Capitolo 1
The Dossier That Changed America's Political Landscape
When Donald Trump descended the golden escalator of Trump Tower in 2015 to announce his presidential bid, few could have predicted that a small research firm would eventually help uncover one of the greatest political scandals in American history. "Crime in Progress" has become the definitive insider account of how Fusion GPS, a corporate intelligence firm founded by former Wall Street Journal reporters, found itself at the center of the Trump-Russia investigation. The book has been praised by intelligence experts as "the best non-fiction book about espionage in decades" and has become required reading in journalism schools nationwide. Even Barack Obama included it on his 2020 summer reading list, noting its importance in understanding "the fragility of our democratic institutions."
Capitolo 2
From Routine Research to National Security Crisis
It began innocuously enough in September 2015 when the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative news outlet backed by billionaire Paul Singer, hired Fusion GPS to investigate Donald Trump's business history and potential vulnerabilities. The project, code-named "Bangor," was standard opposition research - the kind of work Fusion routinely performed for corporate clients, law firms, and political campaigns.
What distinguished Fusion from typical political research firms was their investigative journalism background. Rather than producing quick-hit opposition dumps, they specialized in deep, methodical research - building comprehensive digital archives, reviewing thousands of court documents, and assembling networks of specialized experts. This approach made Trump an ideal subject given his decades of controversial business dealings and litigation history.
The team quickly discovered troubling patterns. Trump's financial disclosures showed questionable valuations. His Trump University operation was clearly fraudulent. His real estate projects followed a suspicious pattern: initial fanfare followed by failure, after which Trump would claim he was merely licensing his name rather than developing the property. This happened repeatedly from New York to Florida to Panama.
Most concerning were Trump's extensive connections to organized crime figures. Fusion documented that "Trump has done business with at least 25 individuals and companies with documented mob ties." These included his relationship with convicted narcotics trafficker Joseph Weichselbaum, for whom Trump had written a letter seeking leniency despite Weichselbaum's third major criminal conviction. When questioned by casino regulators about this letter, Trump implausibly claimed he couldn't remember writing it.
The research also revealed Trump's immigration hypocrisy. Despite his anti-immigrant rhetoric, his business empire relied extensively on undocumented workers. Labor Department records showed the Trump Organization had sponsored at least 1,494 foreign worker visas since 2000. His signature Trump Tower was built by an illegal "Polish Brigade" of some 200 non-union workers who slept on-site - practices that led to lawsuits where Trump claimed under oath he couldn't recall basic details despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
By early 2016, the research had shifted to Trump's Russian connections. Fusion discovered Trump had traveled to Moscow in 1987 and returned with a sudden interest in politics and anti-NATO views. They found a 2008 Russian article where Trump said Russians were his favorite customers because "they always paid in cash" and didn't need mortgages. Most suspiciously, Trump had sold a Palm Beach mansion to Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev for $95 million in 2008 - more than double what Trump paid in 2005 and well above market value, rescuing Trump from financial trouble at a critical moment.
Capitolo 3
The Russia Connection Deepens
When Trump hired Paul Manafort as his campaign chairman in March 2016, alarm bells rang at Fusion. They had previously investigated Manafort and knew he had spent a decade working for Viktor Yanukovych, a Kremlin-backed Ukrainian politician who had fled to Russia after being ousted in 2014. More troublingly, Manafort had secretly been hired by Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska for $10 million a year after pitching him on a confidential plan to "greatly benefit the Putin government." This arrangement included strategies to influence politics, business dealings, and media coverage in the United States and Europe.
Court filings revealed a complex web of financial obligations. Manafort appeared to be on the run from creditors, particularly Deripaska through his company Surf Horizon Limited, which was pursuing him for millions in unpaid debts. Fusion's investigation traced the ownership structure through multiple shell companies and offshore accounts back to Deripaska himself, revealing that Trump's campaign manager was deeply indebted to a Putin-allied Russian oligarch to the tune of nearly $19 million - a significant potential leverage point that raised concerns about Russian influence over the campaign.
