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On a tangentially-related note, Mr Ernie reverted some changes I had made. I had been pondering it in my dreams and awoke with the conclusion that I needed to revert and rework that content, and it turns how he beat me to it! I do not agree with his edit summary. Adam Schiff is an extremely RS on this topic. He was Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, member of the Gang of Eight, and has top security clearance. In this case, his bias doesn't make him inaccurate, and his opinion happens to be factual. Also, Newsweek, when attributed, certainly can be "used like this", but Schiff and the ODNI report are even better sources for that content as they document that Steele was way ahead of the intelligence community on this point. I'll take a look at it with a critical eye to improving it, so all's good. -- Valjean ( talk) 17:38, 17 November 2021 (UTC)
According to the
Steele dossier, specifically Report 2016/111, dated "14 September 2016"
(pp. 22-24):
PUTIN had been receiving conflicting advice on interfering from three separate and expert groups. On one side had been the Russian ambassador to the US, Sergei KISLYAK, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, together with an independent and informal network run by presidential foreign policy advisor, Yuri USHAKOV who had urged caution and the potential negative impact on Russia from the operation/s. On the other side was former PA head, Sergei IVANOV, backed by Russian Foreign Intelligence (SVR), who had advised PUTIN that the pro-TRUMP, anti-CLINTON operation/s would be both effective and plausibly deniable with little blowback. The first group/s had been proven right and this had been the catalyst in PUTIN's decision to sack IVANOV (unexpectedly) as PA Head in August. His successor, Anton VAINO, had been selected for the job partly because he had not been involved in the US presidential election operation/s. ...
Finally, speaking separately to the same compatriot, a senior Russian MFA official reported that as a prophylactic measure, a leading Russia diplomat, Mikhail KULAGIN, had been withdrawn from Washington on short notice because Moscow feared his heavy involvement in the US presidential election operation, including the so-called veterans' pensions ruse (reported previously), would be exposed in the media there. His replacement, Andrei BONDAREV however was clean in this regard.
While our article currently states that the allegation against Kalugin has been confirmed, citing a March 2017 BBC report by Paul Woods (who appears to be very close to Steele), and does not mention anything about Sergei Ivanov, Durham's indictment against Danchenko and a recent CNN report have called the veracity of these allegations into question. CNN's Marshall Cohen briefly addresses this topic:
Court filings from the Durham inquiry recently revealed that some information in the dossier originated from Charles Dolan, 71, a public relations executive with expertise in Russian affairs who had a decades-long political relationship with the Clinton family. He has not been accused of any crimes. ... Dolan was also indirectly linked in the indictment to still-unverified claims about Russian officials who were allegedly part of the election meddling. [emphasis added] The indictment also suggested that Steele's memos exaggerated what Dolan had passed along to Danchenko.
Durham's indictment of Danchenko (pp. 21-26) goes into considerably more detail regarding the provenance of Danchenko's sourcing for the above allegations against both Ivanov and Kulagin. (Dolan is referred to only as "PR Executive-I" and not named in the indictment, "but a lawyer for Dolan confirmed he was the unnamed executive cited in the document,"
according to
WaPo.) Focusing specifically on Kulagin's recall to Russia and the suggestion that this was due to his "heavy involvement in the US presidential election operation,"
Durham writes:
This allegation—like the allegation concerning the Presidential Suite of the Moscow Hotel—bore substantial similarities to information that [Dolan] received during the 2016 time period. ... After one of these meetings on or about May 31, 2016, a member of the Russian Embassy staff informed [Dolan] and Organizer-I in an email that [Kalugin] would be recalled back to Russia in September 2016 and replaced by Russian Diplomat-2. DANCHENKO was not a recipient of this email. ... On or about August 19, 2016, [Kalugin] sent an email to [Dolan] and others. The email stated, in substance and part, that [Kalugin] was returning to Russia and was being replaced by Russian Diplomat-2. [Kalugin] further stated: "[Russian Diplomat-2] is a talented diplomat and economist with impressive experience in American studies." [emphasis in original] ... On or about September 13, 2016—the day prior to the date of the Company Report containing the allegation regarding [Kalugin]—[Dolan] called DANCHENKO. ... In particular, on or about January 25, 2017, DANCHENKO stated to FBI agents that he learned of the information about [Kalugin]'s departure from [Kalugin] himself while [Kalugin] was helping DANCHENKO obtain a new Russian passport. DANCHENKO further stated that [Kalugin] described his replacement, Russian Diplomat-2, as a "bright young guy"—similar to the statement contained in the aforementioned August 2016 email from [Kalugin] to [Dolan]. [emphasis in original] DANCHENKO also stated to the FBI that his conversation with [Kalugin] occurred in late spring 2016—in or around the same time that [Dolan] and Organizer-I first learned of [Kalugin]'s impending return to Russia. ... However, when interviewed by the FBI on or about September 18 and 19, 2017, [Steele] stated that DANCHENKO learned of the aforementioned allegation in Moscow after bumping into [Kalugin] on the street in August 2016. In fact, DANCHENKO was located in the United States in August 2016.
If Durham's allegations are proven, they imply that Danchenko may have misled Steele about "bumping into [Kalugin] on the street in August 2016"
and that at least some of the information in the September 14 Steele memo was in fact unwittingly provided by Dolan. Furthermore, Kalugin's recall to Russia was planned months in advance (by "late spring 2016,"
with the planned departure being mentioned in a May 31 email to Dolan), which, far from confirming the accuracy of the Steele dossier, contradicts Steele's reporting that Kalugin "had been withdrawn from Washington on short notice because Moscow feared his heavy involvement in the US presidential election operation ... would be exposed in the media there."
[emphasis added]
While our article states that "McClatchy reported that the FBI was investigating whether Kalugin played a role in the election interference,"
this does not necessarily corroborate the Steele dossier, because the dossier may have been the basis for the FBI's investigation, and Kalugin was never charged or sanctioned in connection with Russian election meddling, to my knowledge. Furthermore, while it is only a passing mention, CNN's Cohen also indicates that the allegations against both Ivanov and Kulagin are "still-unverified"
. Food for thought...
TheTimesAreAChanging (
talk)
22:36, 28 November 2021 (UTC)
- For example, an allegation in a Company Report dated June 20, 2016 indicated that Trump had previously engaged in salacious sexual activity while a guest at the Moscow Hotel. The allegation stated, in part:
- ... The [Moscow Hotel] episode involving TRUMP reported above was confirmed by Source E, a senior (western) member of staff at the hotel, who said that s/he and several of the staff were aware of it at the time and subsequently. S/he believed it had happened in 2013. Source E provided an introduction for a company ethnic Russian operative to Source F, a female staffer at the hotel when TRUMP had stayed there, who also confirmed the story. ... [emphasis in original
- Certain of the information in the June 20, 2016 Company Report reflected facts that [Dolan] and Organizer-I also learned during the June 2016 Planning Trip to Moscow. ... While at the Moscow Hotel, [Dolan] and Organizer-I (i) received a tour of the Moscow Hotel's Presidential Suite (ii) met with the general manager ("General Manager-I") and other staff of the Moscow Hotel, ... According to Organizer-I, during the aforementioned tour of the Presidential Suite, a Moscow Hotel staff member told the participants, including [Dolan], that Trump had stayed in the Presidential Suite. According to both Organizer-I and [Dolan], the staff member did not mention any sexual or salacious activity. ... DANCHENKO initially claimed to have stayed at the Moscow Hotel in June 2016. DANCHENKO later acknowledged in a subsequent interview, however, that he did not stay at the Moscow Hotel until the October Conference.
"did not mention any sexual or salacious activity"? Marshall Cohen of CNN similarly observes:
- The indictment indirectly connected Dolan to the infamous claim that Russia possessed a compromising tape of Trump with prostitutes in Moscow, which became known as the "pee tape." (Trump and Russia both denied the allegations.) According to the Danchenko indictment, in June 2016, Dolan toured the Ritz-Carlton suite where the alleged liaison occurred, and discussed Trump's 2013 visit with hotel staff, but wasn't told about any sexual escapades. It's still unclear where those salacious details that ended up in the dossier came from. .. Taken together, these revelations about Dolan, Millian and Galkina raise grave questions about where Danchenko got his information, or if he perhaps made some of it up.
- In April 2017, CNN was first to report that the FBI included some material from the dossier in the FISA applications. The article said prosecutors would only have done this "after the FBI had corroborated the information through its own investigation," according to officials familiar with the process. It's now clear that this level of verification never materialized. The watchdog report said Steele's claims about Page "remained uncorroborated" when the wiretaps ended in 2017. [emphasis added
"invested in the dossier being true". I have always known that there were parts of the dossier that might not be true, and Steele has always said that (70-90% accurate, with only 50% chance for the pee tape). That most of the allegations are unproven and likely unprovable is also no surprise. That says zilch about their truth or falsity.
"Clearly, if sources E and F exist, Steele did not speak with them, and Danchenko did not speak with them either. If they are the Russians that Dolan interacted with (i.e., the manager and a staff member of the hotel), then what are we to make of Dolan (and his associate)'s sworn statement that they"did not mention any sexual or salacious activity"?"
"it was his impression that the Primary Sub-source may not have been 'completely truthful' and may have been minimizing certain aspects of what he/she told Steele". [1]The sources for the pee tape allegation likely did the same, IF Dolan even talked to them. We don't know.
the salacious information in Steele's dossier was also reported by "multiple intelligence sources" and "at least one East European intelligence service".They reported that "compromising material on Mr. Trump"
included "more than one tape, not just video, but audio as well, on more than one date, in more than one place, in both Moscow and St. Petersburg." [2]While also mentioning that "nobody should believe something just because an intelligence agent says it", [3] [4] Wood added that
"the CIA believes it is credible that the Kremlin has such kompromat—or compromising material—on the next US commander in chief". [2] [5] [3]
"in June 2016, Dolan toured the Ritz-Carlton suite where the alleged liaison occurred, and discussed Trump's 2013 visit with hotel staff, but wasn't told about any sexual escapades."
"a Moscow Hotel staff member told the participants, including [Dolan], that Trump had stayed in the Presidential Suite. According to both Organizer-I and [Dolan], the staff member did not mention any sexual or salacious activity."
