Except for the proven existence of the "pee tapes", was the Steele dossier wrong about anything?

[panader0]

I still believe that there were pee tapes. Maybe Putin will release them when TFG is indicted.
Maybe the release of the unredacted Mueller will confirm Steele's report even further.

[Ocelot II]

1. I've always thought the pee tapes were too weird *not* to exist.

TFG probably is just that pervy. But Vlad has a lot on his plate right now, and Russia is hanging a lot more over TFG's head than just some grainy, pervy videotape. How much does TFG still owe the oligarchs?

[triron]

2. Wish the damn media would get this right.

Rachel, help!

[Tommy Carcetti]

3. I think the only thing positively disproven was Michael Cohen supposedly meeting with FSB in Prague.

Apparently, that never happened and couldn't have happen.

Everything else has either been shown to be correct, or--like the pee tapes--remains a matter of speculation, but hasn't actually been disproved.

[triron]

9. Was it? How was it disproven? Perhaps Cohen's phone

Was there but not Cohen?

[Sympthsical]

4. This question is a massive barometer

"How much news outside of one's partisan preferences is one consuming?"

Because the Steele Dossier was completely shredded some time ago.

I'm so curious to see how many people actually realize that.

Here's a CNN article as a primer:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/18/politics/steele-dossier-reckoning/index.html

[blm]

5. BS. And Durham walked back those initial reports.

That CNN analysis incorporated a lot of Republican spin.

John Durham says 'members of the media' may have 'misinterpreted' claims he made in a recent court filing

https://www.businessinsider.com/durham-says-media-may-have-misinterpreted-previous-filing-2022-2

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/14/us/politics/durham-sussmann-trump-russia.html

https://www.npr.org/2022/02/16/1081247590/the-john-durham-filing-that-set-off-conservative-media-explained

https://krdo.com/politics/cnn-us-politics/2022/02/17/democratic-lawyer-michael-sussmann-asks-judge-to-throw-out-charge-from-durham-investigation/

[Sympthsical]

7. When sand castles fall

I see no purposes in trying to shore up the walls.

But if that's how people want to spend their time, I'm not one to interfere in these things.

[blm]

8. So you'd like to convey.

I don’t buy into sand castles or RightWing propaganda that some of you like to wrap yourselves in like a Binky.

[Sympthsical]

11. No

I think my point is just being proven. The dossier was on some very shaky, unreliable ground. This information has come out and has been out for some time, reported in many reputable journalistic publications. That people don't know that or won't acknowledge it is on them. I'm not anyone's priest and don't vendor in faith-based beliefs.

I've read enough about it to know what I think, and I don't find arguing about it a productive use of time.

Just because the Dossier wasn't great doesn't make other things about Trump untrue. Here's an NYT article outlining various evidence that remained even after the dossier lost credibility.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/01/us/trump-russia-investigation-dossier.html

And if people find the facts of things are blargh worthy, I dunno, they should go tell the facts they're wrong and they don't like them. It's kind of how people spend a lot of their time online anyway.

[blm]

13. YOU tell the facts they're wrong, Symp.

https://www.lawfareblog.com/steele-dossier-retrospective

Our interest in revisiting the compilation that has come to be called the “Steele Dossier” concerns neither of those topics, at least not directly. Rather, we returned to the document because we wondered whether information made public as a result of the Mueller investigation—and the passage of two years—has tended to buttress or diminish the crux of Steele’s original reporting.

The dossier is actually a series of reports—16 in all—that total 35 pages. Written in 2016, the dossier is a collection of raw intelligence. Steele neither evaluated nor synthesized the intelligence. He neither made nor rendered bottom-line judgments. The dossier is, quite simply and by design, raw reporting, not a finished intelligence product.

In that sense, the dossier is similar to an FBI 302 form or a DEA 6 form. Both of those forms are used by special agents of the FBI and DEA, respectively, to record what they are told by witnesses during investigations. The substance of these memoranda can be true or false, but the recording of information is (or should be) accurate. In that sense, notes taken by a special agent have much in common with the notes that a journalist might take while covering a story—the substance of those notes could be true or false, depending on what the source tells the journalist, but the transcription should be accurate.

With that in mind, we thought it would be worthwhile to look back at the dossier and to assess, to the extent possible, how the substance of Steele’s reporting holds up over time. In this effort, we considered only information in the public domain from trustworthy and official government sources, including documents released by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office in connection with the criminal cases brought against Paul Manafort, the 12 Russian intelligence officers, the Internet Research Agency trolling operation and associated entities, Michael Cohen, Michael Flynn and George Papadopoulos. We also considered the draft statement of offense released by author Jerome Corsi, a memorandum released by House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Ranking Member Adam Schiff related to the Carter Page FISA applications and admissions directly from certain speakers.

