During the election campaign, Cohen allegedly took part in a clandestine meeting with envoys dispatched by the Russian president. Now he's cooperating with Mueller and has become the key witness in the affair.Ĭohen's story shows to what extent the dossier anticipated developments that did not come to the attention of the public until months and, in some cases, years later. Only 17 months ago, he said that he would take a bullet for Trump. He has the compact and pugnacious strut of an amateur boxer who expects somebody to take a swing at him at any moment. investigations into Trump's election campaign team.įor years, Michael Cohen was the self-proclaimed "fixer" in the Trump organization, sort of like a crime-scene cleanup man who shows up when the boss has messed up again. Steele's findings made their way into the ongoing U.S. In early August both of these reports were handed over to FBI agents in Rome. Steele's first report to his client was submitted on June 20, 2016, and the second dates from July 26. They're not really spies - they're more like business people.īurrows says: "We also informed the German authorities when we received information that terrorists were mingling with Syrian refugees." They see themselves as indispensable, but, as with Christopher Steele, are not prepared to speak openly about it. Both men move in a world of people who work in the shadows, deal with sensitive information and go to the office in the morning with the knowledge that they carry the weight of the world on their shoulders. Steele and Burrows are convinced that spies from friendly powers should assist each other if they suspect foul play. After all, as he points out, it concerned a presidential candidate who may have been manipulated by Russia. "We were concerned about national security," says Burrows. When he found information that confirmed this theory, he informed the U.S. His job was to investigate whether and - if they actually did it - how Trump's people colluded with the Russians. But Steele is not an intelligence agency. He goes on to say that an intelligence agency would enrich the findings with data, test probabilities and write analyses. Burrows says it annoys him that the report is referred to as a "dossier" when "it's actually information that is referred to as 'raw intelligence' in intelligence circles." He says the reports are in large part a summary of tips from sources that Steele knew from his time in Russia - a mixture of knowledge, rumor and hearsay, not a "dossier." This is the second time that he has spoken publicly on the matter, the first time being last year in an interview with a journalist from The New Yorker. Then he says: "We didn't expect the findings on Russia to reach the public." Speaking in German, he orders calf's liver, Berlin style. He came to the city as a student in the late 1970s and served as a member of the British Embassy staff in the mid-1980s. Burrows' firm is engaged in a legal battle with the German company Bilfinger over 150,000 euros in outstanding fees for an investigation commissioned by the company.īurrows knows Berlin from previous stays. He's sitting in a café in Berlin, not far from Savignyplatz, and he's here on a rather unpleasant business matter. He's cultured, well-read, has a penchant for the fine arts and can fluently converse in Greek, German and French. Key figures include former British agents Steele and Burrows Trump's former associate Michael Cohen journalist Ben Smith, the editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed News, which decided two years ago to publish the dossier and Carter Page, a pro-Russian consultant who has received death threats.Ĭhristopher Burrows is the kind of intelligence agent who quickly charms people. The story of the Trump-Russia dossier vacillates between an espionage thriller and a mafia movie set in London, Berlin, Prague, Moscow, New York and Washington. Last week, he took to Twitter again to denounce Steele's dossier, which he claims was paid for by Clinton, as "fake and unverified." The paper continues to hound him. SPIEGEL Media Menü SPIEGEL Media aufklappen.Alle Magazine Menü Alle Magazine aufklappen.SPIEGEL-Heft Menü SPIEGEL-Heft aufklappen.Gutscheine Anzeige Menü Gutscheine aufklappen.Marktplatz Anzeige Menü Marktplatz aufklappen.Wissenschaft Menü Wissenschaft aufklappen. Formel 1 – Liveticker, Kalender, WM-Stand.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |