WOW! Christopher Steele Wrote Anti-Trump Memo With Information From Mystery Obama State Dept. Official

Former British intelligence agent and author of the Fusion GPS dossier, Christopher Steele, penned a separate memo on then-candidate Donald Trump, based on information given to him by a Hillary Clinton contact and unnamed Obama State Department official.

Byron York of the Washington Examiner reports:

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.

Congressional investigators probing the origins of the Steele dossier have set their sights on a brand new target — The Obama State Department.

Were Obama State Department officials responsible for spreading discredited tidbits compiled in the dossier through the media? Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes may soon find out.

💥Devin Nunes Bombs Away! #NunesMemo – Phase One. Next up – State Dept.

"This completes JUST the #FISA abuse portion of our investigation. We are in the middle of what I call PHASE TWO of our investigation which involves other departments, specifically the State Department." pic.twitter.com/Hwf7IkimsO — TrumpSoldier (@DaveNYviii) February 3, 2018

“We are in the middle of what I call Phase Two of our investigation which involves other departments, specifically the State Department,” Nunes told Fox News host Bret Baier last week.

The Washington Examiner previously reported the Obama State Department was being probed as to whether or not they had a hand in the dossier. York notes Steele was viewed inside the Obama State Department as a valuable source for intelligence on all things Russia. Obama State officials made a habit of disseminating reports the former British spy authored for private clients around the Department:

A book published in November by a correspondent at the Guardian, “Collusion: Secret meetings, dirty money, and how Russia helped Donald Trump win,” noted that Steele’s 2010 work on the World Cup soccer corruption investigation won him the trust not only of the FBI, but the State Department as well. From author Luke Harding: The [soccer] episode burnished Steele’s reputation inside the U.S. intelligence community and the FBI. Here was a pro, a well-connected Brit, who understood Russian espionage and its subterranean tricks. Steele was regarded as credible. Between 2014 and 2016, Steele authored more than a hundred reports on Russia and Ukraine. These were written for a private client but shared widely within the State Department and sent up to Secretary of State John Kerry and to Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, who was in charge of the U.S. response to the Ukraine crisis. Many of Steele’s secret sources were the same sources who would supply information on Trump. One former State Department envoy during the Obama administration said he read dozens of Steele’s reports on Russia. The envoy said that on Russia, Steele was “as good as the CIA or anyone.” Steele’s professional reputation inside U.S. agencies would prove important the next time he discovered alarming material, and lit the fuse again.

Former British spy Christopher Steele, who was tasked with compiling the ‘Trump dossier’ for opposition research firm Fusion GPS, recently admitted in court that the discredited document contains “limited intelligence.”

Steele also admitted part of “his final December memo,” was unvetted.

“Such intelligence was not actively sought; it was merely received,” Steele added.