Clapper: ‘More and more’ of Steele dossier proving to be true

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said more of the so-called Steele dossier’s claims are proving to be true.

In an interview with Salon, Clapper said the dossier, part of which lays out alleged ties between the Trump campaign and Russia, has been corroborated by subsequent U.S. investigations.

The Obama-era intelligence chief stressed that while the most “salacious” claims in the dossier have not been proven to be true, “more and more” of the dossier’s other allegations about President Trump and his allies’ ties to Russia have been backed up over time.

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“Some of what was in the dossier was actually corroborated — but separately — in our intelligence community assessment, from other sources that we were confident in,” Clapper said.

“The salacious parts, no. That’s never been corroborated,” he added. “It would appear to me that as time has gone on more and more of it has been corroborated, but I can’t actually give you a percentage.”

The dossier, which was created by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele as part of his work for political intelligence firm Fusion GPS, had circulated in media circles before being published in full by BuzzFeed News in January 2017.

Clapper stressed that the dossier was never used as a source for the 2017 intelligence community assessment that stated the Russians interfered in the election for the purpose of damaging Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and aiding Trump.

“Well, some of what was in the dossier … first of all, I need to make an important point here. We did not use the dossier as a source for the intelligence community assessment, that’s point one,” Clapper said.

“The dossier is not classified or an intelligence document,” he continued. “It’s actually a collection of 17 separate memos.”

Republicans have frequently pointed to the dossier as proof that the FBI investigation into Trump’s campaign began with political motivations, as the Fusion GPS investigation was funded in part by lawyers for the DNC and the Clinton campaign.

Trump has erroneously accused the FBI and Clapper over the last several days of planting a spy in his campaign after it was revealed the agency used a confidential informant to contact several members of the Trump campaign.