Source for Steele dossier was Russian living in US with ties to Fusion GPS?

J.E. Dyer:

Was Steele Dossier ‘Russian Intel Source’ In June 2016 Trump Tower Meeting?
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Solomon rightly points out that the notes are illuminating. There’s a lot to say about that. But in my view, none of the nuggets from Ohr’s notes is as illuminating as this one:

Simpson allegedly acknowledged that most of the information Fusion GPS and British intelligence operative Christopher Steele developed did not come from sources inside Moscow. “Much of the collection about the Trump campaign ties to Russia comes from a former Russian intelligence officer (? not entirely clear) who lives in the U.S.,” Ohr scribbled in his notes.

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But there is one person in particular who is described by everyone who writes or speaks about him with a “question mark, not entirely clear” caveat slapped onto his characterization as a former Russian intelligence officer.

That person, who was in professional contact with Glenn Simpson since at least December 2015 (according to congressional testimony in November 2017 embedded below), and who knew Simpson personally for much longer, through Simpson’s wife, Mary Jacoby (and see Susan Jones link below), is Rinat Akhmetshin.

Rinat Akhmetshin, Russian-born and now a U.S. citizen, is the man hired by law firm BakerHostetler to assist in the defense of Russian Denis Katsyv, the proprietor of Prevezon Holdings who was accused of using New York real estate to launder funds embezzled through the Russian tax-fraud scheme exposed by whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky.
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Akhmetshin and Fusion were both contracted for work on the Prevezon defense in U.S. federal court. Fusion’s part was to gin up dirt on William Browder, Sergei’s Magnitsky’s chief advocate in political deliberations by the U.S. government on the Magnitsky allegations. Browder was to be a witness for the prosecution, as an expert on the fund embezzlement in question.

Akhmetshin and attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya, meanwhile, were both involved in setting up the weirdly opaque nonprofit Human Rights Accountability Group International (HRAGI) in the U.S. in early 2016 (my link above). The purpose of HRAGI – purportedly set up independently by Denis Katsyv – was to lobby for amendment of the U.S. Magnitsky Act and reopen the channel between the U.S. and Russia for Americans to adopt Russian children. Vladimir Putin had imposed a moratorium on such adoptions, officially in retaliation for the Magnitsky Act (so named because its purpose is to threaten sanctions against governments that abuse human rights, as the Russians did with Magnitsky).

We have known for more than a year that Fusion GPS and Akhmetshin were connected through the Prevezon defense. We’ve also known for months that both Akhmetshin and Veselnitskaya were present at the Trump Tower meeting on 9 June 2016 with Donald Trump, Jr. At that meeting, Veselnitskaya revealed that her real purpose in requesting the meeting was to talk about relief for Russia from Magnitsky sanctions, and the restart of adoptions.
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There is much mor4e in this long piece.

If the supposition is right it suggests that Fusion GPS needed Steele to have what they thought was a more credible figure to push teh allegations against Trump since Akhmetshin had things in his background which would have led to his credibility being challenged.  I have often thought the Trump Tower meeting was a setup and if this story is accurate it was a bigger one than even I imagined.  This looks like another aspect of one of the biggest scams in history.