GOP senators recommend criminal probe of 'Steele dossier' author

Doug Stanglin | USA TODAY

Two influential members of the Senate Judiciary committee have recommended that the Department of Justice open a criminal investigation of Christopher Steele, the former British spy who wrote an explosive "dossier" containing damning allegations about President Trump's purported links to Russia.

It is the first known congressional criminal referral linked to the probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the committee, and Sen.Lindsey Graham, D-S.C., a member of the panel, sent a letter Thursday suggesting that Steele may have violated the law by allegedly lying to federal authorities about his contact with reporters regarding information in the dossier.

Steele's work was commissioned by a private investigations agency, Fusion GPS, on behalf of the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. Steele, who is based in London, drew upon a range of sources, including figures linked to Russian intelligence, to compile the dossier last year.

It is based on raw intelligence gathered by Steele on a wide-range of issues involving Trump from allegations of shady financial deals with Russians to salacious allegations from a Trump visit to Moscow.

At one point, Steele became so concerned about information he uncovered in his investigation that he took the dossier to the FBI.

Grassley, in a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI director Christopher Wray on Thursday, suggested that Steele may have made false statements to federal investigators, apparently the FBI.

It is a crime to lie to FBI agents about a material fact relevant to an ongoing investigation.

"Maybe there is some innocent explanation for the inconsistencies we have seen, but it seems unlikely," Grassley said in a statement. "In any event, it’s up to the Justice Department to figure that out.”

Graham suggested a special counsel review the allegations, particularly regarding how Steele conducted himself and "how many stop signs the DOJ ignored in its use of the dossier."

The DOJ is not obligated to take any action based on a congressional criminal referral.

The letter of referral follows a drumbeat of charges by a number of Republican lawmakers that the Russia investigation being conducted by special counselor Robert Mueller has been tainted by partisan bias in the ranks of the FBI and Justice Department.

The letter from the two senators does not address the veracity of the allegations found in the Steele dossier.

A lawyer for Fusion GPS, Joshua A. Levy, said the senators’ letter may be simply another effort to discredit the Russia investigation, according to The Washington Post.

“After a year of investigations into Donald Trump's ties to Russia, the only person Republicans seek to accuse of wrongdoing is one who reported on these matters to law enforcement in the first place,’’ said Levy. “Publicizing a criminal referral based on classified information raises serious questions about whether this letter is nothing more than another attempt to discredit government sources, in the midst of an ongoing criminal investigation. We should all be skeptical in the extreme.’’

In December, Graham said the Congressional probe should focus first on what the Russians were up to in interfering with the election.l

“The first thing we want to establish is, ‘Did the Russians hack into our political system,?’ Graham said atthe time."Then you work outward from there.”

