSCI_Transcripts/2019-05-01-MichaelGo-MTR.pdf Battling McGook (talk) 00:17, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Battling McGook, holy shit! We were on the same page. Yesterday I added a source. It's the ODNI one, and I used the other one to search. I'll check these out. Is there any particular wording we should look for? Primary sources can sometimes be used for uncontroversial information. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 00:27, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Battling McGook, from my reading of that source, it appears that Fusion GPS worked for The Washington Free Beacon from September 1, 2015, until February 2017, when the dossier was published:

MR. SCHIFF: When was the contract with Fusion GPS terminated?
MR. GOLDFARB: In February of 2017, we paid our final invoice.
MR. SCHIFF: And why was it terminated?
MR. GOLDFARB: I was -- I was kind of shocked at the publication of the dossier, and the realization that Fusion had played a role in that. And I thought that was really a pretty toxic document that I didn't want to associate the Washington Free Beacon with. And so our relationship ended pretty abruptly at that point. (Page 29)

This wiki article is about the dossier, and the mention of the Republican research (normally off-topic here) is only provided as a necessary prehistory. We need to mention it because RS mistakenly connected it to production of the dossier, forcing the Free Beacon to issue statements denying any connection to the dossier. (We don't write anything about any connections to Fusion GPS for any other research, including on Manafort, because that is not related to the dossier or mentioned in any RS in that way, including by this pdf document.)

You wrote:

• "So I know that Free Beacon was paying Fusion to research Manafort, and Fusion was paying Steele to research Manafort, and that this ended up in the Steele dossier."

Yes, Steele's research on Manafort ended up in the dossier, but Steele never worked for the Free Beacon, and whatever he wrote about Manafort was from a Russian and Deripaska angle. Are you implying that Fusion GPS later gave some of their research (that they did for the Free Beacon) on Manafort to Steele, and that he put it into the dossier? We would need sourcing for that. This pdf document seems to pour cold water on that idea as Goldfarb read all of it, including the dossier, and saw zero overlap:

• "When I read the dossier, the thing I was interested on to see if there was overlap was the Manafort section and I felt pretty confident at the end of my review that there was in fact no overlap." (p. 45)

It would certainly be interesting to read the stuff on Manafort that Fusion GPS produced for the Free Beacon, but it appears that it had no connection to the dossier. It was performed purely because Goldfarb knew of Manafort's shady reputation and his corrupt dealings with Russians and other autocrats and dictators. (Manafort's own daughters texted with each other about how their father had people killed.[10][11][12]) Goldfarb saw Manafort's connection to the Trump campaign as worrying and decided to have Fusion GPS do some research on him. That's what I get from this document. This was all happening parallel to the dossier timewise, but with no connection. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 03:19, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Please read the following content (and sources) from the article and see if there is anything misleading or inaccurate in it:

• The Republican operation, from October 2015 to May 2016, focused on Trump's domestic business and entertainment activities; was performed by Fusion GPS; and used Wayne Barrett's files and public sources. Immediately after the publication of the dossier, the media sometimes falsely assumed that the dossier started as a product of this research, so the Free Beacon released this statement: "none of the work product that the Free Beacon received appears in the Steele dossier".
• The Democratic operation, from April 2016 to December 2016, was focused on Trump's Russian connections; was subcontracted to Steele/Orbis; and used Steele's own source network and public sources. Only this second operation produced the dossier.

If you find anything wrong or any holes in our coverage, we certainly want to fix that. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 03:19, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

References

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion:

• Screenshot 20230131 151646 Samsung Notes~5.jpg

You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 23:52, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

I nommed this. I think this could reasonably fall under fair use rules, but I won't do it because I don't really think it's necessary. It'd be another thing if it were possible to upload all 29 pages in PDF format, but we can't do that, and one fair use page I don't think would do much. Won't bother objecting if someone else does it though. Snowmanonahoe (talk) 00:33, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

I think you're right, it would be fair use, not a CC own work upload to Commons. What that means is that @Valjean should re-upload this to enwiki if he so chooses as fair use. Andre🚐 00:38, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

I am not used to uploading images to Wikipedia. Is there a special place to do it? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 02:25, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

There's a link on the left sidebar to the Wikipedia:File Upload Wizard. – Muboshgu (talk) 02:40, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

Okay, now uploaded and will install. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 02:44, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

Placement of "since described as..."

