While most of cable news network shows were focused on the sad meltdown of former Trump campaign staffer Sam Nunberg, Rachel Maddow spent the bulk of her show detailing the incredible reporting of Jane Meyer’s article for The New Yorker, titled “Christopher Steele, the man behind the Trump Dossier.”
In the article, Mayer breaks out several new details about the dossier prepared by Christopher Steele, including the explosive allegation in a second, newly-uncovered Steele memo that Putin personally vetoed Trump’s pick of Mitt Romney for secretary of state. From The New Yorker:
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.
Did Donald Trump bend to Putin and install Rex Tillerson as a favor? Sounds like Mueller is on the case.
Maddow then hosted Jane Mayer to discuss another revelation from her outstanding article: someone has already reportedly been killed as a result of the Steele dossier. As Mayer reportes a CIA official told her, “fake news doesn’t produce real deaths.” Here is the first segment of this must-watch episode with Mayer, and a full transcript below:
MADDOW: About seven weeks ago Democratic Senator Feinstein surprised everyone when she basically threw up her hands and said what the heck and made an individual decision she would release a transcript of ten hours of senate testimony from GPS Glenn Simpson. That decision led to all sorts of congressional fighting about all sorts of things substantive and otherwise but there was a shock factor that day that the transcript was released. A shock factor from one quick line very late in the day in Simpson's testimony. It was a line uttered by his lawyer.
Quote, question, talked about evaluating the credibility of the information in the memoranda you were being provided by Mr. Steele and talked about your belief he was credible. Did you take any steps to assess the credibility? Answer by Mr. Simpson. Yes, but I'm not going to get into sourcing information. Question: So without getting into naming the sources or anything like that, what steps did you take to verify their credibility? I'm going to decline to answer that question. Question, why? Answer, not by Glen Simpson, answer by Simpson's lawyer, quote, this is a voluntary interview and in addition to that he wants to be careful to protect his sources. Somebody has been killed already as a result of the publication of this dossier and no harm should come to anybody related to this honest work.
Emphasis added. Somebody has already been killed as a result of the publication of the dossier.
Somebody has been killed, that was nine hours into ten hours of testimony from August. That was the transcript that was released to the public in January thanks to Diane Feinstein. Here is Jane Mayer tonight at "The new Yorker," quote, in Russia there were rumors of a more primitive justice taking place. His lawyer asserted somebody has been killed as a result of the publication of this dossier. Mayer continues. Who that could be has been the subject of much media speculation. One possibility that has been mentioned is Oleg Erovinkin. A former officer and top aide to the president of Russian oil giant Rosneft. On December 26th, 2016 in fact Erovinkin was found dead in his car. No official cause of death has been cited by Jane Mayer continues, no evidence has emerged that Oleg Erovinkin was a source for Christopher Steele and Mueller is believed to be investigating a different death that is possibly related to the dossier. A different death. Jane Mayer, you're making me crazy. Joining us now is Jane Mayer from the new Yorker magazine. Jane, congratulations on this scoop. It is killing me.
MAYER: Thank you so much. Great to be with you.
MADDOW: So I have a few different -- there is obviously a lot here, a lot of new material and a lot of stuff nobody else reported and I want to ask you about it. Let me start with the reporting about the memo from Steele after his fusion gps contract ended. It was produced in late November after the election in 2016 and it was based on a Russian source suggesting that the Kremlin had had a hand in casting the U.S. Secretary of state for the trump administration. What else can you tell us about that reporting and it's credibility?
MAYER: Well, you know, it's hard to evaluate. It's only based on one source. It's a shorter memo than most of the Steele memos that created the dossier but one of the things, it mean, on its face it seems fantastical that something like this could be true and a foreign power would intervene with an elected president by then, which trump was, and shape the foreign policy of our country but one of the things
that seems suspicious and kind of backs it up to some extent is that the circumstances of what happened with Romney, which was this very long prolonged process of him being interviewed for secretary of state. It seemed to go on and on. It was kind of humiliating. He was sort of dragged through dinners and the limelight and interviews and it was just odd and then in the end of it, trump decided not to pick him and very quickly and as a big surprise turned to Tillerson instead. So I mean, you know, hard to know. I mean, one of the things that I think we're going to find with much of what's in the Steele dossier, it's looking better and better every day, more and more credible but it's going to take somebody like Mueller with subpoena power to nail down a lot of the things you need to know. Somebody who can take a look at all kinds of other kinds of intelligence and so that's what it's probably going to take.
MADDOW: And you do have reporting on some potential new territory for the Mueller investigation if in fact, as you report, he's looking at a death that is related to the dossier that isn't the much discussed aid to Igor session that turned out dead a month after the election. Can you tell us anything further about that?
MAYER: One of the things I thought was really interesting point that was made by a former very top CIA official who I interviewed, who is an expert in the area of Russia, he said apropos that president trump said this was fake news, he said fake news doesn't produce real deaths. There were real repercussions from this dossier. Quite a few other things that happened to Steele's sources, that may have been Steele sources in Russia.
MADDOW: Does that explain some of the state of mind that describes Steele feeling potentially that his life may have been in danger or he needed to take steps to protect himself?
MAYER: It explains why he's so careful about not speaking. His lawyers have told him not to talk to the press and he's had to be very, very careful about his life, his family's life but also about his sources. I mean, these are people he's worked with for many years. This is -- they didn't just come out of the wood work for this one task which was to do this investigation of trump. These are people who have worked with him for all kinds of assignments on many other cases, as well. And interestingly, they are -- his sources and subsources, many were known to the FBI because Steele worked with the FBI over the years on a number of cases and the FBI had a lot of confidence in him and in these sources, his network.
MADDOW: Jane, if you don't mind sticking around, there is one other matter I'm desperate to ask you about and something I've been wondering about since the Clinton campaign was paying for Steele's investigation. Why didn't they use this material during the campaign? You got good reporting. Do you mind sticking with us?
To understand why Hillary Clinton did not use the information in the Steele dossier, see the next segment: