Thread by @SethAbramson

(THREAD) BREAKING: Allegations Trump spoke to Putin via speakerphone at the 2013 Miss Universe pageant, discussing both his plan to run for president and his desire to see Trump Tower Moscow built with Putin's blessing—implying a quid pro quo—are 90% confirmed. Please read/share.

WARNING/ This thread will be long, and there are a number of news items in it not yet reported by major media—though they will be—which will also make this thread confusing. "Confusing" is not "far-fetched." The facts in this thread have been drawn from public, reliable sources.

1/ The first thing to understand is that in January 2017, a celebrity friend of Trump made a startling accusation that never got picked up by the media—that Trump spoke with Putin via speakerphone at the 2013 Miss Universe pageant, others heard the call, and it was incriminating.

2/ On January 9, 2017, Tom Arnold tweeted to Trump, publicly, that "Chuck LaBella [NBC Talent Development Executive] was not only listening on speakerphone when Putin called (you lied to 60 Minutes, by the way) but he knows everything else, and just in case, Putin filmed it all."

3/ Subsequent tweets from Arnold referencing LaBella, in January and thereafter, confirmed that Arnold was speaking of the 2013 Miss Universe pageant. It should be emphasized that Trump has never acknowledged this phone call or this contact with Putin in any way, shape, or form.

4/ The next things one has to understand are: (a) the so-called "pee tape" does not involve any sexual behavior by Trump; (b) a tape "of a sexual nature" from this night has been confirmed by the CIA to the BBC (January 2017); (c) there are eight confirmed witnesses...

5/ ...who've been located by major media or intelligence agencies who can speak to events relevant to these allegations from the Steele Dossier (because they immediately preceded them); (d) this issue has nothing to do with sex—and everything to do with Trump being compromised...

6/ ...by a blackmail-enabling video that is confirmed to exist *and*—the evidence now suggests—a phone call that directly suggests a "quid pro quo" smoking gun connecting Trump's run for the presidency and his thirty-year desire to build Trump Tower Moscow; and (e) we now have...

7/ ...so much more intel about the events of November 9, 2013—and the wee hours of November 10, 2013—than has been reported in U.S. media that to relay it creates the sense I'm making it up. *I am not*. The media is behind on this story and you can either accept that fact or not.

8/ Here is the first thing we know that hasn't been widely reported: the roster of people Trump spent his self-described "lost weekend in Moscow with" (November 8 to the morning of November 10, 2013, during which time he held business meetings and attended a pageant and a party):

9/ Here are the people who were with Trump for all or some of his 2013 trip to Moscow:

Keith Schiller
Phil Ruffin
Emin Agalarov
Aras Agalarov
Chuck LaBella
Bob Van Ronkel
Yulya (Yulia) Alferova
Artem Klyushin
Herman Gref
Vladimir Kozhin
Alex Sapir
Rotem Rosen
Roustam Tariko

10/ Several other people had brief, consequential encounters with Trump—like Miss Hungary 2013, Kata Sarka—and their stories are part of this story as well. There are many fine articles about this weekend, and here's a particularly good one: bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

11/ Here's another good article about that weekend (note that Trump referring to this as a "weekend in Moscow" itself underscores a key lie that he's now telling about it, as once the Russia scandal began he changed it from a "weekend" to a one-day trip): nytimes.com/2017/07/10/us/…

12/ And here's a third and final (for now) article about the events of that weekend in Moscow.

Public reporting gets us many of the names of the people in Trump's entourage, but several others were discovered by independent journalists. More on that now. theguardian.com/us-news/2017/s…

13/ First, we have to see Trump's November '13 entourage as "paired": Schiller the ever-present bodyguard, Ruffin the ever-present friend; Emin and Aras Agalarov, father and son; Yulya Alferova and Artem Kluyshin, husband and wife; Herman Gref and Vladimir Kozhin, Putin agents...

14/ ...Alex Sapir and Rotem Rosen, Trump's "Trump Soho" business partners; Chuck LaBella and Bob Van Ronkel, Hollywood fixers; Roustam Tariko, a vodka magnate who had a brief encounter with Trump, much like Kata Sarka (and she deserves to be added to this group of key figures).

15/ I'm going to start with LaBella and Ronkel because they get us directly to the Putin phone call and I'm not trying to stall here—just trying to explain things clearly—so to prove that I'll go right to them, then discuss the others. First, you have to know who these guys are.

