Talk:Steele dossier

Split

How do we split this 500,000-byte article? RodRabelo7 (talk) 14:35, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

@RodRabelo7:, while I don't have any problem with the size (our size guideline lacks nuance for different types of articles and is also hopelessly outdated and no longer in step with current technology that would allow much larger articles), the History section is +106,323 and could be split off. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 01:17, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

The Christopher Steele section could be split off to his own article. When we have an existing separate article, it makes it easier to use for such splitting off. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 01:17, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

Clearly biased language in the introduction to the article

and some are dubious in retrospect but not strictly disproven written in the fifth paragraph is very clearly biased language. The words in retrospect convey no information but the perspective of the person who wrote them. They mean absolutely nothing. If new information has come out that makes certain claims in the Steele dossier dubious, that were unknown at the time of writing, the editor should have linked to a source that provides such evidence. Multiple claims in the Steele Dossier had no evidence to support them and this was known at the time. The fact the words in retrospect are written down means the author or editor believes that such credible evidence did actually exist but was later discredited. However no such evidence is discussed in any of the references. The references only support the claim that nothing was disproven. The words in retrospect can only serve as a defence for journalists or news organisations who gave credence to these claims at the time. They do not give the reader any information. Also the words not strictly disproven are very clearly biased and not meant to actually convey information but to suggest that there might be something worthwhile in the report. The text should simply say unfounded or with no evidence to support them. Its turning the burden of proof on its head. Arakpat (talk) 19:09, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

So have then been disproven? Slatersteven (talk) 19:24, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

@Arakpat:, welcome to Wikipedia. This is apparently your first and only edit here. Some history is in order here. That wording was installed here on April 30, 2023, after discussion on the talk page.

You seem to be in doubt about the veracity of the dossier, or at least of some of its allegations. Do you have evidence (from reliable sources) that any of them have been disproven? The subject matter experts at Lawfare didn't find anything that has been disproven, even "in retrospect", after a thorough examination almost two years after it was published. There is, in fact, a whole lot that is "worthwhile in the report". Several of its most central claims were accurate and called "prescient", and they were later confirmed ("in retrospect"). Steele's sources were far ahead (at least six months) of the CIA and FBI. They revealed things unknown at the time. Read below:

In a December 2018 Lawfare report titled "The Steele Dossier: A Retrospective", the authors described how, after two years, they "wondered whether information made public as a result of the Mueller investigation—and the passage of two years—has tended to buttress or diminish the crux of Steele's original reporting." To make their judgments, they analyzed a number of "trustworthy and official government sources" and found that "These materials buttress some of Steele's reporting, both specifically and thematically. The dossier holds up well over time, and none of it, to our knowledge, has been disproven." They concluded with:

The Mueller investigation has clearly produced public records that confirm pieces of the dossier. And even where the details are not exact, the general thrust of Steele's reporting seems credible in light of what we now know about extensive contacts between numerous individuals associated with the Trump campaign and Russian government officials.
However, there is also a good deal in the dossier that has not been corroborated in the official record and perhaps never will be—whether because it's untrue, unimportant or too sensitive. As a raw intelligence document, the Steele dossier, we believe, holds up well so far.

So what is your real point? Do you have some better wording for use there? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 00:22, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

If there is anything questionable about that wording, it's the word "dubious". It would be more accurate and neutral to use "uncertain", "questioned", or something else.

British journalist Nick Cohen has written a great article that deals with the dossier's allegations. It's the most accurate one I've read in a long time and is well worth reading: Why is it so hard to believe that Trump is a Russian asset? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 02:26, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

References

Contradiction between Durham report and other RS

It is a fact that Durham's failed investigation and political hit job did include this clearly false and misleading statement:

"the FBI was not able to corroborate a single substantive allegation contained in the Steele Reports".

Other far more RS are more accurate and nuanced, and we also use them to show how the FBI's own sources independently confirmed information from some of Steele's sources and confirmed (six months later) the most central allegations. The second paragraph of the lead mentions them. So Durham's statement is very misleading.

Now, with the latest additions, we document both the true statements and Durham's false one, but without making clear it is false. That violates NPOV and FRINGE. We should point out the contradiction and label Durham's words as false. I thought we already did that, but apparently not. That Durham's statement is false needs to be clearly stated.

