In July, ODNI declassified and released 2017 HPSCI(Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence) Majority staff report regarding "Russia's Influence Campaign Targeting the 2016 US Presidential Election". Below is the link to ODNI press release:
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President Obama directed the creation of this January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment after President Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, and it served as the basis for what was essentially a years-long coup against the duly elected President of the United States, subverting the will of the American people and attempting to delegitimize Donald Trump’s presidency.
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The declassified 46-page report in PDF format can be downloaded via the link below:
I'm archiving its text to make it searchable here. This is part 13.
The ICA Ignored Abundant Evidence That Steele's Alleged Source Network Did Not Appear Credible. For at least four months prior to the publication of the dossier, the FBI possessed indications that the alleged source network behind the dossier was implausible, and that Christopher Steele was dishonest, based on interviews with the FBI agent who handled Mr. Steele (until he was fired - for being dishonest - by FBI in October 2016).
Even a cursory examination of the dossier documents revealed that the only significant verifiable information had come from media stories. Ignoring ICD 203 directives to "properly describe quality and credibility of underlying sources," the ICA made no effort to address the implausible qualities of Steele's alleged high-level Russian agent network.(redacted)
The dossier author claimed to have a network of sources with access to President Putin's most sensitive covert action plans and objectives, information that would be exceptionally sensitive, closely held, and subject to Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) counterintelligence monitoring.
The ICA leaves the reader to wonder how an experienced British intelligence officer like Mr. Steele - after developing such a seemingly priceless network - would risk exposing his sources by giving their reports to numerous media outlets or political clients with the intent of making them public?
At least as early as September 2016, Mr. Steele was offering his dossier reports to a dozen media outlets, all of whom refused to publish them until Buzzfeed.com did so on 10 January 2017, following leaks to CNN that the FBI Director briefed the dossier to President-elect Trump.(redacted)
If the reports from Mr. Steele's alleged source network were accurate, their publication in the media would have triggered a fierce FSB counter-intelligence investigation.
Standard FSB practice would have counterintelligence officers compare the published classified information to the small circle of individuals with access to Putin's covert action plans, and use interrogations, polygraphs, computer forensics, surveillance, travel records, and other methods to identify the culprits.
That Steele deliberately exposed the dossier to the media suggests that he either knew the information to be fabricated, or didn't care about his assets' safety, possibly because his alleged network lacked any meaningful access to Putin, his inner circle, or genuine covert action plans.
Mr. Steele raised more red flags - ignored by the ICA - when he delivered the dossier reports to the FBI using a circuitous route that bypassed US and UK intelligence authorities in London, and appeared designed to get the material into official FBI channels while minimizing the prospects for scrutiny of his suspect source network.
Mr. Steele, who resided in London, delivered the first dossier reports to FBI in early July 2016. He could have easily passed the reports in London via the British Secret Intelligence Service, the FBI Legal Attache, or the CIA Station. But he instead exploited an old contact at FBI with whom he had worked on unrelated criminal matters years prior. He persuaded the agent, who was based in Rome, to fly to London in early July 2016 to retrieve the documents, fly the documents back to Rome on a commercial flight, and then pass them back to FBI Headquarters, according to the agent who received the dossier.(redacted)
Delivering the documents to Washington via British Intelligence or the American Embassy in London would have been more convenient and secure, and Mr. Steele had established British and American intelligence contacts in London.(redacted)
The Rome-based FBI agent admitted that he had no intelligence training, nor did he have experience working with foreign intelligence services, but he had worked with Steele previously on an unrelated criminal matter.(redacted)
The FBI agent also said he accepted the dossier reports from Steele without getting even basic source information or inquiring about asset access or validation, something a trained intelligence collector would have insisted on. The agent said he trusted Steele because, "He had been helpful on a past criminal case" and "seemed professional."(redacted)
The agent also noted that he was not sure how to handle reporting of this nature, and had to discuss dissemination methods with colleagues in the FBI's New York Field Office where he was previously assigned.(redacted)
Mr. Steele refused to be interviewed for this investigation, but as a former intelligence officer, he had to know that experienced British or American intelligence professionals probably would have balked at using official channels to transmit to Washington unsourced gossip that appeared to have political motivations. Doing so would have called into question their tradecraft judgment and risked being viewed in Washington as using their office to advance partisan smears of a US presidential candidate:
The dossier's unknown sourcing failed to meet basic tradecraft standards required of US and British field intelligence reports.
Steele's unsubstantiated claims of network in Moscow would have appeared fanciful to a professional, and even raised counterintelligence concerns that the dossier might be Russian disinformation.
It is notoriously difficult to run sources out of Moscow, and Steele was unable to demonstrate that he had such resources, much less that they were vetted, per discussions with the FBI analyst.(redacted)
The dossier tone and content appeared to be dubious, and was highly political and specifically intended to denigrate candidate Trump.
The Rome-based FBI agent testified that he was contacted in September 2016 by a senior Department of Justice official who had met with Steele that same month, and had been speaking or texting regularly with Mr. Steele. The official's wife worked for the company (Fusion GPS) that contracted with Steele to produce the dossier. The official wanted to verify that the documents had been received by FBI Headquarters and were being used by the FBI investigation team looking at Russia.(redacted)
Steele was thus able to successfully exploit his previous relationship with a senior Justice Department official and an FBI agent who exclusively worked criminal investigations to get the dossier to Washington in official channels, where they might carry an air of credibility they would not otherwise have.
Indeed, when the dossier summary was sent to CIA Headquarters by the FBI Assistant Director for Counterintelligence, it was described as coming from a "confidential human source" and the paragraphs were classified SECRET NOFORN ORCON (originator controlled), as if it were legitimate intelligence.(redacted)
The same FBI agent also testified that Steele had been touting his relationship with the FBI when he tried to persuade media outlets to publish his dossier, illustrating the value to Steele of the FBI association.(redacted)
Although the agent who received the Steele dossier came from the criminal investigations side of FBI, that was not the case with the personnel in the CROSSFIRE HURRICANE team at FBI Headquarters (a group of FBI agents and analysts charged with investigating Trump Campaign ties to Russia).
The CROSSFIRE team was comprised of veteran FBI Counterintelligence Division agents and analysts.
It is surprising, therefore, that FBI CROSSFIRE team was willing, without further vetting, to rely on the dossier to secure surveillance warrants on US citizens, and push to include it in the ICA, given its many sourcing, bias, and credibility problems.(redacted)