A debate is heating up over whether it was former CIA Director John Brennan or former FBI Director James Comey who attempted to include the unverified Trump dossier in the high-profile Intelligence Community Assessment of January 2017 that focused on Russian interference.

A report from Fox News on Wednesday offered competing claims, with some sources telling them that a yet-to-be-made-public email chain from late 2016 shows that “Comey told [FBI] subordinates that … Brennan insisted the dossier be included” in the assessment, while a former CIA official “put the blame squarely on Comey.”

The dossier, put together by British ex-spy Christopher Steele, contained a litany of unverified claims about President Trump's ties to Russia and was used extensively in FISA applications before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to justify surveillance of former Trump campaign associate Carter Page. The dossier was compiled through Fusion GPS and funded in part by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, and its possible misuse is the subject of inquiries through the Department of Justice.

The Fox News report cites sources that discuss a late-2016 email chain in which Comey told subordinates that Brennan insisted the dossier be incuded in the intelligence community assessment. The report also says that the dossier is called “crown material” in the emails although the meaning behind that wasn’t immediately clear.

A former CIA official countered this position, saying it was actually the CIA that pushed back against the FBI: “Former Director Brennan, along with former [Director of National Intelligence] James Clapper, are the ones who opposed James Comey’s recommendation that the Steele Dossier be included in the intelligence report … They opposed this because the dossier was in no way used to develop the ICA,” the unnamed source said. This individual said because the dossier was uncorroborated, “Brennan and Clapper prevented it from being added into the official assessment” and “Comey then decided on his own to brief Trump about the document.”

On Tuesday evening, former South Carolina congressman Trey Gowdy said that “who insisted that the dossier or the unverified material from Chris Steele be included” should be “a pretty easy thing to sort out.” Gowdy said that “the only thing [Brennan and Comey] seem to share is a hatred for Donald Trump" and that “it's going to be interesting if they begin to turn on one another." Gowdy additionally said that “Comey's got a better argument than Brennan based on what I have seen” but suggested it was possible that “sometimes when people are blaming each other, they are both right.”

The dossier was used in FISA filings beginning in October 2016 through June 2017, and Comey signed off on three of the four submissions to the Foreign Surveillance Court before he was fired in May 2017. Comey personally briefed Trump on some of the most salacious allegations in January 2017, and the dossier was subsequently released by BuzzFeed after CNN reported on that Trump-Comey meeting.

This back-and-forth over whether it was the leadership of the CIA or FBI that was pushing for the inclusion of the dossier in the intelligence community assessment is just the latest in an ongoing saga shrouded by classified documents and anonymous sourcing.

In September 2018, the Washington Times reported that “the FBI wanted to fold in allegations and observations from dossier writer Christopher Steele” with one source saying Comey was personally involved in pushing for its inclusion while another source said FBI officials definitely wanted the dossier included but couldn’t personally name Comey as the instigator. That report quoted a source as saying that “the IC assessment was corroborated intelligence that involved what the intelligence community agreed with” and that “the dossier was a totally separate thing that had not gone through that type of process, so it should not be included.”

A spokesman for Brennan insisted he never trusted the dossier, telling the Associated Press, “because it wasn’t corroborated intel." A source told the Washington Times in September 2018 that Brennan worked to make sure the dossier was not included in the intelligence community assessment.

Earlier in March of this year, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., put the blame on Brennan, tweeting: “A high-level source tells me it was Brennan who insisted that the unverified and fake Steele dossier be included in the Intelligence Report... Brennan should be asked to testify under oath in Congress ASAP.”

Bob Woodward, the veteran Watergate journalist, wrote in his 2017 book Fear that, despite the unverified nature of the allegations, “Brennan said the information was in line with their own sources.” Woodward said in an interview earlier this year that “I think it was the CIA pushing this” and that “early in building the intelligence community assessment on Russian interference in an early draft, they actually put the dossier on page two in kind of a breakout box.”

Brennan himself said in February 2018 that the dossier “did not play any role whatsoever in the intelligence community assessment that was done and that was presented to then-President Obama and then-President-elect Trump.” Brennan said that “there were things in that dossier that made me wonder whether they were in fact accurate and true” and said that “it was up to the FBI to see whether or not they could verify any of it.”

“I think Jim Comey said it contained salacious and unverified information,” Brennan said at the time.

At a CNN town hall last Thursday, Comey defended the way that he and the FBI had handled Steele’s information. He asserted “the most important part” of the dossier was related to “Russians coming for the American election,” which he asserted was “consistent with our other intelligence” and “true.”

Whether it was the CIA or the FBI — or both — who was responsible for pushing the dossier to be included in the intelligence assessment may soon come to light as Steele is brought under increased scrutiny. There are at least three federal investigations or reviews into alleged FISA abuse and other matters related to the way that the FBI and DOJ handled the Trump-Russia investigation. DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz is expected to finish his investigation in either May or June, U.S. Attorney John Huber was tasked with this responsibility by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions back in 2018, and U.S. Attorney John Durham has reportedly been selected by Attorney General William Barr to look into the origins of the Russia inquiry.