Journalist Matt Taibbi tore into the Steele dossier during a Fox News appearance Wednesday, discussing how key claims about Russian interference in the 2016 election were built on “discarded, rejected pieces of non-information.”
Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard released “overwhelming evidence” Friday showing that former President Barack Obama and his national security team “manufactured and politicized intelligence” following President Donald Trump’s 2016 victory. During an appearance on “The Will Cain Show,” Taibbi discussed the intelligence community’s flawed assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin had a vested interest in helping Trump win.
“We find out in the thing that’s released today that the entire conclusion that Putin quote unquote aspired to help Trump, for whom he had a clear preference, was based on four pieces of evidence, one of which was the Steele dossier,” Taibbi said. “And the other three were discarded, rejected pieces of non-information, what somebody called ‘manipulated manipulations’ to me, including an anonymous blank email with no address or recipient. There’s nothing there. There is literally zero evidence for their contention.”
Taibbi expressed frustration over the mainstream media’s limited coverage of the Russiagate narrative, pointing out a critical flaw in the intelligence community’s assessment of Russian election interference.
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“It’s been frustrating watching some of the coverage, what little coverage there’s been in the old mainstream media. They keep saying it’s an apples and oranges story. This is very narrowly focused on one issue, which is how did the intelligence community come to the conclusion not only that Vladimir Putin and Russia were trying to meddle in the election, but that they were doing it for Donald Trump?” Taibbi asked. “And this is the thing that’s at the heart of this intelligence community assessment.”
Former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele created the Steele dossier. CNN, MSNBC, and other mainstream media outlets frequently cited it to support the unfounded claims that Hillary Clinton’s 2016 election loss was caused by Russian interference. Special Counsel John Durham released a report on May 15, 2023. That report said that the FBI “did not and could not corroborate” the dossier’s claims.
The dossier, which was instrumental in obtaining warrants to monitor Trump associates like Carter Page, has since been discredited. FBI analyst Brian Auten testified in an October 2022 trial that the FBI offered Steele $1 million to substantiate the dossier, but Steele did not.
In 2022, the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee were fined by the Federal Election Commission for their role in promoting the discredited dossier, which was central to the collusion allegations. Senior intelligence officials also disagreed with then-CIA Director John Brennan’s key assertions about Russian interference in the 2016 election, specifically regarding the claim that Russia aimed to help Trump defeat Clinton.
