Just How Reliable Was Christopher Steele?

American Thinker ^ | 08/16/2018 | Mark Wauck

[SeekAndFind]

The famous "dossier" on Donald Trump – supposedly compiled by British ex-MI6 spook Christopher Steele, acting as a contractor for Glenn Simpson and Fusion GPS, themselves contractors for the Hillary Clinton campaign – "salacious and unverified" though it might have been, was "crucial" to the FBI's efforts to obtain the original FISA on Carter Page as well as the three renewals of that FISA.  That the "dossier" was "salacious and unverified" we have on the authority of disgraced former FBI director James Comey, and that it was "crucial" to the Carter Page FISA is attested by the equally disgraced former deputy director and later acting director of the FBI, Andrew McCabe.

In the Carter Page FISA application, the FBI presents material from the "dossier" without referencing it as an actual document.  Rather, it presents material from the "dossier" as reporting provided by Christopher Steele as "Source #1."  The concealing of source identities is usual in FISA applications.  To make up for this secrecy in the interest of security, at least in theory, the FBI provides characterizations of its sources as well as specific facts that vouch for the reliability of the sources in question, to provide the FISC judge with a factual basis upon which to assess the case for granting a FISA order.

Since we know the person who is supposed to have been behind the Carter Page FISA application, it seems reasonable to inquire: just how reliable was Christopher Steele?  After all, if verification of the dossier was still "in its infancy" – i.e., it basically hadn't been verified at all – at the time the FISA application was submitted to the FISC, according to the FBI's top counter-intelligence official, Bill Priestap,

[Truthoverpower]

I’m tired of this shiite
Charge some people already
Enough bullcrap articles
Enough !

[granada]

As reliable as McCain or Hillary.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks SeekAndFind.

• New Texts Reveal Steele Anxious Over Comey Testimony, Hopes "Firewalls Will Hold"
• New Texts Reveal Steele Anxious Over Comey Testimony, Hopes "Firewalls Will Hold"
• Weekly Standard Founder Bill Kristol Caught Up in Spygate Scandal and Linked to Peter Strzok
• Flashback: Brennan takes oath on draft Constitution -- without Bill of Rights

[miss marmelstein]

The Clintons are masters of projection. I suspect it was Bill and Hill who were paying whores to urinate on beds.

[M Kehoe]

Please pardon my repetition...

I want to see indictments.

I want to see Jeff Sessions do his job.

My taxes help pay his salary. I want to see perp walks.

5.56mm

[GOPJ]

Well, democrats are attempting to railroad Manafort for crimes committed 10 years ago that have nothing to do with Trump...

AND the corrupt press is pretending the trial has something to do with ‘Russia Russia Russian’...

Must be nice to own the ‘free press’ and use it like a whore... makes life easy for democrats.