16/ Ronkel (pictured here with Trump at the pageant) is an American expat who lived in Moscow for 10 years with one job: get Hollywood talent to Russia. Ronkel's specific talent is selling Hollywood stars on the idea that they can get rich by doing business in and with Russia.

17/ Ronkel is good at his job—which is why when you go to his site you're assaulted immediately by several photos of him with Vladimir Putin. Ronkel and Putin became friendly in part because Ronkel does a great service for Russia by bringing the world's biggest celebrities there.

18/ Here's is Ronkel's November 2013 list of accomplishments, taken directly from his website:

19/ At least three of those events—the bottom three—occurred at the 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which LaBella and Trump attended. It's not clear if Van Ronkel met with Seagal at the pageant or elsewhere—though in either case it should be noted that Seagal is Putin's good pal now.

20/ LaBella—who Arnold claims was with Trump the entirety of the pageant—was then an NBC Talent Development Executive. But beyond that, he'd been involved as producer in several Miss Universe pageants (2010, 2011, 2012) and a judge in others (particularly Miss Teen USA pageants).

21/ LaBella's role with respect to the 2013 Miss Universe pageant is unclear: IMDB doesn't list it at all for him, but other sites say he was a producer for that show as he was in 2012, 2011, and 2010. We do know he worked on five episodes of "The Apprentice" with Trump in 2013.

22/ Again, Tom Arnold has claimed—repeatedly—that LaBella was also tasked with being NBC's liaison to Trump during the pageant (NBC co-owned the pageant with Trump) and was therefore with him for any and all incriminating behavior that may have occurred during Trump's 2013 trip.

23/ Going back to Van Ronkel, it's important to understand not just that he met with LaBella in Moscow and was tasked with helping stars like Trump find business opportunities in Moscow—he also was a Putin favorite because he tried to make a glowing TV show about the KGB in 2001:

23 SOURCE/ A 2001 newsletter published by the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO) and available online.

24/ In 2015, Buzzfeed News published an article that spoke in some detail about Van Ronkel, and established that his job is not just to get stars like Trump to Russia, but to be certain they understand that doing so will lead to *business deals with Russians* and *lots of money*:

25/ So this is the part of the thread where I remind you that Van Ronkel—the Hollywood fixer who gets U.S. stars big-time Russian money—didn't just go to the 2013 Miss Universe pageant and hang out briefly with Trump, he had a meeting with him (and seems to have been a VIP, too):

26/ Here's a fuller shot of Van Ronkel with Trump at the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow (November 9, 2013):

27/ Did I mention that Van Ronkel's professional calling-card as a Moscow-based fixer is not just the ability to get U.S. celebrities like Trump big Russian money but *also* to connect them with Putin himself? Well, it is, as the Financial Times noted in a July 14, 2017 article:

28/ But FT goes even farther, noting Van Ronkel was at the VIP-only post-pageant party with Trump *and* "worked on the pageant" itself. So now we have a Putin pal who introduces celebrities like Trump to Putin and gets them Russian deals partying and working with Trump in Moscow.

29/ Here's where things get odd. To FT, Van Ronkel said Trump "looked bored" at the after-party. But he told VICE that Trump was "meeting anyone he could and trying to do business." The latter is much more consistent with Trump's stated intentions for the trip and his itinerary.

30/ Note also that Van Ronkel is a "longtime acquaintance"—per VICE—of Emin Agalarov: a constant presence with Trump in Moscow, the son of Putin's real estate developer Aras Agalarov, and the man set up the infamous June '16 Trump Tower meeting between Don Jr. and Kremlin agents.

31/ All this is context for Trump inviting Putin to the pageant and Putin cancelling his planned appearance there just hours before the event.

In his place he sent (a) a gift for Trump, and (b) Vladimir Kozhin—the man who gives out permits for *new building projects* in Moscow.

32/ Putin also had (c) Herman Gref, the CEO of Putin's bank (Sberbank), meet with Trump.

The three things you need to build Trump Tower Moscow are: a real estate developer (Aras, Trump's pageant partner, was Putin's), a permits man (Kozhin was Putin's), and money from a banker.

