Laurence Tribe: nothing in the Steel Dossier has been proven false

[pnwmom]

Link to tweet

And this is interesting:

https://www.justsecurity.org/44697/steele-dossier-knowing/

A Second Look at the Steele Dossier
Knowing What We Know Now
by John Sipher
September 6, 2017


[Editor’s Note: In this special Just Security article, highly respected former member of the CIA’s Senior Intelligence Service, John Sipher examines the Steele dossier using methods that an intelligence officer would to try to validate such information. Sipher concludes that the dossier’s information on campaign collusion is generally credible when measured against standard Russian intelligence practices, events subsequent to Steele’s reporting, and information that has become available in the nine months since Steele’s final report. The dossier, in Sipher’s view, is not without fault, including factual inaccuracies. Those errors, however, do not detract from an overarching framework that has proven to be ever more reliable as new revelations about potential Trump campaign collusion with the Kremlin and its affiliates has come to light in the nine months since Steele submitted his final report.]

SNIP

Many of my former CIA colleagues have taken the Orbis reports seriously since they were first published. This is not because they are not fond of Trump (and many admittedly are not), but because they understand the potential plausibility of the reports’ overall narrative based on their experienced understanding of both Russian methods, and the nature of raw intelligence reporting. Immediately following the BuzzFeed leak, one of my closest former CIA colleagues told me that he recognized the reports as the obvious product of a former Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) officer, since the format, structure, and language mirrored what he had seen over a career of reading SIS reports provided to CIA in liaison channels. He and others withheld judgment about the veracity of the reports, but for the reasons I outline further below they did not reject them out of hand. In fact, they were more inclined for professional reasons to put them in the “trust but verify” category.

SNIP

One clue as to the credibility of the sources in these reports is that Steele shared them with the FBI. The fact that the FBI reportedly sought to work with him and to pay him to develop additional information on the sources suggest that at least some of them were worth taking seriously. At the very least, the FBI will be able to validate the credibility of the sources, and therefore better judge the information. As one recently retired senior intelligence officer with deep experience in espionage investigations quipped, “I assign more credence to the Steele report knowing that the FBI paid him for his research. From my experience, there is nobody more miserly than the FBI. If they were willing to pay Mr. Steele, they must have seen something of real value.”

SNIP

The most obvious occurrence that could not have been known to Orbis in June 2016, but shines bright in retrospect is the fact that Russia undertook a coordinated and massive effort to disrupt the 2016 U.S. election to help Donald Trump, as the U.S. intelligence community itself later concluded. Well before any public knowledge of these events, the Orbis report identified multiple elements of the Russian operation including a cyber campaign, leaked documents related to Hillary Clinton, and meetings with Paul Manafort and other Trump affiliates to discuss the receipt of stolen documents. Mr. Steele could not have known that the Russians stole information on Hillary Clinton, or that they were considering means to weaponize them in the U.S. election, all of which turned out to be stunningly accurate. The U.S. government only published its conclusions in January 2017, with an assessment of some elements in October 2016. It was also apparently news to investigators when the New York Times in July 2017 published Don Jr’s emails arranging for the receipt of information held by the Russians about Hillary Clinton. How could Steele and Orbis know in June 2016 that the Russians were working actively to elect Donald Trump and damage Hillary Clinton? How could Steele and Orbis have known about the Russian overtures to the Trump Team involving derogatory information on Clinton?

We have also subsequently learned of Trump’s long-standing interest in, and experience with Russia and Russians. A February 2017 New York Times article reported that phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Trump’s campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian officials in the year before the election. The New York Times article was also corroborated by CNN and Reuters independent reports. And even Russian officials have acknowledged some of these and other repeated contacts. Although Trump has denied the connections, numerous credible reports suggest that both he and Manafort have long-standing relationships with Russians, and pro-Putin groups. In August 2017, CNN reported on “intercepted communications that US intelligence agencies collected among suspected Russian operatives discussing their efforts to work with Manafort…to coordinate information that could damage Hillary Clinton’s election prospects” including “conversations with Manafort, encouraging help from the Russians.”

MUCH MORE AT LINK

[2naSalit]

1. One response...

said:

"The greatest threat to the United States is its own president."

