re: WSJ names source for Trump dossier

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British postal service better fire up their Geiger counters

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So wait.. Does this mean a 4chan poster wasn't the source? I, for one, am shocked.

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Last month I went and got a drink at Pine Bar where Alex Litvinenko was poisoned, does that make me a pretty fricked up tourist?

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An Oxford graduate, Steele was one of the more eminent Russia specialists for the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). The Guardian understands he focused on Soviet affairs after joining the agency, and spent two years living in Moscow in the early 1990s.

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Over a career that spanned more than 20 years Steele performed a series of roles, but always appeared to be drawn back to Russia; he was, sources say, head of MI6’s Russia desk. When the agency was plunged into panic over the poisoning of its agent Alexander Litvinenko in 2006, the then chief, Sir John Scarlett, needed a trusted senior officer to plot a way through the minefield ahead – so he turned to Steele.

It was Steele, sources say, who correctly and quickly realised Litvinenko’s death was a Russian state “hit”.

As good as he was, Steele was unlikely to get the top MI6 job, perhaps because his specialisms were not a priority in that period – Russian espionage was taking a back seat to Islamic terrorist and non-state threats.

And, of course, there is money to be made in the private sector – lots of it, particularly in the past two years. He decided to quit the service in 2009.

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