A Republican congressman said unreleased documents show that high-ranking officials at the FBI knew that the dossier put together by British ex-spy Christopher Steele “was not credible” and yet they used it anyway.
Rep. Mark Meadows told Fox News that he has seen “additional documents” which he believes show that “prior to the first FISA application, Peter Strzok, Andy McCabe, and others at the FBI knew that Christopher Steele’s dossier was not credible.” Beginning in October 2016, a series of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act applications and renewals were made to surveil former Trump campaign associate Carter Page. Those FISA filings made extensive use of the dossier’s claims.
Despite apparently knowing ahead of time that Steele’s dossier was flawed, Meadows claimed Strzok and McCabe “did a rush to make sure that they could actually surveil him [Carter Page].” Steele’s dossier, which was packed with unverified allegations about President Trump and Russia, was compiled after Steele was hired by the opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which was itself being paid by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee through the Perkins Coie law firm. The fact that the dossier had Democratic funding was not revealed to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
Meadows said he believes the FBI’s mishandling of the dossier will be revealed soon: “That will come out because there’s a cover-up that happened within certain realms at the FBI,” the North Carolina Republican said. Strzok was the deputy assistant director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division and played a lead role in both the investigation of Clinton’s private email server as well as the Trump-Russia investigation. Strzok was removed from special counsel Robert Mueller’s team when his texts with FBI lawyer Lisa Page showing apparent political bias against Trump were uncovered. Strzok was fired from the FBI in 2018.
McCabe, the former deputy director of the FBI, was involved with approving the FISA application targeting Page, and was fired by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions in March 2018 amid claims that he had made unauthorized disclosures to the media.
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While it can be easily assumed that those using the dossier knew it was mostly false because they were afraid to try and verify any of it. Having documentation would solidify that fact. Beyond any doubt, the dossier was used, if not created, for the purpose of conducting surveillance on someone in Trump’s team in order to get to Trump without naming him directly. Regardless, there was no real suspicion of “collusion” or anything else; the goal was to MAKE a crime.
@Deplorable Me: I would not be surprised that they actually helped Steele editing the document. They knew Clinton paid for it. They likely told Steele to leak it to the press so they could use it to justify the FISA request. Strzok admitted the FBI had a strategy to “get” Trump. Meadows has seen the documents, but can not leak them. I need to make a run to the store for more pop corn!