The Steele dossier -- named for Christopher Steele, the former (?) British MI6 agent who reportedly put it together -- first got public exposure last January when CNN reported its existence and the contents, salacious material targeting Donald J. Trump, were made public by Buzzfeed.  But its existence was known to the media-intelligence complex months earlier.  A long article in The New York Times, April 22, 2017 noted that Steele "maintained deep ties with Russians and worked with the F.B.I." but the material in the dossier was "largely unverified."

According to this Times article, CIA director John O. Brennan, in late summer, 2016, "gave an unusual private briefing " to Senate Democrat leader Harry Reid.   The article strongly suggests that Brennan briefed Reid on the Steele dossier, noting that Reid later wrote to FBI director James Comey concerning "explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government -- a foreign interest openly hostile to the United States."  Reid wrote to Comey on October 31, 2016, as I previously noted at AT.

Earlier that October, according to the Times April 22 article, the F.B.I. told Steele that it “would pay him 50,000 for his efforts," if he substantiated the material in the dossier.  This Times article had mentioned that Steele "had been hired by a firm working for a Trump opponent."  Why, then, would the F.B.I. be willing to pay Steele an additional $50,000? 

Clearly, Steele's sources had to be Russian.  Why hasn't the media/intelligence complex seized on the Steele dossier as evidence of Russian interference in the election?   The only possible answer is that the media-intelligence complex had no difficulty at all with meddling in the 2016 presidential election, provided that the aim was to prevent the election of Trump as president.  But Trump having gotten elected against the wishes of the media-intelligence complex, the Steele dossier came to be seen as having value as an instrument that could be used to overturn the intolerable verdict of the deplorable electorate.

Consider, now, a front-page New York Times article, December 3, 2016 reporting: 

"Long before Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn became Donald J. Trump's choice for national security adviser, he believed that the Central Intelligence Agency had become a political tool of the Obama administration[.]"

Why has John Brennan maintained a highly visible public presence, months after he left the CIA?  By applying Occam's Razor to the question, one can conjecture that Brennan, along withformer Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former F.B.I. head James Comey, continues to carry water for the former Obama administration. Congressional Republicans must investigate the origins of the Steele dossier and the uses to which it was later put by the intelligence community -- to undermine the Trump presidency.

The Wall Street Journal, in its lead editorial, July 11, "Running the Schumer Blockade," asserted that Senate Democrats are playing with Senate rules  to make it difficult for President Trump to staff his administration, intending "to sabotage a Presidency."    It is time that Senate -- and House -- Republicans take to heart not only the Journal's advice "to restore normal order," but put an end to the ongoing campaign by the media-intelligence complex to sabotage the Trump presidency.   It is time, that is, that congressional Republicans realized that the true threat to our democratic institutions is, sad to say, home-grown.

Republican Senator John McCain is implicated in the early possession and possibly distribution of the Steele Dossier, and he can be expected to use every tool at the disposal of a veteran senator to frustrate an inquiry. Sunlight is the disinfectant that must be used, with conservatives in and out of the Senate publicizing McCain’s efforts to frustrate exposure of his role in this shameful fraud.

If Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan are not up to the task of joining with President Trump in taking on the Deep State, President Trump must take his case to the American people and explain the need for Congress to accept its constitutional responsibility to work with him in governing the nation, pursuant to the express wishes of the American people, as reflected in the November 8, 2016 election. Failure to do so may well imperil our democratic institutions, and leave the nation at the mercy of the media-intelligence complex.