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Hey all. Just for the record, I'm coming in from an off-site discussion where it was noted that a prior version of the article could easily be read to suggest that the big picture Steele dossier allegations were by-and-large credible, when this is in fact not the case. Specifically, while it is broadly true that the Russian government acted to encourage support for Trump and discourage support for Clinton, claims that the Trump campaign solicited this activity or was coordinating with Russia were undermined by closer investigation of Steele's sources. I've tweaked the first paragraph to fix this, and added a cite to page XI of the Horowitz report on Crossfire Hurricane, which mentions that investigation and how it reflects on the original information.
More broadly, though, I think this article is suffering from some pretty severe bloat and lack of focus. In many ways it feels like the non-fiction equivalent of what MOS:PLOT and WP:PLOTSUM warn about in terms of overly long summaries. I mean, the ToC is two vertical screens long on my laptop, not including the end matter, and these sections are on average fairly long. The history and authorship sections go on for paragraphs about who paid who how much, who wrote what, and so on, with little to no reference to the document(s) and its/their role in the broader Trump/Russia series of controversies. Then follow two enormous sections detailing every allegation made, with occasional digressions into unrelated aspects of the meta-controversy. The whole article is like this, to the point that the contextual information and place of the dossier in the broader series of controversies (ie what's actually notable about it) ends up getting swamped by all of this extraneous and often repetitive detail.
Fixing all of this is kind of a huge project, more than I feel comfortable taking on as an individual, so I wanted to start discussion here about how to refocus, condense, and contextualize things. I think the right place to start is the basic structure. The most important point in my view is to avoid letting the body of the article devolving into a blow-by-blow list of things that happened, and more generally to always keep the broader context of the dossier in mind. While I'm not sure how to order everything, here are the basic sections I'm envisioning:
This is more of a writing project than a sourcing/researching one, I think. The current article, after all, has more than 500 references already; I'd be surprised if there's anything really missing. I do also want to note that in doing this writeup, I've noticed similar problems with the way various parts of Trump's political career are covered more generally. Obviously the Trump/Russia meta-scandal is closely related, and I think that article needs some major TLC and maybe some splits, but in general I'm not a fan of how the Donald Trump template is organized. If this restructure works out, or if it starts to spread beyond this page, I'll take things to WP:TRUMP and see how people feel about that.
In any case, what do people think about these proposals? This is the first time I'm proposing something this major on the wiki, so I'd appreciate help/advice. ( @Valjean)
Gazeboist ( talk) 22:18, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
claims that the Trump campaign solicited this activity or was coordinating with Russia were undermined by closer investigation of Steele's sourceswhat's the citation for that? Horowitz report is a primary source. Andre 🚐 00:24, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
Among other things, regarding the allegations attributed to Person 1, the Primary Sub-source's account of these communications, if true, was not consistent with and, in fact, contradicted the allegations of a "well-developed conspiracy" in Reports 95 and 102 attributed to Person 1.I haven't had time to dig deeper and find the particular interview they're referencing in that sentence, but this is Steele's main source telling the FBI in 2017 that Steele's claim of a "well-developed conspiracy" mischaracterized the information Steele had been given by that source. I'll try to come back early next week and dig more into this particular item. In general, though, for purposes of this article, I would take the original reports from Steele (and things like contemporary communications about them) to be primary sources, but the Horowitz report seems to be at least as much of a secondary source as, say, an analysis from Lawfare. Gazeboist ( talk) 02:42, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
Gazeboist, let me share a few of my thoughts on this. I'd appreciate knowing yours. See this as brainstorming. If you want to place your comments in the appropriate spots in the middle of comment below, just copy my signature and place it before your indented comment.
This is the part of the article that I originally created as a separate sub-article, and it has been reworked over the years. The problem with it being a sub-article was that this main article told about the existence of allegations without mentioning them. So that content was merged into this main article, which makes sense. When one writes an article about a book, but only discusses the cover and criticism of the book, but does not mention the actual contents, something's really wrong. It is the contents (the allegations) that are the book. So we fixed that problem. That's now ancient history.
The dossier contains many more allegations than are mentioned here, and that's because we are not allowed to depend on primary sources. We depend on secondary and tertiary sources, so we only mention the allegations mentioned in such sources, using the dossier as backup for exact wordings. According to RS, the other allegations simply don't have enough due weight for mention here, and that's okay. The article is long enough as is. Some of them have nothing to do with the election, Trump, or national security. They are digressions, some obviously from Galkina. That doesn't mean we shouldn't cover them. We should cover anything to do with the dossier, but RS don't do it, so we can't.
Editors and readers will naturally have their own interpretations of which allegations are the most important, serious, wonky, silly, correct, or false. On this talk page, such OR considerations are not only allowed, they are vital to figuring out how to apply common sense and editorial judgment to the creation of content, but ultimately we must bow to RS, limit what we are allowed to write, and let them dictate what is written. For example, we can't write that an allegation is the "key" or "central" one without attributing that to a RS, as it's an opinion. We do that when we can.
Which allegation(s) have gotten the most attention in RS? Which ones are the most important or significant? Certainly valid questions, and when RS offer their opinions, we can add those attributed opinions. My impression is that the pee tape allegation got the most attention, by far, while being rather unimportant from an informational angle. It places the whole dossier in an unserious light, but we must not act like the public. We know better. Yes, if Trump is being blackmailed, that's very important, but we don't need the dossier to tell us that is the case. Trump has always bragged about his sexual prowess, his beautiful women, and has never hid his infidelities. Totally separate from the dossier, we know he has spent a lot of time in Russia over the years, and there are sources (including short mention in the dossier) which describe his actions with women there, especially young ones, actions that shocked even Russians, who know that such info would be used against Trump. So is the pee tape allegation as important as the attention it got, or did it get attention because it was salacious? I think the latter. It also served as a foil to distract from the really important allegations of national security issues, and, according to the dossier, distracted from corruption in China. Fusion GPS advised Steele to not include it, but this was an unfinished rough draft, and his MI6 training informed him to include everything at this preliminary stage of development. Unfortunately, this is what got published, and it drowned out coverage of more serious and accurate allegations. Right-wing media kept that aspect in the faces of viewers and readers so they didn't know about the serious and true allegations.
What about a very central allegation, that there was a "conspiracy of cooperation"? Well, which part of that is the most important, the plan or the deed? "Conspiracy" involves the plan, whereas "cooperation" is the deed. Mueller couldn't prove, but did not disprove, "conspiracy", but he found a whole lot of active and passive cooperation/collusion, usually described in many different ways. Who cares if own can prove that two bank robbers planned to rob a bank? No, the fact they did it is much more important. Only in the world of American politics would one let the robbers go free because the police couldn't prove they "planned" it together.
Unconfirmed allegations have been treated as false, and that's just wrong. Accusations that the dossier is fake are just Trump's bloviating and lying. There is zero evidence that anything in it is fake or that it was not a serious effort to collect information that could be used as opposition research. Unfortunately for Clinton, it never served its purpose, which was to weaken Trump and help her win.
Accusations that the dossier contains Russian disinformation have been made, even by serious people like Hill, but zero evidence provided. One must also remember that the FBI has analyzed and examined this possibility and addressed this long after the fact, and they found zero evidence that such was the case. The Inspector General's report discusses this. The FBI also felt it would make no sense for the Russians to do that. Steele was aware of this danger, and he knew that his proximity to Deripaska on another matter was a potential weak spot, but he kept those deals separate. In fact, he was working closely with the FBI in its efforts to flip Deripaska, but that didn't work out.
A couple allegations may be inflated or just rumor, if one believes Danchenko, but the FBI again leans toward it being Danchenko who is trying to cover his ass by "minimizing" his role. He was scared when it first became public knowledge that he had anything to do with the dossier, but he did, and the FBI knew that informants in his position often seek to minimize or deny their connections and roles. They are the ones who are lying, not the police, or in this case Steele. That's all in the Inspector General's report.
