Jane Mayer's The Man Behind the Dossier in The New Yorker has drawn much attention for the detailed portrait of the former British spy, Michael Steele, who is behind what is known as the Steele Dossier.
According to Mayer (and other commentary) since the election, Steele has reviewed the claims in the dossier (including sources) with the FBI and most recently with Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
One of the claims Steele is said to have made in a second dossier (not the original Steele Dossier) is that when Trump was about to name Mitt Romney, the former GOP nominee for President in 2012, as Secretary of State, Putin objected. This is what Mayer writes:
Unpublished Steele Dossier: Russia Intervened To "Block" Romney's Choice As Secretary Of State
“One subject that Steele is believed to have discussed with Mueller's investigators is a memo that he wrote in late November, 2016, after his contract with Fusion had ended. This memo, which did not surface publicly with the others, is shorter than the rest, and is based on one source, described as "a senior Russian official." The official said that he was merely relaying talk circulating in the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but what he'd heard was astonishing: people were saying that the Kremlin had intervened to block Trump's initial choice for Secretary of State, Mitt Romney. (During Romney's run for the White House in 2012, he was notably hawkish on Russia, calling it the single greatest threat to the U.S.)
The memo said that the Kremlin, through unspecified channels, had asked Trump to appoint someone who would be prepared to lift Ukraine-related sanctions, and who would coöperate on security issues of interest to Russia, such as the conflict in Syria.
If what the source heard was true, then a foreign power was exercising pivotal influence over U.S. foreign policy—and an incoming President.
As fantastical as the memo sounds, subsequent events could be said to support it. In a humiliating public spectacle, Trump dangled the post before Romney until early December, then rejected him.
There are plenty of domestic political reasons that Trump may have turned against Romney. Trump loyalists, for instance, noted Romney's public opposition to Trump during the campaign. Roger Stone, the longtime Trump aide, has suggested that Trump was vengefully tormenting Romney, and had never seriously considered him. (Romney declined to comment. The White House said that he was never a first choice for the role and declined to comment about any communications that the Trump team may have had with Russia on the subject.)
In any case, on December 13, 2016, Trump gave Rex Tillerson, the C.E.O. of ExxonMobil, the job. The choice was a surprise to most, and a happy one in Moscow, because Tillerson's business ties with the Kremlin were long-standing and warm. (In 2011, he brokered a historic partnership between ExxonMobil and Rosneft.)“
What has happened in American foreign policy since the election has also raised eyebrows about Tillerson's appointment and about Trump's and Tillerson's relationship with Russia.
For example, after the election, and because of the evidence that Russia meddled in our elections, the Senate, by an almost unanimous vote (98-2), imposed additional sanctions on Russia.
Trump and Tillerson have resisted enacting them. And since Mayer's article was written, Tillerson's (as well as Trump's) inaction against Russian aggressiveness toward America has been even more widely discussed in our media and in political circles.
This was a New York Times headline on March 4, 2018.
State Dept. Was Granted $120 Million to Fight Russian Meddling. It Has Spent $0.
Here is the article. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/04/world/europe/st...As you may recall, recently, when Putin delivered his annual address to Russia's Federal Assembly (February 28) , he brazenly used an animated video to depict a nuclear strike using multiple warheads against the United States. The video depicted Florida, to be exact—the site of Trump's private club in Palm Beach.
Trump has not commented publicly on this, although Newsweek ( March 5) said that, in a series of private calls, Trump agreed with the leaders of Germany, the U.K. and France that Putin's was “irresponsible."
Secretary of State Tillerson has not commented at all.
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March 6, 2018
Post Script. The full New Yorker article-The Man Behind the Dossier, How Christopher Steele compiled his secret report on Trump's ties with Russia, can be read here. http://nyer.cm/Shk66G9