Luke Harding: Well I mean, saying the dossier is fake news doesn't make it fake news. It's just an assertion.
My name is Luke Harding. I'm a journalist and a writer. And my new book is called "Collusion" and it's about Donald Trump and Russia.
According to people I've talked to, who are kind of close to "Steele", believe that the dossier is not flawless. One or two things may be wrong. He acknowledges that there's raw intelligence but broadly he thinks it's right. And he says it's between 70-90% correct. That's his kind of assessment. Which for an intelligence report is pretty good.
As we learn more about the Trump team and engagements with Russia, we were told to begin with, "nothing to see here." I think the dossier kind of is standing up pretty well.
The thing about intelligence is it's kind of not black and white. It's sort of grey. Some sources are better than others. But my understanding is that even though Steele hasn't revealed who his sources are we don't know who they are. They're sources that have kind of proven themselves in other areas.
For example, Steele read a whole lot of reports about the war in Ukraine in 2014, using these same sources that were behind the Trump dossier. And they were well received by US intelligence, who were actually sent up to John Kerry in the State Department and they were accurate.
Harding also responded to the allegation that the dossier was tainted since some of the research was funded by the Democrats, but his response was that it really did not matter WHO paid for it, only whether it was true or not.
And he believes that the majority of it is in fact true.
It is enough to worry the Kremlin, a fact that is supported by the fact that their news agencies have gone out of their way to attack Harding and discredit his new book.
Keep in mind that Trump himself has also ramped up attacks on the dossier which makes me think that portions of it are about to be proven accurate.
WOW, @foxandfrlends “Dossier is bogus. Clinton Campaign, DNC funded Dossier. FBI CANNOT (after all of this time) VERIFY CLAIMS IN DOSSIER OF RUSSIA/TRUMP COLLUSION. FBI TAINTED.” And they used this Crooked Hillary pile of garbage as the basis for going after the Trump Campaign!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 26, 2017
Source http://ift.tt/2BJce82
