Steele Dossier

The Right-Wing media and commentators in the USA, fresh from their victory in the Mueller Report (i.e. the witch hunt that didn't find a witch...almost as if it was a legitimate investigation!) are up in arms again about the dossier about Trump and the Russians that was crafted by Christopher Steele, who is a former member of Britain's MI-6.

The allegation of the shameless shills for Trump is that this dossier was the purported rationale for the start of an FBI investigation into possible Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign, including what became surveillance into the activities of Trump himself and his campaign in the 2016 election.  

This is a bold faced lie.  

From the Mueller Report..."...within a week of the release (of DNC documents on Wikileaks), a foreign government informed the FBI about its May 2016 interaction with Papadopoulos and his statement that the Russian government could assist the Trump Campaign.  On July 31, 2016, based on the foreign government reporting, the FBI opened an investigation into potential coordination between the Russian government and the individuals associated with the Trump Campaign."

The Steele dossier was written starting in June and ending in December, 2016. The investigation of the FBI into possible links between Trump and the Russians began only two months after Steele even started writing his dossier, and four months before he was finished.

There are serious questions about the involvement of Clinton and her hacks in creating this dossier, and how it was released and used during the campaign. This issue, as well as how Obama may have used his White House to gain a political advange over Trump - and especially the botched investigation into Clinton's use of an illegal e-mail server while she was Secretary of State - needs to be investigated. 

Nonetheless, the suggestion that the investigation of Trump started with the Steel Dossier is a total fabrication.