A newly released document from the Senate Judiciary Committee says Christopher Steele, the former British spy who compiled the Trump dossier, wrote an additional memo on the subject of Donald Trump and Russia that was not among those published by BuzzFeed in January 2017.

The newly released document is an unclassified and heavily redacted version of the criminal referral targeting Steele filed on Jan. 4 by Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. It appears to confirm some level of coordination between the extended Clinton circle and the Obama administration in the effort to seek damaging information about then-candidate Trump.

According to the referral, Steele wrote the additional memo based on anti-Trump information that originated with a foreign source. In a convoluted scheme outlined in the referral, the foreign source gave the information to an unnamed associate of Hillary and Bill Clinton, who then gave the information to an unnamed official in the Obama State Department, who then gave the information to Steele. Steele wrote a report based on the information, but the redacted version of the referral does not say what Steele did with the report after that.

Published accounts in the Guardian and the Washington Post have indicated that Clinton associate Cody Shearer was in contact with Steele about anti-Trump research, and Obama State Department official Jonathan Winer was a connection between Steele and the State Department during the 2016 campaign.

When Grassley and Graham filed the referral with the Justice Department on Jan. 4, the document was classified (although the two senators released an unclassified cover letter announcing the referral). What followed was a month of haggling with the Justice Department over what material in the referral could be made public. The result is the version of the referral released this morning. It has whole paragraphs and keywords blacked out, making it hard to discern its full meaning.

For example, a press release accompanying the referral said the referral "contains verbatim quotes from the [Carter Page surveillance] application that are not included in the [House Intelligence Committee] memo. Specifically, the referral quotes the application's descriptions of Steele's statements to the FBI about his contacts with the media." Lest anyone get too excited, the press release went on to say that the quotes "remain redacted" in the version of the referral released Monday.

Also redacted is information related to the key allegation of the Grassley-Graham referral: that Steele was untruthful with the FBI and Justice Department over the issue of his many contacts with the press. If Steele was acting as a trusted source for the FBI on the highly confidential Trump-Russia investigation, it would have been improper for him to share his information with the press at the same time.

Some of the redacted passages also relate to the question of statements about Steele's press contacts that the FBI made to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in applying for the Page surveillance warrant that was the subject of the House Intelligence Committee memo released Friday.

It's a lot to digest. But further details will have to wait until the rest of the referral is declassified. Senate sources say they hope that will be soon.