[marble falls]

3. There's another cancer within the Presidency.

[uponit7771]

2. Does anyone know of a checklist? Thx in advance

[oberliner]

4. How do you prove something to be false?

[pnwmom]

5. That would depend on the thing that needed to be disproven. n/t

[Lurks Often]

10. Tribe's mindset and those here that agree with him are why Franken is resigning

People best think long and hard if they want to go down the path of guilty until proven innocent in this country.

[Me.]

6. KR

[Achilleaze]

7. Whereas the republican Draft-Dodger-in-Chief has a proven track record of lies

...and only a damn fool, or a greedy quisling snake, would believe a damn thing he says.

[triron]

8. Yet MSM keeps presenting things he says as if they might be true!?

[Gothmog]

9. The Steele Dossier has been largely verified

[Puzzledtraveller]

11. No it has not

Unless you call it's existence proof of the contents contained and revealed. It is pretty sad too if we hinge so much on declaring Trump both unfit and criminal in his capture of the WH to something that has more tabloid feel then hard data such as recordings, computer records and actual testimony of people under oath. I can guarantee you that if Trump is impeached, and successfully removed, the Steel dossier will have no input in it.

[Gothmog]

13. You are wrong

A large amount of the Dossier has been confirmed. According to Steele 70% to 90% of the dossier have been independently verified. http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/360508-book-steele-says-70-90-percent-of-his-trump-russia-dossier-is

The former British intelligence officer behind the controversial Trump dossier believes his reports are "70 percent to 90 percent" accurate, according to a new book about Russia's influence in the 2016 election written by Guardian reporter Luke Harding.


Christopher Steele also reportedly believes the contents of his report will be verified — and his work vindicated — as special counsel Robert Mueller continues to investigate possible ties between the Trump campaign and Moscow, according to a Guardian story written about the book and published on Wednesday.

“I’ve been dealing with this country for thirty years. Why would I invent this stuff?” Steele is quoted as saying in Harding's new book, "Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win."

[tableturner]

15. Yes it has.

Also, I want to comment on a line you wrote in your post:

"I can guarantee you that if Trump is impeached, and successfully removed, the Steel dossier will have no input in it."

Nobody ever expected that the dossier itself would be used in court. It is raw intelligence, and is presented as such, which of course makes it inadmissible in court.

Here is something that I believe is highly likely:

Some of the actions and scenarios laid out in the dossier, not the dossier itself, will have huge impacts on any successful removal of Trump from the presidency.

Edited to add: If actions and scenarios laid out in the dossier end up having impacts on the removal of Trump, then the dossier will have been shown to have been a heck of a road map for investigators to have used to make their case in court. So in that sense, the dossier WOULD have an indirect impact for sure, and I believe that likelihood is highly plausible, even probable.

[UTUSN]

12. R#6 for, just like NOTHING in Dan RATHER's Shrub-NatlGuard story was UNtrue.

Last edited Sat Dec 30, 2017, 10:21 PM - Edit history (4)

[Gothmog]

14. How much of the infamous document ended up being corroborated elsewhere? A whole lot.

A significant amount of the dossier has been verified http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2017/09/a_lot_of_the_steele_dossier_has_since_been_corroborated.html

One large portion of the dossier is crystal clear, certain, consistent, and corroborated. Russia’s goal all along has been to do damage to America and our leadership role in the world. Also, the methods described in the report fit the Russians to a tee. If the remainder of the report is largely true, Russia has a powerful weapon to help achieve its goal. Even if it is largely false, the Kremlin still benefits from the confusion, uncertainty and political churn created by the resulting fallout. In any regard, the administration could help cauterize the damage by being honest, transparent and assisting those looking into the matter. Sadly, the president has done the opposite, ensuring a Russian win no matter what. In any event, I would suspect the Russians will look to muddy the waters and spread false and misleading information to confuse investigators and public officials.

As things stand, both investigators and voters will have to examine the information in their possession and make sense of it as best they can. Professional investigators can marry the report with human and signals intelligence, they can look at call records, travel records, interview people mentioned in the report, solicit assistance from friendly foreign police and intelligence services, subpoena records and tie it to subsequent events that can shed light on the various details. We, on the other hand, will have to do our best to validate the information at hand. Looking at new information through the framework outlined in the Steele document is not a bad place to start

.