By April 2016, the Free Beacon's interest was waning as Trump's nomination became increasingly inevitable. At this critical juncture, attorney Marc Elias approached Fusion on behalf of the Hillary Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee. Elias, a partner at Perkins Coie and veteran of Democratic politics, was impressed by Fusion's previous investigative work on other candidates and wanted deeper research on Trump than what the DNC already had, particularly regarding how Trump had managed to recover from his numerous casino bankruptcies in Atlantic City and his other failed business ventures. "We know what he says," Elias told them during their initial meeting. "We need you guys to figure out who he really is."
When Fritsch and Simpson detailed Trump's extensive Russian connections - from Russian mobsters like David Bogatin buying multiple Trump Tower units in the 1980s to Trump's 1987 Moscow trip arranged by Soviet ambassadors and his subsequent dramatic shift to anti-NATO positions - Elias was visibly intrigued. This entire Russian angle was completely new territory for him, as the DNC's extensive opposition research contained virtually none of these connections. The pattern of Trump's decades-long involvement with Russian money and interests suggested a much deeper relationship than previously understood by either the Clinton campaign or the general public.
The timing of these revelations was particularly significant, coming just as questions were emerging about Russian interference in the election and as Trump's praise for Putin was becoming more frequent and effusive on the campaign trail. The convergence of Manafort's appointment, his Russian debts, and Trump's own Russian history created a troubling picture that demanded further investigation.
Capitolo 4
Enter Christopher Steele: The Spy Who Changed History
By May 2016, Fusion had compiled extensive research on Trump's business history and Russian ties. But they needed someone who could penetrate the opaque world of Russian intelligence and oligarchs. They turned to Christopher Steele, a Cambridge-educated former MI6 officer who had established Orbis Business Intelligence with colleague Christopher Burrows after retiring from government service.
Steele was born in Yemen while his father worked as a meteorologist for the British military. After excelling academically and graduating from Cambridge in 1986, he joined MI6 through a blind newspaper ad, becoming part of their Russia training program. He served in Moscow during the Soviet Union's collapse, noting that despite regime change, surveillance tactics remained unchanged - "The new boss was the same as the old boss."
After postings in Paris and Iraq, Steele developed a deep dislike for Putin's Russia, particularly after the 2006 murder of Alexander Litvinenko. In 2009, he and Burrows founded Orbis, committed to reporting any information threatening national security. This commitment was tested when Steele uncovered Russian bribery in FIFA's World Cup hosting decision, which he reported to the FBI, contributing to a major prosecution in 2015.
Simpson met with Steele at Heathrow Airport's Terminal 5 in mid-May 2016, explaining Fusion's eight-month investigation into Trump. Though Steele admitted not knowing much about Trump, he was interested in the modest month-long inquiry Simpson proposed. Steele warned that if Trump had sexual encounters in Moscow, the FSB likely recorded them, as "Kompromat is a serious issue."
Within weeks, Steele delivered his first memo, dated June 20, containing explosive allegations: "Russian regime has been cultivating, supporting and assisting Trump for at least 5 years" with Putin's endorsement to "encourage splits and divisions in the western alliance." Most shockingly, it claimed Russia had compromising material on Trump, including an alleged incident at Moscow's Ritz-Carlton where Trump supposedly had prostitutes perform a "golden showers" show to defile a bed the Obamas had previously used.
Capitolo 5
A Duty to Report: The FBI Connection
Within days of sending his first memo, Steele called Simpson with a startling conclusion: he needed to inform the FBI about his findings. He believed the potential national security emergency created a duty to act. Simpson was taken aback, concerned their client (the Clinton campaign) would object to contacting the FBI. But Steele insisted he knew "the perfect person."
After further discussion, Simpson and Fritsch agreed not to object to Steele's FBI outreach, reasoning that allegations of criminal conspiracy involving a hostile power warranted government attention if true. They decided not to inform Marc Elias, balancing their obligation to their client against the legal duty to report possible felonies.
