The Steele dossier , also known as the Trump—Russia dossier , [ 1 ] is a controversial political opposition research report on the presidential campaign of Donald Trump compiled by counterintelligence specialist Christopher Steele. It was published without permission in as an unfinished page compilation of "unverified, and potentially unverifiable" [ a ] memos that were considered by Steele to be " raw intelligence — not established facts, but a starting point for further investigation".
The dossier was written from June to December and contains allegations of misconduct, conspiracy, and cooperation between Trump's presidential campaign and the government of Russia prior to and during the election campaign. Trump elected"; [ b ] that Russia sought "to cultivate people in Trump's orbit" [ b ] and that many Trump campaign officials and associates had numerous secretive contacts with Russian officials and agents ; [ 10 ] [ 11 ] [ 12 ] that Vladimir Putin favored Trump over Hillary Clinton ; [ 7 ] [ 13 ] that Putin personally ordered an "influence campaign" to harm Clinton's campaign and to "undermine public faith in the US democratic process"; [ 7 ] and that he ordered cyberattacks on both parties.
It was based on information from initially anonymous sources known to the author, counterintelligence specialist [ 14 ] Christopher Steele, [ 15 ] and his "primary sub-source", Igor Danchenko. The United States intelligence community and most experts have treated the dossier with caution due to its unverified allegations. While Steele's documents played a significant role in initially highlighting the general friendliness between Trump and the Putin administration, the veracity status of specific allegations is highly variable.
Some have been publicly confirmed, [ c ] others are plausible but not specifically confirmed, [ 26 ] [ 27 ] and some are dubious in retrospect but not strictly disproven. The opposition research conducted by Fusion GPS on Donald Trump occurred in two distinct phases, each with different clients:.
This overlap contributed to the media's confusion. In October , before the official start of the Republican primary campaign , the founders of Fusion GPS were seeking political work and wrote an email to "a big conservative donor they knew who disliked Trump, [and] they were hired". He arranged for them to use The Washington Free Beacon , an American conservative political journalism website, for their general opposition research on several Republican presidential candidates, including Trump.
