Rupert Allason (Credit: public domain)
“A British author who specializes in espionage raised serious doubts about former MI6 officer Christopher Steele’s salacious dossier, which was included in the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into President Trump’s 2016 campaign.
Rupert Allason, a former member of Parliament whose pen name is Nigel West, conducted a forensic analysis of Steele’s work, which made stunning allegations about coordination between Trump’s camp and Russia. He came away “stunned” by what he viewed to be a poor job by a former intelligence officer whom he once considered to be a friend.
“There is … a strong possibility that all Steele’s material has been fabricated,” Allason wrote in a report obtained by the British newspaper Sunday Times. [paywall]
Allason, 68, was commissioned by a Republican law firm after the dossier, a series of reports that included details of an alleged video obtained by the Russians of Trump with prostitutes urinating on a bed in a Moscow hotel room, was published by BuzzFeed in January 2017.
Allason’s report comes in the wake of an assessment by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, who condemned Steele, 55, and the FBI for its reliance on his dossier to obtain warrants for wiretapping onetime Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Additionally, special counsel Robert Mueller concluded an investigation last year that found no criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia.
The FBI has been heavily criticized by Trump and his Republican allies for not making clear to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that Steele’s work, commissioned by the opposition research firm Fusion GPS, was funded by Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign and the Democratic National Committee through the Perkins Coie law firm.” (Read more: Washington Examiner, 1/26/2020) (Archive)