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Creation of the dossier
According to reports, the dossier was created as part of opposition research on Trump. The investigation into Trump was initially funded by "Never Trump" Republicans and later by Democrats.[5][6][7] In September 2015, a wealthy Republican donor who opposed Trump's candidacy in the Republican primary hired Fusion GPS, an American research firm, to do opposition research on Trump. For months, Fusion GPS gathered information about Trump, focusing on his business and entertainment activities. When Trump became the presumptive nominee in May 2016, the Republican donor withdrew and the investigation contract was taken over by an unidentified Democratic client.[7][8]
In June 2016 it was revealed that the Democratic National Committee website had been hacked by Russian sources, so Fusion GPS hired Orbis Business Intelligence, a private British intelligence firm, to look into any Russian connections.[7] The investigation was undertaken by Orbis co-founder Christopher Steele, a retired British MI6 officer with expertise in Russian matters. Steele delivered his report as a series of two- or three-page memos, starting in June 2016 and continuing through December. He continued his investigation even after the Democratic client stopped paying for it following Trump's election.[7]
On his own initiative, Steele decided to also pass the information to British and American intelligence services because he believed the findings were a matter of national security for both countries.[9] However, he became frustrated with the FBI, which he believed was failing to investigate his reports, choosing instead to focus on the Hillary Clinton's email investigation. According to The Independent, Steele came to believe that there was a "cabal" inside the FBI, particularly its New York field office linked to Trump advisor Rudy Giuliani, which blocked any attempts to investigate the links between Trump and Russia.[9] In October 2016, Steele passed on what he discovered so far to a reporter from Mother Jones magazine.
Shortly after the presidential election, Senator John McCain, who had been informed about the alleged links between Kremlin and Trump, met with former British ambassador to Moscow Sir Andrew Wood. Wood confirmed the existence of the dossier and vouched for Steele.[9] McCain obtained the dossier from David J. Kramer and took it directly to FBI director James Comey on December 9, 2016.[7][6]
In a court filing in April 2017, Steele revealed previously unreported information that in December 2016 he gave one more report to "the senior British national security official and sent an encrypted version to Fusion with instructions to deliver a hard copy to Senator McCain." This memo, dated December 13, detailed possible collusion between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign. It described secret discussions between four named Trump representatives, Kremlin representatives, and associated operators/hackers about how to secretly pay the hackers who penetrated the DNC computer system and also how to cover up the operation. Although paid by the Trump organisation, the hackers were controlled by Putin's administration. "Comey has confirmed that counter-intelligence investigations are under way into possible links between Trump associates and Moscow, and CNN has reported that the FBI used the dossier to bolster its investigations."[10]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump–Russia_dossier