"Taken together, these revelations about Dolan, Millian and Galkina raise grave questions about where Danchenko got his information, or if he perhaps made some of it up."
"It's now clear that this level of verification never materialized. The watchdog report said Steele's claims about Page "remained uncorroborated" when the wiretaps ended in 2017. [emphasis added]"
"you've described the Durham inquiry (in article space!) as [https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Steele_dossier&diff=925762252&oldid=925745892 "an inquiry described as a cover-up to protect Trump,"] text that is still in this article and that I have not even tried to remove."
"conspiracy theory,"so the content is a straightforward violation of WP:V. TheTimesAreAChanging ( talk) 22:38, 29 November 2021 (UTC)
References
OIG_12/9/2019
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Hope_Rothfeld_Cullison_1/11/2017
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).The following media articles debunk the "Russiagate" conspiracy theory, which is debunked in this article: Russia investigation origins counter-narrative (a conspiracy theory). The right-wing media places a lot of undeserved focus on the dossier, and we deal with it in this article. The dossier was not the trigger for the start of the Crossfire Hurricane (FBI investigation) into how Trump and his campaign aided the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. The Mueller report also described their role in helping the Russians. Wikipedia has many articles that cover this topic from many angles. In spite of these facts, we still have people coming here who don't understand these facts and who still believe the right-wing conspiracy theories. Needless to say, editors who edit and comment on these topics have no excuse for ignorance and sympathy with these conspiracy theories. -- Valjean ( talk) 07:50, 2 December 2021 (UTC) Introduction added later.
The real hoax, however, is that the Trump scandal is a hoax.
The Russians actively sought to help Trump win the presidency, and the candidate and his campaign knew it. The ties were deep.
The right-wing revisionists focus on the mistakes or unverified charges in the Steele Dossier, compiled by a British intelligence official and mainly financed by the Hillary Clinton campaign.
The dossier “was irrelevant in terms of what we were doing. There's a very public record on that,” says Andrew Weissmann, a top counsel in Robert Mueller's independent investigation of Russia and Trump. [1]
He's right. Editors here need to stop propagating these right-wing, revisionist, hoaxes and conspiracy theories about the dossier and the very real and proven Russian interference that was aided and abetted by Trump and his campaign. Yes, there are things coming out now about sources for the dossier, but that doesn't somehow prove that all the conspiracy theories about the dossier and its allegations are all suddenly correct. They aren't.
As reliable sources document SPECIFIC matters that require changes to the article, we will revise THOSE things. We do not completely rewrite an article without support from RS, especially their opinion articles. That would be throwing out the baby with the bathwater, largely based on those opinion articles and views from unreliable sources. Any such attempts would be huge NPOV and TE violations that would end up at ArbCom and/or AE, with several editors here losing their privileges. Keep in mind that diffs from edits to articles and talk page discussions then become evidence. Unlike the destruction of evidence by TFG and his campaigners, those diffs live on, so beware. Just sayin'... The important point is that there is no rush. We'll get to it. -- Valjean ( talk) 21:25, 29 November 2021 (UTC)
"sweeping every allegation of collusion under the skirts of this article. What
"allegations"are you talking about?
"Collusion"by whom? {{tq|"under the skirts? What does that mean?
In direct contradiction to Mother Jones' opinion (ref 282), Marshall Cohen of CNN has just published an investigative report stating that President Trump was correct and his critics wrong: https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/18/politics/steele-dossier-reckoning/index.html One can hardly call this source right wing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BlueFoam212 ( talk • contribs) 23:35, 29 November 2021 (UTC)
Sources
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"No doubt there was some histrionic coverage of the Steele Dossier. But the truth is that virtually every news outlet that reported it made clear that it was unsubstantiated and no one reported that it was the only reason for the Russia investigation. Trump and his campaign's suspicious behavior was more than enough to set off alarms all over the world." [1]
That sums up what's happening quite well, but there is one part that needs clarification. Only the mainstream RS did not report "that it was the only reason for the Russia investigation." It was the right-wing and conspiracy theory media that did that all along. They made that idea part of their conspiracy theories, and it's a false idea that is still pushed by TFG, and many of his followers still believe that lie. -- Valjean ( talk) 00:46, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
Sources
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The fact that Mr. Mueller did not obtain sufficient evidence to charge Trump associates with conspiracy is subject to disputed interpretations that overlap with the debate over the dossier’s significance. Trump supporters frame the lack of conspiracy charges as proof there was no collusion. By combining this with the false premise that there would not have been any Russia investigation without the Steele dossier, they portray Mr. Trump as a victim of a hoax. [1]
The problem with that statement is the employment of Bruce Ohr, Husband of Fusion GPS employee
The previously unreported details of the July 30, 2016, breakfast with Christopher Steele, which Ohr described to lawmakers this week in a private interview, reveal an exchange of potentially explosive information about Trump between two men the president has relentlessly sought to discredit. [2]
On September 30, 2020, Ohr retired from his position at DOJ "after his counsel was informed that a final decision on a disciplinary review being conducted by Department senior career officials was imminent"
Ohr failed to inform his supervisors in the Justice Department of his role, actions which were "shocking" to Rod Rosenstein when he learned of Ohr's role. Rosenstein stated that Ohr "appeared to be serving as an 'intermediary' with Steele". [3]
The editors do not want to pay attention to this very early reporting, that is one major factor why half the nation does not belive that the russia investigation is more than an series of diverse facts pulled together, fusion GPS pulled diverse facts together and they were fed to the DOJ and then to the FBI. The DC telephone game and distortion of reporting is still all over this item. [4]
Loopbackdude ( talk) 13:46, December 3, 2021 (TC)
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
The sourcing on both have proven to be opinion, like much of the NY Times reporting, will be edited in the future. The preponderance of the evidence, as in the testamony under oath, is the trump tower meeting was a bust about economic sanctions that were ratched up for the 4 years of the Trump Term. If a russian national had given the trump camping something that is a hypothetical. We have on the foreign agents and the clinton campaign insiders giving the clinton campaign through fusion GPS untruths that have proven to be of no value other than feeding the rumor mill and the DOJ/FBI kabal that wanted to prove their loyalty to the bureaucracy under attack by new leadership. An article on political hearsay that has been taken criminal, this is very large editorial challenge but the POV of collection of unsubstantiated facts cannot pick and choose a few facts that were in the public record outside the document and lend any creditability. Russia Hoax is an ill defined term, define that term sharply and it is true, define it in a way to generate copy and it is a conspircy theory. The community will be editing this for decades. The whole affair is a watergate without the burgulars, security guard, or arrests, or tapes. Or a Saturday Night Massacre. It had impechment, twice. Best dirty tricks project ever! It had Russians, DOJ Lawyers and FBI Ledership, very little shoe leather was worn by the guys in cheap suits. |
I made these remarks before in Role of the media / media criticism, that was a mistake because they were only tangentially related to the thread topic. I repeat them here and expect that counter-arguments will be repeated here or moved here.
CNN, in
The Steele dossier: A reckoning, refers to a
February 2017 article which says that "US investigators had corroborated some of the communications detailed in the dossier". We're using that February 2017 article for a cite of the words "Some aspects of the dossier have been corroborated"[CNN cite][ABC cite]". But CNN acknowledges that Michael Horowitz's report said only limited information was corroborated from the dossier relating to "time, location, and title information, much of which was publicly available."
And this is the February 2017 article which Erik Wemple of the Washington Post deprecated
in 2020 and
in 2021. So we have a wiki-voice claim in the lead that's backed by a cite to a source that's contested. As for the second cite, to ABC, I see nothing there that supports the claim but maybe I'm missing something so the person who originally cited it (Valjean) might point to the exact place. I suggest that the appropriate solution is: remove the CNN cite, but leave the claim for now because the rest of the sentence would be affected if we removed it.
Peter Gulutzan (
talk)
17:04, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
On a separate but related matter, do you think that you are at the point where you would be willing to consider tweaking the line from Mayer about Page supposedly admitting that he was offered
"a payoff" during his November 2017 congressional testimony to reflect the points raised by Peter Gulutzan and myself above, or is that a bridge too far for you at this time? Keep in mind that I am not suggesting we should take Page's testimony at face value—I am merely suggesting that we should not misquote him when we have the transcript available and it does not include the "offered him"
language introduced by Mayer. Furthermore, CNN had an
entire article devoted to Page's testimony within a week of his appearance, which is much more accurate than Mayer's passing account and makes clear that while Page admitted meeting with the head of Rosneft's investor relations, he was adamant that no quid pro quo (as alleged in the dossier) was discussed. Thoughts?
