Posted on 06/04/2019 4:30:01 PM PDT by yesthatjallen
Christopher Steele, the former MI6 operative infamous for collecting a dossier alleging ties between the Trump campaign and Moscow, among other sordid details, has agreed to be questioned by U.S. officials about his relationship with the FBI.
A source close to Steele told The Times he will meet with investigators in London in the coming weeks. Republicans have long alleged it was Steele’s dossier that improperly led to an FBI inquiry, which ultimately morphed into special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into possible coordination between the Trump and campaign and Russia during the 2016 election.
The Justice Department’s internal watchdog is investigating aspects of the Mueller probe, including whether officials abused their power when they ordered surveillance of a former campaign aide partially based on information from Steele’s dossier.
The source told The Times that while Steele was initially reluctant to be questioned as part of the Justice Department’s inquiry, he reconsidered after reports said the investigation could ultimately criticize him and throw his credibility into question.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Hill.
Steele will hire a top American attorney if the interview does take place, costing the former British agent over $38,000, according to The Times. He reportedly told the Justice Department that he was only willing to discuss his dealings with the FBI and that he wanted officials to obtain the approval of the British government before the interview.
“As far as we are aware, no request has been made to HMG [Her Majesty’s government] on this matter. Any decision to co-operate would be a matter for Mr Steele as this relates to issues arising many years after he left government employment,” a senior source told The Times.
Steele compiled the dossier for Fusion GPS, a Washington research firm tapped by Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. He later shared the information he discovered with the British government.
Steele has emerged as a top GOP target, with congressional Republicans and President Trump repeatedly slamming the former intelligence agent for starting an investigation they believe was improper.
“Wow! FBI made 11 payments to Fake Dossier’s discredited author, Trump hater Christopher Steele,” Trump tweeted in April. “The Witch Hunt has been a total fraud on your President and the American people! It was brought to you by Dirty Cops, Crooked Hillary and the DNC.”
I don’t trust this. If he’s agreed there is mischief afoot.
The coming weeks? BS
It all depends on who questions him, what questions they ask, and do we get the unredacted transcript.
“A source close to” has the same credibility away from President Trump as it does close to him.
Meaningless.
He can lie to congress and fly home.
>>He can lie to congress and fly home.<<
Worked for me last time.
Any lies he makes only benefits Trump. The Dossier has been proven false. They are going to ask him how the FBI got it. Comey the clown is not going to come out looking good.
Denence Correspondent, Lucy Fisher’s Times UK article doesn’t say “former” in the headline!
Christopher Steele: MI6 agent to face questions on Trump Russia dossier
but does say “former” in the opening line. a Freudian slip?
the url is in The Hill article, but here it is anyway:
Does he look anything like Remington Steele?
Joe DeGenova on Hannity tonight said that Horowitz would have no reason to question Steele, and that he is going to be “interviewed” by Durham!
DeGenova says this is great news.
Trump goes to England, and the next day Steele is “willing” to talk? Sounds like Theresa May wilted under pressure.
I suspect as others have remarked that much of what the FBI credited to Steele was the work of others. In fact, in previous statements Steele has seemed unaware of “what” he wrote!
This revelation will be very important as it goes to prior statements by some who have already been interviewed as to the origins.
Diane Feinstein’s leak was designed to head off a perjury trap. It was purposeful right as several of these players faced a perjury trap. I would argue it was a clean-cut case of OBSTRUCTION in that it put out “the official version” of events when none of them knew the “big picture” or what to say.
This thing gets uglier and uglier. Nader, the convicted pedophile and one of Mueller’s sources, is now being represented by Kathryn Ruemmler, who was White House Counsel and Obama’s “Fixer”
Coincidence? Can you imagine the howls from the left if John Dowd represented a pedophile charged with child porn who had made allegations against the Clinton Foundation?
You cannot make this stuff up!
The FBI needed plausible deniability before they could act, so Team Clinton hired Steele to put the garbage in an official looking intel report. They then used John McCain to peddle it to the FBI, who were then able to say: "Look! a credible source brought to us by a REPUBLICAN!"
The FBI (Comey and friends) then leaked it to the news media, and then were able to use the media reports as "corroborating" reports when they went to the FISA court.
“The Clinton team (Bluementhal, Orr, and others) put together the “dossier” and tried to peddle it to the FBI”
I doubt that it took much effort to peddle it to the FBI.
Of course the Comey FBI wanted to use it, but knew if they tried to go to the FISA court with a partisan hack-job with no verification or corroborating evidence even scumbags Rudy Contreras and Jim Boasberg would have denied the request.
So the “dossier” was shipped to Steele through Fusion GPS and Perkins-Coie to cover the Clinton tracks and provide phony credibility.
If Barr ever gets to the bottom of all this, Hillary is going to be right when she said “We’ll all hang” if Trump is elected.
I would not bet against you. However, I think there was much more that we have heard nothing about happening in the deep state.
The FISA warrant and dossier are likely just the tip of an iceberg that ran much deeper. The unmasking and access by contractors for the NSA database meant there could have been illegal eavesdropping dozens of times a day.
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