Steele Dossier Disinformation Update New evidence that the FBI was duped by Russian intelligence.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/steele-dossier-disinformation-update-11586897258?mod=opinion_lead_pos3
Russia interfered in America’s 2016 election, as several government reports have established. The latest disturbing news is that Russia may have received an assist from no less than the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
That’s the takeaway of newly released portions of last year’s Department of Justice Inspector General report about the FBI’s investigation into Trump-Russia collusion. That report showed how the FBI abused its powers by misleading a secret court into granting surveillance warrants on the Trump campaign. Thanks to Congressional pressure, the Justice Department has now declassified footnotes showing that the FBI’s main source for its collusion allegations—Christopher Steele—may have been targeted as part of a Russian disinformation campaign. The FBI was warned of this threat but ignored it.
Mr. Steele was tasked by contractors for the Hillary Clinton campaign in spring 2016 with assembling a summary of Trump-Russia allegations. This document, which became known as the Steele dossier, was fed to the FBI and became the central evidence in its applications for warrants against Trump campaign aide Carter Page. The FBI should have been wary of Mr. Steele’s reporting, having been warned he was connected to the rival campaign.
But the footnotes reveal the FBI was further warned that the investigator’s network had been infiltrated by Russian intelligence. The FBI received a report in 2017 outlining an “inaccuracy” in the dossier about the activities of former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen. “The [REDACTED] stated that it did not have high confidence in this subset of Steele’s reporting and assessed that the referenced subset was a part of a Russian disinformation campaign to denigrate U.S. foreign relations.”
The footnote also says a report in 2017 told the FBI that claims involving Trump activities during a 2013 trip to Moscow were false and the result of Russian intelligence “‘infiltrat[ing] a source into the network’ of a [REDACTED] who compiled a dossier of information on Trump’s activities.” A separate footnote noted the FBI ignored a warning that a Steele contact was “rumored to be a former KGB/SVR officer,” while another footnote showed the FBI closed its eyes to Mr. Steele’s “frequent contacts” with Russian oligarchs.
The FBI has brushed off concerns it was manipulated, telling the IG that the bureau evaluated and dismissed the idea. The dates of the warnings listed in the footnotes remain redacted, so it is unclear when in 2017 the FBI received them. This is the same FBI that by January 2017 had tracked down Mr. Steele’s primary source, who admitted that most of what Mr. Steele reported was “rumor” and “hearsay.” Yet former FBI Director Jim Comey and his coterie pushed the disinformation on the secret court.
The footnotes also highlight the failings of special counsel Robert Mueller, who was appointed in May 2017 specifically to investigate Russia’s interference in the election. Yet his report barely noted the dossier. Asked about that omission during an appearance in Congress, Mr. Mueller said any dossier questions “predated” him. It’s now clear that Mr. Mueller and his team of Obama Justice Department holdovers—including deputy Andrew Weissmann—didn’t want to expose anything about the FBI and Justice mistakes and misinformation.
These footnotes have emerged thanks to the dogged pressure of GOP Senators Ron Johnson and Chuck Grassley, but crucial information remains redacted. All the more reason for U.S. Attorney John Durham to dig deep in his own investigation of the origins of the FBI probe and finally give the country a full picture of who knew what and when.
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