Christopher Steele, the former Brit intelligence officer, author of the controversial ‘dirty’ dossier on Trump’s alleged Russia connections, is back in the firing line. Trump is calling for his extradition since he blames him for instigating the Russia probe – though the Republican Congress report found there were other reasons. A recent court case found Steele’s firm guilty of data breaches with respect to two Russian oligarchs mentioned though they received miniscule amounts and the judge said it had not been Steele’s doing to make the report public. Steele has said he only became embroiled overall because he was alarmed at what he was hearing about Trump and Russia (all hotly denied). As ever it was a standard secret intelligence report based on sources, not hard evidence.
Robert Mueller has broken his silence after the commutation of Roger Stone’s sentence saying: “Russia’s actions were a threat to America’s democracy,” Mueller wrote. “It was critical that they be investigated and understood.” Steele said he was disappointed by the Mueller report. He criticized it for being ‘too narrow’ and failing to follow up on crucial evidence.
What’s a touch disconcerting – or maybe not – is to find that Steele was born, 24 June 1964, two days after Dan Brown (master conspiracy theorist of Da Vinci Code fame) and five days after Boris Johnson – see Ramblers & Mythmakers post 2 July 2020.
Like Brown, Steele has an early Cancer Sun and North Node which was rattled by the June Solar Eclipse setting up a crisis or two in coming months. And he has the scattered, excitable Mutable T Square of Uranus Pluto in Virgo opposition Saturn square Mars in Gemini, plus Venus Mercury also in Gemini. He almost certainly has a Sagittarius Moon. To top it all off he has Jupiter in Taurus opposition Neptune – which can be idealistic, wildly optimistic or overly-impressionable, with a tendency to speculate and be misunderstood by others.
He’s been under high stress since 2016 and on with more stretching ahead till late January 2021 with various Neptune and Pluto hard aspects to midpoints. And the December Solar Eclipse in Sagittarius will oppose his Venus Mercury for an upset or two. But he looks much more upbeat and into a luckier phase from late January 2021 onwards with only a few ripples thereafter – which may be other factors in his life since he clearly has opted for an adrenaline-rush existence. Exactly now the July Lunar Eclipse in Capricorn is opposition his Progressed Mars and maybe conjunct his Progressed Moon stoking up a scare or angry words.
His relationship chart with Trump with a composite Venus Mars in the firing line of last week’s Lunar Eclipse and a composite Mercury picking up the June Solar Eclipse was always due for an outburst now; with tensions from late this month till the election with tr Saturn opposition the composite Uranus and square Neptune. The December Solar Eclipse will also rattle the composite Sun and confusion will reign through 2021/22.
It may all just be a vindictive flash-in-the-pan from Trump’s gnat-attention-span Twitter brain; and Mueller’s intervention will help Steele. But no doubt Steele will be able to breathe more easily when Trump flits off into the ether. Though he won’t just have Trump to worry about, the threat from the Russian side has been and no doubt will continue to be real.
“Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out!” I Claudius
The Democrats are jumping ship and letting this impossibly long process of Clinton/FBI dirty tricks finally surface. Merrick Garland is funding the John Durham investigation into the Russian collusion lie that the Clinton campaign started by commissioning the bogus Steele Dossier and then tossed to the FBI which knowingly used the lie it to get the FISA warrants to investigate the Trump Campaign. FBI Christopher Wray has testified that in retrospect there was “no probable cause” to start the investigation.
https://www.npr.org/2020/01/11/795566486/fbi-apologizes-to-court-for-mishandling-surveillance-of-trump-campaign-adviser
The FBI is disavowing the whole cast of characters: Brennan, Strozck, Page et al. Dirty tricks have been played by both Repulicans and Democrats for years. But this time the FBI has been caught taking sides and they know it.
Sussman, Danchenko are just the beginning: https://www.thedailybeast.com/igor-danchenko-steele-dossier-source-arrested-in-john-durham-investigation
Well the dossier was completely fabricated garbage and Steele, the FBI, the DOJ, and the Clinton Campaign just might finally get exposed for undermining a duly elected president.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/igor-danchenko-steele-dossier-source-arrested-in-john-durham-investigation
When I read the amount that the judge awarded I wasn’t sure why the judge found Steele liable at all especially given the of the material was purchased by another source, and all of the caveats that the information was raw data which had not been verified and the fact that Steele wasn’t the one who made the material public.
Marjorie, thank you so much again for your insights!
It’s possible that once Trump is thrown out of office, Putin will reveal to the world what his blackmail hold over Trump has been all along (as in the contents of a crushingly embarrassing “dirty” dossier). Putin would do this mainly in the hopes of further damaging American democracy but also out of spite for Trump.
Fortunately, I believe that the U.S. and American democracy is far more resilient than Putin gives it credit for. (The country survived a horrendous civil war, after all.) The revelations would be extremely bad news for the Republican Party which enabled this Russian puppet/Manchurian candidate. There may also be revelations about Moscow Mitch, Lindsay Graham, Roger Stone and other Trump supporters which will result in humiliation and criminal prosecutions as the U.S. recovers.
The more evil Putin seeks to do to other countries, the more he underlines his mismanagement of his own, unfortunate populace. If Putin spent half as much time looking after Russia’s economy and responding to the will of his people as he does making mischief for other countries, his people would be measurably better off — as loads of Russians realize.
With news that tens of thousands of Russians in the far east of the country are now calling for Putin’s resignation because of the arrest of a popular governor, Czar Putin cannot be resting easy. Every tyrant fears that he’ll end up like Muammar Gaddafi.
Don’t get your hopes up. Nothing ever happens to Trump or any other Republicans no matter how vile they are.
Look how Bush the Lesser and Dick Cheney slithered through the hands of justice and just because Bush the Lesser has spoken out against Trump some on the American left are celebrating him as some sort of hero.