More non-news on the Russia-collusion
front came Wednesday, when the Senate Intelligence Committee said it has
now verified what everyone knew nine months ago: Russia worked to sow
chaos during the 2016 election; vote totals weren’t affected; and no
evidence has emerged that Donald Trump was in cahoots with Moscow.
But in the more distant, less camera-filled corners of Washington, there
actually is some interesting new information. It centers on the document
that increasingly looks central to the “chaos” Russia sowed: the Trump
dossier.
That was the infamous list of accusations compiled starting in the
summer of 2016 by a former British spook, Christopher Steele, who had
been hired by the liberal opposition-research firm Fusion GPS. The
discredited rumors about Mr. Trump came from anonymous Russian sources.
This is notable, since it turns out Fusion was separately—or maybe not
so separately—working with entities tied to the Kremlin.
How close was Fusion’s leader, Glenn Simpson, to Natalia Veselnitskaya,
the Kremlin-linked lawyer? Did the Russians know about the dossier all
along and help plant the information in it? Were American
law-enforcement agencies relying on Russian-directed disinformation when
they obtained secret warrants against Trump associates? Chaos, indeed. |
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