The FBI analyzed why there was a discrepancy between what Danchenko said and what was written in the dossier, and they provided three possible explanations, and then they leaned toward it being Danchenko who was covering his ass, not Steele who had misunderstood or was exaggerating, although that could still be true. Even then, that doesn't make the allegation false. It just remains unconfirmed. We have a section about this because RS and the Inspector General's report discuss it. See Steele dossier#Discrepancies between sources and their allegations.
How many sources did Steele have? BBC correspondent Paul Wood, writing in The Spectator, wrote: "Steele had '20 to 30' sources for the dossier and in two decades as a professional intelligence officer he had never seen such complete agreement by such a wide range of sources." [1]
We know that Danchenko was Steele's main sub-source, but Galkina "stood as the dossier's most important contributor". Between them they had many contacts (sub-sub-sources), all the way into the Kremlin. Danchenko, and especially Galkina, are very well-connected. (The FBI hired Danchenko and he proved to be extremely valuable.) Steele had sources who had no connection with each other reporting on the same events, so that type of confirmation is also valuable. Then the FBI's own sources confirmed what Steele's sources had told him, so they just nodded and noted that Steele had pretty good sources. That's why they even listened to him. Then, because they couldn't interview most of the sources, they depended on their own sources, not Steele's, when making judgement calls, assessments, and writing their reports. The January 2017 ODNI assessment confirmed Steele's central allegations, the ones mentioned in the lead. Steele's sources were far ahead of the FBI.
So we're left with a bunch of allegations mentioned in RS, all of them different, with very different sources, some based on very solid information, a couple based possibly on rumors, some confirmed, some unconfirmed, and nothing serious actually disproven. The experts at Lawfare wrote this in December 2018: "The dossier holds up well over time, and none of it, to our knowledge, has been disproven." They know the difference between unconfirmed and disproven. It's a shame that so many don't. Now you understand why we can't make any form of group judgment or declaration about the allegations. They must be treated separately, except for those mentioned as a group in the ODNI assessment.
Now how to cover this in the last sentence of the first paragraph? Very briefly, as it's too complicated to deal with in the lead. We deal with it all much better in the body, treating each allegation separately. -- Valjean ( talk) ( PING me) 18:36, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
References
"Secretive" is not opinion. The contacts, starting in 2015 (AFAIK), were covert contacts with actual Russian spies. We know this because seven different allied intelligence agencies discovered these contacts rather accidentally during their routine surveillance of what the spies were doing. They discovered that these spies in different countries all over Europe (even Australian intelligence reported such contacts) were discussing things with Trump people, and it worried them enough that they independently started reporting their findings to American intelligence (possibly both FBI and CIA). The full nature and details of these contacts have never been revealed as it would endanger sources, disclose who and now they were being spied upon, and otherwise endanger intelligence-gathering secrets.
When confronted with these accusations, Trump and everyone connected with him denied and lied. That was their pattern all throughout his presidency the time. "Undisclosed" contacts that are denied and lied about means they were meant to remain "secret". So "secretive" isn't OR or opinion. --
Valjean (
talk) (
PING me) 04:59, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
Have you examined this section: Steele dossier#Veracity and corroboration status of specific allegations? It should be examined carefully before proceeding down this path. When you're done, you may or may not revise you approach. We have steered clear of bundling allegations (we only mention the few that were discussed in RS) and their confirmation status. They are quite varied, from different sources, and even Steele knew that some might be shaky. He never claimed they were all true.
By dealing with what RS say about each one in its own section, we avoid the danger of OR. We are not allowed to include our OR synthesis speculations of what the RS means when they say what they say. We can do that on this talk page during discussions, but that doesn't get into the article. When one reads a section and what all the RS say about that particular allegation, one gets a sense of whether it's true, maybe true, uncertain, unlikely, or even false. It's a very mixed bag, and sources are rarely agreed, so we just include all of them. When there is uncertainty about an unconfirmed allegation, readers should come away with that feeling of uncertainty found by reading all the RS. Does that make sense to you? -- Valjean ( talk) ( PING me) 05:11, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
I will however stand by the walkback from "several key allegations" to "some aspects". The first suggests that the claims are basically true, even if some details haven't been corroborated, while the second keeps things properly ambivalent before directly stating what is and isn't known. Changing "the" to "a" is just a grammatical thing; ODNI likely produced multiple reports on a variety of subjects in January of 2017, of which the election interference report was one.
That is about specific allegations made in June 2016 and mentioned in THE ODNI report of January 2017, so we can't really change that. The point of that is that Steele's sources were far ahead of the FBI. They alleged things later confirmed and then formally stated in the ODNI report. Steele had sources in the Kremlin, with one in Putin's office. -- Valjean ( talk) ( PING me) 05:21, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
While Steele's documents played a significant role in initially highlighting the general friendliness between Trump and the Putin administration, the veracity of specific allegations is highly variable. Some have been publicly confirmed, others are plausible but not specifically confirmed, and some are dubious in retrospect but not strictly disproven.I have an urge to add some kind of comment about how this variance drives the controversy over the dossier, but I think that would be analysis. -- Gazeboist ( talk) 00:42, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
While Steele's documents played a significant role in initially highlighting the general friendliness between Trump and the Putin administration, the veracity of specific allegations is highly variable. Some have been publicly confirmed, [1] [2] [7] [8] others are plausible but not specifically confirmed, [3] [9] and some are dubious in retrospect but not strictly disproven. [4] [5] [10]
There is another sentence we could add that covers an important, two-part, allegation:
As far as the allegation of a well-developed "conspiracy of cooperation", the Mueller report did not directly address "cooperation", but did conclude there was insufficient evidence to bring any conspiracy or coordination charges against Trump or his associates." [11]
That is one of the most important allegations, and it was neither proven nor disproven. Should we also add that sentence? (BTW, many forms of passive and active cooperation (another word for collusion) by Trump, Don Jr, and his campaign members were proven in spades, but that's too much for the lead. IOW, they could prove that robbers "robbed the bank", but couldn't prove the robbers actually planned to help each other do it.
) --
Valjean (
talk) (
PING me) 03:13, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
I do still think the opening section could be cut down and rearranged into three or maybe four paragraphs. We cover the allegations and their trustworthiness in the first, and I don't think we really need to repeat that info until we're actually expanding on it in the body. The second paragraph can take on the documents' origins, publication, and sharing to the IC; the debate over who knew what about payments can be left to the relevant section of the article. Then the third paragraph can summarize the varying reactions, and maybe we do a separate fourth paragraph on its continued life in rhetoric and conspiracy theories. I'll come back at a later date to put some real work into that effort. -- Gazeboist ( talk) 16:35, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
Peter, why did you remove the following?
Paul Wood, writing in The Spectator, said the source was one of Danchenko's contacts, "no less than a former head of Russia's foreign intelligence services. This source did not talk specifically about the 'pee tape' but, Danchenko told Steele, he said they had sexual kompromat on Trump going back years. 'We've got him over a barrel.'" [12]
Edit summary: "No, Paul Wood did not say in that 2020 article that the source was one of Igor Danchenko's contacts. Paul Wood said that somebody else, unnamed, said it."
My original source:
Finally, there was another Danchenko contact, a ‘former senior intelligence officer now a Kremlin official’. This was later said to be no less than a former head of Russia's foreign intelligence services. This source did not talk specifically about the ‘pee tape’ but, Danchenko told Steele, he said they had sexual kompromat on Trump going back years. ‘We’ve got him over a barrel.’ [12]
Peter, please parse this from the above. They appear to be talking about the same person:
How did I get this wrong? What am I missing?
