Who is Christopher Steele and how did he compile the Trump dossier?

1. Who is Christopher Steele — a counterintelligence specialist with an MI6 pedigree

Christopher Steele is a retired British intelligence officer, co‑founder of Orbis Business Intelligence, and was widely identified by news outlets as the author of the Trump–Russia “Steele dossier.” His background included work on Russian matters and prior cooperation with U.S. authorities in other investigations, which media reported lent credibility to his work ^{[1] [5]}. Steele’s firm was subcontracted by Fusion GPS to research possible Trump–Russia links during the 2016 campaign ^{[1] [6]}.

2. Who hired Steele and how the project was funded

Fusion GPS, a Washington research firm, retained Steele as a subcontractor after Fusion was itself hired by a law firm representing Democratic clients; reporting notes that Fusion had earlier received funding from the Washington Free Beacon for unrelated research but that Steele’s work began only after Democratic‑aligned funding was in place. Multiple outlets describe this chain: a law firm → Fusion GPS → Orbis/Steele ^{[1] [6]}. There has been confusion in media about funding chronology, which the Associated Press corrected after earlier imprecision ^[1].

3. What the dossier is — raw, unverified intelligence memos

The product Steele assembled was a series of memos — compiled June–December 2016 and published in a 35‑page package — that Steele and others described as “raw intelligence” and “unverified, and potentially unverifiable,” intended as a starting point for further inquiry rather than finished proof ^{[1] [2]}. BuzzFeed’s publication of the full compilation in January 2017 brought the memos into public view and intensified scrutiny ^[2].

4. How Steele gathered material — human sources and networks, not necessarily travel to Russia

Reporting indicates Steele relied on a mix of witting and unwitting human sources known to him; outlets such as Reuters, The Guardian and The New York Times suggested he likely did not personally travel to Russia for all claims but worked through inside contacts and local analysts ^[5]. One named source, Igor Danchenko, later became a focal point in legal proceedings related to his contributions to the dossier ^{[6] [7]}.

5. The dossier’s role in official probes and subsequent disputes

The dossier entered official attention: it was part of information reviewed during the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane inquiry and figures in accounts of how surveillance authorities sought warrants related to Carter Page ^{[6] [7]}. Oversight reviews and some political actors criticized the FBI’s reliance on dossier material; the Justice Department inspector general documented errors and omissions in FISA applications tied to the broader investigation ^[4]. Republican critics and some media have characterized significant parts of the dossier as debunked; others — including retrospective legal and analytic assessments — emphasize that much of the material remains unproven, not definitively disproven ^{[4] [3]}.

6. Conflicting assessments — debunked, unproven, or still relevant?

There is clear disagreement in the record: conservative outlets and some Republican investigators describe the dossier as largely discredited and politically motivated ^{[4] [8]}, while other analysts and outlets argue the dossier should be treated as raw intelligence that “holds up” in part and contains material that is uncorroborated rather than definitively false ^{[3] [9]}. FactCheck.org and other fact‑based reviews emphasize the dossier was a set of memos alleging contacts and kompromat but did not singlehandedly start all official investigations ^[10].

7. Limitations and what available sources do not say

Available sources in the provided set do not settle which individual allegations in the dossier are categorically true or false; many claims remain contested in public reporting and legal proceedings ^{[1] [3]}. The sources document Steele’s methods (human sources, networks, subcontracting via Fusion) and the dossier’s contested impact, but they do not provide a definitive adjudication of each allegation’s accuracy ^{[5] [2]}.

Conclusion — A dossier that changed the conversation but did not end the debate

Christopher Steele is a former MI6 officer who compiled a contentious, source‑based intelligence dossier for Fusion GPS in 2016; the document provoked official scrutiny and partisan dispute. Reporting and later reviews agree it was raw, often unverified intelligence that influenced public debate and parts of the investigative record, yet whether its central allegations are proven, disproven, or remain unverified is disputed across the sources ^{[1] [5] [3] [4]}.