TheTimesAreAChanging (
talk)
06:47, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
"payoff"language, which partially addresses my concern. As I'm sure you can imagine, my preference would be to either drop Mayer completely, or trim the relevant text down to just the bit about her opinion/analysis (i.e.,
"Jane Mayer said this part of the dossier seems true, even if the name of an official may have been wrong."), which would not be as drastic as it sounds considering that the factual portion of her reporting is duplicated by the paragraphs directly preceding and succeeding it. A more modest change might look like the following:
Jane Mayer said this part of the dossier seems true, even if the name of an official may have been wrong. Page's congressional testimony confirmed he held secret meetings with top Moscow and Rosneft officials, during which Page conceded under questioning that the "potential sale of a significant percentage of Rosneft" might have been "briefly mentioned". [1] However, Page insisted that "there was never any negotiations, or any quid pro quo, or any offer, or any request even, in any way related to sanctions." [2]
"during which Page conceded in response to a question by Adam Schiff [...]"and include a footnote with a link to the transcript so that readers can examine the relevant exchange for themselves, if they wish. TheTimesAreAChanging ( talk) 23:35, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
"situationally reliable"per WP:RSP Newsweek to make essentially the same point as Mayer, namely that the dossier's claims were "verified" because Page met with Baranov, even though the dossier said that Page met with Putin's right-hand man Igor Sechin and was involved in a lucrative quid pro quo conservatively amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars in exchange for sanctions relief, none of which in fact has been publicly substantiated.) In any case, if the disputed text from Mayer is restored, then I would also favor trimming Mayer's language about
"secret meetings"in favor of just
"meetings,"as the former formulation comes across as sensationalized well-poisoning. To my knowledge, no reliable source has challenged that Page met with Baranov (an old friend of his) and the other Russians in public settings, and his presence in Russia (fully explained or not) was hardly a closely-guarded secret. To the contrary, Page attracted immense scrutiny by giving a public speech at Moscow's prestigious New Economic School, "an honor usually reserved for well-known luminaries," including President Obama in 2009, according to the Schiff memo (p. 4) and AP. (AP further notes:
"Last year, the university invited Carter Page, a little-known former investment banker and foreign policy adviser to then-U.S. presidential hopeful Donald Trump. It wouldn’t be the last time Page would draw unexpected—and some say outsized—attention for his relationship to Trump, his entanglements in Russia and the murky nexus between the two. ... For those who contend the scrutiny of Trump is overblown, Page is the sort of figure often associated with an understaffed presidential campaign that struggled to recruit policy advisers and spent little time vetting those who did join the team. ... ") TheTimesAreAChanging ( talk) 21:50, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
Context matters. -- Valjean ( talk) 00:33, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
The original appeal to consensus to force a complete deletion of this content was fallacious because an appeal to Consensus must be based on policies, not IDontLikeIt. You are still asserting consensus as the basis for completely deleting properly sourced and attributed content, but that's still the wrong approach. Now you are at least mentioning some policies, so good for you. Let's look at each of them:
Do you really want to keep pursuing attempts to delete all opinions from one POV (especially such a high-profile one) so that only the opposing POV is left? That is what's happening here, and it's about as egregious a POV violation as can be imagined. You don't really want to invoke "consensus" for such a violation, do you? (That's a rhetorical question, so please don't provide written evidence that can later be used against you.)
TheTimesAreAChanging and I have really tried to improve the content by responding to the concerns expressed by your whole "consensus" group, and I think you realize that. This is a good compromise, so I encourage you to act collegially and not politically. Note the addition of Page's denial, which was not requested: "However, Page insisted that "there was never any negotiations, or any quid pro quo, or any offer, or any request even, in any way related to sanctions." [2] Maybe you missed that. If the Mayer content goes, then so does Page's evasive denial, as it has no due weight in the absence of any accusation. In fact, now that Mayer's accusation has been removed, Page's denial has no due weight, but I'm willing to allow that violation of UNDUE as a compromise. We now have a good version that should meet your concerns. -- Valjean ( talk) 00:28, 27 November 2021 (UTC)
References
There have been a number of pieces lately from important outlets describing the overall role and approach by the media when the Dossier was first published. Does the article need a section summarizing this? Some of these seem to be opinion pieces, but much of recent analysis has tended to look critically at the initial coverage. CJR, WaPo, NYT, Intelligencer, for starters. What do editors think? Mr Ernie ( talk) 20:04, 18 November 2021 (UTC)
It would be most informative if we can format the mentions from each source/author (with good attribution and specific allegation) in a format something like this:
Something along those lines. Feel free to develop. -- Valjean ( talk) 22:33, 18 November 2021 (UTC)
said only limited information was corroborated from the dossier relating to "time, location, and title information, much of which was publicly available."And this is the February 2017 article which Erik Wemple of the Washington Post deprecated in 2020 and in 2021. So we have a wiki-voice claim in the lead that's backed by a cite to a source that's contested. As for the second cite, to ABC, I see nothing there that supports the claim but maybe I'm missing something so the person who originally cited it (Valjean) might point to the exact place. I suggest that the appropriate solution is: remove the CNN cite, but leave the claim for now because the rest of the sentence would be affected if we removed it. Peter Gulutzan ( talk) 22:31, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
only limited information was corroborated from the dossier relating to "time, location, and title information, much of which was publicly available."So at least some of it was right, but don't know how much. Does the fact much of it was publicly available detract from the veracity of the dossier? soibangla ( talk) 14:49, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
"some of the communications detailed in a 35-page dossier".So this was not about previously known information from public sources. The rest of the article makes it clear that this was new info from
"multiple current and former US law enforcement and intelligence officials".It was not about the pee tape.
"Rather it relates to conversations between foreign nationals. The dossier details about a dozen conversations between senior Russian officials and other Russian individuals."That confirms it was classified information.
"But the intercepts do confirm that some of the conversations described in the dossier took place between the same individuals on the same days and from the same locations as detailed in the dossier". "The corroboration, based on intercepted communications, has given US intelligence and law enforcement “greater confidence” in the credibility of some aspects of the dossier as they continue to actively investigate its contents".So the dossier writes something, and later "intercepted communications" confirm it. That's pretty good for the dossier.
This WaPo fact-check is one good recent source: The Steele dossier: A guide to the latest allegations -- Valjean ( talk) 04:45, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
I've added one line of media criticism from WaPo's Erik Wemple regarding the February 2017 Sciutto-Perez CNN report, using a source suggested by Peter Gulutzan above. Hopefully this resolves at least some of the acrimony seen above, and is a better option than removing the CNN report, which seems unlikely to gain consensus at this time. Regards, TheTimesAreAChanging ( talk) 17:18, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
"News is the first rough draft of history"? I think that it is a good counter-argument to your frequent invocations of WP:PRESERVE (as well as a common sense qualifier). In a sense, this Wikipedia article is a
"first rough draft of history,"too, because it is based on a primary source (the Steele dossier), along with contemporaneous journalistic reports and various attributed opinion columns. If 10, 20, or 50 years from now our view of the Steele dossier has completely changed (regardless of if the dossier is considered proven true or totally discredited) due to coverage in tertiary sources such as peer-reviewed academic books or articles, perhaps relying in part on declassified American (or Russian!) documents not currently available, then much of the speculative opinion in this article would cease to serve an encyclopedic purpose. At that point, we would all likely agree that Wemple's criticism of CNN's February 2017 reporting should go. But we very likely might say the same thing about the February 2017 CNN report itself (which has not yet been corroborated by any other source almost five years later), and about Jonathan Chait's opinion column "I'm a Peeliever and You Should Be, Too," not to mention McClatchy's reporting on Cohen's cellphone "pinging" near Prague. In this hypothetical future, academic historians would determine (both through direct coverage and by omission) which facts/allegations are essential to understanding the topic, and which were simply the noisy byproduct of the partisan political fights of the era—thereby relieving much of our burden as Wikipedia editors to make such determinations ourselves! In light of the current state of our article's sourcing (including numerous attributed opinions and 21 separate citations to Jane Mayer's sympathetic portrait of Steele in The New Yorker, coincidentally enough citation 21 in the current revision), however, I do not think that one sentence of fairly tame (as you implicitly acknowledge) criticism/skepticism by The Washington Post's media critic is a grotesque violation of WP:UNDUE. To the contrary, I'm tempted to throw a WP:PRESERVE right back at you—and I also note that the Wemple column in question was not initially introduced by me, but rather first mentioned by Peter Gulutzan (above), prompting me to turn it into article content in an attempt to remedy that user's concerns. TheTimesAreAChanging ( talk) 19:50, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
References
As of Nov 2022, there are currently no reliable sources for the Steele Dossier, stating somewhere that the whole premise was a political smear campaign using former intelligence officials and then current FBI and DOJ officials to lend creditability.
The entire article needs to torn down and gutted and reworked for the reaction to mythos that the document as published by buzzfeed was. That it was used in support of investigations that lead to impeachment is a historical blunder for the media world. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Loopbackdude ( talk • contribs) 21:49, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
This has for 3+ years broken down to a discussion of anti Trump fan fiction is amazing as the Russia-Gate, the lack of evidence admitted by the Crowdstrike CEO Testimony and FBI basis for FISA warrants for investigation points have all broken down over the past 4 years. Now that clarity is now back to the sole source of the gathered hearsay perhaps actually looking at the counter evidence is, this is why I purpose tearing this article apart and rewriting in that context. We are writing about an over reported piece of fan fiction reported as a collection of political facts out of the blame shifting effort of the Hillary Clinton 2016 loss. That a class of media professionals, FBI and a large swath of the political class fell for this artifact of the Russia-Gate Theory. [User talk:Loopbackdude#top|talk] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Loopbackdude ( talk • contribs) 00:51, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
The article in the second paragraph seems to deliberately create the impression that the dossier was funded by the DNC who then lied about it. Multiple independent reports, including statements made under oath by the law firm Perkins Coie and testimony of Steele himself have made it unambiguous that the original commission came from an as-yet unidentified Republican candidate for President. The identity of the unidentified Republican is known to both the FBI and the Justice Department, but not withstanding four years of attacks from President Trump and virtually his entire administration, they chose to never make known the name of the Republicans who commissioned and directed the original study. It is true that after said Republican withdrew from the Presidential race they stopped funding the research and the Clinton campaign continued funding Perkins Coie to conduct normal opposition research, just as Trump had multiple firms doing "Oppo Research" on Clinton. There is no evidence that either the original Republican who commissioned the work, or Clinton, ever knew who Steele was until after the dossier was published (over the objections of Steele, Perkins Coie, Clinton and the original funding source from the Republican Party). The conservative right wing web site The Washington Free Beacon has also publicly disclosed that it hired Fusion GPS, through Perkins Coie, to conduct research about Trump of whom little was known at the time. None of these parties supervised or managed the process that generated the so-called "Steele Dossier". After the election, Clinton stopped funding any research but Fusion GPS, in the hopes of selling the research to some as yet to be found new party (perhaps for a book, perhaps for a TV special) continued the research on its own account. It was after this last step, Fusion GPS conducting the research for itself, that the Dossier was produced and later published illicitly. A substantial portion of this article and indeed all right wing articles about the Steele Dossier focus almost exclusively on the brief period when the Clinton campaign was commissioning Oppo Research on Trump. These highly biased reports choose to omit the fact that the study was begun by a Republican Presidential campaign, was continued by a muck-raking right wing web site and subsequent to the election funded by Fusion GPS itself for its own account. It was Fusion GPS and not Clinton or the original Republican backers, who are responsible for the preparation and later publication of the dossier. This needs to be included in the article. See: [1] and [2] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.91.92.105 ( talk) 04:54, 17 November 2021 (UTC)
References
Although Sussmann and his claims have nothing to do with the dossier, this also mentions Danchenko and the dossier, so it's interesting:
Valjean ( talk) 18:39, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
"I have no idea whether Sussmann or Danchenko will ultimately be convicted (though I have serious doubts as to Sussmann), and I have no interest in defending the Steele dossier."), but does make a good point that proving Sussmann lied beyond a reasonable doubt given the publicly available evidence will be difficult:
"Baker was only one witness, but he took no notes, and he gave testimony to Congress that suggested he did not remember what Sussmann had told him about whom (if anyone) Sussmann was representing at the meeting. ... Durham's team responded by saying this was true but that Baker later accurately recalled what had happened by relying on notes that other officials had written."(Sussmann, of course, has pleaded not guilty.) The author also reminds us that
"it used to be widely recognized that the government's allegations in a criminal case are just that, unless and until they are established at a trial, and that a healthy amount of skepticism is always a good idea, particularly when a prosecutor has been less than completely trustworthy. The fervor among liberals and the media for the Mueller investigation seemed to diminish that sentiment. Durham may end up reviving it."[emphasis added] TheTimesAreAChanging ( talk) 19:25, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
TheTimesAreAChanging, I think you'll like this article from right-wing attorney Andrew C. McCarthy: "John Durham Probe: Michael Sussmann Case Collapsing?" [2]
I tend to be suspicious of McCarthy because of his involvement in some conspiracy theories. He's the one whose article was used by Trump to start the Spygate (conspiracy theory). (See this article: https://www.vox.com/2018/5/25/17380212/spygate-trump-russia-spy-stefan-halper-fbi-explained) I suspect that he may have regretted the way Trump ran with that story and built a huge conspiracy theory on a very shaky and weak foundation. I do like reading him as he still has a sharp legal mind, and this article shows that. National Review is a biased right-wing source that is controversial enough it was brought to WP:RS/P for a rating. It is close enough to center that we rate it as "no consensus", so it can be used with attribution.