Full paragraph, so we can count the five "other" sources (my numbers in brackets):
Steele has five other sources for the ‘golden showers’ story. [1] One is the hotel manager, [2] another a maid. Neither had first-hand information, the manager agreed it might have happened, the maid relayed gossip among the housekeeping staff. [3] One is ‘an American’ who supposedly saw a row in the hotel reception about whether a group of prostitutes could go up to Trump’s suite. This American is not Keith Schiller, Trump’s bodyguard, who told a Congressional committee he had ‘stopped’ five prostitutes from trying to visit Trump. [4] Another source was a friend of Danchenko, described as a Russian with a ‘wide social network’, who said the story was common knowledge around the Kremlin. Finally, there was [5] another Danchenko contact, a ‘former senior intelligence officer now a Kremlin official’. This was later said to be no less than a former head of Russia’s foreign intelligence services. This source did not talk specifically about the ‘pee tape’ but, Danchenko told Steele, he said they had sexual kompromat on Trump going back years. ‘We’ve got him over a barrel.’
Other info about Steele's sources for the "pee tape" allegation: [13] [14] While many people do not believe the "pee tape" incident happened, Stanislav Belkovsky, Russian political analyst and a founder and director of the Moscow-based National Strategy Institute of Ukraine, disagrees: "Prostitutes around the city say the 'golden shower' orgy story is true". [15] -- Valjean ( talk) ( PING me) 16:56, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
References
Hutzler_8//16/2018
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).ODNI_1/6/2017
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Levine_1/12/2018
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Farhi_11/12/2021
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Grant_Rosenberg_12/14/2018
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Goldman_Savage_7/25/2020
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).We are not dealing with "unnamed people quoting unnamed people". We are dealing with a citation from a very notable BBC journalist, Paul Wood (journalist), writing in a very RS, The Spectator, the longest-lived current affairs magazine in the world and in history. WP:RS/QUOTE is certainly satisfied. The content is rather short and properly attributed. The subject is very much on-topic (the dossier makes allegations, what a surprise!!!), and the alleged source ("Former head of Russia's foreign intelligence services") is certainly notable enough for mention. Steele, Danchenko, and Galkina have remarkable networks of sources. The FBI rated Galkina's the best, and she unwittingly provided info to Danchenko.
This is the typical IDONTLIKEIT obstructionism we have come to expect. One need not read it, just look at the contribution history, and one knows what to expect. It's really cheap wikilawyering, using illegitimate arguments:
The objection is also rooted in "truth" personal POV ideas that ignore "verifiability, not truth". Questions about whether "what is alleged is true or not" or whether "the original sources for the allegations are notable or not" are irrelevant. Our policies deal with this and rule out such arguments. Reliable secondary sources cover the issue, and that is why we cover it, not because we agree or disagree with the sources or content. -- Valjean ( talk) ( PING me) 18:01, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
I say we take off and nuke the whole article from orbit. It's the only way to be sure. Then you and Gazeboist can post a sane account of this sorry mess. Shtove ( talk) 17:00, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
TFD, if only it were that simple:
Steele already wrote of this in June, and the ODNI confirmed it publicly in January 2017. Steele's central allegations were proven true. Sure, some things were public knowledge, and Steele naturally commented on them, but his sources also provided background, even for those things, that were not public knowledge. For example, neither Steele nor the public knew of the Russian offer to Papadopoulos, yet his sources alleged a similar offer was made to Carter Page. The Russians wanted to make sure the Trump campaign knew they were willing to help by giving them the stolen DNC and Hillary emails, so they plied both of Trump's messengers with the same offer of help. That's why Donald Jr., who obviously knew of the offer, was so excited at the Trump Tower Meeting. He thought: "Finally, we are getting what they had promised to Papadopoulos, all those juicy stolen Hillary emails." Boy was he disappointed! They ended up talking about the Russian desire for the sanctions to be lifted. Donald had to hold his end of the quid pro quo bargain by doing that, and he did publicly say he would do it. So Roger Stone ended up having to work with Assange and Guccifer 2.0 to try to coordinate the release of the stolen emails, and the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that Donald Trump had to have known of this attempted coordination. Trump even had Rohrabacher, "Putin's favorite congressman", travel to London and meet with Assange, where he relayed Trump's promise of a pardon if Assange would deny any Russian involvement in the hacking of American targets and the release of the stolen emails. [2] So Assange denied Russian involvement and blamed Seth Rich, even though a dead man cannot continue to supply stolen emails, and Assange knew he was dealing with Guccifer 2.0, not the dead Seth Rich. -- Valjean ( talk) ( PING me) 07:32, 21 May 2023 (UTC)
As far as I know, we don't have a specific policy page solely devoted to the existence of criticism sections, but do find guidance in NPOV and maybe some other policies. It seems that they often refer to the essay WP:Criticism, where we find some excellent guidance. Here's the nutshell:
![]() | This page in a nutshell: Articles should include significant criticisms of the subject while avoiding undue weight and POV forking. |
We definitely "include significant criticisms of the subject", but we keep getting criticism from certain editors, like Mr Ernie, that seem to indicate they aren't aware of this fact. Is such ignorance of this article's actual content sufficient reason to go against recommended practice?
We even document all the "hoax, fake news, totally discredited, false, manufactured, Russian disinfo" types from the right-wing echo chamber and Trump supporters that are totally baseless and voiced without evidence (the Trumpian "the more true it is, the more it will be criticized because it makes Trump look bad" type, IOW " Donald Trump's misuse of the term "fake news""). To them, the proven veracity of many important allegations and the criticism have no connection. The more true the allegation, the more they will deny this fact and continue to criticize it. We plainly have NOTHERE editors who do this and keep kicking this dead horse.
As long as a criticism has been mentioned in a RS (which often document fringe POV), it has been included at the appropriate spots. That's what we are supposed to do. In spite of that fact, I'm wondering if we should create a criticism section here. Sometimes it's justifiable.
On what basis can we justify it? Will it violate NPOV by giving too much weight to baseless and false criticisms? Will it give too much weight to fringe POV? Will doing so violate "avoiding undue weight and POV forking"? Or should we just continue to keep it in the logical spots?
What think ye? Can we create a consensus for or against such a section? -- Valjean ( talk) ( PING me) 14:43, 18 May 2023 (UTC)
NO as I seem to recall its frowned upon. Its not a policy, but not a done thing. I think it should be in prose, rather than just a list of grievances (which is what such sections tend to end up being). Slatersteven ( talk) 14:49, 18 May 2023 (UTC)
In most cases separate sections devoted to criticism, controversies, or the like should be avoided in an article because these sections call undue attention to negative viewpoints. It is better usually to place criticisms alongside the content they criticize, to make sure those viewpoints are appropriately given DUE weight and avoid any UNDUE emphasis on pros OR cons. — Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 15:08, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
A good article that also mentions the dossier:
Valjean ( talk) ( PING me) 00:08, 19 May 2023 (UTC)
In case you are not a frequent viewer of Fox News, it’s worth explaining the two claims here. The first is that the dossier of reports compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele was the genesis of the Russia probe. The second is that the idea to link Trump to Russia was itself a political tactic by Clinton’s campaign.
Neither of those things is true, and a quick timeline will make clear why.
Shouldn't this whole article be updated to reflect the revelations of the Durham Report? 151.198.54.2 ( talk) 05:31, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
Durham is on record and has proof that Hillary Clinton committed this crime of the Russian Hoax to frame Donald J Trump. Wikipedia needs to change the wording or delete Steele Dossier from the wording of “controversial” to “illegal crime committed by the Clinton Campaigb to frame Donald J Trump.” There is no “controversy” as Durham has all the proof with Hillary Clinton all over it, and backed up by our Federal Bureau of Investigation. 136.61.213.57 ( talk) 13:18, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
This is about the latest revival of another Trump/Russia hoax on the American people. It would make a good article here. It's actually pretty old and is based on a "letter contains unverified Russian intelligence information" likely intended to become the seed of such an anti-Clinton conspiracy theory. John Ratcliffe revived it by releasing the declassified info that had previously been rejected by a Senate panel.
BTW, it's pretty natural that a political campaign will publicize any suspicious activity by their opponent, and there was lots of Trump-Russia activity of a suspicious nature. The Clinton campaign didn't invent it. The blame for investigations of Trump-Russia connections lies firmly at the feet of Trump and his campaign.
