https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-fbis-dossier-deceit-11595027626?mod=hp_opin_pos_1
The Justice Department’s release of documents from the Obama Administration’s 2016-17 Trump-Russia investigation is beginning to paint a picture, and the more we learn the worse the FBI looks.
The latest evidence comes from Friday’s declassification via the Senate Judiciary Committee of the FBI’s interviews, over three days in January 2017, with the primary source for the infamous Steele dossier. The bureau used the dossier’s accusations as the basis for four warrants to surveil Trump aide Carter Page during the 2016 campaign and early months of the Trump Presidency. The 57 pages of notes from the source interviews make clear that the FBI knew the dossier was junk as early as January 2017.
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz disclosed some of this in his December report on the FBI’s surveillance warrants, but the interview transcript adds more color—as in red for embarrassment.
Former British spy Christopher Steele, whose dirt-digging was financed by the Hillary Clinton campaign, based nearly all of his dossier allegations on information from one unidentified “primary subsource.” The FBI didn’t corroborate the Steele dossier’s claims prior to its first application to surveil Mr. Page in October 2016, and it didn’t get around to interviewing the source until nearly four months later.