On July 5, Steele met with FBI agent Michael Gaeta at Orbis offices in London. Gaeta, an expert on Russian organized crime who had previously worked with Steele on FIFA corruption, was "flabbergasted" by Steele's findings and promised to pass the information up the FBI chain.
Unknown to Steele or Fusion, the FBI was also receiving information about possible Trump-Russia coordination from Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, who reported that Trump adviser George Papadopoulos had mentioned Russia possessing compromising information on Clinton.
As July progressed, a wave of Russia-related news pointed to troubling connections between the Kremlin and Trump's campaign. Carter Page delivered a speech in Moscow criticizing Western focus on "democratization, inequality, corruption, and regime change." At the Republican convention, the Trump campaign made the curious move of intervening solely to weaken the party platform's position on Ukraine, removing language supporting weapons for rebels fighting Russian aggression.
The pattern continued when WikiLeaks released thousands of DNC emails on July 22, just before the Democratic convention, causing maximum political damage. The timing and content convinced Simpson and Fritsch they were witnessing a Russian active measures campaign to help Trump.
Capitolo 6
Media Outreach and Growing Urgency
Recognizing the gravity of the situation, Simpson and Fritsch decided to become more proactive with media contacts. They traveled to Philadelphia during the Democratic convention to brief select journalists about Trump's Russian connections. The timing was strategic, as the convention provided unprecedented access to major media figures all gathered in one location. They carefully selected journalists known for their investigative rigor and ability to handle sensitive political material.
In a private meeting with New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet and investigations chief Matthew Purdy at an upscale Philadelphia restaurant, they methodically detailed Trump's complex web of real estate developments, including troubled projects like Trump SoHo and Trump Toronto. They outlined specific ties to Russian organized crime figures, including connections through Felix Sater and Bayrock Group, and provided documentation showing how Russian money had repeatedly rescued Trump's business empire from the brink of collapse, particularly in the 1990s and after the 2008 financial crisis. Without mentioning Steele by name or revealing their sources, they provided enough compelling information for the Times to publish its first major story on Manafort's Ukrainian activities on July 31, focusing on his work for pro-Russian oligarchs and political figures.
By late July, Steele made an urgent, hastily arranged trip to Washington. Three weeks had elapsed since his crucial meeting with FBI agent Gaeta in Rome, with no meaningful follow-up from the Bureau, despite the escalating urgency Steele felt as Trump was about to receive classified intelligence briefings as the Republican nominee. Without informing Fusion of his plans, Steele arranged a confidential breakfast meeting with Justice Department official Bruce Ohr and his wife Nellie at the historic Mayflower Hotel. The choice of contacts was deliberate - Bruce was a senior DOJ official who had collaborated with Steele on multiple Russian organized crime cases, while Nellie was a respected Russian expert with extensive experience as a CIA analyst specializing in Russian matters.
During the tense breakfast meeting, Steele revealed his most alarming findings, including specific intelligence suggesting "the Kremlin had Donald Trump over a barrel" through both financial entanglements and compromising personal information. He detailed patterns of suspicious contacts between Trump associates and Russian operatives that suggested coordination. Bruce Ohr was visibly stunned by the revelations and later reported his conversation with Steele to FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe within hours. This timing would later become critically important when Trump allies attempted to portray the FBI's Russia investigation as a politically motivated invention of Steele, Fusion GPS, and the Clinton campaign. In reality, the FBI had independently initiated its inquiry months earlier, based on troubling information about campaign adviser George Papadopoulos's contacts with Russian intermediaries who had offered "dirt" on Hillary Clinton.
The parallel tracks of the investigation - Steele's intelligence gathering and the FBI's separate probe - would soon converge in ways that would shape the next several years of American politics and spark endless controversy about the true origins of the Russia investigation.
Capitolo 7
The Dossier Goes Public
With the election approaching and no visible FBI action despite Steele's intelligence sharing, Fusion and Steele decided more drastic measures were needed. On September 21, Steele flew to Washington. The next day, Fusion arranged private meetings at the Tabard Inn with select journalists including Jane Mayer of The New Yorker, Michael Isikoff of Yahoo News, and reporters from the New York Times and Washington Post.