CLAIM: A declassified letter from the United States Director of National Intelligence proves that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton planned the “Russia hoax” against Trump in 2016.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The letter contains unverified Russian intelligence information and some lawmakers have criticized its release as a political move. The letter explains that in 2016, Russian intelligence had alleged that Clinton “had approved a campaign plan to stir up a scandal” against Trump. The document also clearly states that American intelligence officials do not know whether this claim is accurate, an exaggeration, or a lie. [4]
See also:
So who's going to create the article? It's a notable topic. -- Valjean ( talk) ( PING me) 14:28, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
I'm copying soibangla's comment from above as it's spot on: -- Valjean ( talk) ( PING me) 14:31, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
US intelligence became aware of a Clinton campaign plan
that was snatched from Russian servers by Dutch intelligence and relayed to USIC which had suspicions it was disinfo that Russia wanted us to snatch and run with, and Durham twice tried to get warrants on Soros with it, but Beryl Howell twice denied his requests because it was dubious.
soibangla (
talk) 00:02, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
the Steele Dossier indeed had a role in triggering the investigationremains false no matter how often it is repeated soibangla ( talk) 18:17, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
Raj208, yes, Durham, just like Trump and all his supporters, is critical of the dossier. Durham is working for Trump's interests, and unlike other investigations (Mueller and Horowitz), is shoddy work that's very partisan and untrustworthy. His criticism of the dossier is not news and our article documents all forms of discontent aimed at the dossier, some of it justified and some just uninformed complaining and conspiracy theories, like yours.
You keep claiming that the dossier was used to trigger the start of the Crossfire Hurricane (FBI investigation) (CH), and we keep telling you that is not true. Even Durham says so in that article:
The CH investigation was opened on July 31, 2016, and the CH team first got a few memos from the dossier on September 19, 2016.
FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe: "We started the investigations without the dossier. We were proceeding with the investigations before we ever received that information." [6]
Durham concedes this point right above in your CNN source. His criticisms of the dossier have nothing to do with your claim. Now tell us how they could have opened the investigation in July based on dossier memos they did not see until September? -- Valjean ( talk) ( PING me) 20:38, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
OMG! Read this. Durham may have lied twice to Congress. -- Valjean ( talk) ( PING me) 19:49, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
Hyping the lurid document written by a former British spy that made since-discredited claims about Trump’s ties to Moscow.Do you? RS post 2021 overwhelmingly refer to the dossier as "discredited" or similar. This is not accurately reflected in the article. Mr Ernie ( talk) 14:36, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
Eventually, his credibility collapsed. It was discovered his report was essentially paid opposition research. Investigators failed to corroborate its central claims, like that Trump attorney Michael Cohen traveled to Prague to collude with Russian officials (something Cohen, now a fierce Trump critic, denies to this day). Maybe most damningly, one of his primary sources, Igor Danchenko, later told the FBI that he had never intended any of the information he provided Steele to be presented as “fact.” Rather, it was mostly “hearsay” and material from “conversation he had with friends over beers.” (Danchenko, it turned out, had also previously been a paid FBI source).Mr Ernie ( talk) 14:42, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
Trump’s campaign, and later transition, were filled with a remarkable number of people who had secret interactions with Russian actors, about which they lied either in real time or in retrospect.Aka, yes there was collusion. Andre 🚐 23:29, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
US intelligence became aware of a Clinton campaign planthat was snatched from Russian servers by Dutch intelligence and relayed to USIC which had suspicions it was disinfo that Russia wanted us to snatch and run with, and Durham twice tried to get warrants on Soros with it, but Beryl Howell twice denied his requests because it was dubious. soibangla ( talk) 00:02, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
Durham's nonsensical claim (“There is not a single substantive piece of information in the [Steele] dossier that has ever been corroborated”) is now fodder for fringe media. Mainstream media (IOW RS) aren't touching it. Here's a typical example from an unreliable source. -- Valjean ( talk) ( PING me) 14:41, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
References
ODNI_1/6/2017
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Sciutto_Perez_2/10/2017
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Levine_1/12/2018
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Yourish_Buchanan_1/26/2019
was invoked but never defined (see the
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help page).This article is currently 443,920 bytes long; this is extremely long for an article, and guidelines would seem to strongly suggest it be split or edited down. Most articles this big are lists or timeline articles that require inclusion of a large number of items; this doesn't seem to be one. I must admit I am somewhat puzzled by its size, given that (according to the article itself) it was not a crucially important document and much of the stuff in it was false ("Many allegations in the dossier have been dismissed by authorities or remain unverified", "The Mueller Report contained passing references to some of the dossier's allegations but little mention of its more sensational claims", "it did not play any role in the intelligence community's assessment about Russian actions in the 2016 election").
Given, then, that this seems to have been partially (or mostly?) nonsense that doesn't seem to have had much effect on anything, it seems strange that our article on it goes through a detailed, apparently line-by-line recounting of every individual claim that was made in it. I think some of this could simply be removed, or at the very least edited down.
Looking at {{ Section sizes}}, it seems that the "Veracity and corroboration status of specific allegations" section is extremely long (over 100 kilobytes) and could easily be its own article -- in fact, if it were its own article, it would itself be near the upper bounds of reasonable article size! The same is true for "History" (96 kilobytes). On one hand, it might be good to split these out, but on the other hand, since the document itself doesn't seem like it was that pivotal in the course of history, it may be unreasonable for us to have not one but three separate articles on it.
Thoughts? jp× g 23:47, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
Most RS's consider this to be discredited, not merely controversial.
The lead should reflect this. DarrellWinkler ( talk) 21:24, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
"discredited" is weaselspeak for "lots of people have criticized it, but none of it has been publicly disproven, so we just don't have a better word for it" soibangla ( talk) 00:12, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
The largely discredited dossier was a collection of unverified and salacious allegations compiled by retired British spy Christopher Steele, whose dirt-digging was indirectly funded by Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016.
well as the reliance by the FBI on a dossier of uncorroborated or discredited information compiled by an British ex-spy, Christopher Steele.
The dossier contains now-discredited rumors and salacious claims about Trump’s cooperation with the Russian government and was provided to the FBI
where he recounted the most salacious allegation in the now discredited dossier
the creation of a discredited dossier about former President Donald Trump.
The material in the dossier has since been largely discredited.
at the heart of the now discredited Steele dossier
the Steele Dossier, a now-largely discredited document
This has a lot to do with how much due weight we give opinions not based on facts, especially in the lead. "Controversial" is pretty factual and says nothing about the reliability/truthfulness of the dossier, but is about how it's been discussed and the roles it has played. No one would deny it's been very controversial.
Trump's attacks, as the judge noted, are not based on facts (a principle that applies to much of what he says), so we should not give Trump's words more weight than they deserve, which isn't much. Yet, because he's so notable and RS have documented what he says, we do the same. We do document that he has attacked the dossier using many terms that are disconnected from reality. The lead says this:
So should we add more to that in the lead? That source says this:
As usual with Trump, most of that is a lie. "Discredited" is the closest we come to an opinion that might have some relation to reality (it has been a big disappointment with many possibly true allegations still unconfirmed), so we're back to the question of whether we should include it. We could add it to the lead at that spot:
How does that sound? (We'd add a couple RS that mention those words.) -- Valjean ( talk) ( PING me) 15:20, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
An interesting article by experts in oppo research: "Much of the Steele dossier hasn’t been disproved to date, but rather has gained greater credence based on Trump’s turbulent presidency." [8] -- Valjean ( talk) ( PING me) 16:25, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
References
Why is this not shown to be a fake dossier created by Hillary Cliton, illegally, to discredit Donald Trump? The FBI admits they made it up and it has been proven to be completely fake. Why is this protected from these edits, unless Wikipedia is pushing fake news? Wikipedia should probably make not and allowe the correct information to be published before they get sued for defamation. 134.132.40.221 ( talk) 14:50, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
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Archive 20 | ← | Archive 24 | Archive 25 | Archive 26 | Archive 27 |
Hey all. Just for the record, I'm coming in from an off-site discussion where it was noted that a prior version of the article could easily be read to suggest that the big picture Steele dossier allegations were by-and-large credible, when this is in fact not the case. Specifically, while it is broadly true that the Russian government acted to encourage support for Trump and discourage support for Clinton, claims that the Trump campaign solicited this activity or was coordinating with Russia were undermined by closer investigation of Steele's sources. I've tweaked the first paragraph to fix this, and added a cite to page XI of the Horowitz report on Crossfire Hurricane, which mentions that investigation and how it reflects on the original information.