Right now this is the second sentence:

The dossier has since been described as "largely discredited", "deeply flawed", and "largely unverified".

I like Soni's placement at the end of the first paragraph. I don't think statements of opinion, especially because some of them are misleading (many originate with Trump and Trump-Russia revisionists/denialists), have weight enough for inclusion as the second sentence.

The "largely discredited" is the worst because it's simply wrong. To me, "discredited" implies "disproved", as in "shown to be wrong". "Largely discredited" is a falsifiable claim that is untrue. Very little is actually "disproved", and certainly nothing of importance. Most allegations are "unproven", and the most important allegations are proven true. We mention them in the first paragraph:

Vladimir Putin favored Trump over Hillary Clinton; that he personally ordered an "influence campaign" to harm Clinton's campaign and to "undermine public faith in the US democratic process"; that he ordered cyberattacks on both parties; and that many Trump campaign officials and associates had numerous secretive contacts with Russian agents.

Here it is in a format that's better for analysis:

1. Vladimir Putin favored Trump over Hillary Clinton;
2. that he personally ordered an "influence campaign" to harm Clinton's campaign
3. and to "undermine public faith in the US democratic process";
4. that he ordered cyberattacks on both parties;
5. and that many Trump campaign officials and associates had numerous secretive contacts with Russian agents.

Maybe "discredited" means something else to others, so let's discuss this. (Other synonyms of "discredited" are clearly a matter of opinion (so don't belong as second sentence): defame, degrade, destroy, disgrace, disparage, ruin, slander, smear, and vilify. From thesaurus.com. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 15:23, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

"Largely discredited" is an opinion that should remain in the body, but not mentioned in the lead. I propose we remove those opinions from the lead and revise that sentence into something like this and then place it nearer the end of the first paragraph:

Most of the dossier's other allegations remain unverified.

That produces this version:

Several key allegations made in June 2016 were later corroborated by the January 2017 report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, namely that Vladimir Putin favored Trump over Hillary Clinton; that he personally ordered an "influence campaign" to harm Clinton's campaign and to "undermine public faith in the US democratic process"; that he ordered cyberattacks on both parties; and that many Trump campaign officials and associates had numerous secretive contacts with Russian agents. Most of the dossier's other allegations remain unverified.

How's that? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 15:36, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Support your version Andre🚐 19:09, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

I am much happier with this version, though we must be careful to not pass over the WP:OR line on this.

"Largely discredited" is an opinion that should remain in the body, but not mentioned in the lead.

This makes sense to me.

My concern with putting the discrediting in 2nd line was that it messes with chronological order and therefore, understanding what happened after what. This version is clear, so I like it. Soni (talk) 19:51, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Okay, let me install this version. We can look at it and, if necessary, my edit can be reverted. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:29, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Now I need to find a place to restore this in the body:

The dossier has since been described as "largely discredited", "deeply flawed", and "largely unverified".

There is a place, I just have to find it. I have an idea!!! Let me work on it. It will do this type of content justice. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:44, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Alright, I have come up with this. (I may have missed some, so please let me know.):

Many critical epithets and opinions have been voiced against the dossier, including: #fake #RussianDossier, discredited, debunked, fictitious, fake news, phony, bogus, fake news, absolute fabrication, gossip, largely discredited, deeply flawed, largely unverified, and hoax.

This can be added as the beginning of the second paragraph here: Steele dossier#Varied observations of dossier's veracity. Feel free to suggest other locations and improvements. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 22:54, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Sources

Publication

This seems to be misplaced at the end of the first paragraph:

• It was published by BuzzFeed News on January 10, 2017,

I think it fits better in the second paragraph where BuzzFeed News is already mentioned. Placed there, we'd have something like this:

• It was published by BuzzFeed News on January 10, 2017. Their decision to publish the reports without verifying the allegations was criticized by journalists. The decision was defended in a court statement explaining that BuzzFeed's action was for the public good as the public had a right to know so it could "exercise effective oversight of the government".

How's that version? (I have split an existing long sentence into two sentences.) -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 21:40, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

I buy it. It's smoother and better placed.