33/ To understand the entirety of how Trump acquired a deal to build Trump Tower Moscow at the 2013 Miss Universe pageant, see the thread below. Here I'm going to just review the basics—so we can talk about prostitutes and then come back to Vladimir Putin.

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34/ The upshot is this: Putin was supposed to meet Trump directly, but suddenly cancelled; he sent instead the people needed to complete a Trump Tower Moscow deal; Trump announced such a deal on Twitter the day after the pageant; Emin confirmed the "letter-of-intent" to Forbes.

35/ Ten days after the pageant, Sberbank publicly announced funding for the project. The letter-of-intent signed in Moscow the day of the pageant was "active" until Aras Agalarov declared it dead just this February—in the midst of the Flynn scandal, after Trump's inauguration.

36/ See Tweet #33 for links to the Sberbank announcement and Agalarov's announcement the deal was dead (but only as of this February). Here's a link to Emin's article with Forbes (in which he tried—transparently—to retract his confession about the letter): forbes.com/sites/noahkirs…

37/ As you can see, given Trump's entourage (filled with Putin agents sent by Putin to help Trump, which they did); the presence of Van Ronkel (whose job is to help stars meet Putin); and Putin's own original plan to meet Trump in person, a speakerphone call is hardly surprising.

38/ What some may find harder to accept is that when Putin called—instead of showing up—Trump talked not just Trump Tower Moscow (which is unsurprising, as he was there to get that deal done and did) but also plans to run for the presidency: a conjunction that'd be incriminating.

39/ It'd be incriminating because the position of the Trump Organization, as laid out by Trump Jr. to investors in 2008, is that the *only* thing that makes investments in real estate in Russia dangerous rather than purely lucrative is that the deals can't be done without help.

40/ In the article below, we find Donald Trump Jr. underscoring that the Trump Organization wants to do deals in Russia—and has many Russian investors—but is concerned that, without government protection, deals can fall through or fail once begun: eturbonews.com/9788/executive…

41/ So Putin sending his permits man to deal with Trump, and discussing Trump Tower Moscow with Trump by phone, would be an imprimatur—a promise the deal had Putin's blessing and wouldn't be suddenly stolen away from Trump via state-sponsored graft or (as Don feared) legal fiat.

42/ Trump choosing *that moment* to tell Putin, and only him, he'd be running for the presidency—when that fact had never been uttered by Trump in the U.S., and wouldn't be for a year and a half—would create a prima facie case that Trump was leveraging one fact against the other.

43/ That is, it would suggest to U.S. voters that Trump used his run for the presidency as a chit—a valuable asset to be offered to Putin—to ensure Putin's assistance with the multi-billion-dollar Trump Tower Moscow deal, a deal Trump had been unsuccessfully seeking for 25 years.

44/ This is where two more members of the entourage—Yulya Alferova and Artem Klyushin—come into play.

Alferova and Klyushin appear to have been—per Alferova's LiveJournal account—at the Summer 2013 Miss USA pageant in Las Vegas to convince Trump to bring Miss Universe to Moscow.

45/ Alferova and Klyushin—then married—are friends of the Agalarovs, and were instrumental in making sure Trump came to Moscow. It's clear that money (a $20 million offer) lured Trump there, but also the promise of being able to discuss business deals and meet Russian oligarchs.

46/ As we can see in Putin's actions—he sent Trump his developer, permits man and banker—the plan was to get Trump to Moscow to seal a deal on Trump Tower Moscow. It was also to a) confirm Trump would deliver value to Putin in return by running for POTUS, and b) to get kompromat.

47/ It's through Alferova—who has an unusually chatty Twitter account—that we get proof that those who hung out with Trump in November almost immediately thereafter were in possession of the knowledge he'd be running for president (18 months before any of us Americans knew it):

48/ The date of that tweet is January 22, 2014. Not 2015—2014.

And it doesn't appear to be the only tweet of that character Alferova put out.

Remember: Arnold's claim is Trump was telling Russia he was running for president in November 2013. If he told Alferova, why not Putin?

49/ Arnold's claims—remember, he's a fellow celebrity, friend of Trump, and someone with substantial Hollywood and media connections—therefore check out as to every particular we can verify, *including* the circumstantial fact that everyone involved lied about that whole weekend.