More broadly, though, I think this article is suffering from some pretty severe bloat and lack of focus. In many ways it feels like the non-fiction equivalent of what MOS:PLOT and WP:PLOTSUM warn about in terms of overly long summaries. I mean, the ToC is two vertical screens long on my laptop, not including the end matter, and these sections are on average fairly long. The history and authorship sections go on for paragraphs about who paid who how much, who wrote what, and so on, with little to no reference to the document(s) and its/their role in the broader Trump/Russia series of controversies. Then follow two enormous sections detailing every allegation made, with occasional digressions into unrelated aspects of the meta-controversy. The whole article is like this, to the point that the contextual information and place of the dossier in the broader series of controversies (ie what's actually notable about it) ends up getting swamped by all of this extraneous and often repetitive detail.
Fixing all of this is kind of a huge project, more than I feel comfortable taking on as an individual, so I wanted to start discussion here about how to refocus, condense, and contextualize things. I think the right place to start is the basic structure. The most important point in my view is to avoid letting the body of the article devolving into a blow-by-blow list of things that happened, and more generally to always keep the broader context of the dossier in mind. While I'm not sure how to order everything, here are the basic sections I'm envisioning:
This is more of a writing project than a sourcing/researching one, I think. The current article, after all, has more than 500 references already; I'd be surprised if there's anything really missing. I do also want to note that in doing this writeup, I've noticed similar problems with the way various parts of Trump's political career are covered more generally. Obviously the Trump/Russia meta-scandal is closely related, and I think that article needs some major TLC and maybe some splits, but in general I'm not a fan of how the Donald Trump template is organized. If this restructure works out, or if it starts to spread beyond this page, I'll take things to WP:TRUMP and see how people feel about that.
In any case, what do people think about these proposals? This is the first time I'm proposing something this major on the wiki, so I'd appreciate help/advice. ( @Valjean)
Gazeboist ( talk) 22:18, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
claims that the Trump campaign solicited this activity or was coordinating with Russia were undermined by closer investigation of Steele's sourceswhat's the citation for that? Horowitz report is a primary source. Andre 🚐 00:24, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
Among other things, regarding the allegations attributed to Person 1, the Primary Sub-source's account of these communications, if true, was not consistent with and, in fact, contradicted the allegations of a "well-developed conspiracy" in Reports 95 and 102 attributed to Person 1.I haven't had time to dig deeper and find the particular interview they're referencing in that sentence, but this is Steele's main source telling the FBI in 2017 that Steele's claim of a "well-developed conspiracy" mischaracterized the information Steele had been given by that source. I'll try to come back early next week and dig more into this particular item. In general, though, for purposes of this article, I would take the original reports from Steele (and things like contemporary communications about them) to be primary sources, but the Horowitz report seems to be at least as much of a secondary source as, say, an analysis from Lawfare. Gazeboist ( talk) 02:42, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
Gazeboist, let me share a few of my thoughts on this. I'd appreciate knowing yours. See this as brainstorming. If you want to place your comments in the appropriate spots in the middle of comment below, just copy my signature and place it before your indented comment.
This is the part of the article that I originally created as a separate sub-article, and it has been reworked over the years. The problem with it being a sub-article was that this main article told about the existence of allegations without mentioning them. So that content was merged into this main article, which makes sense. When one writes an article about a book, but only discusses the cover and criticism of the book, but does not mention the actual contents, something's really wrong. It is the contents (the allegations) that are the book. So we fixed that problem. That's now ancient history.
The dossier contains many more allegations than are mentioned here, and that's because we are not allowed to depend on primary sources. We depend on secondary and tertiary sources, so we only mention the allegations mentioned in such sources, using the dossier as backup for exact wordings. According to RS, the other allegations simply don't have enough due weight for mention here, and that's okay. The article is long enough as is. Some of them have nothing to do with the election, Trump, or national security. They are digressions, some obviously from Galkina. That doesn't mean we shouldn't cover them. We should cover anything to do with the dossier, but RS don't do it, so we can't.
Editors and readers will naturally have their own interpretations of which allegations are the most important, serious, wonky, silly, correct, or false. On this talk page, such OR considerations are not only allowed, they are vital to figuring out how to apply common sense and editorial judgment to the creation of content, but ultimately we must bow to RS, limit what we are allowed to write, and let them dictate what is written. For example, we can't write that an allegation is the "key" or "central" one without attributing that to a RS, as it's an opinion. We do that when we can.
Which allegation(s) have gotten the most attention in RS? Which ones are the most important or significant? Certainly valid questions, and when RS offer their opinions, we can add those attributed opinions. My impression is that the pee tape allegation got the most attention, by far, while being rather unimportant from an informational angle. It places the whole dossier in an unserious light, but we must not act like the public. We know better. Yes, if Trump is being blackmailed, that's very important, but we don't need the dossier to tell us that is the case. Trump has always bragged about his sexual prowess, his beautiful women, and has never hid his infidelities. Totally separate from the dossier, we know he has spent a lot of time in Russia over the years, and there are sources (including short mention in the dossier) which describe his actions with women there, especially young ones, actions that shocked even Russians, who know that such info would be used against Trump. So is the pee tape allegation as important as the attention it got, or did it get attention because it was salacious? I think the latter. It also served as a foil to distract from the really important allegations of national security issues, and, according to the dossier, distracted from corruption in China. Fusion GPS advised Steele to not include it, but this was an unfinished rough draft, and his MI6 training informed him to include everything at this preliminary stage of development. Unfortunately, this is what got published, and it drowned out coverage of more serious and accurate allegations. Right-wing media kept that aspect in the faces of viewers and readers so they didn't know about the serious and true allegations.
What about a very central allegation, that there was a "conspiracy of cooperation"? Well, which part of that is the most important, the plan or the deed? "Conspiracy" involves the plan, whereas "cooperation" is the deed. Mueller couldn't prove, but did not disprove, "conspiracy", but he found a whole lot of active and passive cooperation/collusion, usually described in many different ways. Who cares if own can prove that two bank robbers planned to rob a bank? No, the fact they did it is much more important. Only in the world of American politics would one let the robbers go free because the police couldn't prove they "planned" it together.
Unconfirmed allegations have been treated as false, and that's just wrong. Accusations that the dossier is fake are just Trump's bloviating and lying. There is zero evidence that anything in it is fake or that it was not a serious effort to collect information that could be used as opposition research. Unfortunately for Clinton, it never served its purpose, which was to weaken Trump and help her win.
Accusations that the dossier contains Russian disinformation have been made, even by serious people like Hill, but zero evidence provided. One must also remember that the FBI has analyzed and examined this possibility and addressed this long after the fact, and they found zero evidence that such was the case. The Inspector General's report discusses this. The FBI also felt it would make no sense for the Russians to do that. Steele was aware of this danger, and he knew that his proximity to Deripaska on another matter was a potential weak spot, but he kept those deals separate. In fact, he was working closely with the FBI in its efforts to flip Deripaska, but that didn't work out.
A couple allegations may be inflated or just rumor, if one believes Danchenko, but the FBI again leans toward it being Danchenko who is trying to cover his ass by "minimizing" his role. He was scared when it first became public knowledge that he had anything to do with the dossier, but he did, and the FBI knew that informants in his position often seek to minimize or deny their connections and roles. They are the ones who are lying, not the police, or in this case Steele. That's all in the Inspector General's report.
