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opposition research on Trump and his associates. In mid-May 2016, Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS met with Steele in the United Kingdom and subsequently retained Steele and his firm, Orbis Business Intelligence (“Orbis”), to investigate Trump’s ties to Russia.[1] Steele described himself as a former intelligence official for the British government,[2] and was also at the time an FBI CHS. Beginning in July 2016 and continuing through December 2016, the FBI received a series of reports from Steele and Orbis that contained derogatory information about Trump concerning Trump’s purported ties to Russia. As discussed in Section IV.D.1.b.ii, Steele provided the first of his reports to his FBI handler on July 5th. These reports were colloquially referred to as the “Steele Dossier” or “Steele Reports.”

As noted, it was not until mid-September that the Crossfire Hurricane investigators received several of the Steele Reports.[3] Within days of their receipt, the unvetted and unverified Steele Reports were used to support probable cause in the FBI’s FISA applications targeting Page, a U.S. citizen who, for a period of time, had been an advisor to Trump. As discussed later in the report, this was done at a time when the FBI knew that the same information Steele had provided to the FBI had also been fed to the media and others in Washington, D.C.[4]

In particular, one allegation contained in an undated Steele Report, identified as 2016/095, described a “well-developed conspiracy of co-operation” between Trump, his campaign, and senior Russian officials. This allegation would ultimately underpin the four FISA applications targeting Page. Specifically, the allegation stated:

Speaking in confidence to a compatriot in late July 2016, Source E, an ethnic Russian close associate of Republican US presidential candidate Donald TRUMP, admitted that there was a well-developed conspiracy of co-operation between them and the Russian leadership. This was managed on the TRUMP side by the Republican candidate’s campaign manager, Paul MANAFORT, who was using foreign policy advisor, Carter PAGE, and others as intermediaries. The two sides had a mutual interest in defeating Democratic presidential candidate Hillary CLINTON, whom President PUTIN apparently both hated and feared.[5]

  1. ↑ Glenn Simpson & Peter Fritsch, Crime in Progress: Inside the Steele Dossier and the Fusion GPS Investigation of Donald Trump at 69–70 (2019) (hereinafter “Crime in Progress”).
  2. ↑ Steele has testified in prior legal proceedings that between 1987 and 2009 that he was an intelligence professional working for the British government. Trial Testimony of Christopher Steele, Peter Aven, et al. v. Orbis Bus. Intel. Ltd., Claim No. HQ18M01646 (hereinafter “Steele Transcript”) (Mar. 17, 2020) at 147–48.
  3. ↑ While Steele first provided several of his Reports to his FBI handler in July 2016, the transmittal of these Reports to FBI Headquarters and the Crossfire Hurricane team met an inexplicable delay. This delay is discussed in Section IV.D.1.b.iii.
  4. ↑ See infra § IV.D.1.
  5. ↑ SCO-105084 (Documents Known to the FBI Comprising the “Steele Dossier”) at 9 (“Company Intelligence Report 2016/095”) (Emphasis added, capitalization in original).

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