Consider However, the decision was defended.. or However, it was defended.. maybe? Soni (talk) 01:16, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

SHORTENING

In the interests of shortening that even more, I suggest we shorten the last sentence:

1. OLD: The decision was defended in a court statement explaining that BuzzFeed's action was for the public good as the public had a right to know so it could "exercise effective oversight of the government".
2. NEW: A judge defended BuzzFeed's action as the public has a right to "exercise effective oversight of the government".

How's that version? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 23:11, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

The shortened version is much better.

Actually, consider the public has a right to know to "exercise effective oversight of the government".. Because I feel like not including the words "right to know" misses important enough context. Soni (talk) 01:16, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

Using both of your ideas, we end up with this:

• It was published by BuzzFeed News on January 10, 2017. Their decision to publish the reports without verifying the allegations was criticized by journalists. However, a judge defended BuzzFeed's action as the public has a right to know to "exercise effective oversight of the government".

I'll go ahead and install it. As usual, improvements are always welcome. Nothing here is set in stone or ever really finished. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 01:43, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

 Done -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 01:47, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

Sources

Date changed from June to July. Why?

Soni, you made an edit which changed the date from June to July. The exact date on Report 80 is "20 June 2016". Do you know something I don't? That's entirely possible, so I haven't reverted your edit. What's up?

Your previous edit is good. Thanks. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 03:15, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Oh it was? I was following this diff from just before I was copyediting, and it said July. But having checked this ref from just after that line, I can see June is right. Not sure where July came from in the page. Soni (talk) 06:05, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Soni, I have checked back in the history and found that I am the culprit. Then it got deleted and changed back and forth. Now it's finally right. Thanks for all your help.

Are there any specific sentences in the lead that should be broken up? I tend to write long, and since I'm one of the main editors of this page (mostly nit-picky small edits), some of my sentences do wax quite long. I can easily write a 4-6 line paragraph that's only one sentence. Sometimes the use of a colon and then several semicolons is justifiable. Other times it may deserve to be broken up. Familiarity with every detail of a topic means I don't notice what other readers would see as awkwardly worded content. Your fresh eyes are very welcome here. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 14:39, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

The rest of the lede still looks like it could use some clarity, but I'll try to put it into more exact words when I look at it with a comb.

Several key allegations made in June 2016 were later corroborated by the January 2017 report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, namely that Vladimir Putin favored Trump over Hillary Clinton; that he personally ordered an "influence campaign" to harm Clinton's campaign and to "undermine public faith in the US democratic process"; that he ordered cyberattacks on both parties; and that many Trump campaign officials and associates had numerous secretive contacts with Russian agents.

Ideally I'd like this line broken up into 2 sentences, I just am not seeing an obvious how yet. Soni (talk) 19:56, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I see what you mean. It's a long sentence that is logically broken up into subclauses by semicolons, so it's a perfectly proper sentence. Yet, since it bothers you, it may also bother others. Therefore it deserves attention. Let's see how it can be done...

Okay, I have tried and failed. The first phrase ("Several key allegations made in ...") applies to each element individually, and if those elements are broken apart into several sentences, even two, that phrase needs to be repeated, and that makes no sense. Since the sentence doesn't violate any grammatical or sentence structure rules, I think we should keep it, especially as the current version is also dealt with in the next thread. (So far you are the only one who has objected to that sentence, so maybe it doesn't bother other people.) -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:25, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Veracity of dossier

See also: Steele dossier § Veracity and corroboration status of specific allegations

The Steele dossier alleged there was a "conspiracy" of "cooperation" between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.

"Mueller reportedly interviewed the author of the Trump–Russia dossier—here's what it alleges, and how it aligned with reality"

• "Intelligence officials purposefully omitted the dossier from the public intelligence report they released in January about Russia's election interference because they didn't want to reveal which details they had corroborated, according to CNN."

Although the FBI understandably failed to corroborate many of the likely "impossible-to-verify allegations" in the Steele dossier, many of its other and most important allegations were proven true by events or the harmony between the FBI's sources and Steele's sources. James Comey said that when the FBI examined the Steele dossier, they found that "Some of it was consistent with our other intelligence, the most important part."

