Steele employed a particular person who is called "Primary Sub-Source" in the Horowitz report. In my article here, I will call this person "PPS". This person is known to and has been interviewed by the FBI, but his identity is not known to the public.
PPS employed a network of informants, one of whom is called "Person 1" in the Horowitz report. Steele has not named this person to the FBI, but he provided hints that enabled the FBI to identify him as Sergei Millian. An example of such a hint is that Steele mentioned that this person controlled a Russian-American organization in the USA, while Millian had founded The Russian American Chamber of Commerce in the USA. Although the Horowitz report does not name Millian as Person 1, Millian has been identified as Person 1 in the press. In my article here, I will treat Millian as being Person 1.
It seems from the Horowitz report that Millian began to provide information to PPS in mid-June 2016. PPS forwarded Millian's information to Steele, who then used Millian's information to write three Dossier reports:
* Report 80, dated June 20, 2016Shortly after Steele wrote the August report (dated August 10, 2016), he and Simpson apparently came to an opinion that Millian was a double-agent, working in part for Russian Intelligence. Subsequently, both Simpson and Steele suggested that the FBI should investigate whether Millian's worked for Russian Intelligence.
* Report 95, which is undated but apparently was written in late July 2016.
* Report 102, dated August 10, 2016
On August 22, Simpson sent an e-mail to Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr to arrange a meeting later that day. At their subsequent meeting, Simpson told Ohr that Millian was "a potential intermediary between Russia and Donald Trump's campaign staff" (Horowitz page 274). Simpson did not mention to Ohr that Millian was a source of information for three of Steele's Dossier reports.
I speculate that a redacted passage in the Horowitz report mentioned that Simpson called Millian "a double agent" (page 164, Footnote 302) . This footnote refers to the Horowitz report's discussion of an FBI counterintelligence investigation of Millian.
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| I speculate that Simpson called Millian "a double agent". (Click on the image to enlarge it.) |
In early October 2016, the FBI interviewed Steele in Rome in order to identify people in Steele's supposed network of informants. During that interview, Steele generally refused to identify his network's members but did provide the hints that enabled the FBI to identify Person 1 -- the source of information for those three particular Dossier reports -- as Millian.
Also at this Rome meeting, Steele characterized Millian to the FBI as being "a boaster and egotist and may engage in some embellishment". In other words, Steele essentially disavowed the reliability of the three Dossier reports that were based on Millian's information.
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To recapitulate, it seems that Simpson and Steele decided to disassociate themselves from Millian sometime between August 10 (the date of the third Dossier report based on Millian's information) and August 22 (the date when Simpson advised Ohr that Millian was a potential intermediary between Russia and the Trump campaign staff). Subsequently, Simpson and Steele suggested to the FBI that Millian's relationship to Russian Intelligence should be investigated.
I speculate that this disassociation from Millian was related to Millian's developing relationship with George Papadopoulos. On July 22, 2016, Millian contacted Papadopoulos via LinkedIn. During the following months, Millian and Papadopoulos exchanged e-mails and met in person. During these communications, Millian lured Papadopoulos with promises of lucrative consulting contracts. The Washington Post described those communications as follows:
The two [Millian and Papadopoulos] struck up an online correspondence and met several times, Papadopoulos said. Millian claimed to be a business associate of the candidate [Trump] and told Papadopoulos that he had connections at Bashneft, a Russian energy company that he said was looking for American investors.Simpson and Steele were not involved in these communications between Millian and Papadopoulos. Millian did not inform PPS about these communications, and therefore Steele's Dossier does not provide any information about Papadopoulos. However, I speculate that Simpson and Steele learned something about the Millian-Papadopoulos communications and came to the opinion that Millian was conducting those communications at the behest of Russian Intelligence.
By October [2016], Papadopoulos said Millian approached him with an idea: He said he could get Papadopoulos a public-relations contract with a New York firm connected to an unidentified Russian national. The job would pay $30,000 a month, Millian told him.
“It was an enticing offer,” Papadopoulos said. He said he was clear with Millian from the start that he would not work for any Russian under U.S. sanctions. In the fall of 2016, Millian flew to Chicago, where Papadopoulos was living at the time, to discuss the proposal. The two met at the bar of the Trump International Hotel. Papadopoulos said that Millian seemed nervous during the meeting. He was pacing, sweating and wearing a scarf around his neck, even though they were indoors.
Then, Millian explained that the job would require Papadopoulos to continue to work for Trump after the election. “He said, ‘You know, George, in Russia it’s very common for people to work both in the private and public sector at the same time,’ ” Papadopoulos recalled Millian telling him. Papadopoulos said he knew the offer was unethical — and possibly illegal.
