[Washington Examiner] Former British spy Christopher Steele admitted that he relied on an unverified report on a CNN website for part of the "Trump dossier," which was used as a basis for the FBI's investigation into Trump.According to deposition transcripts released this week, Steele said last year he used a 2009 report he found on CNN's iReport website and said he wasn't aware that submissions to that site are posted by members of the public and are not checked for accuracy.
A web archive from July 29, 2009 shows that CNN described the site in this manner: "iReport.com is a user-generated site. That means the stories submitted by users are not edited, fact-checked, or screened before they post."
In the dossier, Steele, a Cambridge-educated former MI6 officer, wrote about extensive allegations against Donald Trump, associates of his campaign, various Russians and other foreign nationals, and a variety of companies ‐ including one called Webzilla. Those allegations would become part of an FBI investigation and would be used to apply for warrants under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
During his deposition, Steele was pressed on the methods he used to verify allegations made about Webzilla, which was thought to be used by Russia to hack into Democratic emails.
When asked if he discovered "anything of relevance concerning Webzilla" during the verification process, Steele replied: "We did. It was an article I have got here which was posted on July 28, 2009, on something called CNN iReport."