![]() “The point about kompromat - the Soviet tradition of having compromising information on individuals - is that it’s more powerful if it is not used than if it is. Victim explains fighting Russian blackmail is "pointless" 02:36 Still, British and Russian intelligence agents have a long history of spying on one another and setting traps. “Russia would certainly like to know where he got his information from, assuming his information is basically true and he hasn’t just made it up, which I don’t think for a moment,” Wood said. ![]() He added that it is not surprising that he has gone into hiding. Wood said it seems unlikely that Russian operatives intentionally lied to Steele. The material, they said, was more likely to have come from conversations with third parties. “Some of the practices which we know and which are confirmed to have happened during Soviet and post-Soviet times are reported in this dossier,” Nixey said, adding that Russia’s denials were also part of a Cold War pattern in which the Kremlin “would outright deny something which is quite plainly true.”Īll three of the former intelligence officials, however, cast doubt on whether the material in the report and its level of detail would have come from active sources within Russia. James Nixey, the head of Chatham House’s Russia and Eurasia program, told the AP that parts of the document created by Steele “read exactly as reports from the secret services.” The official, who worked primarily on Eastern Europe, said he had no other details of Steele’s involvement in the case. Three British intelligence officers interviewed by The Associated Press described Steele as well regarded in the intelligence community, with excellent Russian skills and high-level sources.Īlthough Steele wasn’t a senior figure in MI6, one of the officials said because of Steele’s experience on the Russia desk and the high-level contacts he had during his time in Moscow, he was brought in to help with the case of Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian secret service officer and Kremlin critic who was poisoned in 2006 in London by polonium-210, a radioactive substance. Wood is now an associate fellow at the think tank Chatham House and is a consultant for companies with interests in Russia. After their conversation, McCain made arrangements to get a copy of the report, Wood told the BBC. John McCain asked him about the document during a security conference in November because of Wood’s relationship with Steele. Trump’s inner circle and the Russians about hacking into Democratic accounts - as well as unproven claims about unusual sexual activities by Mr. The report contains unproven information on close coordination between Mr. presidential campaign and was being discussed in Washington as early as October, even though its details weren’t widely reported until this week. The dossier was reportedly produced as opposition research for the 2016 U.S. I don’t think he would, necessarily, always draw correct judgment, but that’s not the same thing.” “I know him as a very competent, professional operator who left the secret service and is now operating his own private company,” Andrew Wood, Britain’s ambassador to Russia from 1995 to 2000, told the BBC on Friday. Christopher Steele is seen in a photo obtained by CBS News. Orbis was originally hired by Fusion GPS, a Washington-based research firm working for an unknown client. Steele produced the memo containing unsubstantiated claims that Russia had compromising personal and financial information about Mr. The firm provides strategic advice, gathers intelligence and conducts cross-border investigations, according to its website. After leaving the agency, he and a partner started Orbis Business Intelligence Ltd. Steele, 52, worked for MI6, Britain’s overseas intelligence agency, and served in Moscow in the early 1990s. Trump compares intel leaks to Nazi Germany 01:26
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