From now on the media and intel community have been reduced to handing out towels in restrooms.
Bonfire of the credibilities: Trump ‘dossier’ rings false – and falsely convenient
A key problem with the “information” communicated in the now-infamous dossier supposedly compiled by an ex-MI6 operative on Donald Trump is that it’s asinine.
Not all of it is asinine. But there’s enough of it that’s asinine to justify qualifying the whole dossier in those terms.
Let’s backtrack briefly to set the dossier in the proper timeline. Although the majority of Americans only heard about it yesterday (Wednesday, 11 January 2017), most of it was actually provided to the FBI prior to the end of October 2016. And portions of it were known to left-wing journalist David Corn, who wrote about it for Mother Jones, by 31 October. At that time, he reported that the ex-MI6 operative had been providing the FBI with the dossier’s memos “in recent months.”
The dates in the dossier’s collection run from 20 June to 13 December 2016. The timeline dovetails with reporting from numerous sources that compilation of the dossier was first commissioned by Trump opponents in the GOP, and then was sought by the Democrats as well. The Republican and Democratic political customers were reportedly acting through at least one unnamed firmed in Washington, D.C. to solicit the services of the ex-MI6 man, who was identified today as a Mr. Christopher Steele, co-founder of Orbis Business Intelligence Ltd. in London. Steele has reportedly gone into hiding now.
The 20 June date would fit with the point at which the Republican Party was handed a fait accompli by Trump in the primaries. It was clear by the end of May that he had gained the requisite delegate count for the convention. An order for intelligence from Orbis placed at or shortly before that point would have reasonably yielded the first report by 20 June.
