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Summary

 * Source
 * The Telegraph (Paywall but you can access a free version here.)
 * Via Elena Evdokimova on Twitter, January 21, 2019


 * Kremlin accused of laying false trail linking Sergei Skripal to ex-MI6 officer behind Trump dossier - Robert Mendick, The Telegraph, January 20, 2019
 * Russian intelligence created a false trail linking the double agent Sergei Skripal to the former MI6 officer behind the Trump dossier before carrying out the Salisbury nerve agent attack, the Telegraph has been told.
 * Well-placed sources now believe that the plot to kill Col Skripal may have included a ‘black ops’ attempt to sow doubt on the veracity of the explosive dossier that claims Donald Trump received Kremlin backing. The year before the attempted assassination of Col Skripal, a mysterious post on LinkedIn suggested his MI6 handler, who is not being named, worked as a “senior analyst” at Orbis Business Intelligence, the firm that produced the Trump dossier. Orbis was co-founded by Christopher Steele...
 * But a number of sources said the Linkedin profile was false – if it ever existed at all – and that the MI6 handler never worked for Orbis.
 * It is now suspected that the Linkedin profile was created by the GRU, the Russian military intelligence unit that tried to kill Col Skripal.
 * One reason might be to connect MI6 to Skripal's murder and to flag the possibility that the British secret service was behind the Trump dossier.