On January 10, 2017, ten days before Donald Trump’s inauguration as the 45th President of the United States, BuzzFeed News published an unverified, salacious dossier compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer, suggesting that Russia had compromising evidence on the future President.

The dossier’s claims, laughable and fictional to any objective reporter, included graphic instances of abhorrent sexual behavior and treasonous activity. BuzzFeed supposedly attempted to verify or falsify any of the claims but was unable to do so. They published the dossier anyway.

On January 5, 2017, U.S. Intelligence, including James Comey, John Brennan, Mike Rogers, and James Clapper, briefed Obama on the contents of the dossier. The next day, likely on Obama’s orders, the same intelligence chiefs briefed Trump in New York. Trump later claimed that he thought the intelligence chiefs, mainly Comey, were trying to blackmail him. Comey knew at the time that the Democrats had funded the dossier but felt that information was immaterial to the discussion with Trump.

After much gnashing of teeth and rending of clothes concerning Trump’s alleged misdeeds by the mainstream media, it eventually came out that the Steele dossier was a complete fiction, although Steele to this day maintains its accuracy. It was bought and paid for by the 2016 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee. The dossier funding was brokered by the Democratic lawyer Marc Elias, who at the time was working for the Clinton campaign, through the law firm Perkins Coie. This firm then hired Fusion GPS, which in turn hired Christopher Steele to compile the dossier.

After the BuzzFeed publication, Trump responded a few hours later on X as shown in the attached graphic, calling it nothing but fake news.

Trivia: In May 2024, Vivek Ramaswamy paid $3.3 million for a small interest in BuzzFeed, attempting to steer its content to the right. His interest is too small to affect any change.

Source: These Reports Allege Trump Has Deep Ties to Russia by Bensinger, Elder, and Schoofs, 10 January 2017, BuzzFeed. Graphic: X Response from Trump, 2017.