I received this book at Christmas from my parents.  They gave a copy to all of their kids.  "Crime in Progress" is the story of Fusion GPS, a private research firm focussing on Russian affairs.  They do investigative work for corporations. lawyers, and political campaigns.  Many people know them for looking into Trump’s Russian connections.  Everyone else knows them as the guys who commissioned the “Steele Dossier”.  The book was written by the two principals of Fusion GPS.

Reading I was reminded of a few facts.  1) The Steele Dossier was leaked and then released by BuzzFeed AFTER the election.  So be wary of anyone who says it was created to make candidate Trump look bad. 2) Fusion GPS was originally hired by the conservative political website The Washington Free Beacon in October 2015 to look into Russian connections.  That was when Trump was just one candidate in a huge field.  When the Free Beacon realized Trump would be the Republican nominee, they withdrew funding.  Around the same time a Clinton/DNC lawyer hired them to keep going.

The first 50 pages of the book cover information gathered by FusionGPS employees themselves, before Christopher Steele gets involved.  The rest is mainly about Mr Steeles efforts.  The report Steele created raised issues about whether Russia could extort Trump and a surprising amount of communication between people related to the campaign and Russian officials.  At that point Fusion GPS took their information to the FBI.

Reading the book is a mixed bag.  It was interesting to see so many Russian connections confirmed.  You start to get the impression Trump’s real estate projects in the US are money laundering machines for the Russian mob.  At the same time I read the book, I knew that none of this mattered because Robert Meuller already released a report that said there was no actual collusion between the Trump campaign and refused to say there was actual obstruction of justice.  So the fact that Putin was explicitly campaigning for Trump or that his business dealings were awash in Russian interests did not matter politically.  Russia is the perfect example of what won the cold war: Capitalist Dictatorship.  Having that influence control US elections has serious implications for Democracy worldwide.  The party of Barry Goldwater no longer cares.

FusionGPS is still in business, but I couldn’t find any information on work they’ve done after investigating Trump.  Their corporate webpage is a single page with just an email link.  “Crime in Progress” is a book of a time that you read at that time, then it disappears.