State Department Official Helped Trump Dirty Dossier Christopher Steele With Business Concerns, Emails Show

Cash for coup.

Related: Steele’s Shoddy Dossier | National Review

State Department Official Helped Christopher Steele With Business Concerns, Emails Show

By: Chuck Ross, Daily Caller, June 10, 2019:

• State Department emails show that former State official Jonathan Winer facilitated meetings between dossier author Christopher Steele and multiple private consulting firms.
• Winer served as Steele’s main point of contact to the State Department, and was the official responsible for disseminating the anti-Trump dossier through Foggy Bottom.
• Winer’s emails were obtained through a lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch on behalf of The Daily Caller News Foundation.

A State Department official who played a key role in handling the Steele dossier facilitated meetings between Christopher Steele and private consulting firms, according to State Department emails obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation.

Jonathan Winer, a longtime associate of former Secretary of State John Kerry, set up a meeting in late 2014 with an executive at APCO Worldwide, an international consulting firm where Winer worked before and after his most recent stint at the State Department.

Winer also attempted to set up a meeting in November 2014 between Steele, a former MI6 officer, and executives at McLarty Associates, a consultancy founded by Bill Clinton’s first chief of staff, Mack McLarty. He also put Steele in contact with a former ambassador to Morocco and APCO partner related to a “Morocco immediate need.”

Another email shows that Winer gave Steele and his business partner, Christopher Burrows, advice on how to handle a commercial dispute in Mongolia that involved the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

The State Department released the emails as part of a lawsuit that Judicial Watch filed on behalf of The Daily Caller News Foundation. The lawsuit seeks Winer’s correspondence related to Steele, as well as the 100-plus intelligence reports that Steele reportedly provided Winer on issues in Russia and Ukraine. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: State Department Official Had Contact With Fusion GPS Founder During 2016 Campaign)

Winer has previously acknowledged his role in passing information from Steele to his State Department colleagues. But the newly released emails suggest he played another role — that of facilitator for Steele’s business interests.