The FBI analyzed why there was a discrepancy between what Danchenko said and what was written in the dossier, and they provided three possible explanations, and then they leaned toward it being Danchenko who was covering his ass, not Steele who had misunderstood or was exaggerating, although that could still be true. Even then, that doesn't make the allegation false. It just remains unconfirmed. We have a section about this because RS and the Inspector General's report discuss it. See Steele dossier#Discrepancies between sources and their allegations.
How many sources did Steele have? BBC correspondent Paul Wood, writing in The Spectator, wrote: "Steele had '20 to 30' sources for the dossier and in two decades as a professional intelligence officer he had never seen such complete agreement by such a wide range of sources." [1]
We know that Danchenko was Steele's main sub-source, but Galkina "stood as the dossier's most important contributor". Between them they had many contacts (sub-sub-sources), all the way into the Kremlin. Danchenko, and especially Galkina, are very well-connected. (The FBI hired Danchenko and he proved to be extremely valuable.) Steele had sources who had no connection with each other reporting on the same events, so that type of confirmation is also valuable. Then the FBI's own sources confirmed what Steele's sources had told him, so they just nodded and noted that Steele had pretty good sources. That's why they even listened to him. Then, because they couldn't interview most of the sources, they depended on their own sources, not Steele's, when making judgement calls, assessments, and writing their reports. The January 2017 ODNI assessment confirmed Steele's central allegations, the ones mentioned in the lead. Steele's sources were far ahead of the FBI.
So we're left with a bunch of allegations mentioned in RS, all of them different, with very different sources, some based on very solid information, a couple based possibly on rumors, some confirmed, some unconfirmed, and nothing serious actually disproven. The experts at Lawfare wrote this in December 2018: "The dossier holds up well over time, and none of it, to our knowledge, has been disproven." They know the difference between unconfirmed and disproven. It's a shame that so many don't. Now you understand why we can't make any form of group judgment or declaration about the allegations. They must be treated separately, except for those mentioned as a group in the ODNI assessment.
Now how to cover this in the last sentence of the first paragraph? Very briefly, as it's too complicated to deal with in the lead. We deal with it all much better in the body, treating each allegation separately. -- Valjean ( talk) ( PING me) 18:36, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
References
"Secretive" is not opinion. The contacts, starting in 2015 (AFAIK), were covert contacts with actual Russian spies. We know this because seven different allied intelligence agencies discovered these contacts rather accidentally during their routine surveillance of what the spies were doing. They discovered that these spies in different countries all over Europe (even Australian intelligence reported such contacts) were discussing things with Trump people, and it worried them enough that they independently started reporting their findings to American intelligence (possibly both FBI and CIA). The full nature and details of these contacts have never been revealed as it would endanger sources, disclose who and now they were being spied upon, and otherwise endanger intelligence-gathering secrets.
When confronted with these accusations, Trump and everyone connected with him denied and lied. That was their pattern all throughout his presidency the time. "Undisclosed" contacts that are denied and lied about means they were meant to remain "secret". So "secretive" isn't OR or opinion. --
Valjean (
talk) (
PING me) 04:59, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
Have you examined this section: Steele dossier#Veracity and corroboration status of specific allegations? It should be examined carefully before proceeding down this path. When you're done, you may or may not revise you approach. We have steered clear of bundling allegations (we only mention the few that were discussed in RS) and their confirmation status. They are quite varied, from different sources, and even Steele knew that some might be shaky. He never claimed they were all true.
By dealing with what RS say about each one in its own section, we avoid the danger of OR. We are not allowed to include our OR synthesis speculations of what the RS means when they say what they say. We can do that on this talk page during discussions, but that doesn't get into the article. When one reads a section and what all the RS say about that particular allegation, one gets a sense of whether it's true, maybe true, uncertain, unlikely, or even false. It's a very mixed bag, and sources are rarely agreed, so we just include all of them. When there is uncertainty about an unconfirmed allegation, readers should come away with that feeling of uncertainty found by reading all the RS. Does that make sense to you? -- Valjean ( talk) ( PING me) 05:11, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
I will however stand by the walkback from "several key allegations" to "some aspects". The first suggests that the claims are basically true, even if some details haven't been corroborated, while the second keeps things properly ambivalent before directly stating what is and isn't known. Changing "the" to "a" is just a grammatical thing; ODNI likely produced multiple reports on a variety of subjects in January of 2017, of which the election interference report was one.
That is about specific allegations made in June 2016 and mentioned in THE ODNI report of January 2017, so we can't really change that. The point of that is that Steele's sources were far ahead of the FBI. They alleged things later confirmed and then formally stated in the ODNI report. Steele had sources in the Kremlin, with one in Putin's office. -- Valjean ( talk) ( PING me) 05:21, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
While Steele's documents played a significant role in initially highlighting the general friendliness between Trump and the Putin administration, the veracity of specific allegations is highly variable. Some have been publicly confirmed, others are plausible but not specifically confirmed, and some are dubious in retrospect but not strictly disproven.I have an urge to add some kind of comment about how this variance drives the controversy over the dossier, but I think that would be analysis. -- Gazeboist ( talk) 00:42, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
While Steele's documents played a significant role in initially highlighting the general friendliness between Trump and the Putin administration, the veracity of specific allegations is highly variable. Some have been publicly confirmed, [1] [2] [7] [8] others are plausible but not specifically confirmed, [3] [9] and some are dubious in retrospect but not strictly disproven. [4] [5] [10]
There is another sentence we could add that covers an important, two-part, allegation:
As far as the allegation of a well-developed "conspiracy of cooperation", the Mueller report did not directly address "cooperation", but did conclude there was insufficient evidence to bring any conspiracy or coordination charges against Trump or his associates." [11]
That is one of the most important allegations, and it was neither proven nor disproven. Should we also add that sentence? (BTW, many forms of passive and active cooperation (another word for collusion) by Trump, Don Jr, and his campaign members were proven in spades, but that's too much for the lead. IOW, they could prove that robbers "robbed the bank", but couldn't prove the robbers actually planned to help each other do it.
) --
Valjean (
talk) (
PING me) 03:13, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
I do still think the opening section could be cut down and rearranged into three or maybe four paragraphs. We cover the allegations and their trustworthiness in the first, and I don't think we really need to repeat that info until we're actually expanding on it in the body. The second paragraph can take on the documents' origins, publication, and sharing to the IC; the debate over who knew what about payments can be left to the relevant section of the article. Then the third paragraph can summarize the varying reactions, and maybe we do a separate fourth paragraph on its continued life in rhetoric and conspiracy theories. I'll come back at a later date to put some real work into that effort. -- Gazeboist ( talk) 16:35, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
Peter, why did you remove the following?
Paul Wood, writing in The Spectator, said the source was one of Danchenko's contacts, "no less than a former head of Russia's foreign intelligence services. This source did not talk specifically about the 'pee tape' but, Danchenko told Steele, he said they had sexual kompromat on Trump going back years. 'We've got him over a barrel.'" [12]
Edit summary: "No, Paul Wood did not say in that 2020 article that the source was one of Igor Danchenko's contacts. Paul Wood said that somebody else, unnamed, said it."
My original source:
Finally, there was another Danchenko contact, a ‘former senior intelligence officer now a Kremlin official’. This was later said to be no less than a former head of Russia's foreign intelligence services. This source did not talk specifically about the ‘pee tape’ but, Danchenko told Steele, he said they had sexual kompromat on Trump going back years. ‘We’ve got him over a barrel.’ [12]
Peter, please parse this from the above. They appear to be talking about the same person:
How did I get this wrong? What am I missing?
