Days After Comey Firing, McCabe’s Team Re-Engaged Fired Dossier Author
Two days after then-acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe formally put President Trump under criminal investigation in May 2017, bureau officials reached out to the author of the controversial “Steele dossier” for more information, even though they had fired him for misconduct six months earlier.
Text messages and congressional testimony transcripts reveal that McCabes Russia team re-established direct contact with ex-British spy Christopher Steele to build a case against the president for espionage and obstruction of justice after Trump had fired FBI Director James Comey on May 9, 2017.
Comey had previously described the dossier opposition research alleging Trump-Russia ties that was paid for by the Clinton campaign as salacious and unverified. The FBI had severed ties with Steele in November 2016 due to behavior that convinced his handlers he was not a trustworthy source.
Former federal prosecutors and investigators described the move to RealClearInvestigations as “desperate.” They also said the FBIs decision to suddenly re-engage with a discredited confidential source raises fresh questions about the evidentiary grounds on which the FBI opened an unprecedented probe targeting the president.
It suggests that McCabe lacked evidence to make an espionage case against Trump and was desperate to find it even if that meant going back to the same unreliable source of still-unverified dossier dirt, former federal prosecutor Solomon L. Wisenberg said.
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Brian Cates was right, from a few days ago:
McCabe Investigated Not Just Trump but Sessions Too