Steele's sources independently had information about Carter Page and the Russian offer in Moscow to use Clinton "dirt" and stolen emails to help Trump win, even though Steele knew nothing about Papadopoulos and an identical offer made to him in London months earlier. Even if Page's denial of meeting Divyekin is true, Steele's sources did make the allegation, confirming an identical type of offer they knew nothing about.

The FBI did not know about Papadopoulos at the time Steele's sources made the allegations about Carter Page. Yet here they were, reporting on a similar offer made by Divyekin to Page in Moscow. This fact confirmed what the FBI already knew from Papadopoulos and was one more piece of information that gave them so much confidence in the dossier when they first received some of it. The Russians used two Trump aides to make sure Trump knew Russia would help him win, and he welcomed and facilitated that help by cooperating with their election interference in myriad ways.

The Mueller Report confirmed that the dossier was correct that the Kremlin was behind the appearance of the DNC emails on WikiLeaks, noting that the Trump campaign "showed interest in WikiLeaks's releases of documents and welcomed their potential to damage candidate Clinton". It was later confirmed that Roger Stone was in contact with Wikileaks.

Several key allegations made by Steele's sources in July 2016 seemed prescient at the time, and were finally corroborated six months later in the 2017 assessment by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, namely that:

1. Vladimir Putin favored Trump over Hillary Clinton;
2. that he personally ordered an "influence campaign" to harm Clinton's electoral chances;
3. that he sought to "undermine public faith in the US democratic process";
4. that he ordered cyber attacks on the Democratic and Republican parties;
5. and that many Trump campaign officials and associates had numerous secretive contacts with Russian officials and spies.

Newsweek said "the dossier's main finding, that Russia tried to prop up Trump over Clinton, was confirmed by" that ODNI assessment. ABC News stated that "some of the dossier's broad implications—particularly that Russian President Vladimir Putin launched an operation to boost Trump and sow discord within the U.S. and abroad—now ring true."

The Mueller Report backed "Steele's central claim that the Russians ran a 'sweeping and systematic' operation ... to help Trump win".

Lawfare has noted that the "Mueller investigation has clearly produced public records that confirm pieces of the dossier. And even where the details are not exact, the general thrust of Steele's reporting seems credible in light of what we now know about extensive contacts between numerous individuals associated with the Trump campaign and Russian government officials."

In The New Yorker, Jane Mayer told how Steele's sources and a CIA agent's information "dovetailed". She said the allegation that Trump was favored by the Kremlin, and that they offered Clinton "dirt" to Trump's campaign, has proven true. She described how the CIA had a Russian government official working as "a human source inside the Russian government during the campaign, who provided information that dovetailed with Steele's reporting about Russia's objective of electing Trump and Putin's direct involvement in the operation." The spy had access to Putin and could actually take pictures of documents on Putin's desk. Because of the dangers imposed by Trump's recent careless disclosures of classified information to Russian officials, the CIA feared their spy was in danger, so the government official and his family were discretely exfiltrated during a family vacation to Montenegro.

Valjean (talk) (PING me) 01:32, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Sources

The lede

I reordered the sentences in the lede to make sense. It reads far more naturally now.

I also think the lede is not written very well. There's a lot of terminology and information in a single flowing sentence multiple times, when some of the qualifier words could be skipped, or the info could be given later in the article. Just the first paragraph alone could do with multiple such changes. Asking here before making any changes on those fronts. MOS:LEADREL is important (which is why I'm avoiding changing it up yet) but MOS:INTRO is not currently being followed (about text being accessible). Would welcome suggestions on parts of lede we can cut out.

Soni (talk) 00:08, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

Could you give an example of some text you would consider not accessible or the terminology/jargon you are referring to more specifically? Andre🚐 00:39, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

Several key allegations made in July 2016 were corroborated six months later in the January 2017 assessment by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, namely that Vladimir Putin favored Trump over Hillary Clinton; that he personally ordered an "influence campaign" to harm Clinton's electoral chances and "undermine public faith in the US democratic process"; that he ordered cyber attacks on the Democratic and Republican parties; and that many Trump campaign officials and associates had numerous secretive contacts with Russian officials and spies.

• This sentence strikes out particularly. It's such a run on sentence, that I personally forget what the sentence was by the time I reach the end. And I've tried to re-read it about 5-10 times now. It's not the only sentence with general "I don't think this is very readable" concerns for me, but indicative.