Full paragraph, so we can count the five "other" sources (my numbers in brackets):
Steele has five other sources for the ‘golden showers’ story. [1] One is the hotel manager, [2] another a maid. Neither had first-hand information, the manager agreed it might have happened, the maid relayed gossip among the housekeeping staff. [3] One is ‘an American’ who supposedly saw a row in the hotel reception about whether a group of prostitutes could go up to Trump’s suite. This American is not Keith Schiller, Trump’s bodyguard, who told a Congressional committee he had ‘stopped’ five prostitutes from trying to visit Trump. [4] Another source was a friend of Danchenko, described as a Russian with a ‘wide social network’, who said the story was common knowledge around the Kremlin. Finally, there was [5] another Danchenko contact, a ‘former senior intelligence officer now a Kremlin official’. This was later said to be no less than a former head of Russia’s foreign intelligence services. This source did not talk specifically about the ‘pee tape’ but, Danchenko told Steele, he said they had sexual kompromat on Trump going back years. ‘We’ve got him over a barrel.’
Other info about Steele's sources for the "pee tape" allegation: [13] [14] While many people do not believe the "pee tape" incident happened, Stanislav Belkovsky, Russian political analyst and a founder and director of the Moscow-based National Strategy Institute of Ukraine, disagrees: "Prostitutes around the city say the 'golden shower' orgy story is true". [15] -- Valjean ( talk) ( PING me) 16:56, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
References
Hutzler_8//16/2018
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help page).ODNI_1/6/2017
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help page).We are not dealing with "unnamed people quoting unnamed people". We are dealing with a citation from a very notable BBC journalist, Paul Wood (journalist), writing in a very RS, The Spectator, the longest-lived current affairs magazine in the world and in history. WP:RS/QUOTE is certainly satisfied. The content is rather short and properly attributed. The subject is very much on-topic (the dossier makes allegations, what a surprise!!!), and the alleged source ("Former head of Russia's foreign intelligence services") is certainly notable enough for mention. Steele, Danchenko, and Galkina have remarkable networks of sources. The FBI rated Galkina's the best, and she unwittingly provided info to Danchenko.
This is the typical IDONTLIKEIT obstructionism we have come to expect. One need not read it, just look at the contribution history, and one knows what to expect. It's really cheap wikilawyering, using illegitimate arguments:
The objection is also rooted in "truth" personal POV ideas that ignore "verifiability, not truth". Questions about whether "what is alleged is true or not" or whether "the original sources for the allegations are notable or not" are irrelevant. Our policies deal with this and rule out such arguments. Reliable secondary sources cover the issue, and that is why we cover it, not because we agree or disagree with the sources or content. -- Valjean ( talk) ( PING me) 18:01, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
I say we take off and nuke the whole article from orbit. It's the only way to be sure. Then you and Gazeboist can post a sane account of this sorry mess. Shtove ( talk) 17:00, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
TFD, if only it were that simple:
Steele already wrote of this in June, and the ODNI confirmed it publicly in January 2017. Steele's central allegations were proven true. Sure, some things were public knowledge, and Steele naturally commented on them, but his sources also provided background, even for those things, that were not public knowledge. For example, neither Steele nor the public knew of the Russian offer to Papadopoulos, yet his sources alleged a similar offer was made to Carter Page. The Russians wanted to make sure the Trump campaign knew they were willing to help by giving them the stolen DNC and Hillary emails, so they plied both of Trump's messengers with the same offer of help. That's why Donald Jr., who obviously knew of the offer, was so excited at the Trump Tower Meeting. He thought: "Finally, we are getting what they had promised to Papadopoulos, all those juicy stolen Hillary emails." Boy was he disappointed! They ended up talking about the Russian desire for the sanctions to be lifted. Donald had to hold his end of the quid pro quo bargain by doing that, and he did publicly say he would do it. So Roger Stone ended up having to work with Assange and Guccifer 2.0 to try to coordinate the release of the stolen emails, and the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that Donald Trump had to have known of this attempted coordination. Trump even had Rohrabacher, "Putin's favorite congressman", travel to London and meet with Assange, where he relayed Trump's promise of a pardon if Assange would deny any Russian involvement in the hacking of American targets and the release of the stolen emails. [2] So Assange denied Russian involvement and blamed Seth Rich, even though a dead man cannot continue to supply stolen emails, and Assange knew he was dealing with Guccifer 2.0, not the dead Seth Rich. -- Valjean ( talk) ( PING me) 07:32, 21 May 2023 (UTC)
As far as I know, we don't have a specific policy page solely devoted to the existence of criticism sections, but do find guidance in NPOV and maybe some other policies. It seems that they often refer to the essay WP:Criticism, where we find some excellent guidance. Here's the nutshell:
![]() | This page in a nutshell: Articles should include significant criticisms of the subject while avoiding undue weight and POV forking. |
We definitely "include significant criticisms of the subject", but we keep getting criticism from certain editors, like Mr Ernie, that seem to indicate they aren't aware of this fact. Is such ignorance of this article's actual content sufficient reason to go against recommended practice?
We even document all the "hoax, fake news, totally discredited, false, manufactured, Russian disinfo" types from the right-wing echo chamber and Trump supporters that are totally baseless and voiced without evidence (the Trumpian "the more true it is, the more it will be criticized because it makes Trump look bad" type, IOW " Donald Trump's misuse of the term "fake news""). To them, the proven veracity of many important allegations and the criticism have no connection. The more true the allegation, the more they will deny this fact and continue to criticize it. We plainly have NOTHERE editors who do this and keep kicking this dead horse.
As long as a criticism has been mentioned in a RS (which often document fringe POV), it has been included at the appropriate spots. That's what we are supposed to do. In spite of that fact, I'm wondering if we should create a criticism section here. Sometimes it's justifiable.
On what basis can we justify it? Will it violate NPOV by giving too much weight to baseless and false criticisms? Will it give too much weight to fringe POV? Will doing so violate "avoiding undue weight and POV forking"? Or should we just continue to keep it in the logical spots?
What think ye? Can we create a consensus for or against such a section? -- Valjean ( talk) ( PING me) 14:43, 18 May 2023 (UTC)
NO as I seem to recall its frowned upon. Its not a policy, but not a done thing. I think it should be in prose, rather than just a list of grievances (which is what such sections tend to end up being). Slatersteven ( talk) 14:49, 18 May 2023 (UTC)
In most cases separate sections devoted to criticism, controversies, or the like should be avoided in an article because these sections call undue attention to negative viewpoints. It is better usually to place criticisms alongside the content they criticize, to make sure those viewpoints are appropriately given DUE weight and avoid any UNDUE emphasis on pros OR cons. — Shibbolethink ( ♔ ♕) 15:08, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
A good article that also mentions the dossier:
Valjean ( talk) ( PING me) 00:08, 19 May 2023 (UTC)
In case you are not a frequent viewer of Fox News, it’s worth explaining the two claims here. The first is that the dossier of reports compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele was the genesis of the Russia probe. The second is that the idea to link Trump to Russia was itself a political tactic by Clinton’s campaign.
Neither of those things is true, and a quick timeline will make clear why.
Shouldn't this whole article be updated to reflect the revelations of the Durham Report? 151.198.54.2 ( talk) 05:31, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
Durham is on record and has proof that Hillary Clinton committed this crime of the Russian Hoax to frame Donald J Trump. Wikipedia needs to change the wording or delete Steele Dossier from the wording of “controversial” to “illegal crime committed by the Clinton Campaigb to frame Donald J Trump.” There is no “controversy” as Durham has all the proof with Hillary Clinton all over it, and backed up by our Federal Bureau of Investigation. 136.61.213.57 ( talk) 13:18, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
This is about the latest revival of another Trump/Russia hoax on the American people. It would make a good article here. It's actually pretty old and is based on a "letter contains unverified Russian intelligence information" likely intended to become the seed of such an anti-Clinton conspiracy theory. John Ratcliffe revived it by releasing the declassified info that had previously been rejected by a Senate panel.
BTW, it's pretty natural that a political campaign will publicize any suspicious activity by their opponent, and there was lots of Trump-Russia activity of a suspicious nature. The Clinton campaign didn't invent it. The blame for investigations of Trump-Russia connections lies firmly at the feet of Trump and his campaign.
