Fade in, ya'll...

The stark apartment is bare except for a little television, a turntable, some vinyl record albums and of course, a laptop. The screen features the star of this story.

Hey, there. Let me fill ya in a little bit. The dossier is similar to an FBI 302 form or a DEA 6 form. Both of those forms are used by special agents of the FBI and DEA, respectively, to record what they are told by witnesses during investigations.

You don’t know me, but give me a second to explain myself. I was only created in 2016. You might even say both me and the now sitting president were both born at the same time. Here’s a little blast from the past to refresh your memory.

I know what you’re thinking. How can just 35 little old pages cause so much uproar? Well, whatever you make your mind up on, remember this. I will go down in history as the Trump-Russia Dossier. Pretty lofty, huh?

Here’s a little bit about how I was created. You can fundamentally call me an intelligence report. But, I’m not a boring one. I’m always one for a page turner, a pot boiler. Who wants to read musty old documents filled with long words and names you can’t pronounce? Right? I knew you and me’d get along. So, let’s dive in, shall we?

I was written around June through December of 2016 by Chris Steele, a former British spy. He headed up the Russia Desk for MI6 or British Intelligence. More on Christopher later. This part’s about me. One thing, though. It’s always worth noting that no matter how conventional the Brits may act, they’ve got a real handle on salacious topics. Some of their stuff even makes me blush!  

He calls it the Dossy-er. That's how Brits talk.

What you’ll find once you start familiarizing yourself with my insides is a ton of smarmy allegations regarding the misconduct and conspiracy (thank you, Wikipedia) between Russia and the Donald J. Trump presidential campaign. Did I say smarmy? Look it up. Unctuous, ingratiating, slick, oily, greasy, obsequious, sycophantic, fawning. And, that’s putting it mildly.

The whole effort had been to undermine Hillary Clinton’s candidacy and throw the race to Donald Trump, arguably the Kremlin’s choice for the most powerful position in the world, President of the United States. 

It couldn’t have got going good without Fusion GPS, a private investigation firm. Picture this. Mannix, 2015. This company, quite successful, is run by Glenn R. Simpson, a former investigative reporter and journalist for Roll Call and The Wall Street Journal and Peter Fritsch, former Wall Street Journal senior editor and WSJ journalist Thomas Catan. 

Now Fusion was first hired by The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative website, to do opposition research on Donald Trump and some other candidates. When Trump was nearing the Republican party nomination, Washington Free Beacon bowed out and halted funding on the project. A law firm, Perkins Cole, stepped in on behalf of the Clinton campaign to take up the reigns. 

Around June of 2016, note this month, because a lot of shit will be going down around this time…but, for now, it’s when Chris Steele enters the picture. He was tasked by Fusion to ‘seek answers to why Trump would “repeatedly seek to do deals in a notoriously corrupt police state.”’ What a mouthful, right? To be fair, the Clinton camp claims they were ‘unaware’ of Steele’s hire. 

We all know what happened later on in 2016. Trump was elected and the funding hereby was ceased. My guess here is that Glenn Simpson committed to finishing the project and paid Steele directly. Finally, the Dossier, that’s me, was turned over to British and American intelligence. 

You know how some people are. They get wind of something scandalous and they want to shoot the messenger. Just remember this. I wasn’t the one who peed on anybody. Okay? Some of those media and intel folk have acted all la-ti-da and hands off, but when the shit started getting real and Mr. Mueller started shooting out the indictments, they all started changing their minds. Once ‘corroboration’ and the like started getting thrown around at the cocktail parties, the old Dossier didn’t seem so awful and everybody started getting their backs back down.

You might recall hearing about me when Buzzfeed published me for the first time in January 2016. Whoo-hoo. Boy, the shit hit the fan that night. I met a lot of stars in the galaxy if you want to call it that. But, I’m getting ahead of myself. I have a tendency to do that.

A lone pigeon sits outside on a telephone wire. It’s dusk and the night color is turning a dark gray. 

It all started with, well, the part you care about, anyways, when CNN broke that story about the two page memo. Remember? That was the one intelligence had given to President Obama. Remember him? It seems like a century of generations ago. They informed President Obama, 8 members of congress and the villain of this saga, Donald J. Trump. 

What’s left of the light outside illuminates the table. 

I'm talking at you from the laptap, where I sleep like Dracula. I'm a cross between Dracula and Sponge Bob, but a lot more edgy. And dark. I love dark. The printed words form a cartoon figure, pale cream-colored with arms and legs, hands and feet. When I'm not worn out, I can jump around right out of the computer. You can't hear it, but my feet make a plop, plop, plop sound. 

Look with me. Over there's a reporter sitting there in his chair with a half-finished glass of beer. The beer is warm and he can’t even remember drinking it. Or pouring it into the glass in the first place. The television is tuned into CNN. 

The nice-looking face of Jake Tapper appears on the screen. 

He always seems so nice, Jake does. “CNN has now learned that the nation’s top intelligence officials have provided information to President-Elect Donald Trump and President Barack Obama last week about claims of Russian efforts to compromise President-Elect Trump. The information was provided as part of last week’s classified intelligence briefings regarding Russian efforts to undermine the U.S. elections.

The screen cuts to Jim Sciutto. 

They could be brothers, Jim and Jake. Doncha’ think?

Jim Sciutto says, “I want to be very precise here. Multiple U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the briefings tell CNN that classified documents on Russian interference of the 2016 election presented last week to President Obama and President-Elect Trump included allegations that Russian operatives claimed to have compromising personal and financial information about Mr. Trump. The allegations were part of a two-page synopsis. These were based on memos compiled by a former British intelligence operative whose past work U.S. officials consider credible. The F.B.I. is now investigating the credibility and accuracy of the allegations which are based primarily on information from Russian sources, but the F.B.I. has not confirmed many essential details in the memos about Mr. Trump.”

Do you remember what you were doing when the news broke? Boy, I do! I can still hear the palpitations clear across the country. But, meanwhile, back on the ranch. What you'll want to know is how it all got started.

A real James Bond kinda guy, and British to boot, was hired by a strategic intel firm, Fusion GPS to gather data on Donald Trump. Now they, Fusion, had been kicking it around since sometime in 2015 when a very irate, but well-heeled Republican was funding the project. Honest. You can’t make this shit up!

Anyways, after Trump won the G.O.P nomination, the Republican shied off the project and took his moolah with him. Luckily, some equally deep-pocketed Democrats were willing to take up the slack.

Back on TV, a crowd is shouting, “Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up!"

Yeah, I know. I know. You get the idea. But, let’s not let the cart get away from the horse. Dr. Zhivago-like haha.

He holds up his big clown hands and makes a down motions with them. 

Then, when the Democratic National Committee got hacked and Wikileaks…more on that later…keep your pants on…published their emails, James Bond a.k.a. Christopher Steele was hired by Fusion. Are you still with me?

Now, like I said, this guy’s the real deal. He comes with MI6 creds and the secret assets to back it up. You’ve seen the shows. Sean Connery was the best, right? It’s really like that and if you don’t believe me, follow my good buddy, Malcolm Nance on Twitter. It is. Really like that.