Rep. Matt Gaetz shrugged off former special counsel Robert Mueller’s efforts to avoid talking about the anti-Trump dossier compiled by British ex-spy Christopher Steele.
Gaetz, a Florida Republican, pressed Mueller on Wednesday during his hearing before the House Judiciary Committee on whether the collection of unverified memos, which focused on President Trump’s ties to Russia, was part of Kremlin attempts to undermine the U.S. political process.
“Can you state with confidence that the Steele dossier was not part of Russia’s disinformation campaign?” Gaetz asked the special counsel on Wednesday.
“That part of the building of the case predated me by at least 10 months,” Mueller said.
“Manafort’s alleged crimes regarding tax evasion predated you. You had no problem charging them,” Gaetz responded, referring to former 2016 Trump campaign chairman, Paul Manafort.
The FBI says the counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign began in July 2016 after Australian diplomat Alexander Downer told the United States that Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos claimed the Russians had some sort of incriminating evidence against Hillary Clinton, Trump’s 2016 presidential rival.
In spite of this, Trump and congressional Republicans have cited the dossier as evidence that the genesis of the FBI’s original investigation into Russia interference in the 2016 election was possibly based on the compromising material from Steele. They have also raised concerns about how the FBI relied on the dossier to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant to gather information on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. The dossier was funded by the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign.
Mueller was appointed to take over the investigation after the president fired ex-FBI Director James Comey in May 2017.
Gaetz also grilled Mueller on the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between top Trump campaign officials and a Kremlin-linked lawyer. He asked Mueller about Natalia Veselnitskaya’s connection to Glenn Simpson, the founder of Fusion GPS, the research firm that contracted Steele to work on the dossier. The former FBI director, however, rebuffed his questions, arguing it wasn’t in his “purview” and that “others” were looking into the matter.
“When people associated with Trump lied you threw the book at them. When Christopher Steele lied, nothing,” Gaetz responded.
