Republicans have been working furiously to discredit a dossier produced by Christopher Steele, a former British spy. The dossier contains information tying Donald Trump and his associates to the Russian government. Some of the material involves salacious activities placing Trump in a Moscow hotel room with Russian prostitutes.

The Steele dossier has been examined thoroughly and some, but not all, of the data has been confirmed. Despite that, Republicans rant incessantly on Fox News and other right-wing media that the dossier is unverified. That is flatly untrue. Which makes their attempt to discredit it all the more difficult. And it isn’t going to get any easier now that, as the Guardian reports, another document that corroborates much of the dossier is currently in the hands of the FBI. According to the Guardian:

The FBI inquiry into alleged Russian collusion in the 2016 US presidential election has been given a second memo that independently set out some of the same allegations made in a dossier by Christopher Steele, the British former spy.

The second memo was written by Cody Shearer, a controversial political activist and former journalist who was close to the Clinton White House in the 1990s.

Unlike Steele, Shearer does not have a background in espionage, and his memo was initially viewed with scepticism, not least because he had shared it with select media organisations before the election.

However, the Guardian has been told the FBI investigation is still assessing details in the ‘Shearer memo’ and is pursuing intriguing leads.

One source with knowledge of the inquiry said the fact the FBI was still working on it suggested investigators had taken an aspect of it seriously.

It raises the possibility that parts of the Steele dossier, which has been derided by Trump’s supporters, may have been corroborated by Shearer’s research, or could still be.

There is still much to uncover with regard to this new document. And the partisan associations of its author need to be taken into consideration. But the gravity with which it has been received by the FBI is sufficient to give Trump and his Republican defenders migraines. They can’t continue to swing so wildly at Steele if his data is backed up by an independent investigation.

What’s more, the Trump brigades’ campaign to smear special counsel Robert Mueller is going to be hampered by new evidence that Trump colluded with Russia and that Vladimir Putin might have damning evidence of it. This new information will compound the allegations against Trump and could lead to serious legal jeopardy for him and others in his administration. And while the GOP will surely try to leap out in front of this news and dismiss it, Mueller is not going to be so easily distracted.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
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