The source behind a dossier of alleged “kompromat” held by the Russians on Donald Trump is a former British spy turned private intelligence businessman, according to a report.
Christopher Steele, 52, is the director of Orbis Business Intelligence in the U.K., according to the Wall Street Journal.
Steele was not identified in a CNN report breaking news that U.S. agencies had given a summary of his 35-page document that contained allegations of Trump engaging in “perverted sexual acts” in a Moscow hotel room.
The Daily News cannot confirm the information published in full by Buzzfeed which includes claims of sex parties in St. Petersburg and coordination between the President-elect’s team and the Russian government.
Donald Trump has called the dossier “all fake news” and denied the allegations at a Wednesday press conference where he berated the media for reporting on it.
The CNN report has said that the information was compiled as opposition research by Donald Trump’s political foes, a fact latched on to by Trump.
“It was gotten by opponents of ours. It was a group of opponents that got together. Sick people and they got together and put that crap together,” he said.
Trump obliquely referenced the most scandalous accusation, that he had Russian prostitutes defile a bed in the Ritz Carlton Moscow used by President and First Lady Obama, be saying that he is a “germophobe.”
Steele’s Orbis co-director Christopher Burrows told the Wall Street Journal that he could not “confirm or deny” that Steele authored the report.
He said that the objective in his firm’s work is “to respond to the requirements set out by our clients. We have no political ax to grind.”
Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who the documents say met with Russian officials in Prague, said Tuesday evening that he has never been to the Czech city, that he was in California with his son during the relevant time and that the allegations were aimed at harming Trump.
Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov, mentioned as an architect of pro-Trump Russian efforts in the documents, said Wednesday that they were a “complete fabrication.”
Unidentified intelligence officials cited by CNN said that the source of the documents was a credible former MI6 agent and that he had worked in Russia in the 1990s.
Others have said that the bombshell allegations were thinly sourced, and pointed out inconsistencies such as the mispelling of Russian investment group “Alfa” and “Alpha.”
Beyond the alleged Steele report, however, BBC correspondent Paul Wood said that the information in the dossier had been circulating for months and was coming from more than one source.
He told “World at One” that he got a message back from an intelligence source that said “there was allegedly more than one tape, not just video, but audio as well, on more than one date, in more than one place, in both Moscow and St. Petersburg.”
Steele’s website says that it “was founded in 2009 by former British intelligence professionals.” It features a photo of a Russian church on its homepage and claims to be able to deliver “high–level corporate ambassadors to promote clients’ strategies” as well as information for investors.
Burrows formerly worked for the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office in the 1990s and 2000s, according to his LinkedIn page.
Orbis did not immediately respond to a request for information from the NY Daily News.
Steele’s neighbors told The Telegraph that he told them he would be gone “for a few days,” and the outlet cited a source saying he is “terrified for his safety.”
Veteran journalist Carl Bernstein told CNN that the former British spy thought that the information was serious enough to pass on to a contact he had in the FBI.
He said that Sen. John McCain received the information from a former British ambassador to Russia who received the information independently from the former MI6 operative.
The Guardian reported that the longtime Arizona lawmaker sent an representative to an unidentified airport and met “a man with a copy of the Financial Times” to receive the documents.
McCain, who pulled his support for Trump during the presidential campaign, said in a Wednesday statement that late last year he “received sensitive information that has since been made public.”
“Upon examination of the contents, and unable to make a judgement about their accuracy, I delivered the information to the Director of the FBI.”
FBI Director James Comey, speaking to the Senate Tuesday, said that Russian hackers had obtained info from both Democratic and Republican-leaning groups, but that the GOP information was “old stuff.”
He did not answer questions about whether his agency was investigating alleged contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.