Only Isikoff pressed about FBI involvement, extracting Steele's admission that he had briefed the Bureau. The day after meeting Steele, Isikoff published a story about U.S. intelligence officials investigating ties between Carter Page and the Kremlin, which led to Page taking a "leave of absence" from the Trump campaign.
After Trump's shocking election victory, Steele and Burrows decided Trump's election had profound implications for UK security. On November 15, Steele visited Sir Charles Farr, chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, to share their findings. Farr took the reporting "extremely seriously" and wrote an executive summary that went to MI5 head Andrew Parker and the wider cabinet.
Meanwhile, at the Halifax security conference, former UK ambassador to Russia Sir Andrew Wood approached McCain advisor David Kramer about Steele's information. In a dimly lit breakout room, Wood briefed McCain, who concluded that "even a remote risk that the President of the United States might be vulnerable to Russian extortion had to be investigated." McCain sent Kramer to London, where Steele briefed him on the dossier's contents before directing him to get a copy from Simpson back in Washington.
On December 9, McCain personally delivered Steele's dossier to FBI Director Comey, simply stating, "I need to know if any of this is true." Unknown to Fusion, Kramer was sharing the dossier far beyond the agreed-upon McCain-to-Comey channel, eventually giving copies to multiple news organizations.
On January 10, 2017, CNN broke the story that intelligence chiefs had briefed both Obama and Trump on allegations that Russia claimed to have compromising information on Trump. Within an hour, BuzzFeed published Steele's reports virtually unredacted, causing panic at Fusion. Simpson furiously called reporter Ken Bensinger and editor Ben Smith demanding they remove the documents to protect sources' lives, but Smith refused, arguing the public deserved to see what presidents had been briefed on.
Capitolo 8
The Republican Counter-Narrative
Trump's counter-narrative portrayed himself as the victim of a diabolical plot orchestrated by Fusion GPS and intelligence agencies. This victim narrative took shape despite the dossier having minimal public impact before Election Day, unlike Comey's handling of Clinton's emails and Russian hacking operations. Trump and his allies consistently downplayed Russian interference while amplifying claims of persecution, effectively shifting attention from the substance of allegations to the motivations behind them.
Unlike Nixon during Watergate, Trump benefited from unwavering support from Fox News and an extensive conservative digital media ecosystem, who amplified claims of a "deep state" conspiracy. Trump deemed mainstream media the "enemy of the American people" while relying heavily on supporters like Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, and outlets like The Daily Caller, Breitbart, and The Gateway Pundit to create an "upside-down world" narrative. These outlets worked in concert to discredit traditional media sources and investigations, creating an alternative information sphere where Trump's version of events dominated.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley escalated the counter-offensive by sending Fusion GPS a detailed letter inquiring about their opposition research on Trump, claiming his committee's oversight of the Justice Department as justification. Grassley broadened his attack by falsely accusing Fusion of working with a "former Russian intelligence officer" to lobby against the Global Magnitsky Act - a transparent attempt to normalize Trump team behavior by suggesting everyone in Washington worked with Russians. This strategy aimed to muddy the waters and create false equivalencies between Fusion's legitimate research and the Trump campaign's Russian contacts.
The personal attacks intensified systematically. Simpson bore the brunt of media criticism from right-wing outlets, with daily attacks questioning his credibility and motives. Fox News and The Wall Street Journal's opinion pages made him a primary target, running multiple negative pieces and hosting commentators who portrayed him as a Democratic operative. Eventually, other Fusion partners faced similar attacks, with The New York Post highlighting Fritsch's Clinton campaign donation and injecting xenophobic commentary about Mexican connections. Conservative media outlets coordinated their messaging to paint Fusion GPS as part of a vast left-wing conspiracy, while congressional Republicans used their investigative powers to demand documents and testimony that could be used to further discredit the firm.
The counter-narrative proved effective with Trump's base, creating an alternative reality where investigations into Russian interference were recast as politically motivated witch hunts. This narrative was reinforced through constant repetition across multiple media platforms and helped insulate Trump from mounting evidence of improper contacts with Russia.
