Four Questions About The Investigation Into Trump
Now that Attorney General William Barr has appointed a U.S. attorney to examine the origins of the Russia collusion investigation targeting President Trump, these suggestions, in no particular order, may be helpful in divining possible wrongdoing in the sordid Russia affair.
- Was a false crime deliberately reported to the FBI?
Former British spy Christopher Steele reportedly met on July 5, 2016 with a Rome-based special agent, where he turned over the unsubstantiated, largely-discredited anti-Trump charges listed in his infamous dossier alleging collusion between Russia and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
The controversial Fusion GPS firm hired Steele to do the anti-Trump work that resulted in the compilation of the dossier. Fusion GPS was paid for its anti-Trump work by Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign and the Democratic National Committee via the Perkins Coie law firm.
The dossier contents were so unverified that numerous major media outlets briefed on the document refused to publish stories on the salacious material.
Did Steele know key dossier claims were false when he reported them to the FBI?
- Were Obama administration officials involved in passing dossier charges of questionable political origin to the FBI or bolstering Steele’s credibility to the bureau?
David Kramer, a long-time adviser to late Senator John McCain, revealed in testimony that he met with two Obama administration officials to inquire about whether the anti-Trump dossier authored by former British spy Christopher Steele was being taken seriously.
In a deposition on Dec. 13, 2017 that was recently posted online, Kramer said that McCain specifically asked him in early December 2016 to meet about the dossier with Victoria Nuland, a senior official in John Kerry’s State Department, as well as an official from the National Security Council.
Nuland’s specific role in the dossier episode has been the subject of some controversy for her.
In their book, Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump, authors and reporters Michael Isikoff and David Corn write that Nuland gave the green light for the FBI to first meet with Steele regarding his dossier’s claims. It was at that meeting that Steele initially reported his dossier charges to the FBI, the book relates.
Another former official from Kerry’s State Department, Jonathan M. Winer, admitted to interfacing with Steele. Winer authored a Washington Post oped in which he conceded that while he was working at the State Department he exchanged documents and information with Steele.
Winer further acknowledged that while at the State Department, he shared anti-Trump material with Steele passed to him by longtime Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal, whom Winer described as an “old friend.” Winer wrote that the material from Blumenthal – which Winer in turn gave to Steele – originated with Cody Shearer, who is a controversial figure long tied to various Clinton scandals.
- Did James Comey withhold from the FISA court key information raising questions about the dossier, which was utilized as evidence in successful FISA applications to obtain successive warrants to conduct surveillance on Carter Page, a former adviser to President Trump’s 2016 campaign?
Comey signed the first of three FISA applications in late October 2016. The second and third were renewal applications since a FISA warrant must be renewed every 90 days. All three applications reportedly cited the dossier.
Comey cited the Steele dossier in the applications to monitor Page even though his own FBI determined the document was “only minimally corroborated.”
- Who leaked a classified briefing about the dossier contents to CNN?
On January 10, CNN was first to report the leaked information that the controversial contents of the dossier were presented during classified briefings inside classified documents presented one week earlier to then President Obama and President-elect Trump. The classified briefings were presented by Comey, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, CIA Director John Brennan and NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers. Comey reportedly briefed Trump alone on the most salacious charges in the dossier.
CNN cited “multiple U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the briefings” – in other words, officials leaking information about classified briefings – revealing the dossier contents were included in a two-page synopsis that served as an addendum to a larger report on Russia’s alleged attempts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.
Prior to CNN’s report leaking the Comey briefing to Trump, which was picked up by news agencies worldwide, the contents of the dossier had been circulating among news media outlets, but the sensational claims were largely considered too risky to publish.
All that changed when the dossier contents were presented to Obama and Trump during the classified briefings. In other words, Comey’s briefings themselves and the subsequent leak to CNN about those briefings by “multiple US officials with direct knowledge,” seem to have given the news media the opening to report on the dossier’s existence as well as allude to the document’s unproven claims.
Following the CNN report, the full dossier document was published hours later by BuzzFeed.