February 2018
The heavily redacted Democrat response to the GOP memo, which laid out the case that the FBI relied upon the unverified Christopher Steele opposition research report to obtain a FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) warrant against former campaign aide, Carter Page, has been made public. Contrary to Adam Schiff, the leading Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, the memo does not rebut all of the claims in the Republican memo. In fact, in many cases by commission or omission, it actually confirms the GOP assertions.
One of the claims made in the GOP memo, written by Devin Nunes, the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee was that Andrew McCabe, the then Deputy Director of the FBI testified to the House Intelligence Committee that a warrant from the FISA Court would not have been sought if not for the infamous Christopher Steele dossier, funded by the DNC and the Clinton campaign. Nowhere in the Democrat response memo is this claim denied.
The Democrat response also concedes the claim by Nunes that the FISA warrant application omitted the fact that the dossier was oppositional research produced by the firm Fusion GPS, and funded by the DNC and the Clinton campaign. In a vague footnote, the warrant states that there was a “speculation” of a “likely” motivation that the source was looking for information to discredit “Candidate #1” (Trump). According to the FBI’s own records in September 2016, before the application for the first FISA warrant, Steele confided to a member of the investigative team, Bruce Ohr (who has since been demoted) that he “was desperate” to see that Trump not get elected. Clearly, the FBI was well aware of the extent of Steele’s bias against Trump, no “speculation” needed. The footnote in the application was woefully remiss of vital information regarding, Steele’s contempt for Trump, and the source of funding for his work.
In the just- released GOP counter response to the Democrat rebuttal memo the Republicans state that at the time of the initial Page FISA application warrant (there were four warrants), all of the Steele Dossier’s specific claims against Page were uncorroborated by an independent source, and, to date, remain unconfirmed. Page also denies the claims that he ever met with any of the Kremlin officials named in the dossier.
It is claimed in the Democrat memo that the dossier played no role in opening the counterintelligence investigation into Russian collusion with the Trump campaign. The evidence they present is that the investigative team did not receive the Steele report until 7 weeks after the investigation began, in mid-September. Even though it is believed by most that the dossier did not precipitate the investigation, the Republicans counter that it most definitely gave fuel to the inquiry into Trump and his campaign. It’s also worth noting that by Steele’s own account he first supplied a portion of his research (“the dossier” consists of 17 reports) to the FBI in early July 2016.
Although the Democrats claim it was not the only evidence that they relied upon, it is admitted in their response memo that information from Steele’s sources were used to support the FISA warrant. This is particularly concerning in light of the June 2017 testimony before congress, by then FBI Director, James Comey, in which he referred to Steele’s dossier as “salacious and unverified”. So yes, the Republican claim stands, as confirmed by the Democrats, the FBI inappropriately used a “salacious and unverified” oppositional research report in their application to surveil an American citizen, and a former member of the Trump campaign.
According to the Democrat rebuttal the DOJ and FBI would have been “remiss in their duty to protect the country had they not sought a FISA warrant of Carter Page”. The facts belie the veracity of this ridiculous claim. In spite of the lengthy surveillance of Page he has never been charged with a crime, and it appears that he is no longer even held in suspicion. Carter Page is clearly not a threat to the American people, however, the threat to liberty and freedom by abuses of our intelligence agencies looks to be real.
