Sen. Lindsey Graham wants to declassify a key Russia investigation document related to the FBI interview of one of British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s sources, which the Republican believes casts “grave doubt” on the credibility of Steele’s anti-Trump dossier.
Graham, who is leading an investigation of the Trump-Russia investigators as the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, shed new light on his inquiry during a Fox News podcast with former South Carolina GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy on Tuesday. Graham said his team has seen the memo and wants more information from DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s December report on the Russia investigation to be made public. The senator also claimed that Steele’s dossier was compromised by Russian disinformation.
“It was the Russians, in my view, who provided all of the garbage for the Christopher Steele dossier. The Russian subsource — he wasn’t a subsource. He was an employee of Christopher Steele,” Graham said, adding, “And here’s the key question: On Jan. 21 through the 24, [2017], the Russian subsource, the guy who provided all the material for the dossier, is interviewed by the FBI for three days. He’s interviewed again in March. There’s a memo about that interview. Horowitz found it. It was 40 pages. My staff has finally gotten to look at it. It’s classified. I’m going to try to get it unclassified.”
Graham had asked in April for all records related to the FBI’s interviews with Steele’s primary subsource in January, March, and May 2017, including the “lengthy written summary” of a January 2017 interview written by FBI agents dubbed “Supervisory Intel Analyst” and “Case Agent 1.” He also asked for the two-page “Intelligence Memorandum” provided to Crossfire Hurricane leader Bill Priestap by the analyst in late 2017, which discussed “aspects of the Primary Sub-source’s interview” that raised red flags about Steele. Crossfire Hurricane was the code name for the bureau’s counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign.
In June, Graham said he was being blocked from interviewing the investigators who had spoken with Steele’s primary subsource in 2017. He gained the power to issue subpoenas to dozens of Trump-Russia figures that same month.
The Washington Examiner reached out for comment to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Justice Department about the possible declassification process for the document sought by Graham but did not immediately receive a reply.
“The Horowitz report suggests that the result of the Russian subsource interview put grave doubt into the reliability of the dossier in terms of being able to get a warrant,” Graham said. “Here’s the question: Is it possible that an interview of that magnitude that basically shredded the key document to get a warrant that the people at the top — [FBI deputy director Andrew] McCabe and [FBI director James] Comey — were never told, ‘Hey, by the way, our entire case has collapsed?’ I’m looking at that.”
Horowitz’s lengthy December report criticized the DOJ 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 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, funded by Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee through the Perkins Coie law firm. Declassified footnotes showed that the FBI was aware that Steele’s dossier may have been compromised by Russian disinformation.
Horowitz said FBI interviews with Steele’s primary Moscow-based source “raised significant questions about the reliability of the Steele election reporting” and cast doubt on some of its biggest claims. The DOJ watchdog’s report said Steele’s dossier included information from a subsource who was said to be “close” to President Trump. Steele told DOJ investigators that this subsource provided the person described as his “Primary Sub-source” with information and that this subsource met with the primary subsource two or three times.
Stephen Somma, a counterintelligence investigator in the FBI’s New York field office, is believed to be “Case Agent 1.” Horowitz has said he was “primarily responsible for some of the most significant errors and omissions” in the Page FISA warrant applications. RealClearInvestigations cited congressional sources who said that veteran FBI analyst Brian Auten is the “Supervisory Intel Analyst.” Graham is seeking interviews with both men.
Steele’s dossier claims to have a source described as a “close associate of Trump” and attributes to this person some of the more salacious allegations about 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.
Horowitz described “Person 1” as a “key Steele sub-source” who was attributed with providing information in Steele’s dossier. Recently declassified footnotes said 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 [Russian Intelligence Services].” The document reported “Person 1” was “rumored” to be a former Russian intelligence officer for the KGB or its successor agency.
“Imagine if the Republican Party had hired Christopher Steele to dig up dirt on Hillary Clinton, and Christopher Steele hired somebody, a Russian, to get a bunch of dirt coming out of Russia, it was used to get a warrant against a Clinton staffer, and the whole episode was garbage. It would be front-page news all over the world,” Graham said. “So, yes, Russia is a bad actor. But let me tell you what I believe. I believe that the dossier, which was the key component of getting the warrant against Carter Page, was in fact Russian disinformation. I believe that the FBI was on notice that it was unreliable and continued to use it anyway. I believe that they misled the FISA court.”
