Russia’s ‘wedding ring’ threat to spy behind bombshell dossier on Trump

RUSSIAN agents are suspected of delivering a chilling message to a former spy who claimed that the Kremlin had incriminating footage purporting to show Donald Trump involved in a lewd act with prostitutes.

Christopher Steele, a former senior MI6 officer, was exposed as the author of a bombshell dossier which alleged collusion between Russia and Mr Trump during the 2016 US election and the existence of so-called ‘kompromat’ material which could be used to blackmail the then President.

Around 18 months after his identity was exposed, Mr Steele, 57, believes Russian spies left two extraordinary ‘calling cards’ for him and his wife while they were on holiday in the Caribbean in a bid to intimidate him. Mr Steele, who was MI6’s top Russian expert before quitting to become a private spy, yesterday revealed how he and Katherine found two mysterious wedding rings in her washbag when they returned to their room at a luxury, high-security hotel. He told Sky News he believed the intruders were sending him a message: ‘We know where you are. We can get you. Don’t think you’ll be able to hide from us.’

The so-called Steele dossier comprised 17 separate reports, written between June and December 2016, which detailed a string of alleged links between Mr Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. One unsubstantiated claim alleged that in 2013, during a trip to Moscow, Mr Trump hired prostitutes and asked them to perform lewd acts. He denies the allegation.

Mr Steele was dragged from the shadows after the Wall Street Journal identified him as the dossier’s author in January 2017.

His wife, who worked at the Foreign Office, was ‘profoundly affected’ by the controversy and took early retirement, he said.

‘In one day she felt she lost her husband, her career, her house. The way it played out in the end is that she was indeed in government service… and basically that didn’t play out at all well.’

Mr Steele was president of the Cambridge Union when Boris Johnson held the same position at the Oxford Union.