He makes an important point here:
The next point is important because many who are very skeptical of the Steele dossier (calling it totally false, fictitious, a hoax, etc.) fall into the trap of believing the charges against Danchenko, Sussmann, and Clinesmith definitively bury the dossier. Some even suggest this whole article should be gutted and we start all over again, but McCarthy resoundingly trashes such thinking:
Danchenko may have lied by attributing some information to someone other than the real source ((possibly a dutiful and legitimate attempt (except to the FBI!) to protect sensitive and vulnerable sources)), but that may not have any effect on the truth or falsity of the allegation itself. It may still be true, false, or just a half-truth rumor, depending on its true reliability, and Steele always said he thought the dossier, as a whole, was probably only 70-90% true and guessed the "pee tape" allegation only had a 50% chance of being true. (That means Comey and I rate it a bit more likely to be true because we are
"maybe" peelievers.
)
So McCarthy's point is very relevant here: irrational or exaggerated reactions from Trump supporters to the news about Danchenko should be tempered greatly because the revelations about Danchenko haven't affected the truth or falsity of the allegations themselves. They are only relevant to the identity of the source(s), not what they reported. -- Valjean ( talk) 20:15, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
References
Would someone please email me the contents (or a link that works) of this article:
Valjean ( talk) 19:53, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
I also need help with this issue:
That "sub-source" is clearly Galkina, but we need a good source that makes the connection. -- Valjean ( talk) 20:35, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
Shall we remove, or keep, the two sentences that begin with the words "Jane Mayer said this part of the dossier seems true ..."? Peter Gulutzan ( talk) 02:14, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
The sentences in full are: Jane Mayer said this part of the dossier seems true, even if the name of an official may have been wrong. Page's congressional testimony confirmed he held meetings with top Moscow and Rosneft officials, during which Page conceded under questioning by Adam Schiff that the "potential sale of a significant percentage of Rosneft" might have been "briefly mentioned".[21][284]
.
Peter Gulutzan (
talk)
02:25, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
You link to the original version from 07:46, March 6, 2018, so I'll place it here, just for clarity:
Jane Mayer affirms that this part of the dossier seems true, even if the name of an official may have been wrong. Page's congressional testimony confirmed he held secret meetings with top Moscow and Rosneft officials, including talks about a payoff: "When Page was asked if a Rosneft executive had offered him a 'potential sale of a significant percentage of Rosneft,' Page said, 'He may have briefly mentioned it'." [1]
There certainly are "significant additions".
You mention "reinstated", which is the word used above on this talk page by TheTimesAreAChanging at 22:26, 24 November 2021: "For now, I have reinstated the text with Page's denial of a quid pro quo as a compromise with Valjean and Rauisuchian. Regards, TheTimesAreAChanging."
I see the addition of Page's own words under testimony and his denial as really good "significant additions", and the other tweaks to my original version to be significant improvements which should have easily satisfied your objections on this talk page, and yet you rejected them. I wonder why? In the comparison below, I'll try to highlight by coloring and strike throughs the changes made by TheTimesAreAChanging.
Let's compare your deletion of a long-standing version with the version reinstated by TheTimesAreAChanging a day later:
Jane Mayer said this part of the dossier seems true, even if the name of an official may have been wrong. Page's congressional testimony confirmed he held
meetings with top Moscow and Rosneft officials:secret[2]"When Page was asked if a Rosneft executive had offered him a 'potential sale of a significant percentage of Rosneft', Page said, 'He may have briefly mentioned it.'"
Jane Mayer said this part of the dossier seems true, even if the name of an official may have been wrong. Page's congressional testimony confirmed he held meetings with top Moscow and Rosneft officials,
during which Page conceded under questioning by Adam Schiff that the "potential sale of a significant percentage of Rosneft" might have been "briefly mentioned". [2] [3] However, Page insisted that "there was never any negotiations, or any quid pro quo, or any offer, or any request even, in any way related to sanctions." [4]
Later, thinking I was making an addition that built on suggestions on the talk page, and thus be an agreeable improvement, I made a small improvement, but that offended you, for which I'm sorry. Let's see how it looked compared to the above.
Jane Mayer said this part of the dossier seems true, even if the name of an official may have been wrong.
[2] Page's congressional testimony confirmed he met with Andrey Baranov, who was Rosneft's chief of investor relations, [5]and Page
I moved the Mayer ref to the first sentence; added the mention of Baranov; got rid of "top Moscow and Rosneft officials"; changed this "held meetings
with top Moscow and Rosneft officials, during which" to this "met
with Andrey Baranov, who was Rosneft's chief of investor relations,"
You rejected these improvements, so I reverted them with this edit summary: (Self-revert requested improvements because the RfC is not finished.)
You rejected these further improvements, at the time based on the ongoing RfC, which apparently has different rules for editing than an AfD. So what to do? Will you accept all these sincere attempts to improve the content, according to all your objections, or will you keep finding new objections? (Pinging Rauisuchian as they are mentioned above.) -- Valjean ( talk) 21:19, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
Now I'm really confused since I wrote parts of two of those versions, and the first and second sentences have been altered in the process by me and TheTimesAreAChanging. The "addition of Page's own words" is in the ref, not directly in the text. Maybe that's what's confusing us. Not sure at this late hour. Page's denial is indeed an addition: "However, Page insisted that "there was never any negotiations, or any quid pro quo, or any offer, or any request even, in any way related to sanctions."[4]
What's important is to focus on the improved version that would be in place if you allowed all the improvements. Let's compare:
Original version from 07:46, March 6, 2018:
Jane Mayer affirms that this part of the dossier seems true, even if the name of an official may have been wrong. Page's congressional testimony confirmed he held secret meetings with top Moscow and Rosneft officials, including talks about a payoff: "When Page was asked if a Rosneft executive had offered him a 'potential sale of a significant percentage of Rosneft,' Page said, 'He may have briefly mentioned it'." [1]
Improved version which combines all improvements and alters and leaves out several things you didn't like in the first two sentences:
Jane Mayer said this part of the dossier seems true, even if the name of an official may have been wrong. [2] Page's congressional testimony confirmed he met with Andrey Baranov, who was Rosneft's chief of investor relations, [5] and Page conceded under questioning by Adam Schiff that the "potential sale of a significant percentage of Rosneft" might have been "briefly mentioned". [2] [6] However, Page insisted that "there was never any negotiations, or any quid pro quo, or any offer, or any request even, in any way related to sanctions." [4]
Isn't that a lot better? I find it rather bizarre that when you complain about several details and we fix them, you refuse to accept the improvements.
BTW, here's a
good analysis of Page's "bizarre testimony".
