A key source for the discredited Steele Dossier, which the Clinton campaign, Democrat Party, and leftist media used to claim the Trump campaign “colluded” with Russia to win the presidency, was a Russian intelligence asset.
The revelation is contained in an unclassified summary of the Justice Department’s inspector general’s report about the FBI’s malicious Crossfire Hurricane probe and the agency’s applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to spy on the campaign. The FBI based those applications on the dossier, which was compiled by British counterintelligence agent Christopher Steele.
Enlightening as that is, independent investigative reporter Sarah Carter offers more, citing a top source: FBI officials, including Andrew McCabe — the disgraced deputy director fired for lying to the agency’s inspector general — withheld that information from the FISA Court.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham warned last week that he would soon release a stunning revelation about the rogue FBI agents who sought to stop Trump from winning, then conspired to overturn the result of the election.
The upshot of the report? Trump didn’t “collude” with Russia to win the presidency. But Clinton did, even if inadvertently. The campaign hired a law firm that in turn hired Steele, who compiled supposed “intelligence” from a Russian agent to assemble a hit piece on Trump.
Two-year Investigation of “Sub-source”
“Between May 2009 and March 2011, the FBI maintained an investigation into the individual who later would be identified as Christopher Steele’s Primary Sub-source,” the unclassified report says. “The FBI commenced this investigation based on information by the FBI indicating that the Primary Sub-source may be a threat to national security.”
The agency began its probe into the sub-source after a “specific interaction between three individuals who were then employed by a prominent U.S. think tank,” the report says.
A “research fellow for an influential foreign policy advisor” for President Obama was at a “work-related event in late 2008” when an employee of the think tank “indicated that if the two individuals at the table ‘did get a job in the government and had access to classified information’ and wanted ‘to make a little extra money,’ the employee knew some people to whom they could speak.”
Though the research fellow did not believe the employee sought access to the Obama foreign policy advisor, and the coworker “did not recall a specific pitch for classified information,” the coworker did suspect the employee “might actually be a Russian spy.”
In December 2016, the FBI Crossfire Hurricane probe fingered the employee as Steele’s primary sub-source, and further learned that the individual was an “an associate of two FBI counterintelligence Subjects.”
FBI databases revealed that the Primary Sub-source had contact in 2006 with the Russian Embassy and known Russian intelligence officers.
In September 2006, the Primary Sub-source was in contact with a known Russian intelligence officer. During these conversations, the Russian Intelligence Officer invited the Primary Sub-source to the Russian Embassy to see his office. The Primary Sub-source told the Russian Intelligence Officer that he/she was interested in entering the Russian diplomatic service one day. The two discussed a time when the Primary Sub-source was to visit. Four days later, the Russian Intelligence Officer contacted the Primary Sub-source and informed him/her they could meet that day to work “on the documents and then think about future plans.” Later in October 2006, the Primary Sub-source contacted the Russian Intelligence Officer seeking a reply “so the documents can be placed in tomorrow’s diplomatic mail pouch.”
As well, in 2005, the report says, the FBI knew the sub-source contacted a “Washington, D.C.–based Russian officer” and reported that the two were “very familiar with each other.”
Pro-Russian?
The FBI also interviewed two of the sub-source’s associates. One said the sub-source “was not anti-American but wanted to return to Russia one day.” The other said the sub-source was “pro-Russia and indicated that he/she always interjected Russian opinions during policy discussions.”
Continued the report: “While both stated that they did not recall the Primary Sub-source asking directly about their access to classified information, one interviewee did note that the Primary Sub-source persistently asked about the interviewee’s knowledge of a particular military vessel.”
Though the FBI requested a FISA warrant in July 2010, the agency withdrew it when the sub-source left the United States.
That ended the probe, but “the record documenting the closing of the investigation stated that consideration would be given to re-opening the investigation in the event that the Primary Sub-source returned to the United States.”
When the Crossfire Hurricane team connected the sub-source to Steele and then learned of the 2009 probe, team members “interviewed the Primary Sub-source over the course of three sequential days in January 2017. At that time, the 2009 investigation remained closed. The 2009 investigation remains closed to this day.”
Information Withheld
But back to McCabe what he did.
“McCabe, along with other FBI officials, withheld that information from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, as well as some of the FBI special agents investigating Trump’s campaign and its alleged ties to Russia,” Carter reported:
“McCabe and others were suppressing information, misrepresenting it or lying about the information that they had in order to purposefully undermine the Trump candidacy and that turned into the predication for undermining the Trump presidency,” said a source with direct knowledge of the situation.
If the Crossfire Hurricane squad knew about the tainted source in December 2016, then “former FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok, and FBI attorney Lisa Page, were aware of the information and failed to inform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court,” Carter reported:
Further, they continued to seek three FISA warrant applications using the Steele dossier as a basis and knowing that the information was more than likely Russian disinformation.
Strzok and Page were the lovers who claim they didn’t conspire to bring down Trump despite text message that suggest otherwise. And again, the Steele Dossier was the basis for the application to spy on the Trump campaign.
Said Graham, “in light of this newly declassified information, I will be sending the FISA Court the information provided to inform them how wide and deep the effort to conceal exculpatory information regarding the Carter Page warrant application was in 2016 and 2017.”
“A small group of individuals in the Department of Justice and FBI should be held accountable for this fraud against the court. I do not believe they represent the overwhelming majority of patriotic men and women who work at the Department of Justice and FBI.”
