A top Republican congressman wants to know if a Washington, D.C., think tank was involved in the development of former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele’s anti-Trump dossier.
Rep. Devin Nunes, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said on Tuesday that such a revelation about the Brookings Institution would be a “major part” of the Russia collusion story that Republicans are investigating.
The California congressman said that “we know” the former president of the center-left think tank, Strobe Talbott, was “involved in this dossier.”
In a defamation case in London, Steele said Talbott, a former State Department official, offered him “advice” and asked for a copy of his dossier in 2016 to discuss with officials at the State Department, as reported by the Daily Caller. The Democrat-funded dossier, which contained unverified allegations of ties between the Trump campaign and Russia, was used by the FBI to obtain warrants to wiretap a one-time adviser on the Trump team, shared among journalists and politicians alike, and published by BuzzFeed in January 2017.
“They were involved for sure in the dissemination and for sure in the defense of the dossier. We just don’t know yet were they also involved in the development,” Nunes said.
The Washington Examiner has reached out to the Brookings Institution for comment.