It is rather revealing that a Google search for these words "the FBI was not able to corroborate a single substantive allegation" doesn't bring up a single RS, only unreliable right-wing propaganda sources. They are the only ones! They are also the ones that still give any credence to the Durham Report, even though it was a failed investigation filled with flaws and falsehoods. The Durham Report is not a RS, except for its own opinions, not for facts. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 00:06, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

"It is rather revealing that a Google search for these words ... doesn't bring up a single RS, only unreliable right-wing propaganda sources. They are the only ones! They are also the ones that still give any credence to the Durham Report". Erm... Valjean... the CBS News source that you just removed minutes before posting the message above cites this exact passage from Durham. Are you saying that CBS News is "unreliable right-wing propaganda"?

If you have any reliable sources directly disputing Durham's statement, then you can certainly add them, but otherwise this is purely your own original research. Indeed, while it might sound shocking to someone whose only knowledge of the Steele dossier comes from our inaccurate and misleading Wikipedia article, Durham 2023 is not so different from Horowitz 2019 (and other authoritative mainstream sources), who wrote: "Much of the material in the Steele election reports, including allegations about Donald Trump and members of the Trump campaign relied upon in the Carter Page FISA applications, could not be corroborated; that certain allegations were inaccurate or inconsistent with information gathered by the Crossfire Hurricane team; and that the limited information that was corroborated related to time, location, and title information, much of which was publicly available." To borrow Durham's phrasing, Horowitz does not state that any "substantive" allegations were corroborated.

Of course, our inaccurate and misleading Wikipedia article states that "Some allegations have been publicly confirmed" and, e.g., that Steele predicted the 2016 Democratic National Committee email leak, but a careful examination of Steele's memos shows that this is a straightforward inversion of the historical record. As Marcy Wheeler notes:

"Here's what the dossier actually shows about both kompromat on Hillary and hacking.

• June 20: In the first report, issued 6 days after the DNC announced it had been hacked by Russia [emphasis added], and 5 days after Guccifer 2.0 said he had sent stolen documents to WikiLeaks, the dossier spoke of kompromat on Hillary, clearly described as years old wiretaps from when she was visiting Russia. ...
• Report 095: An undated report, probably dating sometime between July 26 and July 30, did state that a Trump associate admitted Russia was behind WikiLeaks release of emails, something that had been widely understood for well over a month. [emphasis added] ...
• August 10: Months after a contentious primary and over two weeks after Debbie Wasserman Schultz's resignation during the convention (purportedly because of DNC's preference for Hillary) [emphasis added], a report cites an ethnic Russian associate of US presidential candidate Donald TRUMP campaign insider, not a Russian, saying the email leaks were designed to 'swing supporters of Bernie SANDERS away from Hillary CLINTON and across to TRUMP.' ...

What the timeline of the hacking allegations in the Steele dossier (and therefore also 'predictions' about leaked documents) reveal is not that his sources predicted the hack-and-leak campaign, but on the contrary, he and his sources were unbelievably behind in their understanding of Russian hacking and the campaign generally ... "

Wheeler's post is worth reading in full and, like authoritative mainstream sources generally, makes clear that the things that Steele is claimed (by a minority of unreliable sources, e.g. Wikipedia) to have "predicted" or been "remarkably prescient" about were, in fact, publicly reported weeks or months prior to the dates on Steele's memos, whereas none of the original, substantive reporting in the Steele dossier—least of all anything related to U.S. persons—has been corroborated, much less proven (although we still have the retort "but not disproven!").TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 01:55, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

??? "Predicted"? Please search this article for that word. You won't find it. The word "prediction", in a totally different context, appears once. That's all. An accusation based on a false premise (a strawman) is a really bad place to start. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 05:53, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

I thank TheTimesAreChanging. I had no trouble finding reports that the report said the FBI was unable to corroborate a "single substantive allegation" in reports by Al Jazeera AP Christian Science Monitor Washington Post etc. so the only thing that's "rather revealing" about Valjean's google search is that one can get fewer hits by putting more words in quotes. Valjean's long-ago addition containing the words "Steele's prediction" is gone now but "prescient" is unfortunately still there despite past objections. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 16:15, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

Peter, you are aware that both "prediction" and "prescient" are/were cited from RS? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 23:36, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

References