A former top Justice Department official contradicted James Comey’s public pronouncements during a Senate hearing on Wednesday, agreeing in sworn testimony that British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s flawed dossier was “critically important” to the surveillance of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
Sally Yates, the deputy attorney general under President Barack Obama who briefly served as acting attorney general during the first 10 days of President Trump’s tenure, testified before the Republican-led Senate Judiciary Committee via video link, also declared she wouldn’t have signed off on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants against Page if she knew about the issues with the anti-Trump research described in detail by a report released by DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz in December.
Sen. John Kennedy asked if the dossier by Steele was “critically important” to the FISA applications, to which Yates responded, “Yes it was. It was information with respect to Carter Page.”
Pressed on whether the series of memos, which contained salacious allegations about the Trump team’s ties to Russia, were “junk,” Yates admitted, “I think that there is certainly evidence now that there was not at the time that calls into question the reliability of many portions of the Steele dossier.”
Yates and Comey greenlighted the initial October 2016 FISA application and the January 2017 FISA warrant renewal. Comey signed off on the April 2017 FISA warrant renewal too.
The admission by Yates that the Steele dossier was “critically important” to the Page FISAs stands in stark contrast to repeated dodging by Comey.
The fired FBI director spoke with Bret Baier in an April 2018 interview, during which the Fox News host asked him, “You called the dossier ‘unverified’ and ‘salacious.’ Why did you use that to the FISA court to ask for surveillance for Carter Page? Not only use it, but you led with it, a bulk of that FISA application deals with that dossier. Why?”
Comey disagreed.
“My recollection was it was part of a broader mosaic of facts that were laid before the FISA judge to obtain a FISA warrant,” he said.
When Baier asked if he was saying there was “a lot more than the dossier” in the FISA, Comey said, “My recollection was there was a significant amount of additional material about Page and why there was probable cause to believe he was an agent of a foreign power, and the dossier was part of that but was not all of it or a critical part of it.”
The contention by Comey also contradicted December 2019 findings by Horowitz, who “determined that the Crossfire Hurricane team’s receipt of Steele’s election reporting on September 19, 2016 played a central and essential role in the FBI’s and Department’s decision to seek the FISA order.” The DOJ watchdog said, “FBI and Department officials told us the Steele reporting ‘pushed [the FISA proposal] over the line’ in terms of establishing probable cause.” Horowitz said the FBI’s leaders supported “relying on” the Steele dossier “after being advised of, and giving consideration to, concerns expressed by a Department attorney that Steele may have been hired by someone associated with a rival candidate or campaign.”
Horowitz also quoted the chief of the FBI’s office of general counsel, who had told an FBI case agent in September 2016 that the FISA application was “essentially a single source FISA” — meaning Steele’s claims were the most important part of the court submission. The FBI official said it was a “close call” when they first discussed surveilling Page in August, but receiving the Steele dossier in September “pushed it over” the line.
Despite these findings, Comey again tried to downplay the dossier late last year after the report’s release, when Chris Wallace of Fox News pointed out that Comey’s claims of the dossier being “part of a broader mosaic” versus Horowitz calling it “central and essential” did not seem to sync.
“It was one of a bunch of different facts that were assembled to apply to the court,” Comey said. “It was the one that convinced the lawyers that they had enough now, with that added to the pile, to go forward.”
Wallace said, “It seemed that you were minimizing the role of the Steele dossier.”
“If I was, then I’m sorry that I did that,” Comey said, then immediately downplayed the dossier’s importance again. “But I meant it was one part of the presentation to the court. It was not a huge part of the presentation to the court.”
Yates said Wednesday she was “shocked” by the Horowitz report and said, “The conduct that was reflected there was terrible.” She pointed to “errors and omissions” and testified that “I believe that the Department of Justice and the FBI have a duty of candor with the FISA Court that was not met.” Yates also said Comey went “rogue” with the FBI’s interview of retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.
Horowitz’s report criticized the DOJ and the FBI for 17 “significant errors and omissions” related to the FISA warrants against Page and for the bureau’s reliance on Steele, who put his research together at the behest of the opposition research firm Fusion GPS funded by Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee through the Perkins Coie law firm. Page has denied any wrongdoing and was never charged with any crimes.
Declassified footnotes indicate the bureau became aware that Steele’s dossier may have been compromised by Russian disinformation, and recent revelations include that Steele relied on a subsource who employed shady Russian subsources and who contradicted Steele’s research.
