The first time I saw the Steele dossier

The leak, the decision to publish, the press conference

I had just begun to cover President-Elect Donald Trump when he called a press conference — his first since winning the election in 2016 — at the Trump Tower in New York. The date was Jan. 11, 2017.

The day before, Buzzfeed published the 35-page Steele “dossier” which claimed that Russian intelligence had compromising information on Trump which could be used to blackmail him. Steele wrote that “Russian authorities had been cultivating and supporting” Trump “for at least 5 years.”

Here’s my story that ran in Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Trump blasts media for publication of ‘dossier’

Vice President-elect Mike Pence is seen in the background as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a press conference in Trump Tower, Manhattan, New York, on Jan. 11, 2017. (Shannon Stapleton/Reuters)

By DEBRA J. SAUNDERS REVIEW-JOURNAL WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT

January 11, 2017 - 5:02 pm

NEW YORK — President-elect Donald Trump both praised and hectored the news media Wednesday in his first press conference since winning the White House. The timing could not have been more dramatic, as Trump used the occasion to denounce “fake news.”

I read it quickly and then read it again and have read it several times since. It never made sense. It never passed the smell test.

That is why major news organizations to which the smear had been peddled before the Nov. 2016 election had refused to run stories. They could not corroborate the explosive allegations.

Now of course stories are coming out that confirm what Trump charged from the beginning — the the “dossier” was the work of bogus opposition work by Democrats.

But after Buzzfeed published, and after then FBI Chief James Comey arranged a leak that the FBI was investigating the matter, it was a stampede. Standards went out the window as big media competed to see who could claim the most scalps.

Yes, the feeding frenzy produced scalps. National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, for example, had talked to a Russian diplomat — horrors, a violation of the Logan Act, which never had been used to prosecute anyone. Paul Manafort was convicted of bank and tax fraud — for charges that had nothing to do with Russia or Trump.

Time Magazine has this handy list of Department of Justice indictments and convictions of Trump associates. Even still, Time noted:

Mueller’s report, which he submitted to Attorney General William Barr on Friday, did not conclude that Trump or anyone involved in his campaign colluded with Russia, according to a summary Barr delivered to Congress on Sunday.

Now Special Counsel John Durham is pursuing figures involved with putting together the “dossier” whom his office has charged lied to federal investigators about it, including Igor Danchenko, a Russian who provided some of the misinformation in the Steele papers.

Let’s be clear about what happened. Democrats funded a smear campaign to undercut the results of the 2016 election. And it was, as Trump said on Jan. 11, 2017, “fake news.” Shame on my profession for the role it played in this ugly episode.

Debra J. Saunders is a fellow at the Discovery Institute's Chapman Center for Citizen Leadership. Contact her at dsaunders@discovery.org.

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