[7] He's not exactly the most honest or transparent person. Evasion and double talk are his modus operandi. When pressed about some uncomfortable truth, he remains silent, but when pressed he grudgingly admits, but only partially. The full truth is always about a half-inch ahead of his tongue. He knows exactly where the bright line for outright perjury lies, so he flies under the radar, thus proving he knows what is the truth and that he's carefully steering around it. Only someone with prior and secret knowledge does that. --
Valjean (
talk)
07:11, 9 December 2021 (UTC) Stricken comments per concerns below. -- Valjean
Comment - Difficult to argue either keep or remove. My opinion has shifted to more neutral on the passage, given a couple things: first, that the contents of this passage are essentially included in preceding and following content in the same section; second that Washington Post and New York Times have shifted to a relatively negative view on the dossier overall. The Mayer source (used 21 times in the article) is good, as Mayer has a nuanced view of the dossier and this particular claim in 2018 that already approximated what reliable sources are saying currently. Although the revisions by Valjean and TheTimesAreAChanging are good, the paragraph is tough to fix in a way that people like and arguably the "seems true" wording downplays in a way the rest of the paragraph. That being said, this The Atlantic source would be nice to include somewhere on an unrelated note. Rauisuchian ( talk) 04:42, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
If there are no comments in the next few days, I'll ask for formal close. Peter Gulutzan ( talk) 23:30, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
References
Mayer_5/5/2018
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Afkhami_2/5/2018
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 20 | Archive 21 | Archive 22 | Archive 23 | Archive 24 | Archive 25 | → | Archive 27 |
On a tangentially-related note, Mr Ernie reverted some changes I had made. I had been pondering it in my dreams and awoke with the conclusion that I needed to revert and rework that content, and it turns how he beat me to it! I do not agree with his edit summary. Adam Schiff is an extremely RS on this topic. He was Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, member of the Gang of Eight, and has top security clearance. In this case, his bias doesn't make him inaccurate, and his opinion happens to be factual. Also, Newsweek, when attributed, certainly can be "used like this", but Schiff and the ODNI report are even better sources for that content as they document that Steele was way ahead of the intelligence community on this point. I'll take a look at it with a critical eye to improving it, so all's good. -- Valjean ( talk) 17:38, 17 November 2021 (UTC)
According to the
Steele dossier, specifically Report 2016/111, dated "14 September 2016"
(pp. 22-24):
PUTIN had been receiving conflicting advice on interfering from three separate and expert groups. On one side had been the Russian ambassador to the US, Sergei KISLYAK, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, together with an independent and informal network run by presidential foreign policy advisor, Yuri USHAKOV who had urged caution and the potential negative impact on Russia from the operation/s. On the other side was former PA head, Sergei IVANOV, backed by Russian Foreign Intelligence (SVR), who had advised PUTIN that the pro-TRUMP, anti-CLINTON operation/s would be both effective and plausibly deniable with little blowback. The first group/s had been proven right and this had been the catalyst in PUTIN's decision to sack IVANOV (unexpectedly) as PA Head in August. His successor, Anton VAINO, had been selected for the job partly because he had not been involved in the US presidential election operation/s. ...
Finally, speaking separately to the same compatriot, a senior Russian MFA official reported that as a prophylactic measure, a leading Russia diplomat, Mikhail KULAGIN, had been withdrawn from Washington on short notice because Moscow feared his heavy involvement in the US presidential election operation, including the so-called veterans' pensions ruse (reported previously), would be exposed in the media there. His replacement, Andrei BONDAREV however was clean in this regard.
While our article currently states that the allegation against Kalugin has been confirmed, citing a March 2017 BBC report by Paul Woods (who appears to be very close to Steele), and does not mention anything about Sergei Ivanov, Durham's indictment against Danchenko and a recent CNN report have called the veracity of these allegations into question. CNN's Marshall Cohen briefly addresses this topic:
Court filings from the Durham inquiry recently revealed that some information in the dossier originated from Charles Dolan, 71, a public relations executive with expertise in Russian affairs who had a decades-long political relationship with the Clinton family. He has not been accused of any crimes. ... Dolan was also indirectly linked in the indictment to still-unverified claims about Russian officials who were allegedly part of the election meddling. [emphasis added] The indictment also suggested that Steele's memos exaggerated what Dolan had passed along to Danchenko.
Durham's indictment of Danchenko (pp. 21-26) goes into considerably more detail regarding the provenance of Danchenko's sourcing for the above allegations against both Ivanov and Kulagin. (Dolan is referred to only as "PR Executive-I" and not named in the indictment, "but a lawyer for Dolan confirmed he was the unnamed executive cited in the document,"
according to
WaPo.) Focusing specifically on Kulagin's recall to Russia and the suggestion that this was due to his "heavy involvement in the US presidential election operation,"
Durham writes:
This allegation—like the allegation concerning the Presidential Suite of the Moscow Hotel—bore substantial similarities to information that [Dolan] received during the 2016 time period. ... After one of these meetings on or about May 31, 2016, a member of the Russian Embassy staff informed [Dolan] and Organizer-I in an email that [Kalugin] would be recalled back to Russia in September 2016 and replaced by Russian Diplomat-2. DANCHENKO was not a recipient of this email. ... On or about August 19, 2016, [Kalugin] sent an email to [Dolan] and others. The email stated, in substance and part, that [Kalugin] was returning to Russia and was being replaced by Russian Diplomat-2. [Kalugin] further stated: "[Russian Diplomat-2] is a talented diplomat and economist with impressive experience in American studies." [emphasis in original] ... On or about September 13, 2016—the day prior to the date of the Company Report containing the allegation regarding [Kalugin]—[Dolan] called DANCHENKO. ... In particular, on or about January 25, 2017, DANCHENKO stated to FBI agents that he learned of the information about [Kalugin]'s departure from [Kalugin] himself while [Kalugin] was helping DANCHENKO obtain a new Russian passport. DANCHENKO further stated that [Kalugin] described his replacement, Russian Diplomat-2, as a "bright young guy"—similar to the statement contained in the aforementioned August 2016 email from [Kalugin] to [Dolan]. [emphasis in original] DANCHENKO also stated to the FBI that his conversation with [Kalugin] occurred in late spring 2016—in or around the same time that [Dolan] and Organizer-I first learned of [Kalugin]'s impending return to Russia. ... However, when interviewed by the FBI on or about September 18 and 19, 2017, [Steele] stated that DANCHENKO learned of the aforementioned allegation in Moscow after bumping into [Kalugin] on the street in August 2016. In fact, DANCHENKO was located in the United States in August 2016.
If Durham's allegations are proven, they imply that Danchenko may have misled Steele about "bumping into [Kalugin] on the street in August 2016"
and that at least some of the information in the September 14 Steele memo was in fact unwittingly provided by Dolan. Furthermore, Kalugin's recall to Russia was planned months in advance (by "late spring 2016,"
with the planned departure being mentioned in a May 31 email to Dolan), which, far from confirming the accuracy of the Steele dossier, contradicts Steele's reporting that Kalugin "had been withdrawn from Washington on short notice because Moscow feared his heavy involvement in the US presidential election operation ... would be exposed in the media there."
[emphasis added]
While our article states that "McClatchy reported that the FBI was investigating whether Kalugin played a role in the election interference,"
this does not necessarily corroborate the Steele dossier, because the dossier may have been the basis for the FBI's investigation, and Kalugin was never charged or sanctioned in connection with Russian election meddling, to my knowledge. Furthermore, while it is only a passing mention, CNN's Cohen also indicates that the allegations against both Ivanov and Kulagin are "still-unverified"
. Food for thought...
TheTimesAreAChanging (
talk)
22:36, 28 November 2021 (UTC)
- For example, an allegation in a Company Report dated June 20, 2016 indicated that Trump had previously engaged in salacious sexual activity while a guest at the Moscow Hotel. The allegation stated, in part:
- ... The [Moscow Hotel] episode involving TRUMP reported above was confirmed by Source E, a senior (western) member of staff at the hotel, who said that s/he and several of the staff were aware of it at the time and subsequently. S/he believed it had happened in 2013. Source E provided an introduction for a company ethnic Russian operative to Source F, a female staffer at the hotel when TRUMP had stayed there, who also confirmed the story. ... [emphasis in original
- Certain of the information in the June 20, 2016 Company Report reflected facts that [Dolan] and Organizer-I also learned during the June 2016 Planning Trip to Moscow. ... While at the Moscow Hotel, [Dolan] and Organizer-I (i) received a tour of the Moscow Hotel's Presidential Suite (ii) met with the general manager ("General Manager-I") and other staff of the Moscow Hotel, ... According to Organizer-I, during the aforementioned tour of the Presidential Suite, a Moscow Hotel staff member told the participants, including [Dolan], that Trump had stayed in the Presidential Suite. According to both Organizer-I and [Dolan], the staff member did not mention any sexual or salacious activity. ... DANCHENKO initially claimed to have stayed at the Moscow Hotel in June 2016. DANCHENKO later acknowledged in a subsequent interview, however, that he did not stay at the Moscow Hotel until the October Conference.
"did not mention any sexual or salacious activity"? Marshall Cohen of CNN similarly observes:
- The indictment indirectly connected Dolan to the infamous claim that Russia possessed a compromising tape of Trump with prostitutes in Moscow, which became known as the "pee tape." (Trump and Russia both denied the allegations.) According to the Danchenko indictment, in June 2016, Dolan toured the Ritz-Carlton suite where the alleged liaison occurred, and discussed Trump's 2013 visit with hotel staff, but wasn't told about any sexual escapades. It's still unclear where those salacious details that ended up in the dossier came from. .. Taken together, these revelations about Dolan, Millian and Galkina raise grave questions about where Danchenko got his information, or if he perhaps made some of it up.
- In April 2017, CNN was first to report that the FBI included some material from the dossier in the FISA applications. The article said prosecutors would only have done this "after the FBI had corroborated the information through its own investigation," according to officials familiar with the process. It's now clear that this level of verification never materialized. The watchdog report said Steele's claims about Page "remained uncorroborated" when the wiretaps ended in 2017. [emphasis added
"invested in the dossier being true". I have always known that there were parts of the dossier that might not be true, and Steele has always said that (70-90% accurate, with only 50% chance for the pee tape). That most of the allegations are unproven and likely unprovable is also no surprise. That says zilch about their truth or falsity.
"Clearly, if sources E and F exist, Steele did not speak with them, and Danchenko did not speak with them either. If they are the Russians that Dolan interacted with (i.e., the manager and a staff member of the hotel), then what are we to make of Dolan (and his associate)'s sworn statement that they"did not mention any sexual or salacious activity"?"
"it was his impression that the Primary Sub-source may not have been 'completely truthful' and may have been minimizing certain aspects of what he/she told Steele". [1]The sources for the pee tape allegation likely did the same, IF Dolan even talked to them. We don't know.
the salacious information in Steele's dossier was also reported by "multiple intelligence sources" and "at least one East European intelligence service".They reported that "compromising material on Mr. Trump"
included "more than one tape, not just video, but audio as well, on more than one date, in more than one place, in both Moscow and St. Petersburg." [2]While also mentioning that "nobody should believe something just because an intelligence agent says it", [3] [4] Wood added that
"the CIA believes it is credible that the Kremlin has such kompromat—or compromising material—on the next US commander in chief". [2] [5] [3]
"in June 2016, Dolan toured the Ritz-Carlton suite where the alleged liaison occurred, and discussed Trump's 2013 visit with hotel staff, but wasn't told about any sexual escapades."
