Christopher Steele won’t cooperate with the investigation by US Attorney Durham
Christopher Steele, author of the dossier that played a key role in the Trump-Russia inquiry, will not assist Attorney General William Barr’s investigation of the investigators, according to a new report.
…[T]he British ex-spy “would not cooperate” with nor answer questions from U.S. Attorney John Durham, whom Barr has tasked with reviewing the origins of the counterintelligence investigation into President Trump’s presidential campaign and the way that the Justice Department and FBI conducted the inquiry.
…The report said Steele “might cooperate” with DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s independent investigation, signaling a shift in Steele’s thinking.
Is it just me, or does anyone else think that Steele is a real person but that “Christopher Steele” is not his real name, and that we know little about him? When the entire episode first came out, it struck me that the name sounded like a character in a romance novel.
A bit of properly applied Steele compulsion is in order then.
Gov’t: “Vee haf vays ov maekings yoo tolk. Ja, zo . . . vee hass, und yoo von’t likes dem ut ein bisschen.”
Steele, Chris Steele sounds like an Ian Fleming James Bond character, great trashy spy stories I read in college when I should have been studying. Tried to read one not too long ago and I had no idea how sappy bad they were. Just like this whole concoction of Russia, Russia, Russia ~ with love, or something.
You’re remembering the detective serial a generation back which put Pierce Brosnan on the map. IIRC, the title character had had such an unstable upbringing and so many aliases that he didn’t know who he was.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083470/fullcredits?ref_=tt_cl_sm#cast
Remington Steele
What I noticed about Steele was that as soon as his name came out as, uh, “compiler” of the dossier this guy who no one ever heard of before was immediately being hailed as “great master spy”, made James Bond look like Maxwell Smart etc. Of course all for the purpose of promoting the dossier. Now they don’t even want to use the word “spy”. Confidential Human Source hahaha.
If, as increasingly seems to be the case, members of the the British government and/or intelligence services were involved in this attempted coup, I’d think that current UK relations with the U.S. would be on rather shaky ground.
One way that they could, in part, atone for their involvement in this attempted coup, would be for them to facilitate the extradition of Steele to the U.S. for testimony.
I suspect “Christopher Steele” is a nom de spy. Or it could be that he operated at MI-6 under an assumed name, and that Steele is his real name.
Remington Steele, Colt Winchester,Sig S. Ruger, etc.
It appears from his wiki bio that Christopher Steele is his real name. Probably had several different names during his 21 year tour at MI6.
Steele has reason to be afraid to travel. He is on several sh*t lists – especially the Russians. Travel makes you vulnerable to those who may be intending to create some kind of “accident.”
He’s also vehemently anti-Trump. Motivation enough to give the bird to AG Barr. He also has to consider that his role in this tawdry coup attempt makes him one of the perps. Why give the enemy info?
My Nom de Guerre is Clint Taurus.
I have the cross country patch to prove it.
When I was a kid during the secret agent craze, I decided my spy name would be Josef Kappa.
In the 2000s I went back and read through about half the Bond novels. They aren’t great literature, but they are quite compelling. Fleming creates this weirdly colorful world — part somewhat legitimate spy stuff, part comic book melodrama and part sexual fantasy/fetish. It’s a special chemistry he managed to pull off.
I think Bond came straight out of Fleming’s core. He didn’t calculate those books and they would be difficult for another writer to duplicate his success. Though it has been tried. Other successful spy writers — John LeCarre and Len Deighton — intentionally wrote anti-Bond characters.
Old Texan & Huxley: Take a look at Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther character. Not exactly a spy but as a detective working for the 3rd Reich he had to have more lives than an alley cat to survive. Definitely an anti-hero character.
Would you cooperate if you were a lying partisan hack?
Christopher Steele has a substantial Wiki article with a lot of citations. I haven’t tracked any down, but he looks legit.
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I always thought it was such an “obvious” fake name, that it was probably his real name. Sort of like Christian Grey — glad my kids have other names.
I’ve been reading Jack Reacher books, since I got 11 of them from my sister after she died, and there’s been more since. Very different from James Bond, but also a compelling mix (tho a lot less sex, yet very much not none).
I’m almost ready to read some Bond again.
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