in democracy. >> six days after the washington post's first story on russian hacking, christopher steele sent his first report to fusion gps. it was the very first page of the very first memo that set the tone for all of the memos and for all of the controversy that followed. steele wrote on that first page, quote, the russian regime has been cultivating supporting, and assisting trump for at least five years. aim endorsed by putin has been to encourage splits and dmiftion western alliance. according to steele's unnamed source, trump's inner circle have accepted a regular flow of intelligence from the kremlin. but there was also something else. steele went on to say that russia had enough embarrassing material on the now republican presidential candidate to be able to blackmail him if they so wished. steele's memo asserted that some of russia's alleged embarrassing