https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2020/09/09/supposedly_reliable_steele_acted_crazy_his_american_handler_says_peoples_ears_were_bleeding_at_the_fbi_125142.html

Worth Remembering

Agent handling Steele for the FBI, Michael Gaeta shuts Steele down as a source. Priestap authorizes the shut down which means he can no longer be used.

When DJT gets elected Comey re-opens investigation. Priestap and Strzok go to London to try to rehabilitate Steele's reputation.

Priestap decides to continue getting info from Steele.

copy/pasta

Priestap’s apparent rationale was that the decision to close Steele as a source was not made because he offered unfounded claims but because he had violated confidentiality agreements by sharing them with the press. And so, the FBI continued to gather new “reporting” by Steele. One of channels was David Corn, the Mother Jones reporter who had written the article about Steele’s accusations. Corn was a longtime friend of then-FBI General Counsel James Baker. Their children had gone to the same school years before and carpooled. Corn gave Steele memos to Baker and then Baker passed them on to Priestap. Thus the strange situation in which an assistant director of the FBI forbade agents from talking to Steele because of the source’s indiscretion with Mother Jones and then proceeded to gather Steele materials through a back-channel relationship with Mother Jones.

Back Channels are Important

Corn is Ripe for Harvesting