Christopher Steele, the former British MI6 agent who authored the infamous Trump dossier, agreed to be questioned by American investigators about his relationship with the FBI, The Times of London reports.
Steele agreed to meet American investigators in London in the coming weeks, according to the report.
An official at Steele’s company, Orbis Business Intelligence, told the outlet that Steele told the Justice Department that he would only discuss his dealings with the FBI and wanted assurances that US officials would secure agreement from UK officials before the meeting.
Interview comes amid Trump-led investigations into Mueller investigation:
The report comes after Attorney General Bill Barr initiated multiple investigations into the origins of the Trump-Russia probe, which Trump has repeatedly called for.
Trump has tweeted about Steele more than four dozen times, calling him a “failed spy” and accusing him of spreading fake news.
Steele authored a dossier that was later published by BuzzFeed News, claiming that Russia had been “cultivating” Trump for “at least 5 years” and that Russia had a tape that featured Trump with prostitutes performing a “golden shower” at a hotel room the Obamas once used. The salacious parts of the dossier were not confirmed by the Mueller report nor elsewhere.
Steele dossier did not start Trump-Russia probe:
Steele for a company hired by the Clinton campaign to conduct opposition research on Trump. The dossier was also separately turned over to the FBI by an associate of the late Sen. John McCain.
Trump has alleged that the dossier was used to start a “phony” investigation into his campaign but that is not true.
“Competing memos from the Republicans and the Democrats on the House intelligence committee both say that information about George Papadopoulos, a Trump campaign foreign policy adviser, had prompted the FBI investigation in July 2016,” FactCheck.org reports. “Papadopoulos had contacts with Russian intermediaries during the campaign… and later pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about those contacts. While he was a Trump campaign adviser, Papadopoulos met with a professor with connections to Russian government officials who told him ‘about the Russians possessing ‘dirt’ on then-candidate Hillary Clinton in the form of ‘thousands of emails,'' and he tried to arrange a meeting between the Russian government and the campaign.”
