US officials reportedly confirm elements of Russia dossier that targeted Trump

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February 10, 2017 11:22 PM

Some elements of an explosive dossier containing salacious details about President Donald Trump, compiled while he was a candidate in the US presidential election, appear to have been corroborated, CNN reported on Friday.

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According to several US law-enforcement and intelligence officials cited by CNN, the corroborated information is related to conversations between Russian nationals.

They are not directly tied to specific details about Trump that were mentioned in the 35-page dossier. However, the corroboration of some details could lend the document and its primary source credibility in the eyes of the US intelligence community.

The officials said that newly intercepted information suggests the conversations — which occurred between "senior Russian officials and other Russian individuals" — happened at the same times and locations detailed in the dossier, which could further the ongoing US investigation into the document.

Those individuals, CNN reported, were part of a group "heavily involved" in gathering information damaging to Hillary Clinton during the US election.

The dossier was part of an opposition-research project conducted by a former British spy, Christopher Steele, at the behest of anti-Trump Republicans and, later, Democrats. Steele was the former head of the Russia desk in Moscow for Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6. The memos he wrote made their way to US intelligence officials sometime last year.

A summary of his findings, collected from the network of Russian intelligence sources he had cultivated, was presented to Trump, former President Barack Obama, former Vice President Joe Biden, and the country's top lawmakers on intelligence matters last month as part of a classified briefing about Russia's intervention in the US presidential election.

Business Insider's Natasha Bertrand contributed reporting.

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