Capitol Hill Republicans are working to keep the focus of the Russia story on the dossier created by an opposition research firm hired by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, Fusion GPS. The dossier was compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and subcommittee chairman Lindsey Graham say their investigation into the dossier has discovered “credible evidence of a crime” and they have delivered that evidence to the Justice Department.
The senators did not release the evidence, but they did make public whom they were referring for criminal investigation: Christopher Steele. They have asked DoJ to investigate “potential violations of 18 U.S.C § 1001 for false statements investigators have reason to believe Steele made about the distribution of claims contained in the dossier.”
Committee “investigators revealed significant inconsistencies in statements that Steele provided to authorities,” according to a statement from Grassley. “Everyone needs to follow the law and be truthful in their interactions with the FBI,” Grassley said. “Maybe there is some innocent explanation for the inconsistencies we have seen, but it seems unlikely. In any event, it’s up to the Justice Department to figure that out.”
Arguing that the dossier has proven to be phony and fabricated, Republicans have been aggressively investigating whether the Obama administration used false information from the dossier as the basis for beginning the Russia probe during the 2016 election.
Sen. Graham, pointing to the “many stop signs the DOJ ignored in its use of the dossier” said “a special counsel needs to review this matter.”
The top Democratic senator on the Judiciary Committee, Dianne Feinstein, complained that neither she nor any of the other Democrats on the committee were “consulted about this referral.” She dismissed it as “another effort to deflect attention from what should be the committee’s top priority: determining whether there was collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia to influence the election and whether there was subsequent obstruction of justice.”