"a Moscow Hotel staff member told the participants, including [Dolan], that Trump had stayed in the Presidential Suite. According to both Organizer-I and [Dolan], the staff member did not mention any sexual or salacious activity."
"Taken together, these revelations about Dolan, Millian and Galkina raise grave questions about where Danchenko got his information, or if he perhaps made some of it up."
"It's now clear that this level of verification never materialized. The watchdog report said Steele's claims about Page "remained uncorroborated" when the wiretaps ended in 2017. [emphasis added]"
"you've described the Durham inquiry (in article space!) as [https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Steele_dossier&diff=925762252&oldid=925745892 "an inquiry described as a cover-up to protect Trump,"] text that is still in this article and that I have not even tried to remove."
"conspiracy theory,"so the content is a straightforward violation of WP:V. TheTimesAreAChanging ( talk) 22:38, 29 November 2021 (UTC)
References
OIG_12/9/2019
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Hope_Rothfeld_Cullison_1/11/2017
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).The following media articles debunk the "Russiagate" conspiracy theory, which is debunked in this article: Russia investigation origins counter-narrative (a conspiracy theory). The right-wing media places a lot of undeserved focus on the dossier, and we deal with it in this article. The dossier was not the trigger for the start of the Crossfire Hurricane (FBI investigation) into how Trump and his campaign aided the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. The Mueller report also described their role in helping the Russians. Wikipedia has many articles that cover this topic from many angles. In spite of these facts, we still have people coming here who don't understand these facts and who still believe the right-wing conspiracy theories. Needless to say, editors who edit and comment on these topics have no excuse for ignorance and sympathy with these conspiracy theories. -- Valjean ( talk) 07:50, 2 December 2021 (UTC) Introduction added later.
The real hoax, however, is that the Trump scandal is a hoax.
The Russians actively sought to help Trump win the presidency, and the candidate and his campaign knew it. The ties were deep.
The right-wing revisionists focus on the mistakes or unverified charges in the Steele Dossier, compiled by a British intelligence official and mainly financed by the Hillary Clinton campaign.
The dossier “was irrelevant in terms of what we were doing. There's a very public record on that,” says Andrew Weissmann, a top counsel in Robert Mueller's independent investigation of Russia and Trump. [1]
He's right. Editors here need to stop propagating these right-wing, revisionist, hoaxes and conspiracy theories about the dossier and the very real and proven Russian interference that was aided and abetted by Trump and his campaign. Yes, there are things coming out now about sources for the dossier, but that doesn't somehow prove that all the conspiracy theories about the dossier and its allegations are all suddenly correct. They aren't.
As reliable sources document SPECIFIC matters that require changes to the article, we will revise THOSE things. We do not completely rewrite an article without support from RS, especially their opinion articles. That would be throwing out the baby with the bathwater, largely based on those opinion articles and views from unreliable sources. Any such attempts would be huge NPOV and TE violations that would end up at ArbCom and/or AE, with several editors here losing their privileges. Keep in mind that diffs from edits to articles and talk page discussions then become evidence. Unlike the destruction of evidence by TFG and his campaigners, those diffs live on, so beware. Just sayin'... The important point is that there is no rush. We'll get to it. -- Valjean ( talk) 21:25, 29 November 2021 (UTC)
"sweeping every allegation of collusion under the skirts of this article. What
"allegations"are you talking about?
"Collusion"by whom? {{tq|"under the skirts? What does that mean?
In direct contradiction to Mother Jones' opinion (ref 282), Marshall Cohen of CNN has just published an investigative report stating that President Trump was correct and his critics wrong: https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/18/politics/steele-dossier-reckoning/index.html One can hardly call this source right wing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BlueFoam212 ( talk • contribs) 23:35, 29 November 2021 (UTC)
Sources
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"No doubt there was some histrionic coverage of the Steele Dossier. But the truth is that virtually every news outlet that reported it made clear that it was unsubstantiated and no one reported that it was the only reason for the Russia investigation. Trump and his campaign's suspicious behavior was more than enough to set off alarms all over the world." [1]
That sums up what's happening quite well, but there is one part that needs clarification. Only the mainstream RS did not report "that it was the only reason for the Russia investigation." It was the right-wing and conspiracy theory media that did that all along. They made that idea part of their conspiracy theories, and it's a false idea that is still pushed by TFG, and many of his followers still believe that lie. -- Valjean ( talk) 00:46, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
Sources
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The fact that Mr. Mueller did not obtain sufficient evidence to charge Trump associates with conspiracy is subject to disputed interpretations that overlap with the debate over the dossier’s significance. Trump supporters frame the lack of conspiracy charges as proof there was no collusion. By combining this with the false premise that there would not have been any Russia investigation without the Steele dossier, they portray Mr. Trump as a victim of a hoax. [1]
The problem with that statement is the employment of Bruce Ohr, Husband of Fusion GPS employee
The previously unreported details of the July 30, 2016, breakfast with Christopher Steele, which Ohr described to lawmakers this week in a private interview, reveal an exchange of potentially explosive information about Trump between two men the president has relentlessly sought to discredit. [2]
On September 30, 2020, Ohr retired from his position at DOJ "after his counsel was informed that a final decision on a disciplinary review being conducted by Department senior career officials was imminent"
Ohr failed to inform his supervisors in the Justice Department of his role, actions which were "shocking" to Rod Rosenstein when he learned of Ohr's role. Rosenstein stated that Ohr "appeared to be serving as an 'intermediary' with Steele". [3]
The editors do not want to pay attention to this very early reporting, that is one major factor why half the nation does not belive that the russia investigation is more than an series of diverse facts pulled together, fusion GPS pulled diverse facts together and they were fed to the DOJ and then to the FBI. The DC telephone game and distortion of reporting is still all over this item. [4]
Loopbackdude ( talk) 13:46, December 3, 2021 (TC)
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
The sourcing on both have proven to be opinion, like much of the NY Times reporting, will be edited in the future. The preponderance of the evidence, as in the testamony under oath, is the trump tower meeting was a bust about economic sanctions that were ratched up for the 4 years of the Trump Term. If a russian national had given the trump camping something that is a hypothetical. We have on the foreign agents and the clinton campaign insiders giving the clinton campaign through fusion GPS untruths that have proven to be of no value other than feeding the rumor mill and the DOJ/FBI kabal that wanted to prove their loyalty to the bureaucracy under attack by new leadership. An article on political hearsay that has been taken criminal, this is very large editorial challenge but the POV of collection of unsubstantiated facts cannot pick and choose a few facts that were in the public record outside the document and lend any creditability. Russia Hoax is an ill defined term, define that term sharply and it is true, define it in a way to generate copy and it is a conspircy theory. The community will be editing this for decades. The whole affair is a watergate without the burgulars, security guard, or arrests, or tapes. Or a Saturday Night Massacre. It had impechment, twice. Best dirty tricks project ever! It had Russians, DOJ Lawyers and FBI Ledership, very little shoe leather was worn by the guys in cheap suits. |
I made these remarks before in Role of the media / media criticism, that was a mistake because they were only tangentially related to the thread topic. I repeat them here and expect that counter-arguments will be repeated here or moved here.
CNN, in
The Steele dossier: A reckoning, refers to a
February 2017 article which says that "US investigators had corroborated some of the communications detailed in the dossier". We're using that February 2017 article for a cite of the words "Some aspects of the dossier have been corroborated"[CNN cite][ABC cite]". But CNN acknowledges that Michael Horowitz's report said only limited information was corroborated from the dossier relating to "time, location, and title information, much of which was publicly available."
And this is the February 2017 article which Erik Wemple of the Washington Post deprecated
in 2020 and
in 2021. So we have a wiki-voice claim in the lead that's backed by a cite to a source that's contested. As for the second cite, to ABC, I see nothing there that supports the claim but maybe I'm missing something so the person who originally cited it (Valjean) might point to the exact place. I suggest that the appropriate solution is: remove the CNN cite, but leave the claim for now because the rest of the sentence would be affected if we removed it.
Peter Gulutzan (
talk)
17:04, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
On a separate but related matter, do you think that you are at the point where you would be willing to consider tweaking the line from Mayer about Page supposedly admitting that he was offered
"a payoff" during his November 2017 congressional testimony to reflect the points raised by Peter Gulutzan and myself above, or is that a bridge too far for you at this time? Keep in mind that I am not suggesting we should take Page's testimony at face value—I am merely suggesting that we should not misquote him when we have the transcript available and it does not include the "offered him"
language introduced by Mayer. Furthermore, CNN had an
entire article devoted to Page's testimony within a week of his appearance, which is much more accurate than Mayer's passing account and makes clear that while Page admitted meeting with the head of Rosneft's investor relations, he was adamant that no quid pro quo (as alleged in the dossier) was discussed. Thoughts?
