The late Republican Sen. John McCain denied being the source for BuzzFeed when it published the Steele dossier of "salacious and unverified" claims against then-candidate Donald Trump in early 2017.

But the text McCain distributed to the FBI and others was "identical" to the text published by Buzzfeed, according to an email by FBI investigator Peter Strzok obtained by government watchdog Judicial Watch.

Strzok's Jan. 10, 2017, email to his FBI lawyer paramour, Lisa Page, was sent the same day Buzzfeed published the dossier.

Another email obtained by Judicial Watch cited an article claiming that emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee were obtained from "an inside DNC source," not the Russians.

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Strzok said there were "differences" from the dossier provided to the FBI by Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson and Mother Jones reporter David Corn.

Judicial Watch cited unsealed court filings that show McCain and an associate had shared the dossier with several media outlets.

"These new emails show that Strzok and his Obama FBI colleagues knew almost immediately that McCain likely leaked the infamous dossier," said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

"The emails also show that senior FBI officials had contempt for President Trump and gossiped about its counterintelligence briefing to him. The FBI under Comey and McCabe was a train wreck and, given the ongoing cover-up of these docs, the agency hasn’t improved much."

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The new batch of emails also shows Strzok communicated with Andrew McCabe, who then was deputy director of the FBI, about a "leak investigation" tied to the Clinton Foundation.

It was "the very leak in which McCabe was later implicated," Judicial Watch said.

McCabe was fired for leaking to the media and lacking "candor" when questioned. An IG report found he violated FBI policy.

Judicial Watch obtained 138 pages of emails in response to a January 2018 Freedom of Information Act case brought after the DOJ failed to respond to a request for communications between Strzok and Page.

The watchdog organization explained the FBI only processes records at the rate of 500 pages per month and has refused to do text messages. Now it's using the coronavirus as a reason to further delay production of records.

Strzok's key email on Jan. 10, 2017, said:

RE: Buzzfeed published some of the reports Our internet system is blocking the site. I have the pdf via iPhone, but it’s 25.6MB. Comparing now. The set is only identical to what [Sen. John] McCain had (it has differences from what was given to us by Corn and Simpson)."

Strzok sent the email to Page and several top-ranking FBI officials, including McCabe, Assistant Director for the Counterintelligence Division Bill Priestap, Deputy Assistant Director of Counterintelligence Jon Moffa, Assistant Director for Public Affairs Michael Kortan, General Counsel James Baker, and Director James Comey’s Chief of Staff James Rybicki.

Former State Department official and McCain associate David Kramer said in a Dec. 13, 2017, deposition that the dossier was given to him by Steele and he then provided it to journalists at outlets including CNN, BuzzFeed and The Washington Post.

The details were first reported by the Daily Caller.