Where's the rest of the Steele Dossier, and what role did it play in Crossfire Hurricane?
It's Back
The so-called Trump-Russia investigation, Crossfire Hurricane, has been described as a political witch hunt against Donald Trump, but there’s way more to the story that the government doesn’t want to discuss for some reason.
I thought Trump-Russia was old news, but apparently John Ratcliffe wants to fire it up again, based on a leaked story to Fox News on a criminal probe into John Brennan and James Comey, published July 8, 2025.
EXCLUSIVE: Former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey are under criminal investigation for potential wrongdoing related to the Trump–Russia probe, including allegedly making false statements to Congress, Justice Department sources told Fox News Digital.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe referred evidence of wrongdoing by Brennan to FBI Director Kash Patel for potential prosecution, DOJ sources told Fox News Digital.
One CIA Director trying to lock up another one. Get your popcorn ready. I don’t expect much to come of it, but it will be interesting theater. It’s just the pot calling the kettle black in my opinion- one political side gaining control of intelligence and investigative agencies, attacking the other side while screaming that the other side “weaponized” the same offices previously. Not that I give a damn about any of that. To hell with the politics.
If possible, I would like to see an accurate investigation this time. We’ve only heard half the story so far, in my estimation. I’d like to hear the other half.
Crossfire Hurricane began on July 31, 2016, according to government reports, although John Ratcliffe, then a Congressman representing Texas, said “It's been reported that that investigation (Crossfire Hurricane) began on or about July 27th of 2016,” while interviewing Peter Strzok. I think it would be helpful to see any documents related to the initiation of the investigation. What was the scope of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation as listed in any documents? Why haven’t we seen those?
There are certainly political aspects to Crossfire Hurricane which have dominated reporting. Peter Strzok and Lisa Page did not like Donald Trump, to put it mildly, and many people, especially John Ratcliffe, say this biased their professional duties. But you already know all that.
There’s another side to the Crossfire Hurricane investigation though. And you won’t read about it in OIG reports (other than one reference), or Special Counsel John Durham’s reports, or in any of the Congressional records of all the people they interviewed, or in John Ratcliffe’s CIA Note of June 26, 2025.
It appears that there were Grand Jury homicide investigations related to Crossfire Hurricane based on information provided by Christopher Steele to the FBI.
According to the OIG, “In 2013, the FBI completed the paperwork allowing the FBI to designate Steele as a CHS (Confidential Human Source).” The OIG didn’t provide the FBI’s “paperwork” on Steele, however. The exact date may be important.
President Obama nominated James Comey to be FBI Director on July 21, 2013. The Senate confirmed James Comey as Director of FBI on July 31, 2013. He assumed office on September 4, 2013. I think it’s important to understand if Christopher Steele became a CHS for the FBI before or after James Comey assumed office.
KEY POINT: THE OIG CONFIRMED THAT STEELE’S INFORMATION WAS USED IN “NON-ELECTION” CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS
On these points, the applications advised the court that Steele was believed to be a reliable source for three reasons: his professional background; his history of work as an FBI CHS since 2013; and his prior non-election reporting, which the FBI described as "corroborated and used in criminal proceedings."
Criminal proceedings- meaning Grand Jury investigations of alleged homicides.
The OIG put a lot of effort into fact checking whether or not the so-called Steele Dossier was the origin of the “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation.
But what they really did was put a lot of effort into fact-checking whether or not the “election” reports of Steele were the origin of the investigation, not whether the “non-election” reports were the origin of the investigation.
In other words there were two categories of reports from Christopher Steele, “election reports” and “non-election reports.” The OIG did not outline or discuss the nature of Steele’s “non-election reports” that were “corroborated and used in criminal proceedings.” They say they exist, but provide no details or analysis of their role in Crossfire Hurricane.
The OIG used the term “election reporting” almost 200 times, however. Here are some of the first uses of the term in the OIG report.
DOJ OIG: Review of Four FISA Applications andOther Aspects of the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane Investigation, December 9, 2019.
“Additionally, our review did not independently seek to determine whether corroboration existed for the Steele election reporting; rather, our review was focused on information that was available to the FBI concerning Steele's reports prior to and during the pendency of the Carter Page FISA authority.”
