RUTHFULLY YOURS

When the “Steele dossier” was first published a year ago, it looked like a bombshell. The document, drawn up by the British ex-spy Christopher Steele, contained salacious allegations against President Trump and suggested that Russia had helped him win the 2016 election. No one has been able to corroborate its charges, but Democrats continue to see the dossier as a road map for impeaching Mr. Trump. Republicans, on the other hand, point out that it was created as opposition research, leading them to see it as an elaborate partisan ploy.

There is a third possibility, namely that the dossier was part of a Russian espionage disinformation plot targeting both parties and America’s political process. This is what seems most likely to me, having spent much of my 30-year government career, including with the CIA, observing Soviet and then Russian intelligence operations. If there is one thing I have learned, it’s that Vladimir Putin continues in the Soviet tradition of using disinformation and espionage as foreign-policy tools.

There are three reasons the Kremlin would have detected Mr. Steele’s information gathering and seen an opportunity to intervene. First, Mr. Steele did not travel to Russia to acquire his information and instead relied on intermediaries. That is a weak link, since Russia’s internal police service, the FSB, devotes significant technical and human resources to blanket surveillance of Western private citizens and government officials, with a particular focus on uncovering their Russian contacts.

Second, Mr. Steele was an especially likely target for such surveillance given that he had retired from MI-6, the British spy agency, after serving in Moscow. Russians are fond of saying that there is no such thing as a “former” intelligence officer. The FSB would have had its eye on him.

Third, the Kremlin successfully hacked into the Democratic National Committee. Emails there could have tipped it off that the Clinton campaign was collecting information on Mr. Trump’s dealings in Russia.

If the FSB did discover that Mr. Steele was poking around for information, it hardly could have resisted using the gravitas of a retired MI-6 agent to plant false information. After hacking the DNC and senior Democratic officials, Russian intelligence chose to pass the information to WikiLeaks, most likely to capitalize on that group’s “self-proclaimed reputation for authenticity,” according to a 2017 report from the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Simultaneously the Kremlin was conducting influence operations on Facebook and other social-media sites. CONTINUE AT SITE

Media defenders of Fusion GPS and the FBI are criticizing as friends of the Kremlin anyone who dares raise questions about their behavior during the 2016 campaign. You almost have to admire their loyalty to sources, if not to readers. We’ll wait for the evidence, thanks, including the memo that the House Intelligence Committee understandably wants to make public.

Meantime, regarding Russia, the recent Congressional testimony by Fusion founder Glenn Simpson deserves more attention—specifically for what it reveals about Fusion’s campaign against Bill Browder, the human-rights and anti-Kremlin activist.

Mr. Browder hired Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky to investigate a 2007 Russian raid on Mr. Browder’s investment company. Magnitsky ultimately exposed a financial fraud perpetrated by corrupt officials and the mafia. Russia responded by arresting Magnitsky and keeping him in pre-trial detention for 358 days, where he was tortured and denied vital medical care. He was found dead on a cell floor in 2009.

Magnitsky and his lawyers meticulously documented his abuse while in prison. His evidence was affirmed by multiple governments and outside organizations, including U.S. prosecutors. In a rare instance of bipartisanship, Congress in 2012 passed the Magnitsky Act, which sanctioned individuals involved in Magnitsky’s death and other Russian rights abusers.