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Head of MI6 used info from Steele's Trump dossier in first public speech
[Independent] The head of MI6 used information obtained by former officer Christopher Steele in his Trump investigation, in a warning against Russian cyberattacks and attempts to subvert Western democracies, The Independent has learned.Sir Alex Younger’s briefing notes for his first public speech as head of the Secret Intelligence Service contained some of the material supplied by Mr Steele, according to security sources. Drawing on the alleged hacking carried out by Moscow in the US presidential campaign, he warned of the danger facing Britain and Western European allies, and especially to elections due to be held next year. Yes of course. When Labour loses, we'll simply blame the Russians, like the Yanks did. Security sources stress that MI6 had extensive information, British and international, on the Russian threat apart from that of Mr Steele. But they pointed out that he is held in high regard and the contribution he provided was valuable. In one of his recent tweets, Mr Trump described Mr Steele as a "failed spy". He also claimed in another tweet that "James Clapper [director of national intelligence] called me yesterday to denounce the false and fictitious report that was illegally circulated. Made up, phony facts. Too bad!" Mr Steele had, in fact, a highly successful career in MI6, received a number of commendations and is highly regarded by both British and American intelligence agencies. Mr Clapper pointed out that what he had actually said was that the intelligence service "has not made any judgement that the information in this document is reliable". Skipping down to para #8 for 'unconfirmed' CIA linkage. Senior officials could not confirm media reports at the weekend that reassurance has been sought by London from the CIA that the identities of British agents in Russia will be protected in shared intelligence, with concerns about links between Mr Trump’s team and Moscow. One official said that the understanding was that unauthorised people should not have access to such detail in anything classified which is passed on. Posted by: Besoeker 2017-01-16 |
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