I'm thinking some people here didn't read James Bond. Steele worked for the same outfit: MI-6, the UK's Secret Intelligence Service. CIA works more closely with them than any other allied intelligence agency. Steele's Russian sources would have been anti-Russian govt sources, not pro-Russian govt sources. And of course he was retired . . . not only no longer working for a FOREIGN government, but he'd also been a trusted confidential source of the FBI.

Fusion is an American company. No problem with an American company hiring a foreigner to work for them. The election meddling issue is a foreign GOVERNMENT meddling . . . and one more time, Steele isn't now and was not then a foreign govt employee. You might even say he was a US govt employee, working as a paid source for the FBI. And Russian govt sources would hardly provide "dirt" on Trump, since they wanted him to win. Putin wanted him to win. Straight out of the report put together by our intelligence community--and they have not changed their analysis under President Trump.

They also concluded that there's no way for them to determine the impact of the Russian influence campaign on the results of the election. Of course Jimmy Carter did say that Trump wouldn't have won without Russia's help . . . but you have to consider the source.