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Did Hillary Clinton's campaign pay for the Steele dossier directly or indirectly?
Executive summary
The available reporting shows Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign and the Democratic National Committee paid the law firm Perkins Coie, which in turn hired Fusion GPS, and Fusion GPS later contracted Christopher Steele — meaning funding flowed indirectly rather than Steele being paid directly by the campaign itself [1] [2]. The Federal Election Commission fined the Clinton campaign $8,000 and the DNC $105,000 in a 2022 settlement for misreporting those payments, not for directly financing Steele, totaling $113,000 [3] [1].
1. How the money trail is described in contemporary reporting
Multiple outlets report the Clinton campaign and the DNC routed money to Perkins Coie, a law firm, which then engaged Fusion GPS for opposition research; Fusion GPS later hired former MI6 officer Christopher Steele to produce the dossier [1] [2]. Reporters and fact-checkers repeatedly describe this flow as the campaign/DNC paying Perkins Coie, Perkins Coie hiring Fusion GPS, and Fusion hiring Steele — i.e., an indirect chain of payment rather than Steele receiving a check from the campaign [2] [4].
2. What the FEC finding actually says
The Federal Election Commission’s negotiated resolution required the Clinton campaign and the DNC to pay civil penalties because their expenditure descriptions on FEC filings listed “legal services” or “legal and compliance consulting” instead of “opposition research,” thereby misreporting the purpose of payments above the reporting threshold [3] [2]. The settlement consisted of an $8,000 penalty for the campaign and a $105,000 penalty for the DNC, totaling $113,000 [1] [3].
3. Direct vs. indirect: why the distinction matters
News organizations emphasize that the campaign’s payments went to a law firm (Perkins Coie) which retained Fusion GPS; Fusion GPS retained Steele. That chain is the basis for saying Democrats “financed” the research while also clarifying Steele was not paid directly by the campaign itself [2] [4]. This distinction underpins debates about disclosure, legal liability, and perceptions of impropriety: critics argue the chain masked the true purpose; defenders note the payments were made to counsel and to a firm doing opposition research [2] [5].
4. How different outlets frame responsibility and intent
Mainstream news outlets (AP, CNN, BBC, Guardian) present the payments as Democratic-funded research that ultimately produced Steele’s reports and highlight the FEC settlement over misreporting [1] [2] [4] [6]. Some partisan or advocacy sources frame the dossier as “bought and paid for” by Clinton and the DNC with stronger language about intent and fraud; others stress the plurality of investigative actors and later findings by prosecutors or special counsels about pieces of the dossier [7] [1]. Those competing framings show the matter is both factual (the payment chain) and politically charged (interpretations of motive and consequence) [1] [7].
5. What reporting says about the dossier’s use and accuracy
Reporting notes that parts of the dossier were used by the FBI in its investigative work and that some allegations have been challenged or refuted over time — and separate probes (including special counsels) have examined sources and accuracy — but available sources show the FEC action concerned disclosure, not a legal finding that the campaign created false intelligence [3] [1]. The sources underline distinction between financial disclosure violations and independent determinations about the dossier’s truthfulness [3] [1].
6. Limits of the available sources and unresolved questions
Available sources confirm the payment chain and the FEC settlement but do not provide, in these excerpts, the detailed contracts, invoices, or the precise dollar amounts paid at each step (Perkins Coie → Fusion GPS → Steele) beyond broad summaries [2] [4]. Available sources do not mention contemporaneous internal deliberations at Perkins Coie or Fusion GPS that would settle questions of intent beyond the misreporting finding (not found in current reporting). Where outlets differ, it is primarily in tone and emphasis rather than the basic sequence of payments [1] [2] [4].
7. Bottom line for the original question
Based on the cited reporting, Hillary Clinton’s campaign did not pay Christopher Steele directly; instead, the campaign and the DNC paid Perkins Coie, which hired Fusion GPS, which hired Steele — an indirect payment chain — and the FEC later fined the campaign and DNC for misreporting those expenditures [1] [2] [3].