Feb. 5, 2017, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement in response to the rebuttal memo by Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) Nadler called Christopher Steele, “an expert for the job—a retired British intelligence officer, experienced in Russian affairs and well-known to the FBI as a useful source of valuable intelligence in earlier investigations”:
“If we are to believe what Rep. Nadler stated in his memo, in an attempt to defend the Obama administration’s illegal spying on American citizens, then we must take Christopher Steele at his own words when he said, ‘The contents of the December memorandum did not represent (and did not purport to represent) verified facts.’ That was in response to a libel suit against Steele in the U.K. about the dossier he produced for the Clinton campaign and the DNC. Under oath in a court of law, Christopher Steele would not vouch for the validity of the dossier he produced based on his sources that were also used in the prior FISA application, so why should anyone else?
“Knowing the dossier was ‘salacious and unverified,’ former FBI Director James Comey chose to include the document in the original FISA application and two subsequent extensions. Is the former Director in the habit of entering unverified documents into evidence in a court of law? If Christopher Steele, the author of the dossier, would not vouch for the validity of the dossier, why did James Comey do so three times?
“It is clear former FBI Director James Comey lied to the FISA court. When a civilian lies to law enforcement or a court, they are brought up on charges. What Comey did was the textbook example of perjury, he signed a legal document he knew to be false or misleading. In the least it violates the Woods Procedures that are supposed to govern the court, which relies on the accuracy of filings by the FBI. Clearly, Congress must continue digging to get to the bottom of this sordid affair.”
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