TheTimesAreAChanging (
talk)
06:47, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
"payoff"language, which partially addresses my concern. As I'm sure you can imagine, my preference would be to either drop Mayer completely, or trim the relevant text down to just the bit about her opinion/analysis (i.e.,
"Jane Mayer said this part of the dossier seems true, even if the name of an official may have been wrong."), which would not be as drastic as it sounds considering that the factual portion of her reporting is duplicated by the paragraphs directly preceding and succeeding it. A more modest change might look like the following:
Jane Mayer said this part of the dossier seems true, even if the name of an official may have been wrong. Page's congressional testimony confirmed he held secret meetings with top Moscow and Rosneft officials, during which Page conceded under questioning that the "potential sale of a significant percentage of Rosneft" might have been "briefly mentioned". [1] However, Page insisted that "there was never any negotiations, or any quid pro quo, or any offer, or any request even, in any way related to sanctions." [2]
"during which Page conceded in response to a question by Adam Schiff [...]"and include a footnote with a link to the transcript so that readers can examine the relevant exchange for themselves, if they wish. TheTimesAreAChanging ( talk) 23:35, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
"situationally reliable"per WP:RSP Newsweek to make essentially the same point as Mayer, namely that the dossier's claims were "verified" because Page met with Baranov, even though the dossier said that Page met with Putin's right-hand man Igor Sechin and was involved in a lucrative quid pro quo conservatively amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars in exchange for sanctions relief, none of which in fact has been publicly substantiated.) In any case, if the disputed text from Mayer is restored, then I would also favor trimming Mayer's language about
"secret meetings"in favor of just
"meetings,"as the former formulation comes across as sensationalized well-poisoning. To my knowledge, no reliable source has challenged that Page met with Baranov (an old friend of his) and the other Russians in public settings, and his presence in Russia (fully explained or not) was hardly a closely-guarded secret. To the contrary, Page attracted immense scrutiny by giving a public speech at Moscow's prestigious New Economic School, "an honor usually reserved for well-known luminaries," including President Obama in 2009, according to the Schiff memo (p. 4) and AP. (AP further notes:
"Last year, the university invited Carter Page, a little-known former investment banker and foreign policy adviser to then-U.S. presidential hopeful Donald Trump. It wouldn’t be the last time Page would draw unexpected—and some say outsized—attention for his relationship to Trump, his entanglements in Russia and the murky nexus between the two. ... For those who contend the scrutiny of Trump is overblown, Page is the sort of figure often associated with an understaffed presidential campaign that struggled to recruit policy advisers and spent little time vetting those who did join the team. ... ") TheTimesAreAChanging ( talk) 21:50, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
Context matters. -- Valjean ( talk) 00:33, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
The original appeal to consensus to force a complete deletion of this content was fallacious because an appeal to Consensus must be based on policies, not IDontLikeIt. You are still asserting consensus as the basis for completely deleting properly sourced and attributed content, but that's still the wrong approach. Now you are at least mentioning some policies, so good for you. Let's look at each of them:
Do you really want to keep pursuing attempts to delete all opinions from one POV (especially such a high-profile one) so that only the opposing POV is left? That is what's happening here, and it's about as egregious a POV violation as can be imagined. You don't really want to invoke "consensus" for such a violation, do you? (That's a rhetorical question, so please don't provide written evidence that can later be used against you.)
TheTimesAreAChanging and I have really tried to improve the content by responding to the concerns expressed by your whole "consensus" group, and I think you realize that. This is a good compromise, so I encourage you to act collegially and not politically. Note the addition of Page's denial, which was not requested: "However, Page insisted that "there was never any negotiations, or any quid pro quo, or any offer, or any request even, in any way related to sanctions." [2] Maybe you missed that. If the Mayer content goes, then so does Page's evasive denial, as it has no due weight in the absence of any accusation. In fact, now that Mayer's accusation has been removed, Page's denial has no due weight, but I'm willing to allow that violation of UNDUE as a compromise. We now have a good version that should meet your concerns. -- Valjean ( talk) 00:28, 27 November 2021 (UTC)
References
There have been a number of pieces lately from important outlets describing the overall role and approach by the media when the Dossier was first published. Does the article need a section summarizing this? Some of these seem to be opinion pieces, but much of recent analysis has tended to look critically at the initial coverage. CJR, WaPo, NYT, Intelligencer, for starters. What do editors think? Mr Ernie ( talk) 20:04, 18 November 2021 (UTC)
It would be most informative if we can format the mentions from each source/author (with good attribution and specific allegation) in a format something like this:
Something along those lines. Feel free to develop. -- Valjean ( talk) 22:33, 18 November 2021 (UTC)
said only limited information was corroborated from the dossier relating to "time, location, and title information, much of which was publicly available."And this is the February 2017 article which Erik Wemple of the Washington Post deprecated in 2020 and in 2021. So we have a wiki-voice claim in the lead that's backed by a cite to a source that's contested. As for the second cite, to ABC, I see nothing there that supports the claim but maybe I'm missing something so the person who originally cited it (Valjean) might point to the exact place. I suggest that the appropriate solution is: remove the CNN cite, but leave the claim for now because the rest of the sentence would be affected if we removed it. Peter Gulutzan ( talk) 22:31, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
only limited information was corroborated from the dossier relating to "time, location, and title information, much of which was publicly available."So at least some of it was right, but don't know how much. Does the fact much of it was publicly available detract from the veracity of the dossier? soibangla ( talk) 14:49, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
"some of the communications detailed in a 35-page dossier".So this was not about previously known information from public sources. The rest of the article makes it clear that this was new info from
"multiple current and former US law enforcement and intelligence officials".It was not about the pee tape.
"Rather it relates to conversations between foreign nationals. The dossier details about a dozen conversations between senior Russian officials and other Russian individuals."That confirms it was classified information.
"But the intercepts do confirm that some of the conversations described in the dossier took place between the same individuals on the same days and from the same locations as detailed in the dossier". "The corroboration, based on intercepted communications, has given US intelligence and law enforcement “greater confidence” in the credibility of some aspects of the dossier as they continue to actively investigate its contents".So the dossier writes something, and later "intercepted communications" confirm it. That's pretty good for the dossier.
This WaPo fact-check is one good recent source: The Steele dossier: A guide to the latest allegations -- Valjean ( talk) 04:45, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
I've added one line of media criticism from WaPo's Erik Wemple regarding the February 2017 Sciutto-Perez CNN report, using a source suggested by Peter Gulutzan above. Hopefully this resolves at least some of the acrimony seen above, and is a better option than removing the CNN report, which seems unlikely to gain consensus at this time. Regards, TheTimesAreAChanging ( talk) 17:18, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
"News is the first rough draft of history"? I think that it is a good counter-argument to your frequent invocations of WP:PRESERVE (as well as a common sense qualifier). In a sense, this Wikipedia article is a
"first rough draft of history,"too, because it is based on a primary source (the Steele dossier), along with contemporaneous journalistic reports and various attributed opinion columns. If 10, 20, or 50 years from now our view of the Steele dossier has completely changed (regardless of if the dossier is considered proven true or totally discredited) due to coverage in tertiary sources such as peer-reviewed academic books or articles, perhaps relying in part on declassified American (or Russian!) documents not currently available, then much of the speculative opinion in this article would cease to serve an encyclopedic purpose. At that point, we would all likely agree that Wemple's criticism of CNN's February 2017 reporting should go. But we very likely might say the same thing about the February 2017 CNN report itself (which has not yet been corroborated by any other source almost five years later), and about Jonathan Chait's opinion column "I'm a Peeliever and You Should Be, Too," not to mention McClatchy's reporting on Cohen's cellphone "pinging" near Prague. In this hypothetical future, academic historians would determine (both through direct coverage and by omission) which facts/allegations are essential to understanding the topic, and which were simply the noisy byproduct of the partisan political fights of the era—thereby relieving much of our burden as Wikipedia editors to make such determinations ourselves! In light of the current state of our article's sourcing (including numerous attributed opinions and 21 separate citations to Jane Mayer's sympathetic portrait of Steele in The New Yorker, coincidentally enough citation 21 in the current revision), however, I do not think that one sentence of fairly tame (as you implicitly acknowledge) criticism/skepticism by The Washington Post's media critic is a grotesque violation of WP:UNDUE. To the contrary, I'm tempted to throw a WP:PRESERVE right back at you—and I also note that the Wemple column in question was not initially introduced by me, but rather first mentioned by Peter Gulutzan (above), prompting me to turn it into article content in an attempt to remedy that user's concerns. TheTimesAreAChanging ( talk) 19:50, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
References
As of Nov 2022, there are currently no reliable sources for the Steele Dossier, stating somewhere that the whole premise was a political smear campaign using former intelligence officials and then current FBI and DOJ officials to lend creditability.
The entire article needs to torn down and gutted and reworked for the reaction to mythos that the document as published by buzzfeed was. That it was used in support of investigations that lead to impeachment is a historical blunder for the media world. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Loopbackdude ( talk • contribs) 21:49, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
This has for 3+ years broken down to a discussion of anti Trump fan fiction is amazing as the Russia-Gate, the lack of evidence admitted by the Crowdstrike CEO Testimony and FBI basis for FISA warrants for investigation points have all broken down over the past 4 years. Now that clarity is now back to the sole source of the gathered hearsay perhaps actually looking at the counter evidence is, this is why I purpose tearing this article apart and rewriting in that context. We are writing about an over reported piece of fan fiction reported as a collection of political facts out of the blame shifting effort of the Hillary Clinton 2016 loss. That a class of media professionals, FBI and a large swath of the political class fell for this artifact of the Russia-Gate Theory. [User talk:Loopbackdude#top|talk] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Loopbackdude ( talk • contribs) 00:51, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
The article in the second paragraph seems to deliberately create the impression that the dossier was funded by the DNC who then lied about it. Multiple independent reports, including statements made under oath by the law firm Perkins Coie and testimony of Steele himself have made it unambiguous that the original commission came from an as-yet unidentified Republican candidate for President. The identity of the unidentified Republican is known to both the FBI and the Justice Department, but not withstanding four years of attacks from President Trump and virtually his entire administration, they chose to never make known the name of the Republicans who commissioned and directed the original study. It is true that after said Republican withdrew from the Presidential race they stopped funding the research and the Clinton campaign continued funding Perkins Coie to conduct normal opposition research, just as Trump had multiple firms doing "Oppo Research" on Clinton. There is no evidence that either the original Republican who commissioned the work, or Clinton, ever knew who Steele was until after the dossier was published (over the objections of Steele, Perkins Coie, Clinton and the original funding source from the Republican Party). The conservative right wing web site The Washington Free Beacon has also publicly disclosed that it hired Fusion GPS, through Perkins Coie, to conduct research about Trump of whom little was known at the time. None of these parties supervised or managed the process that generated the so-called "Steele Dossier". After the election, Clinton stopped funding any research but Fusion GPS, in the hopes of selling the research to some as yet to be found new party (perhaps for a book, perhaps for a TV special) continued the research on its own account. It was after this last step, Fusion GPS conducting the research for itself, that the Dossier was produced and later published illicitly. A substantial portion of this article and indeed all right wing articles about the Steele Dossier focus almost exclusively on the brief period when the Clinton campaign was commissioning Oppo Research on Trump. These highly biased reports choose to omit the fact that the study was begun by a Republican Presidential campaign, was continued by a muck-raking right wing web site and subsequent to the election funded by Fusion GPS itself for its own account. It was Fusion GPS and not Clinton or the original Republican backers, who are responsible for the preparation and later publication of the dossier. This needs to be included in the article. See: [1] and [2] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.91.92.105 ( talk) 04:54, 17 November 2021 (UTC)
References
Although Sussmann and his claims have nothing to do with the dossier, this also mentions Danchenko and the dossier, so it's interesting:
Valjean ( talk) 18:39, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
"I have no idea whether Sussmann or Danchenko will ultimately be convicted (though I have serious doubts as to Sussmann), and I have no interest in defending the Steele dossier."), but does make a good point that proving Sussmann lied beyond a reasonable doubt given the publicly available evidence will be difficult:
"Baker was only one witness, but he took no notes, and he gave testimony to Congress that suggested he did not remember what Sussmann had told him about whom (if anyone) Sussmann was representing at the meeting. ... Durham's team responded by saying this was true but that Baker later accurately recalled what had happened by relying on notes that other officials had written."(Sussmann, of course, has pleaded not guilty.) The author also reminds us that
"it used to be widely recognized that the government's allegations in a criminal case are just that, unless and until they are established at a trial, and that a healthy amount of skepticism is always a good idea, particularly when a prosecutor has been less than completely trustworthy. The fervor among liberals and the media for the Mueller investigation seemed to diminish that sentiment. Durham may end up reviving it."[emphasis added] TheTimesAreAChanging ( talk) 19:25, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
TheTimesAreAChanging, I think you'll like this article from right-wing attorney Andrew C. McCarthy: "John Durham Probe: Michael Sussmann Case Collapsing?" [2]
I tend to be suspicious of McCarthy because of his involvement in some conspiracy theories. He's the one whose article was used by Trump to start the Spygate (conspiracy theory). (See this article: https://www.vox.com/2018/5/25/17380212/spygate-trump-russia-spy-stefan-halper-fbi-explained) I suspect that he may have regretted the way Trump ran with that story and built a huge conspiracy theory on a very shaky and weak foundation. I do like reading him as he still has a sharp legal mind, and this article shows that. National Review is a biased right-wing source that is controversial enough it was brought to WP:RS/P for a rating. It is close enough to center that we rate it as "no consensus", so it can be used with attribution.
