Despite what conservatives would have you believe it was not the Christopher Steele dossier that started the Russia investigation, it was the "coffee boy."

Courtesy of the New York Times:  

During a night of heavy drinking at an upscale London bar in May 2016, George Papadopoulos, a young foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, made a startling revelation to Australia’s top diplomat in Britain: Russia had political dirt on Hillary Clinton. 

About three weeks earlier, Mr. Papadopoulos had been told that Moscow had thousands of emails that would embarrass Mrs. Clinton, apparently stolen in an effort to try to damage her campaign. 

Exactly how much Mr. Papadopoulos said that night at the Kensington Wine Rooms with the Australian, Alexander Downer, is unclear. But two months later, when leaked Democratic emails began appearing online, Australian officials passed the information about Mr. Papadopoulos to their American counterparts, according to four current and former American and foreign officials with direct knowledge of the Australians’ role. 

The hacking and the revelation that a member of the Trump campaign may have had inside information about it were driving factors that led the F.B.I. to open an investigation in July 2016 into Russia’s attempts to disrupt the election and whether any of President Trump’s associates conspired. 

If Mr. Papadopoulos, who pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. and is now a cooperating witness, was the improbable match that set off a blaze that has consumed the first year of the Trump administration, his saga is also a tale of the Trump campaign in miniature. He was brash, boastful and underqualified, yet he exceeded expectations. And, like the campaign itself, he proved to be a tantalizing target for a Russian influence operation.

Kind of hard to label this whole thing a hoax, if it started because one of your operatives started bragging about your campaign's Russia contacts during a night of binge drinking.

No wonder the Trump Administration wanted to label Papadopoulos a glorified "coffee boy."

And now that he is working with the Mueller investigation he in fact may prove to be the key to this whole thing.

The internet has already blown up over these new revelations, and that has led to some interesting tweets:

NYT story asserts Russia investigation began not with the dossier – but with George Papadopoulos tellings diplomats in London that Russia had damaging Clinton emails – which they then reported to the United States when hacked emails started to drop.https://t.co/eRrd1mZBd6

— andrew kaczynski🤔 (@KFILE) December 30, 2017

The Australian ambassador when made aware of a Russian intelligence operation aimed at the United States alerted the authorities.

The Trump campaign ... did not do that.

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) December 30, 2017

It is difficult to believe that Papadopoulos told an Australian diplomat that Russia had dirt on Clinton but didn’t mention anything to the campaign he was part of.

Very difficult.

Virtually impossible.

— Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) December 30, 2017

Man, 2018 is going to be awesome!