===April 2016===
To develop the ''Steele dossier'', the Clinton Campaign, the DNC, Perkins Coie and Fusion GPS turned to Orbis Ltd., a private intelligence firm, and its owner, Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer. Orbis Ltd. was chosen to partake in the scheme based on the ties between one of its analysts, Igor Danchenko, and an individual with intimate ties to the Clinton Campaign and one its close associates, [[Charles Dolan]].
Danchenko, a Russian citizen, had been working as a contractor/analyst with Orbis Ltd. Since 2011, focusing primarily on Russian and Eurasian geo-political matters. Dolan, then an employee of public relations firm, Kglobal, was a longtime participant in Democratic politics, having previously served as chairman of the DNC, state chairman of former President Bill Clinton’s 1992 and 1996 presidential campaigns, adviser to Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, and having been appointed by Clinton to two four-year terms on an advisory commission at the U.S. State Department. With respect to the 2016 Clinton campaign, Dolan actively
campaigned and participated in calls and events as a volunteer on behalf of the Clinton Campaign.
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*'''Spring.''' ''[[McClatchy]]'' reports, {{quotebox|'''The informal, inter-agency working group began to explore possible Russian interference last spring, long before the FBI received information from a former British spy hired to develop politically damaging and unverified research about Trump'''.<ref>http://archive.is/Uscjk</ref>}}
[[File:Brennan's Inter-agency working group.png|left|500px|thumb|John Brennan's Inter-agency working group. The Working Group operated out of the Central Intelligence Agency Headquarters, where it worked in secrecy away from the other members of the various intelligence agencies. Agents that participated in the Working Group had to sign non-disclosure agreements to access the shared intelligence of the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency.<ref>https://medium.com/@the_war_economy/spygate-part-7-brennans-working-group-e4ab7d8188ac</ref>]]