50/ Emin gave Trump a fake alibi for the "pee tape" by pretending the allegation was from November 8th, not the 9th; Alferova pretended to The Guardian that she was just a blogger meeting Trump for the first time in Moscow, with no additional knowledge of his trip; Trump lied...

51/ ...about how long he was in Moscow, who he spent time with, whether he signed a letter-of-intent for Trump Tower Moscow there, whether he spoke to Putin, and, critically, whether he acted—as he claims—in a cautious manner to avoid producing kompromat: huffingtonpost.com/entry/allegati…

52/ Put simply, a *married man* who claims—as Trump did during a January press conference—that he *knew* his Moscow hotel room was being video- and audio-recorded, and that he had to act cautiously as a result, does not invite a woman to come to his room for an adulterous affair.

53/ The other thing a man being "cautious" in that situation does not do is cavort with prostitutes, which credible evidence suggests Trump did on the night of November 9, 2013 (early morning hours of November 10)—and here's where Artem Klyushin comes into play in a very big way.

54/ A January 2017 Daily Caller article quotes a Trump advisor as saying Emin offered prostitutes to Trump at a November 9 meeting—believed to be the one seen atop this thread. It also says Schiller—or another guard—was posted at Trump's door all night. dailycaller.com/2017/01/14/for…

55/ But when Schiller testified, he said it wasn't Emin but a "Russian associate" who made the offer—and based on the photo we have, this likely refers to Artem Klyushin, whose wife is pictured and whose Instagram confirms that he was with Trump that day. nbcnews.com/news/us-news/t…

56/ But the reason to suspect Klyushin isn't just that he's the only person in Trump's then-entourage who credibly fits the scenario—i.e., being Russian and present at that meeting—he also is associated with the man who runs the largest brothel in Moscow, Konstantin Rykov.

57/ And as young journalist Scott Stedman (@scottmstedman) has recently written about, Rykov *credibly* (for reasons I'll discuss) claimed right after the election to have been part of a five-year plot to help Trump run for and then win the presidency. medium.com/@ScottMStedman…

58/ Rykov is a member of Putin's political party who was in the Duma and is now called the Kremlin's top online propagandist. He also founded "Dosug," the largest dark-net brothel in Moscow. And he has posted pictures of "secret meetings" related to geopolitics with Klyushin.

59/ The two men regularly correspond over Twitter, and the secret meeting occurred as Rykov was writing on FB "maybe it's time to help out the old brigand [Trump]." Tellingly, Rykov had somehow been ready to publish a pro-Trump endorsement just days after Trump announced in 2015.

60/ Rykov's lightning-fast publication of a Trump endorsement—72 hours post-Trump's surprise announcement—bolsters the idea he long ago knew (via Klyushin or his wife) Trump was running, and that he had, as he now says, been preparing to help Trump win the presidency since 2012.

61/ So while we don't—yet—have 100% conclusive proof, *every piece of evidence now available* says (a) yes, Trump established a Trump Tower Moscow/presidential run quid pro quo with Putin in Moscow in November 2013, and (b) yes, he was lured to Moscow as part of a kompromat plot.

62/ We know a Trump Tower Moscow letter-of-intent was signed, then lied about; we know Trump and his team tried to convince us his only play for Trump Tower Moscow was a failed 2015 bid; we know Russians knew before we did that Trump was running for POTUS; we know Trump wanted...

63/ ...to meet Putin at the 2013 pageant, and surrounded himself with every resource he could to make it happen telephonically, even as Putin was sending him every imaginable resource needed to get a Trump Tower Moscow deal done; we know a one-time Trump friend confirms all this.

64/ We know that as you go down to a finer level of granularity—which as a former criminal investigator/attorney I'm trained to do—everything *still* checks out: everyone is lying about what you'd expect; has access to the resources they needed; published corroborating evidence.

65/ And then there are facts so seemingly small or esoteric I avoid putting them in threads, but want to here: Scott Stedman discovered Klyushin was at a 2015 Trump rally; Ike Kaveladze (cf. 2016 Trump Tower meetup) appears to have helped the Kremlin lure Trump to Moscow in 2013.

66/ Every hour, new facts are being added to this fact-pattern—and *all* of them fit the narrative the evidence confirmed so far seems to establish and establish clearly. Here's Stedman's article on Ike Kaveladze, for example, published just this evening: medium.com/@ScottMStedman…

67/ If Kaveladze was working to lure Trump to Moscow in 2013, then shows up in 2016 helping the Kremlin aid Trump's candidacy, that's telling; if Rykov says in November 2016 he and Klyushin have been trying to help Trump for years, and Klyushin is at a 2015 rally, that's telling.

