David Corn
Did FBI get bamboozled by multiple versions of Trump dossier?
By John Solomon 7/10/2018
Like dandelions in an untreated lawn, the now infamous Russian dossier apparently multiplied in numbers — and emissaries delivering it to the FBI — the closer Donald Trump got to the White House.
We know from public testimony that dossier author and former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele shared his findings with the FBI in summer and fall 2016 before he was terminated as a confidential source for inappropriate media contacts.
And we learned that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) provided a copy to the FBI after the November 2016 election — out of a sense of duty, his office says.
Now, memos the FBI is turning over to Congress show the bureau possessed at least three versions of the dossier and its mostly unverified allegations of collusion.
Each arrived from a different messenger: McCain, Mother Jones reporter David Corn, Fusion GPS founder (and Steele boss) Glenn Simpson.
In his House Intelligence Committee testimony, Simpson acknowledged he “acceded” to letting Steele talk to the FBI but insisted he himself never talked to the FBI about the dossier. “Did you meet with intelligence officials regarding the dossier?” he was asked. “No,” Simpson replied. Pressed if he ever talked to the FBI, Simpson added: "I didn't approach the FBI."
In light of the new emails, investigators will want to determine if Simpson misled Congress or if Strzok misstated the source of one of the versions.
The chief courier of the Trump dirt was Steele, a former MI6 agent respected for past collaborations with the FBI on intelligence matters. But we now know he was “desperate” to defeat Trump, according to sworn testimony.
In October, the FBI submitted and won a request for a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant against Carter Page, another Trump adviser. In support of the request, it cited a Yahoo News article that, officials admit, was influenced by the Steele dossier.
Around the same time, in late October, Corn wrote an article in Mother Jones about Steele’s Trump-Russia allegations.
In an email to me, Corn said he told the FBI about the dossier before writing that article. After Trump won the election, he shared a version of the document with the bureau in hopes of furthering his reporting. “I tried the FBI again after the election. On my own accord, I shared a copy of the dossier with the FBI in order to see if the bureau would authenticate the documents and now comment on them. Once again, it would not,” he wrote me.
Corn dismissed any suggestion that made him an FBI source: “To characterize me as a source of the document is inaccurate. I was merely doing what a journalist does: trying to get more information on a story I was pursuing.”
Corn’s opposition to Trump is well documented in his articles, a book he wrote, and on Twitter where, this month, he declared: “Trump has a far greater affinity for the leader of a corrupt and repressive autocracy than he does for any leader of a liberal Western democracy. That should concern Democrats and Republicans.”
https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/396307-Did-FBI-get-bamboozled-by-multiple-versions-of-Trump-dossier%3F