Posted on 02/02/2018 6:08:10 PM PST by markomalley
Investigative journalist Michael Isikoff said Friday that he was surprised to find out that an article he wrote about Carter Page prior to the election was used to obtain a spy warrant against the former Trump campaign adviser.
The revelation, which was made in a memo released by the House Intelligence Committee on Friday, “stuns me,” Isikoff said in an episode of his podcast, “Skullduggery.”
The four-page memo alleges that the DOJ and FBI submitted inaccurate and incomplete information in a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant against Page. The spy warrant was granted on Oct. 21, 2016.
One “essential” part of the application was the uncorroborated Steele dossier, according to the memo. And an article that Isikoff wrote for Yahoo! News on Sept. 23, 2016 that was based directly on the dossier was “cited extensively” in the application.
Isikoff was shocked, he said, because his very article was based on information that came from Christopher Steele, the former British spy who wrote the dossier. He said it was “a bit beyond me” that the FBI would use his article in the FISA application.
“Obviously the information that I got from Christopher Steele was information the FBI already had,” he said, noting that Steele began sharing information from his dossier in July 2016.
Isikoff acknowledged the potential problem with the DOJ and FBI citing his article to support the FISA against Page.
“It’s self-referential,” he said of the article and its reliance on the dossier.
“My story is about the FBI’s own investigation,” he continued.
“So it seems a little odd that they would be citing the Yahoo! News story about the matter that they are investigating themselves based on the same material that had been separately presented to the FBI before I was ever briefed by Christopher Steele.”
The Republican spy memo makes a similar argument.
“This article does not corroborate the Steele dossier because it is derived from the information leaked by Steele himself to Yahoo! News,” it reads.
It also asserts that the Page FISA application “incorrectly assesses” that Steele was not a source for Isikoff.
The memo also says that corroboration of the dossier was in its “infancy” at the time the FISA application was submitted. An FBI unit that tried to verify Steele’s research had determined that it was only “minimally corroborated” at the time the FISA warrant was granted.
Isikoff said on his podcast that he met Steele at a Washington, D.C. hotel in Sept. 2016. They were joined by his “old friend” Glenn Simpson, the founder of opposition research firm Fusion GPS.
Fusion hired Steele to investigate Donald Trump’s ties to Russia. The firm was working for the Clinton campaign and DNC, a fact which Isikoff was not aware of at the time of the meeting with Simpson and Steele.
He said on “Skullduggery” that he was aware that Simpson and Steele were working for Democrats, though he did not know it was the campaign and DNC.
Isikoff said that he wonders whether the Republican memo accurately characterized the FISA application or whether the FBI/DOJ were trying to “dress up” the document. The latter scenario would be “embarrassing” for U.S. officials, he said.
Isikoff’s article was not considered a bombshell when it was published, though the Clinton campaign did tout it in a press release. The report did not initially gain much traction on cable news or with other major outlets, but it has picked up attention over the past year amid the ongoing investigation into possible Trump campaign collusion.
The article did reveal for the first time that investigators were looking into Page’s contacts in Russia. It also provided the most extensive reporting on Page’s alleged activities in Russia up to that point in the campaign.
Isikoff reported that Page may have met secretly with the Kremlin insiders during a much-publicized trip to Moscow in July 2016.
The dossier — and the Isikoff report — identified the two individuals as Igor Sechin and Igor Diveykin. Page has denied ever meeting the men. He is also suing Yahoo! News for publishing the article suggesting he had.
Page denies other allegations made by Steele in the dossier. Steele claims in the document that Page worked with former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort to collude directly with Russian operatives. Page says he has never met or talked to Manafort. The dossier also asserts that it was Page’s idea to provide hacked DNC emails to Wikileaks in order to push Bernie Sanders supporters away from the Democrats’ camp.
Isikoff’s article also uses a quote from a senior U.S. law enforcement official. The unidentified official told Isikoff that Page’s contacts in Russia were on investigators’ “radar screen.”
The identity of that source remains a mystery, and Isikoff did not disclose who it was. But he did rule out that the source was Bruce Ohr, a Justice Department official who met with Steele and Simpson before and after the election.
The memo says that Ohr passed information from Steele to the Justice Department. He also provided the FBI with information from his wife, who worked as a contractor for Fusion GPS. Ohr also met with Simpson after the election.
He’s a first class jerk...
I’m stunned that Isikoff calls himself an investigative journalist.
So, the bureau is given information on Page from Steele, who then shares it with Isikoff, who writes a story about the information.
A little time later, the bureau uses the story written by Isikoff as CORROBORATION to get fisa permission to spy on Page.
Who needs LSD? This story fries brains.
If anyone thinks these stinkin lefty FISA judges needed any persuading to issue warrants to spy on Trump, think again.
They were chomping at the bit.
Leftists are at war with the U.S. and the Constitution. The ends justify the means.
Are his pants on fire?
“How much was he paid?”
Whenever Fusion is discussed in the news stories they seem to leave out the fact that, as I understand it, Fusion conducted the research and then paid reporters to publish their results no matter how fraudulent they were. And they almost got the FBI do do the same until the FBI found out Steele had a big mouth (based on the very story discussed in the post).
You mean Hugh Manatee!
YEAH RIGHT, YOU OVER-RIPE POS HRC-KISSING BAG OF SHITE!
Don’t you mean arkancide?
Sounds like Isikoff is trying to distance himself from his role in all of this.
2-3 were while Trump was president.
Sounds like it's a Dreamer Law, not for the protection of regular Taxpaying Class Americans.
Isikoff. Same clown who sat on Slick Willie’s Oval Office bj from “that woman, Ms. Lewinsky.”
shocked, shocked, had no idea there was gambling going on here....
Fusion GPS’s fiancial records listed at least 3 reporters, paid to plant stories. Those names were blacked out. I bet my son, that one was Michael Isikoff.
“How much was he paid?”
My first thought. I hope we find out soon.
The Rutles were Shocked, yeah Shocked. And Stunned, yeah, stunned
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgttPt_1IG0
I read the Isikoff “piece” when it was published. It was obvious Deep State BS. He’s dirty.
I think (IANAL) that the operative “or” in this case is an inclusive “or,” not an exclusive “or.” I have heard that a legal “or” is usually if not always interpreted as inclusive, not exclusive. No doubt someone can correct me if I am wrong...
If it was that important, I guess that implicates Isikoff for a FISA warrant as well to verify his reports of sedition. I wonder what he’s hiding and didn’t report to the authorities. How long have they had Isikoff under investigation?
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