https://nypost.com/2017/01/11/john-mccain-i-gave-russia-blackmail-dossier-on-trump-to-fbi/
Sen. John McCain admitted Wednesday that he gave the FBI a dossier detailing claims of a Russian blackmail plot against President-elect Donald Trump.
The Arizona lawmaker, a longtime Trump critic, made the public statement as questions piled up about his alleged role in spreading an unverified and error-riddled document that Trump has denounced as “a complete and total fabrication.”
“Late last year, I received sensitive information that has since been made public,” McCain said.
“It came from a former British MI6 agent who was hired from a political opposition research firm in Washington who was doing work about Donald Trump for both republican and democratic candidates opposed to Trump,” Bernstein told CNN.
“They were looking at Trump’s business ties. They saw some questionable things about Russians, about his businesses in Russia. They in turn hired this MI6 former investigator. He then came up with additional information from his Russian sources. He was very concerned by the implications of it. He then took it to an FBI colleague that he had known in his undercover work for years. He took it to this FBI man in Rome who turned it over to the bureau in Washington in August,” Bernstein said.
“And then, a former British ambassador to Russia independently was made aware of these findings and he took the information to John McCain – Senator John McCain of Arizona – in the period just after the election, and showed it to McCain – additional findings,” he added.
On November 18, at the Halifax International Security Forum, McCain was introduced to a ‘former senior western diplomat’ who had set eyes on the documents and knew who put them together, telling the Arizona Republican that the individual was ‘highly reliable.’
That man can now be named as Sir Andrew Wood, British ambassador to Moscow from 1995 to 2000.
Wood told the Independent that he had met McCain, spoken to him about Trump, and about the potential for him to be compromised.
In a carefully nuanced statement he said: ‘Yes I did meet Senator McCain and his aides at the conference.
‘We spoke about the kind of activities the Russians can be engaged in.
‘We also spoke about how Mr Trump may find himself in a position where there could be an attempt to blackmail him with Kompromat [a Russian term for compromising material] and claims that there were audio and video tapes in existence.’
He added: ‘I would like to stress that I did not pass on any dossier to Senator McCain or anyone else and I did not see a dossier at the time. I do know Christopher Steele and in my view he is very professional and thorough in what he does.’
He did not however address whether he told McCain there was a dossier - and how to get it.
Clearly, somebody did.
From there, McCain dispatched a ‘trusted emissary’ who flew across the Atlantic to meet the source of the documents at an airport that the Guardian did not name.
The aide was instructed to look for a man with a copy of the Financial Times and that’s how the individuals met, with the source taking McCain’s emissary back to his house and giving the American a copy of the documents.
Within 24 hours, the dossier was in Washington, though the contents of the file couldn’t be verified without an investigation.
McCain, the Guardian said, was worried that his actions might be interpreted as revenge for some of the controversial comments Trump made about him – such as knocking the fact that the longtime senator had been a prisoner of war.
However, McCain decided to hand over the documents to FBI Director James Comey on December 9.
‘Upon examination of the contents, and unable to make a judgment about their accuracy, I delivered the information to the Director of the FBI,’ McCain said Wednesday in a statement about that matter.
‘That has been the extent of my contact with the FBI or any other government agency regarding this issue,’ McCain said.
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