Special counsel Robert Mueller may have every good reason to use part of the infamous “Steele dossier,” with careful discernment, as a legitimate source for his investigation into Russian-related misdeeds in the 2016 election.
A source that is unreliable on some fronts still can be reliable on others. Law enforcement organizations across the country legitimately and regularly use sketchy sources to develop leads which result in the arrest and just prosecution of criminals. Indeed, it’s par for the course.
A petty grifter can say something like “I swear on the Bible that I saw Johnny at the crime scene,” and then offer up all sorts of lies about why he himself was at the scene as well – but the central fact of Johnny’s presence could be unassailable even if investigators previously didn’t know Johnny was there. They could then track down Johnny, who could offer entirely reliable information as a witness that leads to the arrest of the real perpetrator.
I saw this myself when Republicans on Capitol Hill were investigating the various Clinton-related scandals collectively known as “Whitewater” during the mid-1990s. I was press secretary for then-Rep. Bob Livingston of Louisiana, and we stumbled upon two ways our district had important nexuses to the wide-ranging allegations. As Livingston was a former federal prosecutor and I an award-winning investigative reporter, Livingston asked me to keep tabs on the whole thing and report any serious new information to the appropriate oversight committees when warranted.
Amidst all my regular media-related duties, this task, as a sidelight, required less than four hours a week. Perhaps an hour of every four was accepting calls from a voluble Arkansas character named Larry Nichols, purveyor of multiple anti-Clinton conspiracy theories, large and small.
Everybody involved with Clinton investigations, or with reporting on them, was well aware that much of Nichols’ information was unreliable. But I soon figured out a sort of code in our conversations. If Nichols started a sentence with something like “Now this is what I know for sure,” then it actually was accurate about 90 percent of the time. If he said “I got this from a great source,” well, its likelihood of accuracy was about 50-50. And if he said “This is what I think is happening” – well, it was at best a 10 percent shot.
And I considered none of it as gospel unless I found other ways, long-distance, to verify it.
I kept in touch with the real investigators, but didn’t bother them with the vast majority of the random stuff that crossed my transom. In the three years I kept tabs on this, I passed on maybe six or seven pieces of accurate, useful information they didn’t otherwise have – of which (I think) two of those info-bits began with “tips” from Nichols.
Nichols threw around lots of coal dust, but with occasional diamond nuggets mixed in.
Most people these days remember only that the “Whitewater” investigations ended up as the Clinton-Lewinsky sex scandal – but in truth, it was a very useful and appropriate set of probes that resulted in convictions of 15 people for 40 crimes and the removal of one of them, Jim Guy Tucker, from the Arkansas governorship.
The point of an investigation isn’t to nab a particular target, like Bill Clinton (or Donald Trump). The point is to follow real evidence and see where it leads; and if it proves corruption, to protect the public weal by penalizing it accordingly.
Larry Nichols is a near-perfect match for the Steele dossier. His promulgation of wild rumors and speculation provided lots of poisoned fruit for investigators. Yet even though much of the fruit was poisoned, some was ripe and legally nutritious. Without his loud anti-Clinton agitation and without a few of his legitimate leads – leads, mind you, that later had to be verified to exacting standards – much of the Arkansas corruption might have gone undetected and unpunished.
In Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation, the public has very little idea what other evidence, perhaps vast, might be in Mueller’s hands. We don’t know whether, or how much, of that evidence verifies material that first came to investigators’ attention via the Steele dossier. We do know that some of Steele’s information was indeed true.
To say that “part of the Steele dossier” was instrumental in one set of FISA warrant requests is hardly to disqualify those entire requests, much less the much broader probe that existed entirely apart from, and long before, those requests were made. What matters is not the source, but the ultimate, independent verification of the information.
The Mueller investigation, probably only half-finished, already has produced 22 indictments and four guilty pleas, most of them based in no way on Steele’s dossier. That dossier, like Larry Nichols’ imagination, in no way delegitimizes the special counsel’s mandate.
Quin Hillyer (@QuinHillyer) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a former associate editorial page editor for the Washington Examiner, and is the author of Mad Jones, Heretic, a satirical literary novel published in the fall of 2017.
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