Unredacted: Russia, Trump, and the Fight for Democracy

by Christopher Steele Narrated by Christopher Steele

Overview

The intelligence officer behind the explosive “Steele Dossier” steps out of the shadows, revealing a searing new report on the threat Putin and Trump pose to democracy, based on alarming intelligence exposed in these pages for the first time

“Putin is now desperate to have Donald Trump back in the White House. If he succeeds in helping Trump get reelected, I am convinced that the global political order will be utterly changed. We shall have entered a new historical era of strategic chaos, a `new world disorder.' The consequences of Trump winning the 2024 election are catastrophic.” -from Unredacted

To a unique degree, Christopher Steele has been an eyewitness observer of modern Russian history. He was a British diplomat and intelligence professional in Moscow when the Soviet Union was collapsing. Steele was there when the putsch against Mikhail Gorbachev took place and when Boris Yeltsin took over the newly independent Russia. After Vladimir Putin came to power, Steele rose to become one of British government's leading Russia experts and played a central role in the investigation into the Kremlin-ordered murder of Alexander Litvinenko. Then, in 2016, he wrote a series of explosive reports about the then presidential candidate Donald Trump and his links to Russia. Now known to the world as the “Steele Dossier,” these intelligence documents drew the world's attention to Russia's relationship with Trump-and reluctantly thrust Steele into the center of a global maelstrom.

Since Trump's election, he has quietly continued his work. Indeed, Steele has had even better access to sources of information and intelligence on Russia-ones that have given him a privileged view of what's going on inside the Kremlin, and how much we in the West should worry about it.

In Unredacted, Steele shares for the first time what that inside view looks like, how he came to the point of gaining such a level of insight, and what Western governments-and all of us-can and should do to counter this generational threat.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Steele is a convincing narrator… [A] fascinating account." — New York Times Book Review

Kirkus Reviews

2024-10-08
A defense of a sensational intelligence report linking the Republican nominee and Russia.

The author, a longtime British spy thrust into a political tempest when his so-called Steele Dossier burst into public view, credits himself for helping secure “a significant win” against totalitarianism. Steele chides the congressional staffer who leaked the dossier, which was funded by Democrats and described Moscow’s attempts to gain leverage over Trump. But he’s pleased that afterBuzzFeed published his report in January 2017, “suspicion and scrutiny” prevented Trump from getting too chummy with Russia. Though Steele unearthed claims about Trump’s purported illicit and sleazy doings in that country, he reminds us that intelligence gathering involves people with sometimes hazy motives. “Much of the sourcing used in this book,” he writes, is “inherently uncertain.” Further, intelligence reports like the Steele dossier are considered useful if they’re “70 percent accurate.” This is an enlightening glimpse of the profession, but it stymies a reader trying to assess the relative credibility of the dossier’s claims. Steele is undeniably effective when recalling life in Moscow as a young British government intelligence officer, learning Russian and cultivating sources. He’s “convinced” that Russian counterintelligence thugs—not, as Putin claimed, Chechen rebels—killed more than 300 people in four 1999 apartment-building bombings. Steele and others subsequently warned British officials that Putin was “a generational threat,” he writes, but for too long Western leaders naively thought the Russian president could “be reasoned with.” Citing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the murder, in England, of Russians Putin perceives as traitors, Steele forcefully argues that the country, under Putin, is extraordinarily dangerous to global stability. But “the main threat to Western democracy” resides “within our own societies,” he adds, righteously upbraiding voters and leaders who’ve enabled populist demagogues.

An ex-spy who probed Donald Trump’s overseas entanglements meticulously explains his work, frankly conceding its limitations.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940191918167
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	10/08/2024
Edition description:	Unabridged

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