The former British spy behind the scandalous dossier filled with allegedly compromising information about Donald Trump was identified on Wednesday, according to a report.
Sources told the Wall Street Journal that ex-MI6 agent Christopher Steele — who now works for the London-based private investigative firm Orbis Business Intelligence — had, in fact, prepared the document.
CNN reported Tuesday that a former British intelligence operative had been the one who compiled the memos in the dossier, and that he handed them over to an FBI official in Rome.
The 35-page document includes severe allegations of misconduct about Trump’s connections and activities in Russia, including how he hired two prostitutes to perform a “golden shower” sex act in the same Moscow hotel bed that the Obamas once stayed in.
According to CNN, the person who produced it was a former MI6 agent, who was posted in Russia in the 1990s. They added that he now runs a private intelligence gathering firm.
Steele, 52, served as an intelligence officer for MI6 — Britain’s version of the CIA — though its unclear in what capacity.
A diplomatic service list published by the British government shows that he was once posted to the U.K.’s Moscow embassy in 1990 with the title of “Second Secretary (Chancery),” according to Forbes.
The Journal reports that many spies often use diplomatic postings such as these to hide what they’re doing.
Steele’s LinkedIn profile lists him as a former counselor in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, with foreign postings in Brussels and New Delhi throughout the 2000s.
He is one of two directors of Orbis, along with 58-year-old Christopher Burrows, who would neither “confirm or deny” whether the firm had produced the dossier.
The report consists of several unsigned memos, all of which appear to have been penned between June and December 2016.
In addition to creating the dossier, sources told the Journal that Steele also funneled the document to officials in the U.S. and Europe.