A Republican congressman said unreleased documents show that high-ranking officials at the FBI knew that the dossier put together by British ex-spy Christopher Steele “was not credible” and yet they used it anyway.
Rep. Mark Meadows told Fox News that he has seen “additional documents” which he believes show that “prior to the first FISA application, Peter Strzok, Andy McCabe, and others at the FBI knew that Christopher Steele’s dossier was not credible.” Beginning in October 2016, a series of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act applications and renewals were made to surveil former Trump campaign associate Carter Page. Those FISA filings made extensive use of the dossier’s claims.
Despite apparently knowing ahead of time that Steele’s dossier was flawed, Meadows claimed Strzok and McCabe “did a rush to make sure that they could actually surveil him [Carter Page].” Steele’s dossier, which was packed with unverified allegations about President Trump and Russia, was compiled after Steele was hired by the opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which was itself being paid by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee through the Perkins Coie law firm. The fact that the dossier had Democratic funding was not revealed to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
Meadows said he believes the FBI’s mishandling of the dossier will be revealed soon: “That will come out because there’s a cover-up that happened within certain realms at the FBI,” the North Carolina Republican said.
Strzok was the deputy assistant director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division and played a lead role in both the investigation of Clinton’s private email server as well as the Trump-Russia investigation. Strzok was removed from special counsel Robert Mueller’s team when his texts with FBI lawyer Lisa Page showing apparent political bias against Trump were uncovered. Strzok was fired from the FBI in 2018.
McCabe, the former deputy director of the FBI, was involved with approving the FISA application targeting Page, and was fired by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions in March 2018 amid claims that he had made unauthorized disclosures to the media.
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz has been investigating alleged FISA abuse since March 2018, and the handling of Steele’s dossier by the Justice Department and FBI is known to be a subject of interest for him and his team.
“Will there be accountability? I’m here this morning to tell you the answer is yes.” Meadows said. “And I can tell you that unless someone actually goes to jail, most of the people will think that accountability didn’t happen. But I believe, based on the documents I’ve seen, that crimes were committed and people need to go to jail.”
Meadows also said he believes Horowitz, who was expected to finish his investigation by the end of June, might now take longer than expected.
