The creation of the Steele dossier was perfectly legal oppo research, no matter who was funding it. The alleged Russian connections are documented IN the dossier; they had nothing to do with creating the dossier itself, and there is zero evidence so far that Clinton was working with the Russians in order to gather info on Trump. Those "Russian ties" appear to have been made up.
The oppo research on Clinton by the Trump campaign, however, MAY have been illegal if it can be shown that the Trump campaign obtained or tried to obtain info from a foreign government. Papadopoulos just pleaded guilty to trying to obtain stolen emails from the Russians while he was working on the Trump campaign, among other things. |