“I told him, ‘Absolutely not,’ ” Papadopoulos recalled. Later, Papadopoulos said he concluded that the meeting may have been a setup ...
Who was going to pay the $30,000 a month to Papadopoulos? Keep in mind that Steele's Dossier does not provide any information about Papadopoulos.
Why would any Russians pay $30,000 to Papadopoulos in this situation? Perhaps some Russians intended to control or to discredit Papadopoulos because of his activities in petroleum issues of the eastern Mediterranean region.
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The Washington Post has reported:
In 2011, he [Millian] was invited to take part in a Russian government-backed effort to bring American entrepreneurs on visits to Moscow. The Post has previously reported that the FBI later investigated the trips as possible influence operations linked to Russian intelligence, although Millian was never implicated.The Post's previously reported article explains (emphasis added):
The FBI is investigating [in October 2013] whether the U.S. based director of a Russian government-run cultural exchange program was clandestinely recruiting Americans as possible intelligence assets, according to [US] law enforcement officials.In October 2016 -- around the time when Millian offered Papadopoulos a job paying $30, 000 a month -- Steele researched the organization Rossotrudnichestvo. Dossier Report 136, dated October 20, 2016, includes the following passage [emphasis added]:
FBI agents have been interviewing Americans who participated in Rossotrudnichestvo exchange program run by Yury Zaytsev, who also heads the Russian Center for Science and Culture in Washington. For the past 12 years, the program has paid for about 130 Americans to visit Russia. ...
Law enforcement officials said the FBI is investigating wither Zaytsev and Rossotrudnichestvo have used trips to Russia to recruit Americans. Rossotrudnichestvo paid for all their expenses, including meals, travel, visa fees and lodging. Most of the trips involved about 25 participants, who sometimes stayed in luxury hotels and met with Russian government officials.
Zaytsev .... created files on some of the participants, allegedly to cultivate them as future intelligence assets. Law enforcement officials would not comment on whether the FBI has any evidence that Zaytsev was successful in recruiting any assets.
... the Kremlin insider highlighted the importance of the Russian parastatal organisation, Rossotrudnichestvo, in this contact between TRUMP campaign representative/s and Kremlin officials. Rossotrudnichestvo was being used as cover for this relationship and its office in Prague ....I assume that Steele decided in October 2016 to search the Internet and public records for information about Millian and found that Millian was involved in this Rossotrudnichestvo program that was investigated by the FBI. I assume further that Steele inserted Rossotrudnichestvo into his Dossier in order to prompt the FBI to investigate Millian's collaboration with Rossotrudnichestvo.
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The FBI did establish a counterintelligence investigation of Millian, but the Horowitz report (page 164) obfuscates the chronology:
... Person 1 [Millian] was at the time [of the FISA application in October 2016] the subject of an open FBI counterintelligence investigation. We also were concerned that the FISA application did not disclose to the court the FBI's belief that this sub-source [Person 1, Millian] was, at the time of the application, the subject of such an investigation. .....The NYFO opened the investigation of Millian before October 12, 2016, but the public does not know how long before that date.
NYFO [the FBI's New York Field Office] opened the case after consulting with and notifying Case Agent 1 and SSA 1 prior to October 12, 2016, nine days before the FISA application was filed.
On that date, several top FBI officials -- including James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Bill Priestap, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page -- met to discuss concerns about the prudence of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation that had been raised by Stuart Evans, a Deputy Assistant Attorney General (Horowitz pages 139-144). During that meeting, those top officials should have taken into effective account -- but did not do so -- that Steele's key informant Millian was officially suspected of working for Russian Intelligence.
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Simpson and Steele decided to disassociate themselves from Millian between August 10 and August 22, 2016. One factor in this decision might be that Steele obtained another informant, who supposedly described actions within the Kremlin's Presidential Administration related to Trump's election campaign. The Dossier reports that explicitly named the Presidential Administration were the following:
Report 94, dated July 19, 2016Perhaps Simpson and Steele decided after the third such report -- dated August 10 -- that they no longer needed Millian, who might turn out to be a problem for the Dossier if he indeed was working for Russian Intelligence. (See my previous article, The CIA's Concerns About Steele's Dossier.)
Report 100, dated August 5, 2016
Report 101, dated August 10, 2016
Report 111, dated September 14, 2016
Report 112, dated September 14, 2016
Report 130, dated October 12, 2016
Report 135, dated October 19, 2016
Report 136, dated October 20, 2016
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