Former Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland told CBS's 'Face The Nation' on Sunday that British spy Christopher Steele, author of the infamous Trump-Russia dossier sold to the FBI and DNC, shared similar information with the State Department in 2016.



She also quipped: "Frankly, if every member of the [Trump] campaign who the Russians tried to approach and tried to influence had gone to the FBI as well in real time, we might not be in the mess we're in today."





BRENNAN: Victoria, Congressman Gowdy said they now have concern about the State Department. You served there until recently. Do you know what he's talking about?







VICTORIA NULAND, FORMER ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE: I don't. I look forward to -- to hearing what he's talking about.



I will tell you, though, Margaret, that during the Ukraine cries in 2014-15, Chris Steele had a number of commercial clients who were asking him for reports on what was going on in Russia, what was going on in Ukraine, what was going on between them. Chris had a friend at the State Department and he offered us that reporting free so that we could also benefit from it. It was one of, you know, hundreds of sources that we were using to try to understand what was going on.



Then, in the middle of July, when he was doing this other work and became concerned --



BRENNAN: The dossier.



NULAND: The dossier, he passed two to four pages of short points of what he was finding and our immediate reaction to that was, this is not in our purview. This need to go to the FBI if there is any concern here that one candidate or the election as a whole might be influenced by the Russian Federation. That's something for the FBI to investigate. And that was our reaction when we saw this. It's not our -- our -- we can't evaluate this.



And, frankly, if every member of the campaign who the Russians tried to approach and tried to influence had gone to the FBI as well in real time, we might not be in the mess we're in today.