Yes, Democrats Funded The Steele Dossier. The Question Is Whether They Got The Goods.

Hillary Clinton s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee helped fund an opposition research effort against Donald Trump that culminated in numerous damning allegations against him, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday.

Trump and his supporters quickly tried to use that revelation to shield the president from the explosive contents of the now-famous Steele dossier , named after Christopher Steele, the former British intelligence agent who compiled the research on Trumps alleged connections to the Russian government.

On Wednesday morning, Trump tweeted out a quote from a Fox News commentator who said the Posts report proved the president was a victim.

\"Clinton campaign & DNC paid for research that led to the anti-Trump Fake News Dossier. The victim here is the President.\" @FoxNews

Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 25, 2017","type":"rich","meta":{"author":"Donald J. Trump","author_url":"https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump","cache_age":86400,"description":""Clinton campaign & DNC paid for research that led to the anti-Trump Fake News Dossier. The victim here is the President." @FoxNews— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 25, 2017\n","provider_name":"Twitter","title":"Donald J. 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"Clinton campaign & DNC paid for research that led to the anti-Trump Fake News Dossier. The victim here is the President." @FoxNews
Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 25, 2017

In reality, the provenance of the opposition research doesnt necessarily say anything about what Steele claims to have dug up. And it certainly doesnt prove that the entire affair is phony, as Trump has repeatedly insisted.

Furthermore, Republicans were widely reported to have initially funded the anti-Trump file now in question. The Post included that detail in its report on Tuesday, but it was missing from a version the Republican National Committee blasted out.

The RNC just sent around the Posts Fusion GPS story with this very critical line removed. pic.twitter.com/vC2NXW7om4

Byron Tau (@ByronTau) October 25, 2017","type":"rich","meta":{"author":"Byron Tau","author_url":"https://twitter.com/ByronTau","cache_age":86400,"description":"The RNC just sent around the Posts Fusion GPS story with this very critical line removed. pic.twitter.com/vC2NXW7om4— Byron Tau (@ByronTau) October 25, 2017\n","provider_name":"Twitter","title":"Byron Tau on 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The RNC just sent around the Posts Fusion GPS story with this very critical line removed. pic.twitter.com/vC2NXW7om4
Byron Tau (@ByronTau) October 25, 2017

When Trump locked up the GOP primary, the Republican money dried up and Democrats stepped in, another fact that had already been reported.

Now we know that some of those funders were aligned with Clintons campaign and the DNC. Those parties retained Fusion GPS, the firm that had previously been brought on to oversee the contract, and a short time later, Fusion GPS hired Steele.

Much of the ensuing controversy over Tuesdays report has focused on accusations that Fusion GPS had orchestrated a smear campaign against a prominent critic of the Russian government who was murdered in 2009, as well at the fact that the firm has pushed back against some GOP-led subpoenas into its Trump work.

Trump and his allies are clearly intent on portraying all of this as part of a broader nefarious plot to fabricate a scandal out of whole cloth. But there is nothing particularly unusual about this opposition research effort apart from the severity of the allegations it has produced.

Opposition research is a standard and unavoidable part of political campaigning. The search for damaging information can appear desperate at times so much so that the presidents son said it led him to take a highly criticized meeting with a Kremlin-linked lawyer at Trump Tower in New York last summer.

It's also a shady business. Opposition research often involves obscure funding sources and the use of dubious investigative practices. That said, its not uncommon for research dug up during these campaigns to be woven into law enforcement investigations. An FBI probe into the Clinton Foundation last year was reportedly driven in part by information published in a Breitbart editors book that critics had written off as a hit job. Apparently, FBI officials believed some of the books charges were worthy of a closer look.

Investigators with the FBI and special counsel Robert Muellers team have been far less dismissive of the contents of the Steele dossier than Trump has. The FBI had reportedly looked to the dossier as a roadmap for its probe into potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, according to a BBC report in March. Just weeks ago, Mueller reportedly questioned Steele as part of his concurrent investigation into the matter.

None of this is direct confirmation of the dossiers claims, some of which seem fantastical or downright bizarre. But a number of them also appear credible and consistent with what weve since learned about Russias attempts to interfere in the 2016 election.

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As former Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said, if even a portion of the Steele dossier ends up being true, it wont matter who paid for it.

I have no idea what Fusion or Steele were paid but if even a shred of that dossier ends up helping Mueller, it will prove money well spent

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I have no idea what Fusion or Steele were paid but if even a shred of that dossier ends up helping Mueller, it will prove money well spent
Brian Fallon (@brianefallon) October 25, 2017