These materials buttress some of Steele’s reporting, both specifically and thematically. The dossier holds up well over time, and none of it, to our knowledge, has been disproven.
…..

[triron]

14. Excellent post.

[blm]

15. The article compares Mueller's documents

and findings with the Steele dossier. It is long and detailed and worth the read for honest debaters.

The dossier isn’t perfect, but, it was never ‘shredded’ or debunked as the RightWing propagandists have claimed and as their propaganda catapulters tend to post.

[Tommy Carcetti]

16. Steele himself never said that the Dossier was expected to be 100% accurate

But merely a compilation of intelligence he gathered about Trump's activities with Moscow.

But claiming or insinuating that the dossier is "discredited" or "garbage" is reckless and inaccurate.

A lot of it holds up pretty well, and some of it appears to even be independently backed up via third party sources.

Just as an example, take the Steele Dossier's allegations about Trump advisor Carter Page and his visit to Moscow in July 2016.

In short, on July 19, 2016, Christopher Steele wrote a memo which he forwarded to the FBI which states that Carter Page--while giving a speech to a Russian think tank in early July 2016--met with a Russian intelligence officer named Igor Diveykin. Specifically:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/10/25/what-the-trump-dossier-says-and-what-it-doesnt/?utm_term=.6042f3c7c061

Report 94. Dated July 19, 2016.

Claims: Trump campaign aide Carter Page met with the chief executive of fossil-fuel giant Rosneft, Igor Sechin, and Kremlin official Igor Diveykin, who American officials believe was in charge of collecting intelligence about the campaign. Diveykin again raised the compromising material about Clinton with Page.

Analysis: Page was in Moscow in early July, a trip that was reported at the time. He denied meeting Sechin or Diveykin last year.

This report suggests that Diveykin offered to release the compromising information on Clinton to Trump’s campaign team — an offer that we now know was made before that June meeting in Trump Tower, as well. It’s not clear why Diveykin would make this offer after having already had the opportunity to release that information to Donald Trump Jr. a month earlier.

Page's speech in Moscow was on July 7, 2016.

That very same day, Konstantin Rykov posted the following on his Facebook page:





The focus here is on Rykov's comments in his post that his NES speech was a "cover" and his further comment, "He also came to the intelligence service (FSB) to understand the reaction to Donald."

The original Facebook link in Russian:

https://www.facebook.com/konstantin.rykov/posts/10209422386386902

In case you don't know who Konstantin Rykov is, he's sort of a big deal:

https://medium.com/@ScottMStedman/kremlin-propagandist-boasted-of-his-hacking-efforts-strongly-implied-colluding-with-trump-team-in-a905104965a1

(In short, he's a former member of the Russian parliament for Putin's party and was actually named by Putin as a "trusted confidant" of the Kremlin. He's heavily involved in online activities and just days after the election posted a confession on Facebook bragging that he ran a social media influence campaign for Trump from Russia using Wikileaks and Cambridge Analaytica data.)

Note that Rykov goes as far to tag former US Ambassador Michael McFaul in his message. McFaul who has been harshly critical of Putin and Kremlin policy has been routinely harassed and mocked by Kremlin trolls, including Rykov.

So just to sum up:

July 7, 2016--Carter Page gives speech in Moscow
July 7, 2016--Konstantin Rykov writes Facebook post claiming that Page's speech is a "cover" and that the real reason Page was in Moscow was to meet with members of Russian intelligence
July 19, 2016--Christopher Steele writes memo stating that while Carter Page was in Moscow, he met with Igor Diveykin regarding information that supposedly could be used against Hillary Clinton for campaign purposes
October 19, 2016--FBI gets FISA warrant to surveil Carter Page
November 6, 2017--Carter Page testifies before the House Intelligence Committee, denies having met with Diveykin


The FISA warrant was issued three months after Steele had communicated to the FBI details regarding Page's Moscow visit. Before Steele could even write that memo, we have easily verifiable information showing that Russians connected with the Kremlin were already bragging that Page's speech was a cover for him meeting Russian intelligence officials. Not only that, they were bragging in front of the former US Ambassador to Russia, who could have easily reported the claims to US Intelligence, or alternatively, US intelligence who could possibly have been already monitoring Rykov could have picked up on the claims on their own.

No matter what way you cut it, however, the notion put forward by the Nunes Memo that the Steele Dossier was the only basis to get the FISA memo on Carter Page is--in the words of Vice President Biden--a bunch of malarkey.

[blm]

17. ✔️

[Baggies]

6. You're correct.

But it’s some peoples security blanket, and that means a lot to them.

[triron]

10. Bullshit .

[Buckeyeblue]

12. Maybe the tapes are Rudy's "insurance" that he's alluded to a couple of times