The FBI Knew That Steele Lied About Leaking His "Research" to Yahoo News, But Lied to the FISA Court About It Anyway

I don't know if anyone's going to jail -- leftwing juries will refuse to convict -- but I do think that some people will at least be charged.

Great twitter thread there, which I've copied below the fold.

Grassley and Ron Johnson are continuing to push cover-up artist Christopher Wray to release documents he's been withholding.

The Republican chairmen of two Senate committees are questioning how much of the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane probe was "infected" by Russian disinformation, citing newly declassified information regarding the Steele dossier. "Because these facts show the intention, means, and ability to plant Russian disinformation in Steele's reporting, they suggest that the prevalence of such disinformation in the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane investigation may have been widespread," Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson wrote in a letter Thursday to FBI Director Christopher Wray. The lawmakers are calling on Wray to turn over all intelligence documents reviewed by the bureau's Crossfire Hurricane team, which conducted the counterintelligence probe of the Trump campaign. The letter is a follow-up to revelations over the past week that the FBI received evidence in 2017 that Russian operatives may have fed disinformation to Christopher Steele that ended up in the ex-spy's dossier. The footnotes, which Grassley and Johnson shook loose after a months-long battle with the Justice Department, said that the FBI received evidence on Jan. 12, 2017, that Steele's findings regarding former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen were likely planted by Russian intelligence operatives.

See this Chuck Ross article for more on Russia's "penetration" of Christopher Steele's firm, Orbis.

But Mueller went forward with the investigation anyway -- and Rosenstein continued certifying FISA applications.

Grassley and Johnson note something important: despite many leaks from the FBI (including Mueller's team) that painted the Trump administration as having worked with Russia, somehow the FBI and Mueller kept the finding that Steele had himself published Russian disinformation was kept under lock and key, and never leaked to anyone.

Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson, the two Republicans who jogged loose the new information, noted the disparity in the type of information that has leaked out of the Trump-Russia investigation in the three-plus years since it began. "For years, the public was fed a healthy diet of leaks, innuendo and false information to imply that President Trump and his campaign were part of a Russian conspiracy to spread disinformation," they said in a statement upon the release of three footnotes from the Justice Department inspector general�s (IG) report on the FBI�s surveillance of the Trump campaign. The previously-classified footnotes said that an organization not identified in the IG report provided the FBI evidence that Russian operatives fed disinformation that wound up in the dossier.

That article also contains a very useful refresher about CNN and the Washington Post repeatedly claiming the dossier had been mostly "verified" by the FBI.

"UndercoverHuber's" thread below.





The ODNI/DOJ declassification of Footnote 253 of the IG report reveals for the first time publicly that Steele wrote �Report 137� which mentioned the �Yahoo News story of Sep 23 2016� (which Steele himself was the source of!) pic.twitter.com/eoT6SmCloU — Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber) April 16, 2020 Background on the Yahoo story from the IG report: pic.twitter.com/lW2Mzpq2SF — Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber) April 16, 2020

So, the FBI claims -- without evidence; without even asking Steele -- that Steele was not the source of the Yahoo story they were using to corroborate Steele's "dossier."

Remember, the Woods Procedures demand that every statement submitted to the FISC be vetted in the extreme to insure complete accuracy.

The FBI made this claim 1, without asking Steele whether he was the source, because 2, they had already concluded he was the source and did not want him to be so foolish as to admit this.

The FBI lied. Again.

Now, given that Steele is known to have been the source for the Yahoo article, but had also testified that he wasn't the source, how does Steele explain his lie away?

Oh -- he claims, sure, I talked to Yahoo/Issikof about all the things Issikof reported.

But, you know, I thought I was "off the record." So Issikof must have gotten the exact information I gave him from another source.

So, see, I wasn't lying under oath. Swearsies!

Steele laughably denied to the IG that he was the source of the Yahoo News article (despite the fact he met Isikoff in person at a Washington restaurant, and spoke for over an hour as a �secret source� which the IG doesn�t mention except indirectly in a footnote) pic.twitter.com/P6rnsoTc7G — Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber) April 16, 2020

Okay, a few days later, Steele sends Report 137 to the FBI, which mentions the Yahoo News story, even claiming that the �exposure� of the Page meeting with Kremlin officials caused a Putin confidant (Igor Divyekin) to move jobs! Yeah, even if true, Steele himself was responsible! — Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber) April 16, 2020

So let�s recap:



�the FBI/DOJ know that Steele is leaking to the press, a violation of his CHS agreement



�And now they receive a Report 137 from Steele taking (bragging?) about the consequences of his own leaks within the Kremlin



�then the FBI lie to the FISC for months — Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber) April 16, 2020 Anyone fancy putting in a FOIA for Report 137? That will see exactly what Steele said in that memo about the Yahoo News story that he was the source for... — Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber) April 16, 2020



This is worth keeping in mind: