Ex-British intelligence officer Christopher Steele wrote in a 2016 memo that the Kremlin moved to spike Mitt Romney as President Trump’s secretary of state – according to the latest claim linked to the ‘dirty dossier’ author.
Steele, who penned the collection of memos that contained the salacious and unverified ‘golden showers’ claim about President Trump, has come under fire from Republican investigators for his memos compiling compromising material the Russians were said to hold on Trump.
In addition to drafting what is known as the dossier, Steele wrote an additional memo in November 2016.
The New Yorker reported that Steele wrote, citing a ‘senior Russian official,’ that Moscow blackballed Romney’s nomination – something that would be an astonishing intervention in its rival’s affairs.
The Kremlin moved to spike Mitt Romney as President Trump’s secretary of state, Christopher Steele wrote in a November 2016 memo based on a senior Russian official
The dossier itself consists of a series of memos that Steele, who was working on contract for political intelligence firm Fusion GPS, drafted during the presidential campaign. It was first published by Buzzfeed, and has become the source of fierce partisan battles on the House Intelligence Committee.
Fusion’s work was being funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party.
Steel passed on in the November memo that ‘people were saying that the Kremlin had intervened to block Trump’s initial choice for Secretary of State, Mitt Romney,’ according to the magazine’s account.
Instead, the Kremlin had asked for someone who would be prepared to lift sanctions the West imposed on Moscow following the invasion of Ukraine, while cooperating on Syria and other matters.
Fusion GPS officials have testified that Steele had his own FBI contacts, although the New Yorker did not report on to whom he sent the material, if to anyone.
JUMP START: President-elect Donald Trump and Mitt Romney dine at Jean Georges restaurant, where frog legs were on the menu. Trump did not nominate Romney to join his administration, however
Vice president-elect Mike Pence, President-elect Donald Trump and Mitt Romney leave the clubhouse after their meeting at Trump International Golf Club, November 19, 2016 in Bedminster Township, New Jersey
Steele, who was stationed in Moscow as a British intelligence officer and later ran the service’s Russia desk, spoke to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators in September.
Romney was floated as a serious candidate to be Trump’s secretary of state during the transition, despite his fierce criticism of Trump about the ‘Access Hollywood’ tape and other matters – and despite Trump saying Romney ‘choked like a dog’ in the 2012 elections.
Romney was also a strong Russia hawk, famously calling it the nation’s chief foreign policy threat in a 2012 debate.
Ex-British intelligence officer Christopher Steele wrote about what a source told him about Romney
Russian President, Vladimir Putin (R) and Rex Tillerson (L), Chairman and CEO of Exxon Mobil during a signing ceremony for an arctic oil exploration deal between Exxon Mobil and Rosneft on August, 30, 2011 in Sochi, Russia. Trump selected Tillerson as his nominee to be secretary of state
The two former rivals (Trump also had endorsed Romney in 2012, though he claimed Romney begged him for it) met at Trump’s club in Bedminster, New Jersey on Nov. 19.
They then famously dined together on November 29, dining on frog’s legs at a three-star French restaurant, only to have the potential nomination crumble.
Trump instead picked as his nominee Rex Tillerson, the former head of Exxon Mobil who had done major deals with Russia.
The White House declined to comment for the story and said Romney had never been a first choice. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani had also been considered before a focus on his own potential nomination blew up.