According to the former MI6 spy who wrote the infamous 2016 dossier on the then-Republican candidate, Russian military intelligence plotted to kidnap Americans in Syria or Iraq before allowing a quick resolution as a way to undermine Donald’s position Trump in the run-up to the 2020 election.
Christopher Steele makes his explosive claim in a memoir published Tuesday.
In it, he makes no secret of his opposition to Trump, who, according to him, would usher in a “new world disorder” if he were to win the elections in November.
And he stands by his original dossier, packed with salacious accusations that Russia could have used to blackmail Trump, saying it was the product of credible sources.
In “Unredacted: Russia, Trump, and the Fight for Democracy,” he describes how he continued his work during the 2020 election.
Former MI6 spy Christopher Steele makes an explosive claim in his memoirs published on Tuesday. He says Russia has made plans to create an “October surprise” by kidnapping Americans ahead of the 2020 election to help President Donald Trump win the election.
His most eye-catching claim is that Russia has been researching ways to engineer an “October surprise” to help Trump.
A senior Russian intelligence officer presented the plan to one of Steele’s “collectors.”
“For at least the past week and no longer than the past two weeks, a small and highly secretive group, apart from all other duties, has been meeting at (GRU) headquarters in Moscow for a single mission; to incite the kidnapping or hostage-taking of American citizens in Iraq or Syria…” reads an excerpt from a report compiled by Steele’s private research arm, Orbis Business Intelligence.”
“The purpose of this plot is to create a distraction event just before the US elections and either: give Trump the opportunity to resolve the hostage situation quickly and successfully and use it to his political advantage, or (the method used by the Kremlin prefer); To resolve the situation in a joint operation between Russian forces and the US military.”
It represented a “radical, very risky” attempt to steal victory from Joe Biden.
“The goal is to recreate a situation and then ‘solve’ it, with the result that Russia appears as a friend of the US, and Trump’s relationship with Putin has been worth it all,” it concludes report.
The plan had a deadline of October 20, two weeks before the elections.
“And it would give Trump and Putin the opportunity to respond strongly and effectively over two to three days, leaving as little time as possible for effective media action, or even for the media to process what is actually happening,” the spokesperson said. report adds.
The plot involved the kidnapping of American citizens in Syria or Iraq. A member of the Russian military police is seen near the town of Darbasiyah in Syria’s northeastern Hasakah province
Steele writes that Russia intended to help Trump win the 2020 election
“Unredacted: Russia, Trump, and the Fight for Democracy,” by Christopher Steele, is published Tuesday by Mariner Books
Steele writes that it should serve as a decline in the “distorted thinking in Moscow.”
“As the 2024 elections approach, and with all of Putin’s restrictions gone, we must be alert to the possibilities for operations that could be even more aggressive, ambitious and bizarre than this. “Putin may feel he has nothing to lose – and everything to gain,” he writes.
Steele’s claims will likely be met with skepticism.
The publication of his dossier after the 2016 election caused a political firestorm just before Trump’s inauguration.
It contained a series of unverified claims or “raw intelligence” that Trump’s presidential campaign colluded with Russia and that the candidate was vulnerable to blackmail, giving Moscow power over a future president.
It included the claim that Trump had danced with prostitutes at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel.
However, key elements of the dossier were later discredited.
And the Trump campaign is warning readers not to believe new allegations.
Steele writes that Russian President Vladimir Putin knew that “there is no one in the world more powerful than a second-term American president.”
“Any new information from this foreign agent who spread the debunked Steele dossier must be completely rejected, and any media outlet entertaining everything he has to say is merely the continuation of election interference designed to align with the campaign to interfere,” said Trump campaign spokesman Steven. Cheung before publication.
Steele stands by his original research
“I continue to believe that the original intelligence was obtained from credible sources,” he writes in the book.
His book describes the impact of becoming public enemy number one for the Republicans. But it also tells how he continued his work in 2020, funded by private individuals.
According to Steele, Putin then believed that a re-elected Trump would be more powerful than ever.
“Putin knew that if he were re-elected, Trump would be much freer to act in Russia’s favor than during his first presidential term,” he wrote in a briefing report three months before the election.
In his next report, he quoted a senior Kremlin official as saying that, if Trump won, Russia hoped to get his help in talks with Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky over the status of the Russian-occupied areas of Crimea and Donbas .
Putin also believed, he wrote, that Trump was likely to drop sanctions over Russian actions in Ukraine.
In his book he makes no secret of his feelings towards Trump and a second term.
“If Putin succeeds in helping Trump re-elect, I am convinced that the global political and economic order will completely change,” he writes.
‘We will have entered a new historical era of strategic chaos, a ‘new world disorder’.
It would predict a Russian victory in Ukraine, a withdrawal from climate change commitments and an “unnecessary” confrontation with China.