Newly released FBI notes from interviews with Justice Department official Bruce Ohr about British ex-spy Christopher Steele show the bureau continued using Steele’s unverified and flawed dossier despite warnings about Steele’s biases.
The heavily redacted documents, produced by the DOJ following a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, offered a glimpse into Ohr’s role as an unofficial conduit between Steele and the FBI and detailed some of the clear warning signs about the credibility of Steele’s allegations, including skepticism from State Department official Kathleen Kavalec, who met with Steele prior to the election. The notes even suggest Ohr believed some of Steele’s allegations might be Russian conspiracy theories. Steele’s dossier was used in Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act applications to obtain surveillance against Trump campaign associate Carter Page.
The notes show Ohr continued communicating with Steele and passing that info along to the bureau months, after the FBI officially cut Steele off as a confidential human source following the discovery he had been improperly providing information to journalists while working with them. And the records also show the key role played by Glenn Simpson, the founder of the opposition research firm Fusion GPS which had hired Steele, in encouraging Steele to talk to the media.
The redacted FISA documents released in 2018 show the DOJ and FBI made extensive use of Steele’s dossier, which included a series of salacious and unverified allegations regarding Trump and Russia, in order to obtain surveillance through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court against former Trump campaign associate Carter Page. Steele put his research together in 2016 at the behest of Fusion GPS, which had been hired by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee through the Perkins Coie law firm. Steele receiving Democratic funding was never revealed to the court.
Following a November 2016 meeting with Ohr, the interviewing FBI agents wrote that Ohr told them Steele “was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being the U.S. President.” Ohr said he believed Steele “wanted to blunt or foil the Kremlin’s plans.” Steele’s explicit motivations were also not made clear to the FISA Court.
Agents noted in November 2016 that Ohr said Steele told him “the FSB [Russia’s state security service] had Trump over a barrel,” and in mid-December, Trump lawyer Michael Cohen “is the go-between Russia and Trump campaign” and replaced former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and aide Carter Page in that role. Steele also claimed at the time “Cohen may have attended a meeting in Prague, possibly in September, regarding the Trump campaign and the Russians.”
Special counsel Robert Mueller’s report said it did not establish any criminal coordination or conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia and further noted Cohen had never been to Prague.
Ohr told agents in November 2016 he “never believed” Steele was “making up information or shading it” and that he believed Steele was just passing along what his sources in Russia were telling him, but added “that doesn’t make that story true.” And Ohr raised the specter of possible Russian disinformation, noting “there are always Russian conspiracy theories that come from the Kremlin” and providing a redacted example.
By January 2017, some FBI agents trying to verify the dossier’s allegations had reportedly concluded some of the dossier’s contents may have been based upon rumors and hearsay passed from source to source and originated as Russian disinformation. Former CIA Moscow station chief Daniel Hoffman told the Washington Examiner the dossier was “likely FSB disinformation.”
Agents said in a series of notes from December 2016 that Ohr told them Simpson from Fusion GPS “directed” Steele to speak to press “as that was what Simpson was paying [Steele] to do.” Michael Isikoff, the chief investigative correspondent for Yahoo News whose September 2016 news article based on the dossier was used to bolster the FISA applications, later said the media should have shown more skepticism over Steele’s dossier, which he described as “thirdhand stuff.” Steele also passed along information to numerous other media outlets.
Agents also noted in December 2016 that Ohr told them his wife Nellie was hired by Simpson to work for Fusion GPS during the presidential election, and Ohr provided the FBI with all the work his wife conducted for Simpson.
Agents further wrote in February 2017 that Ohr reminded them that Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec spoke with Steele several times prior to the presidential election. Steele met Kavalec 10 days before the first FISA application was submitted, and he admitted to her that he was encouraged by his client to get his research out before the 2016 election. Kavalec notated the conversation, also finding glaring flaws with some of Steele’s claims, and passed her findings along to the FBI. It is not yet known if the FBI took her skepticism into consideration.
DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz has been investigating allegations of FISA abuse since March 2018, and his report is expected to be released around Labor Day.
