February 2018
A recently released redacted memorandum, written by Republican Senators Charles Grassley and Lindsay Graham, to the Department of Justice, corroborates and expands on the assertions in the Republican memo, outlining FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) abuse, in the applications to surveil then Trump associate Carter Page, written by Congressman Devin Nunes, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. In the Grassley/Graham memo, the senators make a case for a criminal investigation into Christopher Steele, the author of the infamous Trump dossier.
The GOP senators’ memo confirms the Nunes’ assertion that in spite of being aware that the Steele dossier was oppositional research, the FBI never stated in the first warrant filed, or the three renewals (a FISA warrant has to be renewed every 90 days) that it was underwritten by Trump’s political opponent. Although the applications included a vague footnote to one of the sources being politically motivated, it was never stated that the funding was provided by the DNC and the Clinton campaign. That’s a glaring omission.
According to both Republican memos all four FISA applications, relied heavily on the Steele dossier, as well as other documents related to the unverified dossier. Andrew McCabe, former FBI Deputy Director, also testified before congress that no FISA warrant could have been sought without the infamous dossier.
Incredibly, the FBI relied on this report in spite of acknowledging its contents were dubious. In June 2017 James Comey, the then FBI Director, testified before the Senate Select Committee that the dossier was “salacious and unverified”. In earlier testimony given in March 2017, Comey, when asked why the FBI relied on the dossier in FISA applications absent corroboration, stated that it was because they found Steele to be reliable. What is uncovered by the Grassley/Graham memo belie Comey’s portrayal of Steele.
Shortly after the first FISA application was filed, in October 2016, in spite of knowing that it was verboten, Steele underhandedly provided information from the dossier to the left wing news site “Mother Jones”, who ran a story based on what was learned from Steele. Upon learning of this breach, the FBI terminated Steele. In the subsequent FISA applications the FBI noted that it suspended Steele, but at the same time curiously vouched for his credibility. The FBI made repeated claims to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the “FISC”, that Steele had told the FBI that he did not reveal to the media any information in the dossier prior to October 2016.
As revealed in the Grassley/Graham memo Steele did indeed speak to numerous media outlets prior to October 2016. According to court filings in London, Steele admitted, under oath, that in late summer/fall of 2016 at the behest of his employer, Fusion GPS, he briefed numerous media outlets, including the NY Times, The Washington Post, Yahoo News, The New Yorker, and CNN, on the contents of his shady dossier. Not only did the FBI continue to rely on unverified information provided by Steele, the FBI also cited the Yahoo News article, sourced by Steele, to corroborate Steele’s dossier in the FISA applications. Michael Isikoff, the author of the Yahoo News article published on September 23, 2016 has recently said that the fact that the FBI used his article to corroborate Steele’s report in their Carter Page FISA applications “stuns me”.
The Grassley/Graham memo makes the case that whether Steele lied to the FBI is relevant for two reasons. The first is that Steele’s report is almost wholly unverified, so therefore his work must be bolstered by his credibility. If he is a known liar his credibility is zero. The second reason is that the leaking of information could have had an impact on the reliability of Steele’s information- gathering efforts. As stated in the senators’ memo, “The more people who contemporaneously knew that Mr. Steele was compiling his dossier, the more likely it was vulnerable to manipulation.” In the British litigation, while under oath, Steele admitted that he received and included, in an addendum dossier, unverified allegations from unsolicited sources. Shockingly, Steele implied that this occurred in his compilation of the main Trump dossier as well.
The origin of the “addendum dossier” dated October 19, 2016, is a bit convoluted. According to Steele, this report came from a foreign sub source, who then gave it to a friend of the Clinton’s (its speculated that this friend is Sydney Blumenthal), the Clinton friend then passed it along to the Obama State Department, who gave it to Steele, and then Steele gave it to the FBI. So, not only did the Clinton campaign fund Steele’s research on Trump, but they also funneled allegations on Trump to the FBI laundered through Steele.
The fact that the FBI relied upon unverified research by Steele, who is a proven partisan liar, financed by Democrats, who, according to FBI files, has stated that he was “desperate” to see that Trump not become president, is deeply disturbing. Over the course of the past year six top- level FBI officials, due to incompetence/malfeasance/appearance of bias, have been demoted, fired, or resigned. There is growing evidence that there were those in leadership positions, who not only had anti Trump political opinions, but vehement animus for the man. In spite of these facts the mainstream media have explained away these concerns as Republicans just trying to distract from the Russia- collusion probe. Never mind that after 18 months of formal investigations and intense media scrutiny public evidence of collusion is nonexistent.
It’s anticipated that the Justice Department’s Inspector General, Michael Horowitz, who has been tasked with conducting a probe of the FBI’s handling of the 2016 investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server, will release his report within the next 30 days. Hopefully, if this probe reveals biased or corrupt actions by the FBI this will not also be ignored and deflected by the media.