68/ I understand and embrace 100% the question you're asking now: why haven't I seen this in major media? The answer is *not* complicated: right now even major media's "investigative" reporting is just waiting for leaks from the highly politicized Congressional probes or Mueller.

69/ I personally have been contacted by some of the largest print/TV outlets in the country, which—to their credit—are just now trying to branch out, as to the Trump-Russia probe, into the investigative reporting certain independent journalists have been doing on this since 2016.

70/ But where we are today is that network/cable TV outlets, news websites, and newspapers are either a) waiting for politicians to issue selective leaks from a deliberately crappy investigation, or b) waiting for crappy leaks from a deliberate and professional FBI investigation.

71/ The result is major media is months behind the actual state of this investigation—the state independent journalists with backgrounds in the law and/or journalism have brought it to—and these journalists are sourcing their work and checking it daily against the work of others.

72/ I hope you'll read the links in this thread, and the links in the threads I've linked to in this thread, and the links on smaller and/or more esoteric items that I've linked to on this *feed* at various points. And I hope you'll read this key article: bbc.com/news/world-us-…

73/ I hope you'll check out Luke Harding's new book—which establishes beyond doubt just how long the KGB (now FSB) has been working on Trump, and how long he's been courting Russian investors and business—as well as my own original reporting on this topic:

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74/ And I hope you'll consider that conspiracy theories are deeply stupid—but criminal conspiracies are a real thing that people like me work on (as attorneys or investigators) and a particularly dumb criminal conspiracy, like this one, at first looks like mere conspiracy theory.

75/ All that matters is whether the evidence compiled to make a case checks out. Nothing else matters—including your subjective opinion of what's plausible, what certain people "would do," or what seems "credible." People surprise you—and Trump is worse than you understand. {end}

PS/ Yes—if the final 10% of this is confirmed, this IS a smoking gun and grounds for impeachment.

It'd mean the President of the United States is compromised by a foreign power—suffering under "leverages of pressure" as the CIA said long ago (see below). vanityfair.com/news/2017/11/t…

PS2/ From Paul Wood of the BBC, writing for The Spectator (UK):

PS3/ The key excerpt from Wood's BBC article that I linked to in full below (Tweet #72):

PS4/ Here's another picture of Van Ronkel and Putin (the picture of Van Ronkel and Trump—and the two pictures of Van Ronkel and Putin that now appear in this thread—are the first three pictures in the main-page slideshow on Van Ronkel's Sade-soundtracked, Russia-hosted website):

PS5/ Two things to note: someone purporting to be LaBella (we can't know if it is or not) has a website denying Arnold's allegations; I've seen screenshots of what purports to be LaBella's LinkedIn page in which he quotes Trump as a reference—and Trump calls him a "loyal friend."

PS6/ What's clear is that LaBella needs to be interviewed by both Congress and Mueller—as there's nothing yet to suggest he has any criminal liability here, and therefore should be able to answer questions under the threat of a prosecution for Making False Statements for any lie.

PS7/ Moreover, now that we know Trump's bodyguard says he has no idea who went in Trump's room after he—Schiller—went to bed, we have to see to it that everyone in Trump's entourage is questioned or (as to Russians) asked to provide testimony and publicly questioned for refusing.

PS8/ If LaBella was with Trump the whole weekend in Moscow, he can—even if he were to deny any knowledge of prostitutes or speakerphone calls—testify to the principals involved in getting the Trump Tower Moscow deal done, and confirm they were all known agents of Vladimir Putin.

PS9/ Media must work to answer these questions:

1. Why did Russians know before Americans that Trump was running in 2016?
2. Why does Trump deny a 2013 Trump Tower Moscow letter-of-intent exists?
3. Who was involved in that deal?
4. What about Kata Sarka and the Ritz witnesses?

PS10/

5. Why has Trump repeatedly lied about every aspect of that 2013 trip?
6. How did the Agalarovs, Alferova, Kaveladze, and Kyushin convince Trump *so quickly* to come to Moscow? Were offers of access to Putin and/or oligarchs made?
7. What did Trump discuss with Van Ronkel?

