NPR has not detailed the contents of the dossier because it remains unverified, but journalist Jane Mayer has written a cover story about its origins for The New Yorker. Although Trump and his allies have sought to portray the 35-page dossier as Democratic-funded propaganda, the work that led to its creation initially started with Republicans themselves.
A GOP financier approached the private intelligence firm Fusion GPS to begin work researching Trump, but then discontinued that support. Later, after it was clear that Trump would be the Republican nominee, a law firm connected to the Clinton campaign began funding the work. Mayer says that Steele never knew precisely for whom he was ultimately working.
"The argument being made by the Republicans these days in Congress is that it was a huge conspiracy of the Clinton campaign with Christopher Steele," Mayer says. "But, in fact, if you really go back and look at the facts, Christopher Steele didn't know for months that he was working for the Clinton campaign — and the Clinton campaign never learned that Christopher Steele was on their payroll until it was in the press."
In her latest article, Mayer describes how the dossier was compiled and why so little was done about its findings during the campaign — even after Steele shared his information with the FBI.
She also reports on a short memo written in November 2016 alleging that a Russian source claimed to Steele that Moscow had intervened to block Trump from nominating Mitt Romney as secretary of state because he was perceived as being unfriendly to Russian interests.
If that memo is true, Mayer says: "It would be an unbelievable interference by a foreign power in picking and shaping [and] influencing the choice of the top foreign policy person in this country. It would mean that there was interference by Russia not just during the election but since the election, after the election, over a president."
There are no indications of how Russia might have exerted the influence about which one person boasted to Steele, according to Mayer. Romney declined to comment to Mayer. Mayer reports that the White House denied Romney was ever a first choice for secretary of state and it "declined to comment about any communications that the Trump team may have had with Russia on the subject."
Interview:
https://www.npr.org/2018/03/06/591130207/journalist-charts-the-bizarre-twists-and-turns-of-the-trump-russia-dossier
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