A “former top Russian intelligence officer claims FSB (the Russian secret service equivalent of the former Soviet KGB-ed.) has compromised Trump through his activities in Moscow sufficiently to be able to blackmail him. According to several knowledgeable sources, his conduct in Moscow has included perverted sexual acts which have been arranged and monitored by the FSB.”

This is a quote directly from the famous Steele Dossier, the report of the highly respected former British intelligence expert Christopher Steele retained by the Fusion FSB opposition research firm that is at the center of the ongoing Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into collusion between the Russians and the Trump campaign to influence the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

The Steele Dossier was the subject of a three-hour U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, the transcript of which was made public by Committee vice chair Sen. Dianne Feinstein over the objection of the Republican chair of the committee. Feinstein’s courageous act of defiance in the public interest brought to light the gist of the Steele Dossier, as testified at the hearing by Fusion GPS chief Glenn Simpson.

It was made clear at the hearing that Mueller’s investigation is based on more than the Steele Dossier, and that further information that has come forward has only corroborated Steele’s findings, which, of course, constitute a complete bombshell and have led to exhaustive, convoluted counterclaims by the Trump camp demanding an acceptance of its claim that the FBI and virtually the entire U.S. intelligence community are a den of thieves and liars.

However, the greatest evidence of Trump’s guilt in this is his continuing refusal to concede there’s anything to the Russians’ efforts to influence the November 2016 election, at all. Insofar as it is true, it constitutes one of the greatest national security threats to the U.S. imaginable, and to have our president deny it categorically simply does not comport to reality.

So just as Sen. Feinstein wrote her name into the immortal ranks of heroes for freedom with her defiant and courageous action to make the Senate Intelligence Committee transcript public two weeks ago, so I consider it important to remind the public of exactly what the Steele Dossier contained, even though it has been in the public domain for a year, and hardly ever cited in print, especially in its specifics.

I can’t reprint the entire dossier, drafted in August 2016, but among its most damning sections is one which reads as follows:

“There were other aspects to Trump’s engagement with the Russian authorities. One which had borne fruit for them was to exploit Trump’s personal obsessions and sexual perversion in order to obtain suitable ‘kompromat’ (compromising material) on him. According to Source D, where s/he had been present, Trump’s (perverted) conduct in Moscow included hiring the presidential suite of the Ritz Carlton Hotel, where he knew President and Mrs. Obama (whom he hated) had stayed on one of their official trips to Russia, and defiling the bed where they had slept by employing a number of prostitutes to perform a ‘golden showers’ (urination) show in front of him. The hotel was known to be under FSB control with microphones and concealed cameras in all the main rooms to record anything they wanted to.”

Steele continued, “Source B (the former top level Russian intelligence officer) asserted that Trump’s unorthodox behavior in Russia over the years had provided the authorities there with enough embarrassing material on the now Republican presidential candidate to be able to blackmail him if they so wished.”

There are other important parts of the dossier, including a reference to Putin’s “desire to return to Nineteenth Century ‘Great Power’ politics anchored upon countries’ interests rather than the ideals-based international order established after World War Two.” Putin is seeking, it states, “bilateral U.S.-Russia energy cooperation and associated lifting of western sanctions against Russia over Ukraine,” and reports a source claiming that “in terms of established operational liaison between the Trump team and the Kremlin, an intelligence exchange had been running between them for at least eight years.” Turning young U.S. voters against Hillary Clinton was also an important Putin initiative.

Nicholas Benton may be emailed at nfbenton@fcnp.com.