If you have been on the Internet in the last few days you have almost certainly heard about the unverified dossier Buzzfeed published in President-elect Donald Trump's alleged relations with Russia.
What you might not know is the operative in charge of putting the dossier together, British former MI6 agent Christopher Steele, recently helped bring down a corrupt, delusional politician: Sepp Blatter.
From the New York Times:
By all accounts, Mr. Steele has an excellent reputation with American and British intelligence colleagues and had done work for the F.B.I. on the investigation of bribery at FIFA, soccer’s global governing body. Colleagues say he was acutely aware of the danger he and his associates were being fed Russian disinformation. Russian intelligence had mounted a complex hacking operation to damage Mrs. Clinton, and a similar operation against Mr. Trump was possible.
Given Steele's investigation eventually led to Blatter resigning in disgrace from the FIFA presidency, we'd saya he's not the type to kid around about this type of thing. Because people named in the aren't the types to kid around either, Steele has reportedly gone into hiding.
That's a little different from his investigation into FIFA.
From Reuters:
Emails seen by Reuters indicate that, in the summer of 2010, members of a New York-based FBI squad assigned to investigate "Eurasian Organized Crime" met Steele in London to discuss allegations of possible corruption in FIFA, the Zurich, Switzerland-based body that also organizes the World Cup tournament.
Sepp Blatter and his cronies aren't the types to order assassinationa, as far as we know. Their corruption was more of the twinky-eyed, roguish kind, which is awful, but not as awful as the kind alleged in the dossier.
From Deadspin:
That investigation ultimately toppled comically corrupt former FIFA chief Sepp Blatter and also revealed widespread corruption in the soccer world; American officials, it appears, take Steele’s latest dossier seriously because he previously helped them out. Two senior national security officials wrote in a CNN op-ed that they’d known Steele for 20 years and that people should not “question his integrity, excellence, and diligence in intelligence work.”
You would never use the word "comically" to describe any corruption Vladimir Putin is involed in. Trump, maybe.
Will Trump end up like Blatter? Does that make Mike Pence Jerome Valcke, Paul Ryan Michel Platini and Mitch McConnell Gianni Infantino? We'll have to wait and see.
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