UK spies given lurid dossier on Trump

Explosive memos handed to MI5 and MI6 weeks before US president knew of them

By Ben Riley-smith Us Editor and Robert Mendick chief reporter THERESA MAY’S spy chiefs were secretly briefed on an explosive dossier of claims about Donald Trump’s ties to Russia before the US president was made aware of its existence, The Daily Telegraph can reveal.

The heads of MI5 and MI6 and one of Mrs May’s most trusted security advisers were told about memos by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer, relating to Mr Trump in the weeks after his 2016 election victory.

Mr Trump himself would only learn of the document – which included an allegation strenuously denied by him that in January 2013 he hired prostitutes to perform a lurid sex act in a Moscow hotel – when alerted by the FBI before taking office in 2017.

The disclosure risks further straining UK-US relations before the president’s state visit here next month. Mr Trump has previously tweeted a claim that Britain’s intelligence services helped spy on his election campaign.

The fact the dossier was disclosed to the country’s most senior intelligence figures suggests it was treated with gravity, in contrast to Mr Trump’s stance that it was “fake” and “phoney”.

Sources at No 10 insist Mrs May was never briefed on the Steele memos, indicating that spy chiefs decided to keep her at arm’s length from the information – though why remains unclear.

Mr Trump has singled out Mr Steele and his dossier in tweets more than 50 times since taking office, calling the former MI6 agent a “Trump hater” with political motivations. But Mr Steele has told friends he had acted out of duty, fearing national security implications.

The full story of how British intelligence chiefs knew what their former agent had discovered can be revealed for the first time by this newspaper.

Mr Steele’s so-called dossier included 17 memos sent to Fusion GPS, a Washington research firm paid by lawyers for Hillary Clinton’s campaign, which had hired him. It contained allegations including that the Kremlin was trying to tilt the election in Mr Trump’s favour, that Trump campaign figures had secretly met Russians and that there was “kompromat” on Mr Trump in the form of a recording of a night he spent in a Moscow hotel.

Before the 2016 election, Mr Steele met FBI agents to alert them but when Mr Trump won an unexpected victory, he decided it was time for Mrs May’s government to be informed.

He approached Sir Charles Farr, then chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, the body in charge of assessing secret information. They met at Farr’s house in Wimbledon.

So seriously was the material treated that Farr, a former MI6 officer, passed it up the chain of command. Andrew Parker, the MI5 director general, and Alex Younger, the MI6 chief, are both understood to have been briefed.

Mr Trump learnt of the allegations when he was briefed by James Comey, his then FBI director in 2017.

The smart Wimbledon incongruous detached suburban was house venue street an on for a in a meeting secrets and about the spies, incoming president of the United States.

But it was to this £1.7million home in south-west London that Christopher Steele came a week after Donald Trump’s shock election victory in November 2016 on what he saw as a

matter of national security. For months, Mr Steele, once in charge of MI6’S Russia desk but now approaching a decade out of the service, had been grappling with the intelligence he had collated about the Trump campaign. Contracted to investigate Mr Trump, Mr Steele put out feelers. What came back was explosive – allegations of suspect meetings between Trump advisers and Russians, a Kremlin drive to tilt the election in Mr Trump’s favour, and comprising information on the presidential candidate himself. The Steele dossier would help trigger an FBI investigation, eventually taken over by special counsel Robert Mueller, whose report later found Trump campaign figures expected to benefit from some Kremlin actions, though there was no criminal conspiracy.

The Wimbledon house belonged to Sir Charles Farr, with whom Mr Steele had been acquainted for two decades. Farr, who died of cancer aged 59 in February, had, like Steele, begun his career as an MI6 officer. Farr would know what to do.

For hours the pair worked through what is now known as the Steele Dossier – and treated the findings with gravity. Mr Steele was confident in the raw intelligence coming back from his chain of half a dozen “collectors”, who in turn reached out to their own sources. Farr decided the dossier had to go up the chain of command.

Mr Steele met FBI agents before the US election, spelling out his findings. Yet as the vote approached, he was unsure they were treating the information seriously. Three times before the election Mr Steele went to Washington, each time believing he was risking his life.

“He feared that either the Russians or the Trump team had found out what he was doing and that they could take physical reprisals,” a friend of Mr Steele said.

Before the election his focus had been on alerting the Americans. But afterwards, with Mr Trump now president-elect, it was a national security issue for Britain.

Mr Steele scheduled another meeting with Farr at the Wimbledon address. There was new information, including allegations that the Russians were trying to block Mitt Romney from being appointed US secretary of state. Britain’s spy chiefs had to decide – should they tell Theresa May?

The Prime Minister, installed four months earlier, after the Brexit referendum, was well acquainted with classified information from her Home Office days. Farr was a trusted adviser. She may also have known Mr Steele, who left MI6 in 2009.

Sources familiar with the events say Mr Steele’s information was “marked up to the top”. Yet Mrs May was not briefed on the dossier, insiders at No 10 insist. The exact reason is unknown.

Mr Trump himself was also in the dark. He would only be briefed on the dossier on Jan 6, 2017, when James Comey, FBI director, requested a one-on-one meeting in Trump Tower.

But just days later the situation changed again. Buzzfeed had got its hands on the Steele dossier and published the lot, unredacted, on its website on Jan 10. Even the most salacious of claims – relating to the hotel in Moscow – were there for everyone to read. Any doubt about how Mr Trump would react was expelled the following day. He did little to hide his fury, calling Buzzfeed a “failing pile of garbage” and labelling his own intelligence agencies “disgraceful” for allowing the material to leak.

A fortnight later Mrs May flew to Washington. Standing side by side with Mr Trump days after his inauguration, she heaped praise on the new US president. “I’m delighted to be able to congratulate you on what was a stunning election victory,” Mrs May said, adding later: “We have already struck up a good relationship.”

And to seal that newfound friendship – an invitation on behalf of the Queen for a UK state visit. Next month it will finally be taken up.