Years later, Trump dossier still frustrates verification efforts
Last August House investigators interviewed FBI deputy assistant director Jonathan Moffa about the Trump dossier, the collection of sensational allegations about Donald Trump and Russia compiled for Democrats during the 2016 campaign by the former British spy Christopher Steele. Republican lawyers had a simple question. Had the FBI confirmed any of the claims in the dossier?
Moffa's response set a new standard for non-answers.
"So, I like to talk about this in kind of a living sense," he began. "Though, because the idea is, you're never – you're constantly evaluating that reporting, you're constantly looking at incoming intelligence streams and investigative results. It's not a snapshot in time thing where you would look at reporting and say, it is – we have nothing to refute this today."
Moffa had more. "You have to constantly be sort of doing that," he continued. "And so, our analytic process in looking at this reporting and all reporting, really, is that more ongoing sense. So at the time, we are constantly re-evaluating, as time goes on, is the information here supported by facts we have elsewhere, or refuted by facts we have elsewhere?"
OK, said a frustrated Republican lawyer. What about the dossier? "I was just curious if you analyzed or verified every fact that was in these individual [dossier] reports as they're coming in."
"Got it," said Moffa. "So I have answered that. We, in an ongoing way, were looking at those facts, and doing that research and analytic work to try to verify, refute, or corroborate."
That's how it has gone for Republicans trying to find out whether the dossier's allegations have been corroborated. For more than two years, since the dossier was made public by Buzzfeed in January 2017, Republicans have asked the FBI what it has done to try to verify the dossier's key allegations. They've gotten nowhere, apparently because the FBI has never been able to verify the dossier's key allegations.
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