Donald Trump dossier: intelligence sources vouch for author's credibility | US news | The Guardian
This
front-page article in today's Guardian manages to discredit both the
Guardian's journalism and the credibility of the Trump dossier at the
same time.
It is written by the Guardian's gun-for-hire Luke
Harding, which should raise deafening alarm bells for anyone familiar
with his work on Russia or Julian Assange.
In his usual
breathless style, he writes this like a press release on behalf of the
dossier's author, Christopher Steele. Maybe it is, in fact, based on one
from Steele's private dick agency, Orbis Business Intelligence.
But despite Harding's best efforts to spin this Steele's way, he gives
away several clues that, until some solid evidence is produced, we
should trust this dossier about as much as 12-dollar bill.
We
learn that Steele has not stepped inside Russia for more than 20 years.
Like Harding, Steele is a gun-for-hire and not even one who can verify
for himself the information he is recycling.
The task, set first
by Republican officials and later by the Democrats, was to dig up dirt
on Trump. He got paid for producing dirt, not for giving Trump a clean
bill of health.
The Guardian believes he subcontracted his work
to a local agency. So he told someone else to dig up the dirt. We not
only have to trust that Steele wasn't selecting the facts that fitted
the agenda he was being paid for, but that his subcontractor wasn't
doing the same thing too.
He never expected to be identified
as the author of this dossier – presumably the reason why he's gone
into hiding. He doubtless expected this to be used unattributed as part
of a smear campaign against Trump.
While reading Harding's
breathless prose, keep repeating the mantra in your head "45-minute
dossier" - British intelligence's claim, taken seriously by the British
media, that Iraq's Saddam Hussein could hit the UK with a (chemical /
nuclear?) weapon in 45 minutes. If you do, the Guardian's efforts to
take these evidence-free allegations as Gospel will sound as
preposterous as Emily Maitlis' line of questioning of Glenn Greenwald on
Newsnight last night (see my earlier post on Facebook).
The
best line in Harding's piece is that Steele shies away from the
limelight because he distrusts the media, and confides only in
journalists (like Harding?) he knows won't let him down. Something the
rest of us should bear in mind.
It is believed that Steele served as head of the Russia desk in MI6.
Photograph: Tim Ireland/PA