“Although not mentioned in the EC, at the time, FBI officials involved in opening the investigation. had reason to believe that Russia may have been connected to the Wikileaks disclosures that occurred earlier in July 2016, and were aware of information regarding Russia's efforts to interfere with the 2016 U.S. elections. These officials, though, did not become aware of Steele's election reporting until weeks later and we therefore determined that Steele's reports played no role in the Crossfire Hurricane opening.”
“However, immediately after the Crossfire Hurricane team received Steele's election reporting on September 19, the team reinitiated their discussions with OI and their efforts to obtain FISA surveillance authority for Page, which they received from the FISC on October 21.”
“Steele's handling agent told us that when Steele provided him with the first election reports in July 2016 and described his engagement with Fusion GPS, it was obvious to him that the request for the research was politically motivated.”
And on and on and on, always using the qualifier “election” report to differentiate their analysis from the “non-election” reports.
The OIG used the term “non-election” reports only once, again as referenced above, when they said Christopher Steele’s “non-election” reports were corroborated and used in criminal proceedings.
Although the OIG did not elaborate on Steele’s reports that were used in criminal proceedings, Buzzfeed most certainly did.
The US Death Of Putin’s Media Czar Was Murder, Trump Dossier Author Christopher Steele Tells The FBI, Buzzfeed, March 27, 2018.
The FBI possesses a secret report asserting that Vladimir Putin’s former media czar was beaten to death by hired thugs in Washington, DC — directly contradicting the US government’s official finding that Mikhail Lesin died by accident.
The report, according to four sources who have read all or parts of it, was written by the former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, who also wrote the famous dossier alleging that Russia had been “cultivating, supporting and assisting” Donald Trump. The bureau received his report while it was helping the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police Department investigate the Russian media baron’s death, the sources said.
FBI spokesperson Andrew Ames declined to confirm or deny the existence of the report and would not comment for this story. Steele's business partner, Chris Burrows, declined to comment on behalf of Steele and their company, Orbis Business Intelligence. …
Now BuzzFeed News has learned that federal prosecutors called witnesses before a grand jury during 2016 to compel them to testify under penalty of perjury about Lesin’s death, and they amassed more than 150 pages of material from the proceedings. The use of a grand jury, not previously reported, was discovered in documents released after BuzzFeed News launched a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit to compel the Justice Department, the FBI, and other agencies to turn over records related to the Lesin investigation. That lawsuit is ongoing.
Christopher Steele, in my opinion, also provided a report to the FBI on Seth Rich, a DNC staffer. Again in my opinion, this report from Steele was used as basis for a Grand Jury investigation of Seth Rich. I have some receipts on a likely Grand Jury proceeding of Seth Rich, but don’t feel like taking a long tangent here to prove it.
One thing for certain, the alleged death of Seth Rich resonated with Peter Strzok and Lisa Page on August 10, 2016, based on FOIA releases of emails to Judicial Watch. Wikileaks offered a reward for information on the alleged death of Seth Rich on August 9, 2016. Strzok “squashed” the email discussion on August 10, 2016 with a word that was redacted in the release. Those original FOIA releases can be found here among many other places.
Another tangent here is that Steele’s reports were about homicides related to Russia, and Donald Trump consistently defended Vladimir Putin to media when asked about Putin and assassinations. Donald Trump played defense attorney for Putin when asked questions by reporters about Putin’s track record on murder, on December 12, 2015, December 20, 2015, January 26, 2016, and February 6, 2017. This subject became a major disagreement between Comey and Trump.
Now I’m not trying to tell you that Christopher Steele provided accurate homicides information to the FBI- in fact I think much of it was false. But it played a major role in Trump-Russia and we need to understand it.
How many “non-election” reports did Christopher Steele provide to the FBI, and what role did they play in Crossfire Hurricane? The alleged date of death of Mikhail Lesin was November 5, 2015; Seth Rich July 10, 2016. Crossfire Hurricane officially began July 31, 2016. (There were also some other deaths in this time period that Steele may have provided reports on).
All this effort to investigate whether Crossfire Hurricane was a political witch hunt against Donald Trump has no analysis whatsoever of the role of the “non-election” (homicide) reports.
Charles Wright