CLAIM: A declassified letter from the United States Director of National Intelligence proves that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton planned the “Russia hoax” against Trump in 2016.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The letter contains unverified Russian intelligence information and some lawmakers have criticized its release as a political move. The letter explains that in 2016, Russian intelligence had alleged that Clinton “had approved a campaign plan to stir up a scandal” against Trump. The document also clearly states that American intelligence officials do not know whether this claim is accurate, an exaggeration, or a lie. [4]
See also:
So who's going to create the article? It's a notable topic. -- Valjean ( talk) ( PING me) 14:28, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
I'm copying soibangla's comment from above as it's spot on: -- Valjean ( talk) ( PING me) 14:31, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
US intelligence became aware of a Clinton campaign plan
that was snatched from Russian servers by Dutch intelligence and relayed to USIC which had suspicions it was disinfo that Russia wanted us to snatch and run with, and Durham twice tried to get warrants on Soros with it, but Beryl Howell twice denied his requests because it was dubious.
soibangla (
talk) 00:02, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
the Steele Dossier indeed had a role in triggering the investigationremains false no matter how often it is repeated soibangla ( talk) 18:17, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
Raj208, yes, Durham, just like Trump and all his supporters, is critical of the dossier. Durham is working for Trump's interests, and unlike other investigations (Mueller and Horowitz), is shoddy work that's very partisan and untrustworthy. His criticism of the dossier is not news and our article documents all forms of discontent aimed at the dossier, some of it justified and some just uninformed complaining and conspiracy theories, like yours.
You keep claiming that the dossier was used to trigger the start of the Crossfire Hurricane (FBI investigation) (CH), and we keep telling you that is not true. Even Durham says so in that article:
The CH investigation was opened on July 31, 2016, and the CH team first got a few memos from the dossier on September 19, 2016.
FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe: "We started the investigations without the dossier. We were proceeding with the investigations before we ever received that information." [6]
Durham concedes this point right above in your CNN source. His criticisms of the dossier have nothing to do with your claim. Now tell us how they could have opened the investigation in July based on dossier memos they did not see until September? -- Valjean ( talk) ( PING me) 20:38, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
OMG! Read this. Durham may have lied twice to Congress. -- Valjean ( talk) ( PING me) 19:49, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
Hyping the lurid document written by a former British spy that made since-discredited claims about Trump’s ties to Moscow.Do you? RS post 2021 overwhelmingly refer to the dossier as "discredited" or similar. This is not accurately reflected in the article. Mr Ernie ( talk) 14:36, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
Eventually, his credibility collapsed. It was discovered his report was essentially paid opposition research. Investigators failed to corroborate its central claims, like that Trump attorney Michael Cohen traveled to Prague to collude with Russian officials (something Cohen, now a fierce Trump critic, denies to this day). Maybe most damningly, one of his primary sources, Igor Danchenko, later told the FBI that he had never intended any of the information he provided Steele to be presented as “fact.” Rather, it was mostly “hearsay” and material from “conversation he had with friends over beers.” (Danchenko, it turned out, had also previously been a paid FBI source).Mr Ernie ( talk) 14:42, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
Trump’s campaign, and later transition, were filled with a remarkable number of people who had secret interactions with Russian actors, about which they lied either in real time or in retrospect.Aka, yes there was collusion. Andre 🚐 23:29, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
US intelligence became aware of a Clinton campaign planthat was snatched from Russian servers by Dutch intelligence and relayed to USIC which had suspicions it was disinfo that Russia wanted us to snatch and run with, and Durham twice tried to get warrants on Soros with it, but Beryl Howell twice denied his requests because it was dubious. soibangla ( talk) 00:02, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
Durham's nonsensical claim (“There is not a single substantive piece of information in the [Steele] dossier that has ever been corroborated”) is now fodder for fringe media. Mainstream media (IOW RS) aren't touching it. Here's a typical example from an unreliable source. -- Valjean ( talk) ( PING me) 14:41, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
References
ODNI_1/6/2017
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Sciutto_Perez_2/10/2017
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Levine_1/12/2018
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Yourish_Buchanan_1/26/2019
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Leonnig_Helderman_5/17/2019
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Cullison_Volz_4/19/2019
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Lee_12/26/2017
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Farhi_11/12/2021
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).MSNBC_5/22/2018
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Hutzler_8//16/2018
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Grant_Rosenberg_12/14/2018_1
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).![]() |
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This article is currently 443,920 bytes long; this is extremely long for an article, and guidelines would seem to strongly suggest it be split or edited down. Most articles this big are lists or timeline articles that require inclusion of a large number of items; this doesn't seem to be one. I must admit I am somewhat puzzled by its size, given that (according to the article itself) it was not a crucially important document and much of the stuff in it was false ("Many allegations in the dossier have been dismissed by authorities or remain unverified", "The Mueller Report contained passing references to some of the dossier's allegations but little mention of its more sensational claims", "it did not play any role in the intelligence community's assessment about Russian actions in the 2016 election").
Given, then, that this seems to have been partially (or mostly?) nonsense that doesn't seem to have had much effect on anything, it seems strange that our article on it goes through a detailed, apparently line-by-line recounting of every individual claim that was made in it. I think some of this could simply be removed, or at the very least edited down.
Looking at {{ Section sizes}}, it seems that the "Veracity and corroboration status of specific allegations" section is extremely long (over 100 kilobytes) and could easily be its own article -- in fact, if it were its own article, it would itself be near the upper bounds of reasonable article size! The same is true for "History" (96 kilobytes). On one hand, it might be good to split these out, but on the other hand, since the document itself doesn't seem like it was that pivotal in the course of history, it may be unreasonable for us to have not one but three separate articles on it.
Thoughts? jp× g 23:47, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
Most RS's consider this to be discredited, not merely controversial.
The lead should reflect this. DarrellWinkler ( talk) 21:24, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
"discredited" is weaselspeak for "lots of people have criticized it, but none of it has been publicly disproven, so we just don't have a better word for it" soibangla ( talk) 00:12, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
The largely discredited dossier was a collection of unverified and salacious allegations compiled by retired British spy Christopher Steele, whose dirt-digging was indirectly funded by Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016.
well as the reliance by the FBI on a dossier of uncorroborated or discredited information compiled by an British ex-spy, Christopher Steele.
The dossier contains now-discredited rumors and salacious claims about Trump’s cooperation with the Russian government and was provided to the FBI
where he recounted the most salacious allegation in the now discredited dossier
the creation of a discredited dossier about former President Donald Trump.
The material in the dossier has since been largely discredited.
at the heart of the now discredited Steele dossier
the Steele Dossier, a now-largely discredited document
This has a lot to do with how much due weight we give opinions not based on facts, especially in the lead. "Controversial" is pretty factual and says nothing about the reliability/truthfulness of the dossier, but is about how it's been discussed and the roles it has played. No one would deny it's been very controversial.
Trump's attacks, as the judge noted, are not based on facts (a principle that applies to much of what he says), so we should not give Trump's words more weight than they deserve, which isn't much. Yet, because he's so notable and RS have documented what he says, we do the same. We do document that he has attacked the dossier using many terms that are disconnected from reality. The lead says this:
So should we add more to that in the lead? That source says this:
As usual with Trump, most of that is a lie. "Discredited" is the closest we come to an opinion that might have some relation to reality (it has been a big disappointment with many possibly true allegations still unconfirmed), so we're back to the question of whether we should include it. We could add it to the lead at that spot:
How does that sound? (We'd add a couple RS that mention those words.) -- Valjean ( talk) ( PING me) 15:20, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
An interesting article by experts in oppo research: "Much of the Steele dossier hasn’t been disproved to date, but rather has gained greater credence based on Trump’s turbulent presidency." [8] -- Valjean ( talk) ( PING me) 16:25, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
References
Why is this not shown to be a fake dossier created by Hillary Cliton, illegally, to discredit Donald Trump? The FBI admits they made it up and it has been proven to be completely fake. Why is this protected from these edits, unless Wikipedia is pushing fake news? Wikipedia should probably make not and allowe the correct information to be published before they get sued for defamation. 134.132.40.221 ( talk) 14:50, 18 August 2023 (UTC)