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According to The Wall Street Journal, Christopher Steele's "primary sub-source" Igor Danchenko told the FBI in January 2017 that his source for the Prague-meeting story was Olga Galkina. He and she had attended the same school in Perm, Russia, so it's likely they were about the same age -- about 38 years old in 2016. In early 2016, she had been hired to work as a press secretary by an Internet entrepreneur Aleksej Gubarev, and they both were living in Cyprus. Although Steele's Dossier says that the Prague-meeting story was told by a "Kremlin insider", Galkina herself was not a "Kremlin insider".
However, it's possible that Galkina learned the Prague-meeting story from Gubarev, who learned it from an actual "Kremlin insider". Such a possibility might have been Danchenko's rationalization for his own reporting to Steele that the source of the Prague-meeting story was a "Kremlin insider". In other words, Danchenko had a good reason for thinking the story actually a "Kremlin insider", even though he learned the story from Galkina, who herself obvious was not a "Kremlin insider". Furthermore, Steele had a good reason to believe Danchenko's report to him that the source was a "Kremlin insider".
A big problem with this chain of rationalizations is that Michael Cohen never has visited Prague. At some point, somebody concocted and forwarded the false story.
* A real "Kremlin insider" concocted the story and told it to Gubarev.
* Or else, Gubarev concocted the story and told it to Galkina.
* Or else, Galkina concocted the story and told it to Danchenko.
* Or else, Danchenko concocted the story and told it to Steele.
As far as I know, the FBI never has interviewed Galkina and therefore has not been able to confirm Danchenko's statement that he really learned the story from Galkina. Therefore, it's possible that Danchenko himself concocted the story and later lied to the FBI that he learned the story from Galkina.
Another possibility is that Danchenko himself did not concoct the story, but rather learned it from someone other than Galkina. For example, Danchenko learned the story from a colleague at the Brookings Institution, where he worked in the USA. If so, then Danchenko lied to the FBI about Danchenko in order to protect his real source, his colleague.
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It's possible that Galkina or Gubarev was working secretly for an Intelligence agency --- either a US Intelligence agency or a Russian Intelligence agency -- which told her or him to tell the concocted story.
It's further possible that this was a false-flag situation. For example, Galkina thought mistakenly that she was working for a Russian Intelligence agency, but she actually had been recruited by a US Intelligence ageny or by a non-govenment cabal.
There are many possibilities, but the least likely possibility is that Galkina herself concocted the story that Cohen met with some Kremlin officials in Prague. It's very unlikely that Galkina was even aware of Cohen's existence.
Another unlikely possibility is that Russian Intelligence concocted the story and told it to a "Kremlin insider", to Gubarev, to Galkina or to Danchenko. Some Russian officials were aware of Cohen's existence, since he had been involved in some talks about developing a Trump Hotel in Moscow, but I cannot imagine a reason for Russian Intelligence to incriminate Cohen in an imaginary collusion between Trump and Putin.
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I speculate that the Prague-meeting story was concocted by a cabal comprising some former US Intelligence officials who were helping Hillary Clinton to defeat Donald Trump in the 2016 Presidential election. This cabal had arranged for the company Fusion GPS to collect and report information that associated Trump with Russian Intelligence and/or Russian mafias. This cabal was well informed about Steele's efforts and progress. Eventually this cabal concocted the Prague-meeting story and inserted the story into the Dossier. The cabal told the Prague-meeting story to Gubarev or to Galkina or to Danchenko. Eventually the Prague story was included in the Dossier, even though the story had not originated actually from a "Kremlin insider".
In this situation, the cabal also arranged the Double Detection. A cell-phone ping and a Russian-language conversation -- incriminating Cohen -- were staged in the Prague area with the expectation that both events eventually be detected by a East European intelligence agency. Of course, such an agency would not have appreciated either event immediately. Rather, much later, a US Intelligence would ask the East European agency to search its intelligence collections for any indication that Cohen had visited the Prague area.
The cabal implicated Cohen as the intermediary in the imaginary Trump-Putin collusion because the initial two intermediaries -- Carter Page and Paul Manafort -- turned out to be inadequate. Page was a low-ranking person who had only a very tenuous, indirect association with Trump. And Manafort had been fired from his campaign-manager position by Trump on about August 19, 2016.
In contrast, Cohen had been associated with Trump closely and for a long time. Furthermore, Cohen had been involved in talks about developing a Trump Hotel in Moscow, and so he had had -- and still might have -- some contacts with some Russian-Government officials.
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The cabal was preparing an October Surprise that Clinton might launch shortly before Election Day, November 8, if it seemed she might lose to Trump. Steele's Dossier would be revealed to the public. Then a top-ranking official would leak to influential journalists that US Intelligence had confirmed that Cohen indeed had visited Prague -- just as the Dossier had reported.
By the time Cohen might convince the public that he never had visited Prague, Election Day already would have happened and Clinton already would have been elected.
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Continued in Part 3
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