NOTE/ Journalism doesn't end at the water's edge. Effort should be made to interview Aras and Emin Agalarov, Ike Kaveladze, Yulya Alferova, Artem Kyushin, Konstantin Rykov, Vladimir Kozhin, Felix Sater, Alex Sapir, Rotem Rosen, other key Russians. If they lie/stonewall—report it.

NOTE2/ LaBella content is scarce. But there is this—"Donald is an incredible man, and I mean that sincerely in a positive way. He has been very good to me over the past 10 years personally and professionally. I’ve learned a lot of unique lessons from him." irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/e…

NOTE3/ Trump cut his Trump Tower Moscow deal with known Putin agents in November 2013, and told Putin agents the *same day* that he was running for POTUS. Even if he failed to speak to Putin directly—which I doubt—he knew Putin's agents would communicate that quid pro quo to him.

NOTE4/ Here's an article about Konstantin Rykov and "Dosug." Dosug, a dark-web Moscow brothel, appears to have provided the prostitutes Schiller was offered by Rykov's business partner, and who were seen by hotel witnesses according to Paul Wood (the BBC). dailydot.com/layer8/dosung-…

NOTE5/ Here's Putin's top developer, Aras Agalarov—who does no-bid contracts for the Kremlin, and who Putin awarded Russia's top civilian honor—announcing his 2013 Trump Tower Moscow letter-of-intent with Trump (previously active) null in February of 2017. russianconstruction.com/news-1/26505-r…

NOTE6/ Here's The Daily Mail underscoring that Putin *also* wanted to meet Trump face-to-face at the 2013 Miss Universe pageant—further underscoring that a phone call would've been expected (as a matter of business protocol) once the men failed to connect. dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3…

NOTE7/ Many are noting the pic atop this thread may be of the "speakerphone" call Trump and Putin had 11/9/13—i.e. a Skype/FaceTime "meeting." We don't know. But if you study everyone's body language/positioning, it's possible—and certainly Alferova wanted to remind Trump of it.

NOTE8/ Someone felt it key to capture the moment, though nothing's happening; Alferova thought it memorable enough to send to Trump as a reminder; no one's touching the keyboard; Schiller—a bodyguard—is leaning in as if it'd be disrespectful to not be seen; everyone is animated.

NOTE9/ Here (h/t @scottmstedman) is Part 1 of Russian Konstantin Rykov's November 12, 2016 social media claim to have helped Trump win the election (note in this—and Part 2—there are several references to facts about the Russian effort that were not publicly known at the time):

NOTE10/ Here (h/t @scottmstedman) is Part 2 of Rykov's November 12, 2016 social media claim to have helped Trump win the election (and remember his partnership—including in posted-about March '16 "secret meetings"—with Artem Klyushin, who we know had ready access to Trump):

NOTE11/ Russian Konstantin Rykov then went on to say (again, this is in November 2016) that he was in contact with Vladimir Volfovich, whose name would months later appear in a declassified DNI report as having been part of the Russian propaganda campaign: dni.gov/files/document…

NOTE12/ I want to confirm receipt of the 50+ messages sent to me here, via DM and via email to the effect that Artem Klyushin has now followed on Twitter nearly every person—perhaps every person—who has liked or commented on this thread, including me.

Don't be intimidated, all.

NOTE13/ Hopefully it goes without saying that the photograph atop this thread could equally be Trump and his associates looking at plans for (or artist renderings of) the planned Trump Tower Moscow—which of course, if true, would still confirm a key element of the narrative here.

NOTE14/ I'll close by saying again that Trump signing docs on Trump Tower Moscow in November 2013 with the aid of known Kremlin—Putin-sent—agents, at the same time he was trading on a then-undisclosed presidential run as a chit for Putin's blessing on the Tower, is a smoking gun.

NOTE15/ And the fact we now have credible evidence Trump was lured to Moscow in November 2013 as part of a kompromat plot by Kremlin agents—the same people appearing with Trump in June 2013, at a November pageant, and thereafter—means Trump's desired quid pro quo compromised him.

MUELLER/ And yes, the information I have is that Mueller is in possession of all the evidence discussed in this thread, which is another reason former MI6 Russia-desk official Christopher Steele is not just being taken seriously as a source but is seeing his work used as a guide.