The top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee signaled his desire to interview mysterious Trump-Russia figure Sergei Millian, allegedly an unwitting source for British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s dossier, after details emerged about the Russia investigation.
Rep. Devin Nunes of California said his own investigation of the Crossfire Hurricane investigators has zeroed in on three Russian Americans, telling Maria Bartiromo on Fox News’s Sunday Morning Futures he believed the most important was Millian, following recent revelations from Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report on the FBI’s Russia investigation.
“Because of new information that has come out because of the Horowitz report that’s declassified that we’ve been talking about for a long time and the FISAs, we now are targeting what appear to be three Russian-Americans,” Nunes said. “I think the most important one is somebody that we actually asked to come to our committee named Sergei Millian. He is hiding somewhere around the globe — we don’t know exactly what country he’s in. But we really would like Sergei to come forward and talk to us because, either he was, you know, working for Fusion GPS and the Clinton campaign and dirtying up Trump people, or it’s quite possible that he may have been framed.”
Millian, an American citizen who was born in Belarus when it was still part of the Soviet Union, was named Siarhei Kukuts at birth but changed it as an adult. He went to school in Minsk, where he reportedly trained as a military translator, and he moved to the United States in the early 2000s. When living in Atlanta, he founded a trade group called the Russian American Chamber of Commerce in the USA and has claimed to have high-level Russian government contacts, though he has denied any connection to Russian intelligence. Millian also claimed to have business ties with Trump associates.
Millian has repeatedly denied being a source for Steele and his dossier.
A Twitter account purporting to belong to Millian responded to Nunes on Sunday. “Dear Congressman Devin Nunes, thank you for your very public appeal on Maria Bartiromo and Fox News,” the alleged Millian account said. “Please follow me on Twitter. Let’s start a discussion about our meeting. #Repeal #Unconstitutional #FISA #Against #Americans.”
Millian has turned down requests from the House and Senate to be interviewed in the past.
Millian is reportedly listed as both “Source D” and “Source E” in Steele’s dossier, which describes him as a “close associate of Trump” and attributes to him some of the wildest and most salacious allegations about President Trump, including the claim about Trump and prostitutes at a hotel during the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow, as well as the assertion of a “well-developed conspiracy” between Trump and Russia. Millian has said in the past, he was not a willing source of this information and has disputed its accuracy. He also reached out to Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos during the 2016 campaign.
Millian is additionally believed to be “Person 1” in Horowitz’s report. Earlier in April, Millian’s apparent Twitter account said, “I can only guess just like you. Person 1? Several things match but several are definitely wrong if indeed they used Person 1 meaning Millian.”
Nunes said Sunday he did not know whether Millian had been working with Fusion GPS or whether he was unfairly dragged into the Steele dossier saga, “but we want to find out, and we really need him to — you know, he can call my office, we’d be glad to, if he’s afraid to come back to his home country, the United States of America, we can make sure that we can guarantee his safety.”
The California Republican said, “We need to hear from him because he is the source — he is Steele and Glenn Simpson and Fusion GPS’s — he’s one of their major sources.”
Horowitz said FBI interviews with Steele’s primary Moscow-based source, beginning in January 2017, “raised significant questions about the reliability of the Steele election reporting.” His report noted Steele’s dossier included information from a sub-source who was said to be “close” to Trump. Steele told DOJ investigators that this sub-source provided a person described as his “Primary Sub-source” with information and this sub-source met with the primary sub-source two or three times.
But an agent for the FBI’s Washington Field Office told Horowitz the primary sub-source stated “he/she never met this sub-source and that other sub-sources were responsible for the Ritz Carlton reporting.” The FBI agent also told Horowitz the primary sub-source claimed “that he/she received a telephone call from an individual he/she believed was this sub-source but was not certain of the person’s identity and that the person never identified him/herself during the call.” A footnote states the primary sub-source told the FBI agent “that he/she found a YouTube video of the sub-source speaking and that it sounded like the person on the telephone call.”
The DOJ watchdog also noted that Steele said his reports numbered 80, 95, 97, and 102 all “contain information from Person 1.” But the DOJ watchdog noted that “if these reports were accurate regarding Person 1’s contributions to the reporting and the Primary Sub-source’s estimate was accurate concerning his/her debrief of Person 1, then all of the information attributed to Person 1 came from a single, 10-to-15-minute telephone call between the Primary Sub-source and Person 1.”
Horowitz criticized the Justice Department and the FBI for at least 17 “significant errors and omissions” related to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants against Trump campaign associate Carter Page in 2016 and 2017 and for the bureau’s reliance on Steele’s unverified dossier. Steele put his research together at the behest of the opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which was funded by Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee through the Perkins Coie law firm.
Robert Mueller said his special counsel investigation “identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign” but “did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”
“And guess who never interviewed him [Millian]?” Nunes asked on Sunday. “Robert Mueller’s team.”
Horowitz found flaws in the FBI’s investigation, and newly-declassified footnotes show the bureau was aware Steele’s dossier might have been compromised by Russian disinformation.
Horowitz described “Person 1” as a “key Steele sub-source” who was attributed with providing information in Steele’s dossier. The newly unmasked details say an intelligence document circulated among members of the Crossfire Hurricane team in early October 2016 that showed Person 1 had “historical contact with persons and entities suspected of being linked to RIS” — or Russian Intelligence Services. The document reported Person 1 “was rumored to be a former KGB/SVR officer.” Further, the declassified footnote shows in late December 2016, Justice Department official Bruce Ohr told “SSA 1,” believed to be FBI agent Joseph Pientka, that he met with Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson, who assessed Person 1 was an “RIS officer” central in connecting Trump to Russia.
Horowitz found the FBI “omitted information relevant to the reliability of Person 1” in its FISA applications, including that Steele told members of the Crossfire Hurricane team “Person 1″ was a “boaster” and an “egoist,” who “may engage in some embellishment.” The bureau also did not tell the FISA court that “the FBI had opened a counterintelligence investigation on Person 1 a few days before the FISA application was filed.”
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham has scrutinized a January 2017 meeting the FBI had with the “Primary Sub-source”, who contradicted some of what “Person 1” allegedly claimed. The primary sub-source called the infamous “pee tape” claims about Trump and prostitutes in Moscow nothing but “rumor and speculation” and disputed Steele’s claim the story was “confirmed.”
Nunes said he is also looking into what he has dubbed “the three dossiers”: Steele’s dossier, Mueller’s report, and the 2017 intelligence community assessment on Russian interference.
