Christopher Steele, the author of the infamous anti-Trump dossier, worked with the Obama administration’s National Security Council to cultivate Russian oligarchs as sources of intelligence about Russian President Vladimir Putin, a book by the co-founders of Fusion GPS relates.
Steele worked on the intel project with Bruce Ohr, the high-ranking career Justice Department official who reportedly served as a back channel between Steele and the FBI, according to the book.
Steele was also described as friends with Ohr’s wife, Nellie, who worked for Fusion GPS where she was conducting research looking for connections between Russia and members of Donald Trump’s campaign.
Fusion GPS was paid for its anti-Trump work by Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
The book by Fusion GPS co-founders Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch, Crime in Progress: Inside the Steele Dossier and the Fusion GPS Investigation of Donald Trump, gives an inside accounting of what they say transpired during the course of their anti-Trump work. Their actions tainted Trump’s presidency and eventually lead to a Special Counsel investigation of Trump that found no evidence of collusion between Russia and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
In their book, Simpson and Fritsch write Steele helped the Obama administration cultivate sources on Putin.
They write:
While in Washington, Steele and an Orbis colleague added another event to their schedule. Unbeknownst to Fusion, Steele had arranged to have breakfast at the Mayflower Hotel the next morning, a Saturday, with Bruce Ohr, a senior official in the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.
In addition to being old colleagues who had dealt with each other in government in the 2000s, Steele and Ohr had recently worked together on a National Security Council project to cultivate Russian oligarchs as sources of intelligence about Putin. Over the years, Steele had become personal friends with Ohr and his wife, Nellie, and exchanged Christmas cards with them.
No further details were provided about Steele’s purported work for the NSC to cultivate Russian oligarchs as sources on Putin.
Elsewhere in their book, however, Simson and Fritsch write that Steele was unable to travel to Russia because the Russian government had reason since 1999 to suspect he was an MI6 intelligence officer.
The information raises immediate questions about the credibility of any supposed information on Trump that could be obtained by Steele from alleged Russian sources given that Russia had already suspected his ties to British intelligence.
Besides working with Ohr, Steele also regularly provided updates on Ukraine issues to then-Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, who reportedly helped greenlight Steele’s original meeting with the FBI.
Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio.” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.
Joshua Klein contributed research to this article.
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