two informants from Russia disappeared

Two residents of Russia, who were the sources of the so-called dossier on Donald Trump, compiled before the 2016 US presidential election by Christopher Steele and which became the subject of numerous disputes, have since stopped communicating and “disappeared”. This statement was made by Steele himself, a former employee of the British special services, on Tuesday in the court, which is proceeding in the UK on the basis of Trump’s claim. The Guardian writes about it.

The former US president filed a lawsuit, accusing Stila’s company Orbis Business Intelligence of illegally using his personal data and damaging his reputation. The dossier, in addition to allegations of meetings between Trump’s representatives and Russian officials, also alleged that Trump paid bribes to Russian representatives and hired prostitutes during his visit to Moscow. These, as well as many other statements contained in the dossier, were not proven.

In his statement to the court, Steele claims that the special prosecutor Robert Mueller’s commission, which investigated Trump’s alleged ties to Russia, initially classified the testimony that Steele gave it, but on the last day of Trump’s tenure as president, January 20, 2021, these testimony were declassified. As a result, according to the British investigator, the identities of several Russian sources were revealed, and “they faced various consequences”, and two of those who were sources, “no one heard from them” and “no one saw them”. Styl does not mention the names of these people, what positions they held – he does not write. According to the author of the dossier, the declassification of the materials seriously undermined the American government’s ability to recruit new informants in Russia.

The so-called dossier on Trump, which Steele compiled at the request of the campaign headquarters of his competitor Hillary Clinton, was published only after the 2016 election, in which Trump won. Mueller’s commission did not find the dossier confirmed by many, as well as the very fact of his entourage’s collusion with Russia, but it did establish the facts of Russia’s interference in the US election in favor of Trump. The FBI stated that they were conducting an investigation into Trump’s possible ties to Russia, not based on the materials of the dossier.