Election security

Christopher Steele claims Clinton lawyer fed him debunked claim about Russian collusion in 2016

British ex-spy Christopher Steele testified he met with Democratic lawyers during the 2016 presidential election, and one provided him with now-debunked claims about alleged Trump-Russia collusion as he compiled his dossier.

Steele, a former MI6 agent whose salacious and unverified dossier was used by the FBI in its Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act targeting of Trump campaign associate Carter Page, discussed his meetings with two lawyers tied to Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee during a deposition in a British court in mid-March, according to a transcript obtained by the Daily Caller.

Michael Sussman and Marc Elias, two top lawyers for the Perkins Coie law firm, which represented the Clinton campaign and the DNC, played an even more significant role in the Trump-Russia investigation than previously known.

Steele testified Sussman provided him with claims about Alfa Bank’s purported ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin during a late July meeting. These allegations made their way into a mid-September 2016 memo that became part of Steele’s dossier, although Steele repeatedly misspells “Alfa” as “Alpha.” Shortly after writing that memo, Steele met with Elias, who was the general counsel for Clinton’s campaign and had personally hired the opposition research firm Fusion GPS in April 2016 on the campaign’s behalf. Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson hired Steele in June 2016. It is not known what Steele and Elias discussed at their meeting.