He makes an important point here:
The next point is important because many who are very skeptical of the Steele dossier (calling it totally false, fictitious, a hoax, etc.) fall into the trap of believing the charges against Danchenko, Sussmann, and Clinesmith definitively bury the dossier. Some even suggest this whole article should be gutted and we start all over again, but McCarthy resoundingly trashes such thinking:
Danchenko may have lied by attributing some information to someone other than the real source ((possibly a dutiful and legitimate attempt (except to the FBI!) to protect sensitive and vulnerable sources)), but that may not have any effect on the truth or falsity of the allegation itself. It may still be true, false, or just a half-truth rumor, depending on its true reliability, and Steele always said he thought the dossier, as a whole, was probably only 70-90% true and guessed the "pee tape" allegation only had a 50% chance of being true. (That means Comey and I rate it a bit more likely to be true because we are
"maybe" peelievers.
)
So McCarthy's point is very relevant here: irrational or exaggerated reactions from Trump supporters to the news about Danchenko should be tempered greatly because the revelations about Danchenko haven't affected the truth or falsity of the allegations themselves. They are only relevant to the identity of the source(s), not what they reported. -- Valjean ( talk) 20:15, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
References
Would someone please email me the contents (or a link that works) of this article:
Valjean ( talk) 19:53, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
I also need help with this issue:
That "sub-source" is clearly Galkina, but we need a good source that makes the connection. -- Valjean ( talk) 20:35, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
Shall we remove, or keep, the two sentences that begin with the words "Jane Mayer said this part of the dossier seems true ..."? Peter Gulutzan ( talk) 02:14, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
The sentences in full are: Jane Mayer said this part of the dossier seems true, even if the name of an official may have been wrong. Page's congressional testimony confirmed he held meetings with top Moscow and Rosneft officials, during which Page conceded under questioning by Adam Schiff that the "potential sale of a significant percentage of Rosneft" might have been "briefly mentioned".[21][284]
.
Peter Gulutzan (
talk)
02:25, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
You link to the original version from 07:46, March 6, 2018, so I'll place it here, just for clarity:
Jane Mayer affirms that this part of the dossier seems true, even if the name of an official may have been wrong. Page's congressional testimony confirmed he held secret meetings with top Moscow and Rosneft officials, including talks about a payoff: "When Page was asked if a Rosneft executive had offered him a 'potential sale of a significant percentage of Rosneft,' Page said, 'He may have briefly mentioned it'." [1]
There certainly are "significant additions".
You mention "reinstated", which is the word used above on this talk page by TheTimesAreAChanging at 22:26, 24 November 2021: "For now, I have reinstated the text with Page's denial of a quid pro quo as a compromise with Valjean and Rauisuchian. Regards, TheTimesAreAChanging."
I see the addition of Page's own words under testimony and his denial as really good "significant additions", and the other tweaks to my original version to be significant improvements which should have easily satisfied your objections on this talk page, and yet you rejected them. I wonder why? In the comparison below, I'll try to highlight by coloring and strike throughs the changes made by TheTimesAreAChanging.
Let's compare your deletion of a long-standing version with the version reinstated by TheTimesAreAChanging a day later:
Jane Mayer said this part of the dossier seems true, even if the name of an official may have been wrong. Page's congressional testimony confirmed he held
meetings with top Moscow and Rosneft officials:secret[2]"When Page was asked if a Rosneft executive had offered him a 'potential sale of a significant percentage of Rosneft', Page said, 'He may have briefly mentioned it.'"
Jane Mayer said this part of the dossier seems true, even if the name of an official may have been wrong. Page's congressional testimony confirmed he held meetings with top Moscow and Rosneft officials,
during which Page conceded under questioning by Adam Schiff that the "potential sale of a significant percentage of Rosneft" might have been "briefly mentioned". [2] [3] However, Page insisted that "there was never any negotiations, or any quid pro quo, or any offer, or any request even, in any way related to sanctions." [4]
Later, thinking I was making an addition that built on suggestions on the talk page, and thus be an agreeable improvement, I made a small improvement, but that offended you, for which I'm sorry. Let's see how it looked compared to the above.
Jane Mayer said this part of the dossier seems true, even if the name of an official may have been wrong.
[2] Page's congressional testimony confirmed he met with Andrey Baranov, who was Rosneft's chief of investor relations, [5]and Page
I moved the Mayer ref to the first sentence; added the mention of Baranov; got rid of "top Moscow and Rosneft officials"; changed this "held meetings
with top Moscow and Rosneft officials, during which" to this "met
with Andrey Baranov, who was Rosneft's chief of investor relations,"
You rejected these improvements, so I reverted them with this edit summary: (Self-revert requested improvements because the RfC is not finished.)
You rejected these further improvements, at the time based on the ongoing RfC, which apparently has different rules for editing than an AfD. So what to do? Will you accept all these sincere attempts to improve the content, according to all your objections, or will you keep finding new objections? (Pinging Rauisuchian as they are mentioned above.) -- Valjean ( talk) 21:19, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
Now I'm really confused since I wrote parts of two of those versions, and the first and second sentences have been altered in the process by me and TheTimesAreAChanging. The "addition of Page's own words" is in the ref, not directly in the text. Maybe that's what's confusing us. Not sure at this late hour. Page's denial is indeed an addition: "However, Page insisted that "there was never any negotiations, or any quid pro quo, or any offer, or any request even, in any way related to sanctions."[4]
What's important is to focus on the improved version that would be in place if you allowed all the improvements. Let's compare:
Original version from 07:46, March 6, 2018:
Jane Mayer affirms that this part of the dossier seems true, even if the name of an official may have been wrong. Page's congressional testimony confirmed he held secret meetings with top Moscow and Rosneft officials, including talks about a payoff: "When Page was asked if a Rosneft executive had offered him a 'potential sale of a significant percentage of Rosneft,' Page said, 'He may have briefly mentioned it'." [1]
Improved version which combines all improvements and alters and leaves out several things you didn't like in the first two sentences:
Jane Mayer said this part of the dossier seems true, even if the name of an official may have been wrong. [2] Page's congressional testimony confirmed he met with Andrey Baranov, who was Rosneft's chief of investor relations, [5] and Page conceded under questioning by Adam Schiff that the "potential sale of a significant percentage of Rosneft" might have been "briefly mentioned". [2] [6] However, Page insisted that "there was never any negotiations, or any quid pro quo, or any offer, or any request even, in any way related to sanctions." [4]
Isn't that a lot better? I find it rather bizarre that when you complain about several details and we fix them, you refuse to accept the improvements.
BTW, here's a
good analysis of Page's "bizarre testimony".
[7] He's not exactly the most honest or transparent person. Evasion and double talk are his modus operandi. When pressed about some uncomfortable truth, he remains silent, but when pressed he grudgingly admits, but only partially. The full truth is always about a half-inch ahead of his tongue. He knows exactly where the bright line for outright perjury lies, so he flies under the radar, thus proving he knows what is the truth and that he's carefully steering around it. Only someone with prior and secret knowledge does that. --
Valjean (
talk)
07:11, 9 December 2021 (UTC) Stricken comments per concerns below. -- Valjean
Comment - Difficult to argue either keep or remove. My opinion has shifted to more neutral on the passage, given a couple things: first, that the contents of this passage are essentially included in preceding and following content in the same section; second that Washington Post and New York Times have shifted to a relatively negative view on the dossier overall. The Mayer source (used 21 times in the article) is good, as Mayer has a nuanced view of the dossier and this particular claim in 2018 that already approximated what reliable sources are saying currently. Although the revisions by Valjean and TheTimesAreAChanging are good, the paragraph is tough to fix in a way that people like and arguably the "seems true" wording downplays in a way the rest of the paragraph. That being said, this The Atlantic source would be nice to include somewhere on an unrelated note. Rauisuchian ( talk) 04:42, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
If there are no comments in the next few days, I'll ask for formal close. Peter Gulutzan ( talk) 23:30, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
References
Mayer_5/5/2018
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Afkhami_2/5/2018
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).