Felix Sater has been variously portrayed as a sketchy Trump business associate, a convicted stock swindler, a “made man” in both American and Russian mafia circles and even a patriot who has been a huge asset to American intelligence agencies and our allies. The extraordinary profile BuzzFeed just published of Sater depicts sort of a McGyver meets James Bond character who can arrange a meet up with a Russian dictator as easily as he produces Bin Laden’s personal phone numbers. Just the kind individual another well known spy may have had crossed paths with...a spy like Christopher Steele.
One question I have had since first reading the Steele memos was “who is Source E”, described in memo 2016/095 as an “ethnic Russian close associate of Republican US presidential candidate Donald TRUMP” who…
...admitted that there was a well-developed conspiracy of co-operation between them and the Russian leadership. This was managed on the TRUMP side by the Republican candidate’s campaign manager, Paul MANAFORT, who was using foreign policy advisor, Carter PAGE, and others as intermediaries.
Source E, acknowledged that the Russian regime had been behind the leak of embarrassing e-mail messages, emanating from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to the WikiLeaks platform.
Steele also writes that Source E confirmed that Russian hackers and operatives working in the US were being paid through the Russian government’s pension system and later claimed that Trump had been a Russian asset for eight years.
Who better fits the description of Source E than Felix Sater? Notice that Steele calls him a close Trump associate, but not a campaign member. Steele also mentions other intelligence sources close to Trump in other memos, but never the combination of ethnic Russian and close associate. Who, after reading the BuzzFeed profile, had the kinds of contacts in both the Trump campaign and the upper reaches of the Russian government described by Steele? And who, after reading the Buzzfeed profile, would feel no compunction about spilling the beans on Trump and the Russians to someone like Christopher Steele?