Overview: Russia holds embarrassing and compromising material and information on President-elect Donald Trump. Trump received
hacked and other intelligence from Russia for use in his presidential campaign in exchange for Russia keeping the compromising material on Trump quiet and Trump working to lift sanctions on Russia and getting some personal economic benefits from an oil venture.

Source: Cambridge educated Christopher Steele, age 52, a former MI6 officer and Russian specialist and now the director of a private-sector security firm in London, is the author of the 35-page Dossier making the explosive and unsubstantiated claims. Steele is now in hiding. Steel “was one of the more eminent Russia specialists for the Secret Intelligence Service,” better known as MI6. U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, have said that Steele’s source network was viewed as credible.

Why Made Public? The decision to brief or confront Trump on the allegations of the dossier is what brought the dossier into the public domain.

Trump's position: The dossier is all lies and fake news and said it was “a disgrace that that information would be let out.
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Key Contents of Dossier.

Speaking to a trusted compatriot in June 2016, a senior Russian foreign ministry figure and a former top level Russian intelligence officer still active inside the Kremlin respectively,said the Russian authorities had been cultivating and supporting US Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump for at least 5 years. The Source asserted that the Trump operation was both supported and directed by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Another source acknowledged that the Russian regime had been behind the recent leak of embarrassing e-mail messages, emanating from the Democratic National Committee (DNC), to the WikiLeaks platform. The reason for using WikiLeaks was "plausible deniability” and the operation had been conducted with the full knowledge and support of Trump and senior members of his campaign team. In return the Trump team had agreed to sideline Russian intervention in Ukraine as a campaign issue.
However, in terms of established operational liaison between the Trump team and the Kremlin, the source confirmed that an intelligence exchange had been running between them for at least eight years. Within this context Putin’s priority requirement had been for intelligence on the activities, business and otherwise, in the US of leading Russian oligarchs and their families. Trump and his associates duly had obtained and supplied the Kremlin with this information.

As far as ‘kompromat’ (compromising information) on Trump was concerned, although there was plenty of this, Trump understood the Kremlin had given its word that it would not be deployed against the now Republican presidential candidate given how helpful and cooperative his team had been over several years, and particularly of late.

Mr Trump’s attorney had a secret meeting with Kremlin officials in Prague in August 2016. [Michael] Cohen had been accompanied to Prague by three colleagues and the timing of the visit was either in the last week of August or the first week of September. According to [redacted], the agenda comprised questions on how deniable cash payments were to be made to hackers who had worked in Europe under Kremlin direction against the Clinton campaign and various contingencies for covering up these operations and Moscow’s secret liaison with the Trump team more generally.

Russia supported Mr Trump because he was “viewed as divisive in disrupting the whole US political system” Asked to explain why Putin and the Kremlin had launched such an aggressive Trump support operation in the first place, the MFA (foreign ministry) official said that Russia needed to upset the liberal international status quo, including on Ukraine-related sanctions, which was seriously disadvantaging the country. Trump was viewed as divisive in disrupting the whole US political system; anti-establishment; and a pragmatist with whom they could do business.

As the Trump support operation had gained momentum, control of it had passed from the MFA to the FSB and then into the presidential administration where it remained, a reflection of its growing significance over time. There was still a view in the Kremlin that Trump would continue as a [divisive] political force even if he lost the presidency and may run for and be elected to another public office.

Trump associates “confirmed he would lift Russian sanctions” in exchange for 19 per cent stake in a Russian oil giant. In terms of the substance of their discussion, Sechin’s associate said that the Rosneft President was so keen to lift personal and corporate western sanctions imposed on the company, that he offered (Carter) Page/Trump associates the brokerage of up to a 19 per cent (privatised) stake in Rosneft in return. Page had expressed interest and confirmed that were Trump elected US president, then sanctions on Russia would be lifted.

My Comment.

It appears Trump has been acting as a Russian agent on US soil and has compromised the security interests of the US in other regards as well. He has acted for his own economic benefit while running for high public office.

This warrants a new senate committee aligned with the Justice Department to hold hearings. The impeachment of Trump should also be on the table.