![]() Nuance is not one of Meier’s specialties. Meier concluded there was no evidence that Page had done anything wrong, so he omitted the whole subject.Īnother reason for the omission is that including it might have contributed to a more nuanced view of the Steele dossier. But only a glancing reference to this story appears.Īsked about this omission, Meier cited a Justice Department report that referenced FBI interviews quoting Steele’s “primary sub-source”, who said their own “sub-source” had never stated Page had been involved in any kind of bribery scheme. One might think Steele’s correct prediction of an imminent privatization of Rosneft, and Page’s confirmation that he “may” have been told about it five months before it happened, would at least deserve a paragraph. Spooked, by the former New York Times reporter Barry Meier, identifies the Trump dossier as one of its three principal subjects. Someone who was just making things up and didn’t have real sources could never have invented something so close to the truth.” But when he was asked if they discussed the privatization of the energy giant, he said Baranov “may briefly have mentioned it”.Īs Martin Longman wrote for Washington Monthly: “When we try to assess whether the Steele dossier is ‘fake news’, as insists that it is, we should keep this Rosneft deal in mind. In testimony before the House intelligence committee, Page denied discussing “specifics” about sanctions with the Rosneft official. ![]() But the resulting story said the “full identity of the new owners of the Rosneft stake” remained “a mystery”, as did “the complete source of the funds with which they bought it”. Reuters assigned no fewer than 11 reporters to try to find out who actually purchased the shares in the company and where the financing came from. And Carter Page flew to Moscow the day after the deal was announced, for reasons that remain shrouded in mystery. The dossier was also off by half a percentage point about the size of the privatization.īut just five months after Page’s Moscow meeting, Rosneft did in fact announce the privatization of 19.5% of the giant company, the largest privatization in Russian history. PAGE had expressed interest and confirmed that were TRUMP elected US president, then sanctions on Russia would be lifted.”Īs the Mueller report pointed out, the dossier was wrong about the identity of the Rosneft official Page met: it was actually one of Sechin’s deputies, Andrey Baranov. The dossier reported that Sechin “was so keen to lift personal and corporate western sanctions imposed on the company, that he offered PAGE/TRUMP’s associates the brokerage of up to a 19% (privatised) stake in Rosneft in return. But there was something else several reporters thought was much more intriguing: a description of a meeting between Carter Page, a Trump aide, and Igor Sechin, a longtime Putin collaborator and head of the Russian energy giant Rosneft. ![]()
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