Two Republican-led congressional committees will not be allowed to get their hands on a four-hour deposition with Trump dossier author Christopher Steele, which was conducted under oath and on camera this year.
Steele, the former British spy and author of the Trump-Russia dossier, gave a videotaped deposition in London in June as part of the ongoing civil lawsuit filed by Russian tech executive Aleksej Gubarev against him and Buzzfeed News. Republicans sought that deposition, but the judge said it would be off-limits to the committees.
“The Court will not issue an Order requiring the production of the depositions of Mr. Steele and Mr. Kramer,” wrote magistrate Judge John J. O’Sullivan of the Southern District of Florida. O’Sullivan was tasked with deciding whether the Senate Judiciary Committee can have access to the deposition, but did add that the two committees “may properly proceed or intervene in this case and advise the Court why it would be appropriate to require the production of these depositions…”
Glenn Simpson, the founder of the opposition research firm Fusion GPS that hired Steele to create the dossier, testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee in August 2017 that former John McCain aide David Kramer met with Steele in 2016 to discuss what was alleged in the dossier. Kramer later gave the dossier to McCain, who then passed it to former FBI Director James Comey.
After it was reported that Steele gave his deposition, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley wrote to the lawyer for Gubarev on July 25 to request it turned over to his panel, as well as the House Intelligence Committee.
“Please produce to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary the transcript and video of Mr. Steele’s deposition, as well as any exhibits used during the deposition and all other discovery materials received from Mr. Steele,” Grassley wrote to Valentin Gurvits, the attorney for Gubarev.
“It is my understanding that Mr. Steele has refused all congressional attempts to interview him. Thus, this information is otherwise unavailable. Even if Mr. Steele had been willing to speak with congressional committees, the Judiciary Committee would nonetheless still need access to the materials requested above,” Grassley wrote.
Gubarev is suing on behalf of his two companies, Webzilla and XBT Holdings, which he says were defamed by Steele after the dossier was published by BuzzFeed News in January 2017, days before President Trump took the oath of office.
A spokesperson for Grassley’s office did not respond to a request for comment, and a spokesperson for House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes said he did also request the Steele deposition.
The Steele dossier, which remains for the large part unverified, has become a lighting rod for Trump and his congressional allies.
Republicans say the use of the dossier by the FBI in surveillance court applications to wiretap Trump aide Carter Page show systemic corruption and bias because the FBI did not properly reveal the origins of the dossier.
Fusion GPS was hired by the campaign of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, and one of the Fusion GPS contractors, Nellie Ohr, was married to Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, who went to extreme lengths to get the information in the dossier to FBI officials.
The FBI released heavily redacted versions of the Page wiretap applications in July, including the initial October 2016 warrant and the three subsequent renewals.
“The FBI believes that Page has been collaborating and conspiring with the Russian government,” the application states, adding that “there is probable cause that such activities involve or are about to involve violations of the criminal statutes of the United States.”
Trump and Republicans say the dossier started the broader Russian election interference investigation. However, the New York Times has reported the investigation did not begin when George Papadopoulos, a Trump campaign adviser, told an Australian diplomat in May 2016 that Russia had dirt on Clinton in the form of “thousands of emails.”
Papadopoulos has since pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russians during the election as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, and he will be sentenced Friday.
Last month, a judge in D.C. tossed a lawsuit brought by three Russian oligarchs against Steele, who had argued that he defamed them by linking them with Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.
Democrats have said Republicans’ continued investigations into the dossier and FBI and Justice Department are part of a broader effort to discredit Mueller’s investigation.
