Testimony last year before a House task force investigating the Trump-Russia affair confirmed that top Justice Department officials knew about the Trump dossier earlier than first thought, and that among those who knew was Andrew Weissmann, who went on to become the top deputy of special counsel Robert Mueller.
Bruce Ohr, the fourth-ranking official in the Justice Department, told the House task force that he met with Christopher Steele, the former British spy who wrote the dossier, at a Washington hotel on July 30, 2016. At that point, Steele, recruited for the job by Glenn Simpson of the opposition research firm Fusion GPS, had completed a few installments of the dossier, including the salacious and never-verified sex allegation featuring Donald Trump and prostitutes in a Moscow hotel. Ohr testified that shortly after meeting with Steele, “I wanted to provide the information he had given me to the FBI.”
Ohr said he got in touch with Andrew McCabe, who was at the time the number-two man at the FBI. When Ohr went to McCabe’s office to talk, FBI lawyer Lisa Page was also there. “So I provided the information to them,” Ohr said. Ohr said he later talked to another top FBI official, Peter Strzok.
That was the FBI. But what about the Justice Department itself? “Who at the department knew that you were talking to Chris Steele and Glenn Simpson?” asked Trey Gowdy, who last year was chairman of the House Government Oversight Committee.
“I spoke with some people in the Criminal Division, other career officials who dealt with some of these matters,” Ohr answered.
“Any of them have names?” Gowdy asked.
“Yes, so I was about to tell you,” replied Ohr. “One of them was Bruce Swartz, who is the counselor for international affairs in the Criminal Division; a person who was working with him at the time, working on similar matters in the Criminal Division, was Zainab Ahmad; and a third person who was working on some — some of these matters, I believe, was Andrew Weissmann.”
Gowdy wanted to make sure about the third name. “Who is that last one?” he asked
“He was head of the Fraud Section at the time,” said Ohr.
“I’ve heard his name somewhere before, I think,” said Gowdy. Weissmann has become widely known as Mueller’s hard-charging “pit bull.”
Ahmad was a prosecutor who worked on terrorism cases. She later joined Mueller’s team, as well.
It was not clear when, precisely, Ohr told the three Justice Department officials about Steele’s work, but it appears from the testimony that it was not long after Ohr’s July 30, 2016 meeting with Steele.
[Also read: Bruce Ohr: FBI had ‘re-engagement’ with Trump dossier author months after he was dropped as an informant]
The Ohr testimony sheds new light on an old question about the dossier: Who knew about it, and when? It has long been known that Steele talked to an FBI official in early July 2016. It was also known that Ohr talked to Steele on July 30. But it was not known who else knew about the dossier at the time. Indeed, there have been many reports that knowledge of the dossier was tightly limited; the FBI agents working on Crossfire Hurricane, the counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign, reportedly did not know about the dossier until September 2016.
The Ohr testimony suggests that not only did top FBI officials know about the dossier, but top Justice Department officials did, too. And two of them, Weissmann and Ahmad, went on to work for Mueller.
Finally, Ohr told the House that he took care to tell the FBI that Steele’s information might not be reliable. He said he told the bureau that Steele was deeply biased against Trump; that Fusion GPS was ultimately working for the Clinton campaign; and that his wife, Nellie Ohr, worked for Fusion at the time.
[Related: Republicans find conflicts in Bruce Ohr’s closed-door testimony]
“When I provided [the Steele information] to the FBI, I tried to be clear that this is source information,” Ohr said. “I don’t know how reliable it is. You’re going to have to check it out and be aware. These guys were hired by somebody relating to — who’s related to the Clinton campaign, and be aware — ”
“Did you tell the bureau that?” asked Gowdy.
“Oh, yes,” said Ohr.
“Why did you tell the bureau that?”
“I wanted them to be aware of any possible bias or, you know, as they evaluate the information, they need to know the circumstances.”
“So you specifically told the bureau that the information you were passing on came from someone who was employed by the DNC, albeit in a somewhat triangulated way?” asked Gowdy.
“I don’t believe I used — I didn’t know they were employed by the DNC,” Ohr answered. “But I certainly said yes, that — that they were working for — you know, they were somehow working, associated with the Clinton campaign. And I also told the FBI that my wife worked for Fusion GPS, or was a contractor for Fusion GPS.”
