Christopher Steele’s anti-Trump dossier was not a topic that former FBI Director James Comey was prepared to discuss one day after the release of records showing the British ex-spy’s main source was the subject of an earlier counterintelligence investigation by the bureau.
Instead, Comey set the issue aside for next week when he is scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee as part of Chairman Sen. Lindsey Graham’s investigation into the conduct of Crossfire Hurricane.
CNN anchor Jake Tapper asked Comey about the new information regarding the dossier’s primary subsource during an interview along with actor Jeff Daniels, who portrays the former FBI director in The Comey Rule, a two-part series debuting Sunday on Showtime that is based on Comey’s 2018 memoir, A Higher Loyalty.
“Ahead of your testimony on Capitol Hill next week, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Lindsey Graham, has released new documents showing that the FBI investigated dossier author Christopher Steele’s primary subsource because of contacts with Russian intelligence officers — Republicans obviously saying that that undermines the dossier even further, which they argue undermines the entire Russia investigation,” Tapper said. “What do you think?”
Declining to get into it, Comey said he is unfamiliar with the fresh developments. “I haven’t read what they put out,” he said. “I’ll read it before I testify next week, and I’ll answer whatever questions they have.”
Comey agreed to testify before the judiciary panel on Wednesday.
He also defended the FBI counterintelligence investigation into ties between the Trump 2016 campaign and Russia that he oversaw until President Trump fired him in May 2016. Comey told Tapper he will “remind” the committee and “everybody who still cares about this that the investigation was begun based on information having nothing to do with the Steele dossier, setting aside the merits of the Steele dossier, which are important to debate, this was begun based on credible information unconnected to that material, and we should’ve been fired if we didn’t investigate.”
Steele’s dossier, which was funded by Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee, was used by the FBI to convince a court to authorize a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant to wiretap former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page in October 2016. The bureau also used the dossier in obtaining three subsequent renewals.
One piece of information that was released on Thursday was a recently declassified footnote in Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report on the Crossfire Hurricane investigation that states Steele’s primary sub-source “was the subject of an FBI counterintelligence investigation from 2009 to 2011 that assessed his/her documented contacts with suspected Russian intelligence officers.” The Crossfire Hurricane team was aware as early as December 2016 that the FBI indicated in 2009 that this person “may be a threat to national security,” according to a declassified FBI summary.
Graham, who released the records, said in a statement, “To me, failure of the FBI to inform the court that the Primary Sub-source was suspected of being a Russian agent is a breach of every duty owed by law enforcement to the judicial system.” A cover letter from Attorney General William Barr to Graham stated that U.S. Attorney John Durham brought this information to his attention and said he could share it without compromising the prosecutor’s inquiry into the Russia investigation.
Comey admitted in December that he was wrong to claim vindication following the release of Horowitz’s report on the Crossfire Hurricane investigation that found failures in the FBI’s use of the FISA process. “He’s right, I was wrong,” Comey said of the watchdog during an appearance on Fox News Sunday. “I was overconfident in the procedures that the FBI and Justice have built over 20 years years. I thought they were robust enough. It’s incredibly hard to get a FISA. I was overconfident in those because he’s right, there was real sloppiness.”
In 2018, Comey told ABC News that the dossier “came from a credible source,” Steele, but the FBI effort to verify it was still occurring when he left the bureau.
