Carl Bernstein, the veteran Washington Post journalist who reported on the Watergate scandal, condemned the effort by two Republican senators to push the Justice Department to criminally investigate the author of the “Trump dossier.”
CNN host Anderson Cooper asked Bernstein on Friday if the move by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a senior committee member, was a distraction and “an attempt by Republicans to run interference for the president.”
“It’s not just a distraction or a red herring, it’s a glowing red herring in the Washington swamp,” Bernstein said.
Bernstein also claimed the senators’ actions were a “sideshow” and “another attempt to discredit the Mueller investigation.” Special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating whether the Trump administration colluded with Russia during the 2016 election. The Washington Post reported over the summer that Mueller is also examining whether President Trump obstructed justice.
The senators on Friday sent a letter to the DOJ claiming that Christopher Steele, the former British spy who compiled the dossier, knowingly misled federal authorities regarding his communications with U.S. journalists.
Grassley and Graham submitted a letter and a classified memo to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray outlining why Steele should be criminally investigated.
“Based on the information contained therein, we are respectfully referring Mr. Steele to you for investigation of potential violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1001, for statements the Committee has reason to believe Mr. Steele made regarding his distribution of information contained,” they said in a press statement.
Steele was hired by Fusion GPS, an opposition research firm. It was revealed last year that over the summer of 2016, the firm was retained by lawyer Mark Elias, who represented the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
Some aspects of the dossier — like communications between foreign nationals — have been confirmed by officials; however, the majority of the scandalous allegations tying Trump to Russia have not been verified.
Grassley and Graham, along with other Republicans, have expressed concern that the dossier was used by the FBI to launch its investigation of Trump and retrieve a wiretap of former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign Carter Page through a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, warrant.
