@CBS_Herridge broke astounding new story https://twitter.com/CBS_Herridge/status/1309266622104862721 that Steele PSS Danchenko was subject of counterintel investigation in 2009, because of suspicious conduct in 2008. Everyone jumps to conclusion that Danchenko must have been spying for Russia, but maybe it was....

2/ maybe it was Steele. In fact, I think that it was. I say this as someone who was on ground floor of efforts to identify PSS and who is familiar with minute details of Danchenko interview and chronology by which Danchenko identified.

3/ when we were parsing Danchenko's bio, I placed Danchenko's introduction to Steele very early - in 2005, based on attribution of introduction to mentor Paul Weber, who died in late 2005. https://twitter.com/ClimateAudit/status/1285008851029291010

4/ Danchenko described this first [2005] meeting with Steele as follows.

5/ Danchenko finished his Louisville MA in 2005, then went to Georgetown for a second MA (2006-9), where he also did some research for Brookings. Steele began grooming him with small assignments, described in EC as follows:

6/ the next paragraph appears to me to refer to 2006, 2007 or 2008. (2012 is a couple of pages later). More grooming by Steele with small assignments.

7/ so, it seems entirely plausible to me that Danchenko was acting suspiciously in 2007-2008. We also know that he was being groomed by Steele early on and, in my estimation, as early as 2007-8.

8/ one of the worst aspects of US media analysis of Danchenko and Steele is its failure to understand that Steele instructed Danchenko to spy in US (on Trump campaign), not just in Russia. We know that Danchenko attempted to make contact with Sergei Millian, but failed to do so

9/ that failure didn't prevent Steele from fabricating and attributing the worst allegations in Steele dossier (a conspiracy between Trump campaign and Russian intelligence services) to Danchenko's non-existent US source. But rather than confront the monstrous spectacle of

10/ fabrications in UK and/or US, it's much more convenient for US media to blame falsehoods on "Russian disinformation". This newest shiny object will simply further this diversion. But I'll bet dollars to donuts that Danchenko's handler in 2007-2008 was already Steele.