IMO, some of the text will have to be "de-prioritised" and removed from Lede in a way that maintains WP:DUE weight. Others would need to be split up into multiple sentences, and otherwise generally rewritten for voice.

Additionally we do not need 3-5 references for sentences on lede, I think after a point they become too much. Since the rest of the article uses the same references anyway, I'd recommend maybe having 2 references at a time in lede maximum. (I don't know if there's an essay or guideline wrt this).

That's generally my thoughts. I'm still trying to vocalise the rest and find the policy wrt the same. (P.S, is there a better templates for quoting something in indented text than Template:quote. I do not like how it messes with my indenting or shows the same colour/formatting as rest of text, but could not find the better templates.)

Soni (talk) 01:10, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

Hmm I'm not sure I agree and I don't really have a problem with the sentence. I don't want to deprioritize this text, I think it's important. A sentence being run-on doesn't make it inaccessible or mean that it has a high usage of confusing/specialized jargon or terminology. These are ordinary words and perfectly understandable. Andre🚐 01:14, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

I guess we do disagree. I claim that as written, the 4 paragraphs of lede are not a very good summary. They give all the facts, but I think they fail at being readily parse-able in a way that's not "overwhelming the reader with too many facts".

As for what needs to be "deprioritised" I am intentionally trying to not define it myself. All I claim is "some" phrases and statements will need to be, so that the 4 paragraphs of lede become more readable. What those are, are better suited for discussion than just me giving my opinions on a bunch of weightage things. Soni (talk) 01:28, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

I did some further copyediting.[13] The sentence you wanted to remove is extremely important since it is one of the few sentences that says what the dossier got right. I moved the statements around. The logical flow in my opinion is The dossier has been described as "largely discredited", "deeply flawed",> and "largely unverified".... Several key allegations were corroborated. The other order makes it sound like those other key allegations were discredited or flawed or unverified, when in fact, they are accurate, and we can't remove those facts because that confuses the story. I find your claim that this text is inaccessible or difficult to understand to be spurious and I oppose further trim along these lines. Andre🚐 22:19, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

Andre, your removal of some words has now removed the important point that Steele's sources knew, long before the FBI, the major and central aims of the Russian interference. It wasn't until the ODNI much later came to the same conclusions, likely using other sources, that we realize that Steele's sources were far ahead of the FBI. How can we still get that point across?

It's one of the many instances where the FBI's sources later confirmed what Steele's sources said earlier. This is what the FBI said gave them more confidence in the dossier in the beginning. Then, because they didn't have access to the sources and couldn't confirm them, they started to depend on their own sources from then on.

There are actually quite a few allegations that are confirmed. The "largely debunked" claims don't hold up. They are just uninformed opinions, but we do document they exist. They should be attributed as opinion because they are mostly non-factual. I have written some of my thoughts down, so read them below in the next section. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 01:32, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

@Andre This is the second time you've misunderstood me. I never asked for removals to come from that (or any specific) sentence, but that there needs to be some removal and copy-editing for clarity. I also think we need to break that sentence into two, that might help a lot of with avoiding run on.

The references after every phrase bothers me, maybe we can use WP:BUNDLING to not throw references at literally every subpart of the first paragraph.

I also think that for short clear phrases, it's better to limit references in lede to one (just so we dont have 5 refs in a row just to state "the document is discredited and considered unverified"). To that extent I have reduced the number of refs in lede specfically. Soni (talk) 02:13, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

I have removed more refs, so now there are only a few places where there are two, otherwise only single refs. It looks better now. We could also look at the "sea of blue" situation and maybe remove any wikilinks for common words and phrases. I'll start looking at that possibility. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 03:42, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 May 2023 (2)

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23813490-durham-report

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23813490-durham-report 2603:6011:8822:5B14:D440:175F:4C14:3F98 (talk) 22:27, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Cannolis (talk) 23:15, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 May 2023

174.213.161.200 (talk) 03:21, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

This should be changed to reflect the ig and durhams findings that the Steele dossier was not treated with skepticism, maybe later but they used it to initiate 4 fisa warrants with fabricated evidence. We KNOW for certain that they knew the information was fake, but claimed it as truth to launch a wholly political investigation and this page should reflect that. You people are disgusting.

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Heart ^(talk) 03:28, 17 May 2023 (UTC)