Christopher Steele, author of the 2016 dossier that disparaged then-candidate Donald Trump, said he has uncovered new information about the former president.
Christopher Steele, the author of the 2016 Steele dossier that featured discredited claims about then-candidate Donald Trump, claims he has uncovered new information about the former president during an interview with The Washington Post.
Steele became a key political figure after the dossier made unsubstantiated allegations that Trump committed sex acts with prostitutes in Moscow and helped underscore years of accusations of illicit Russia collusion. The dossier, which was funded through a law firm hired by the Hillary Clinton campaign at the time, was ultimately revealed to be largely uncorroborated and salacious rumors.
When asked if he would still go ahead and release explosive claims about Trump if he wrote the report today, Steele answered in the affirmative.
“Call me a stick in the mud,” he told The Post, “but probably, yes.”
“We know it happens. Anyone who knows Russia and Russian counterintelligence knows about honey traps and about the filming of things in hotel rooms and hookers, and all the rest of it is just part of — part of the scene in Russia,” Steele said. “And so the actual thing itself is entirely credible. The truth of it would have to be built up through … careful investigation, which is difficult now. It was slightly easier back then. And, as I say, we didn’t just take one source’s word for it. We interviewed other people that we felt might have knowledge of it.”
Steele chose to stand behind his dossier after its multiple unproven claims came to dominate the news cycle. Some allies of Steele, like former White House National Security Council official Mark Medish, advised Steele to defend only certain parts of his report, instead of all claims.
“His instinct is to do the latter,” Medish said in an interview. “I chalk it up to him being a fighter.”
“Any new information by this foreign agent who peddled the debunked Steele dossier should be wholly dismissed, and any media outlet that entertains anything he has to say is just the continuation of election interference intended to meddle in the campaign,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung told The Post when reached for comment.
Steele, who is releasing a book about Trump and American democracy, said that he has not given up on the existence of the alleged sex tape.
“I think it’s just not really been properly bottomed out,” Steele told The Post. “Excuse the pun.”
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