Capitolo 9
The Investigation Continues
Despite relentless political attacks and media scrutiny, Mueller's investigation maintained steady forward momentum throughout late 2017. A significant breakthrough came in September when Christopher Steele and Orbis co-founder Christopher Burrows participated in an extensive two-day interview with Mueller's team in London, providing detailed context about their Russia-related intelligence gathering. During these sessions, Steele shared his methodology, sources, and the evolution of his findings about Trump's Russian connections.
Meanwhile, Fusion GPS expanded its investigation into Trump's global business operations, with particular focus on suspicious financial patterns and concerning relationships between the Trump Organization and Russian entities. Their research uncovered complex webs of shell companies, unusual payment structures, and questionable business associates across multiple jurisdictions.
The Trump Ocean Club investigation in Panama proved especially revealing. Working collaboratively with Reuters, NBC News, and Global Witness, Fusion conducted an exhaustive analysis of property records and sales documents. They discovered that numerous units had been purchased by individuals with documented ties to Eastern European criminal enterprises. The project's former sales director, Alexandre Ventura Nogueira, provided damaging testimony, acknowledging that he had knowingly sold multiple condos to Russian and Ukrainian buyers connected to organized crime syndicates. Nogueira's subsequent flight from Panama while facing fraud charges only heightened suspicions about the project's irregular sales patterns. The situation became so concerning that a senior Panamanian prosecutor publicly declared the Trump Tower development "a vehicle for money laundering," citing patterns consistent with known criminal financial schemes.
The investigation reached a crucial turning point on December 1 when Michael Flynn, Trump's former National Security Advisor, entered a guilty plea for lying to federal investigators about his communications with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the presidential transition period. Flynn's cooperation agreement with Mueller's team represented the first instance of a senior Trump administration official formally agreeing to assist the investigation, potentially opening new avenues of inquiry into the campaign's Russian contacts.
Throughout 2017, Fusion GPS had maintained strategic silence in the face of escalating Republican criticism and attempts to discredit their work. However, by December, Simpson and Fritsch concluded that public clarification of their role was necessary. After careful consideration and multiple revisions, they published "The Republicans' Fake Investigations" in The New York Times on January 2. This op-ed forcefully defended their Trump-related research while advocating for greater transparency in the investigation. The piece directly challenged what they viewed as politically motivated attacks on their work and emphasized the legitimate national security concerns that had driven their investigation from the beginning.
Capitolo 10
The Legacy of the Dossier
As Mueller's investigation concluded, the central question that drove Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele's concerns remained unanswered: whether the president was under the influence of a foreign adversary. Mueller sidestepped this issue, failing to follow the money trail through Trump's taxes, debts, or Russian-financed real estate projects.
The Steele dossier's true significance wasn't as opposition research but as an early warning about Russia's attack on Western democracies. What began as routine research became evidence of a crime in progress when Steele's reports arrived just as news of Russian hacking became public.
After three years of investigations, many allegations in the dossier have been confirmed while some details remain unconfirmed and a handful appear doubtful. For intelligence professionals, a 70% accuracy rate is considered excellent. Steele got the central message strikingly right: Putin personally directed Russia's election meddling to sow discord and elect Trump. The dossier correctly identified previously obscure figures who became central to the Mueller investigation.
The story begins with Putin's decade-long efforts to covertly influence Western democracies. Trump, like former German chancellor Gerhard Schroder before him, was an opportunistic target rather than a Manchurian candidate. Russia had previously attempted to infiltrate American politics, including McCain's 2008 campaign and through sleeper agents exposed in 2010's Operation Ghost Stories.
By raising the alarm, Steele's memos played a critical role alerting officials to Russia's sinister efforts and the Trump campaign's openness to them. The dossier helped focus attention on broader dangers: social media manipulation, Putin's ambition to dismantle Western alliances, and the Trump administration's nascent kleptocracy. It served as a bonfire on a mountaintop, awakening people to previously unimaginable threats - a warning that continues to reverberate through American politics today.
