It's no wonder that conspiratorialists and Trump supporters (a redundancy?) have set out to trash this book. It provides a thorough examination of the process and results of investigations over several years by Fusion GPS.
Malcolm Nance, author of The Plot to Betray America, is an intelligence and foreign policy analyst. In a recent interview he described how Putin made millions after the fall of the Soviet Union by aligning himself with those who were selling off state property. He had been a ranking official in the KGB that became the FSB, the new Russian spy service and from there moved into the dictatorship role. Spies are good at getting the goods on people and using that information to their own ends. They look for those who love money and have large egos because they will do anything for money and flatter themselves it's for the best. Guess who fit that bill to a Tee. They soon had all sorts of goods on him.
The Steele Dossier had the details. Fusion GPS was a small research company that specialized in getting the goods on intricate financial transactions. It was founded by Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch, two former Wall Street Journal reporters. They had done no political work, but mainstream GOP, worried about the Trump candidacy in 2016, hired them to research into Trump's background. Fusion had begun its own research into Trump at the behest of a Republican client. It found damning open-source evidence: court documents, corporate bankruptcies and ties to organized crime. It turned to Christopher Steele to get intelligence from inside Russia. Many strands pointed there. What Steele might find was uncertain. “We threw a line in the water and Moby-Dick came back,” Simpson writes dryly. Steele, who had worked for MI6, soon to become a household word for the "Dossier" with its salacious details.
Among those they hired was Warren Barrett who had written a detailed book about Trump's early financial dealings.* Their funding originally came from a conservative billionaire. As Trump became more and more acceptable to the GOP, Simpson and Fritsch peddled their research to the Democrats. Almost all of their research was done by examining public documents, especially court cases, depositions, and filings. As Trump gained momentum, the billionaire's support waned and even though Simpson and Fritsch rather despised the Clintons for their ostensible soliciting of funds from countries where Hillary was in a position to make a difference, they agreed to turn over what they had on Trump to the Democrats and continue to do more research, when asked.
The contents of the famous dossier have been related elsewhere and far be it from me to go into the prostitute urinating scene. What is much more interesting is the revelation that the Russians had prevented Trump from appointing Mitt Romney as Secretary of State. That implies a shocking level of foreign influence over Trump, or, that someone is not acting on the level. Steele argued that the Russians never would have revealed the urinating incident because they wanted Clinton to be defeated and therefore would try to suppress negative information about Trump. All they needed was the threat of revelation.
There does seem to be plenty of "evidence" leading one to speculate just how much influence the Trump campaign was seeking from the Russians. Carter Page's Trump that put him on the FBI's radar has never been explained. Surprisingly, Simpson and Fritsch never trusted Steele and never wanted his allegations to be revealed, but they did feel they were important enough to turn over to the authorities. The authors insist they were not the ones who went to the FBI with the dossier; it was Steele himself.
Paul Manafort and his lobbying firm, of which Roger Stone was a partner, had been the subject of attention for several years before Trump sought high office. They specialized in polishing the reputations of dictators, mobsters (particularly Russians who had piles of cash) and strong men.
The research began with a survey of all the legal databases for lawsuits that to which Trump was a party. It was a rich vein, indeed. Most businessmen get sued or sue at one time or another, but Trump brought them to a new level. Rather than a one-page list, his went on for dozens of pages and a pattern soon emerged that showed him involved in hundreds of schemes to bilk investors, suppliers, and customers. Fusion's research process was simplicity itself. They hired researchers to scour public databases for information. What they uncovered about Trump was rampant hypocrisy (he hired hundreds of undocumented workers), numerous bankruptcies and illegal actions, not to mention several mob connections. All of this was made available to anyway interested (and willing to pay).
Paul Manafort and General Flynn had been involved with the Russians and Turks. The Russians had been seeking to annex Ukraine, a worrisome prospect for western European countries who got much of their natural gas from a pipeline traveling through Ukraine. Manafort was indicted under 12 counts of violating FARA, the Foreign Agents Registration Act, a 1938 law intended to prevent Nazi disinformation campaigns in the United States. (Flynn had retroactively registered when it became obvious that he was lobbying for Turkey. Late registrations are common. He resigned following revelations that he and the administration had lied about the conversations he had had with the Russian ambassador. The fact that he was a registered foreign agent also made him subject to FISA investigations. See the Lawfare article cited below for a more detailed explanation.*) Flynn had had conversations and made promises to the Russians before he was appointed as National Security Advisor (that has to be one of the worst nominations ever) and then lied about those conversations not to the FBI but also his boss. The FBI had tapes of Russians discussing how they could best manipulate Manafort and Flynn who seem to have been motivated mostly by money.
The book has many critics who cherry pick assorted charges and speculations. Representative Nunes, of the House Intelligence Committee, flew to Britain to discuss Steele with MI6 and MI5. They refused to meet with him. It was amateur hour at its worst. But the book is not about Steele or the dossier. It's an examination of Fusion GPS, how it worked, and the process it used to collect information for its clients and the failure of the American media to followup on a story that was handed to them.
The book is also a story without an end. A really important book for anyone who wants to know the real story behind the headlines.
*Trump: The Deals and the Downfall by Warren Barrett, 1992.
Interview with the author at Politics and Prose:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Hgw0ZrzsvI&t=14s
Other references
https://www.motherjones.com/2020-elections/2020/07/trump-files-donald-tried-hide-his-legal-troubles-get-his-casino-approved/
*FISA v FARA https://www.lawfareblog.com/flynn-fisa-and-fara-foreign-principals-and-agents-foreign-powers
Logan Act: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan_Act
The now-declassified FBI annex says, referring to Steele: “The most politically sensitive claims by the FBI source alleged a close relationship between the President-elect and the Kremlin. The source claimed that the President-elect and his top campaign advisers knowingly worked with Russian officials to bolster his chances of beating Secretary Clinton; were fully knowledgeable of Russia’s direction of leaked Democratic emails; and were offered financial compensation from Moscow.”
Later, the annex elaborates: “The FBI source claimed that secret meetings between the Kremlin and the President-elect’s team were handled by some of the President-elect’s advisers, at least one of whom was allegedly offered financial remuneration for a policy change lifting sanctions on Russia.”
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