What <em>Fire and Fury</em> Shares With the Steele Dossier
It’s fitting that this week, as Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury consumes Washington, also marks the anniversary of the publication of the Trump dossier, the collection of intelligence about the president’s ties to Russia. The two documents, the dossier and the book, may prove to be bookends for the first phase of the Trump presidency, and both are fascinating looks at Trump that depend on opaquely sourced and largely unverified information.
The dossier is back in the news not just because of the anniversary, but because on Tuesday, Senator Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat, released the transcript of an interview with Glenn Simpson, whose firm, Fusion GPS, contracted with former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele to look into Trump, eventually leading to the dossier. Democrats and Republicans had offered contradictory reports of how cooperative Simpson was, and the release an angry reaction from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley.
