Feb. 7, 2018, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issue the following statement in response to the release of the unclassified criminal referral for Christopher Steele by Chairmen Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.):
“The Grassley-Graham is further vindication of the House Intelligence Committee memo that alleges the FBI knowingly used a DNC and Clinton campaign-funded dossier to obtain a secret FISA court warrant against a Trump campaign official and hid that fact from the FISA court. While much of the referral is redacted, there are several key findings.
“The Senators viewed two relevant FISA applications concluding, ‘The bulk of the application consists of allegations against Page that were disclosed to the FBI by Mr. Steele and are also outlined in the Steele dossier.’ This is the same dossier former Deputy Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe in Congressional testimony said no surveillance warrant would have been sought from the FISA court warrant without the Steele dossier information.
“The referral also indicates the FBI made material false statements to the FISA court. The FBI vouched for the credibility of Mr. Steele and the dossier, despite firing him for lying to the FBI, the crime the Senate Chairman are referral for. This raises the question, why hasn’t the FBI charged Steele with lying to the FBI? Could it be because charging him with lying would have put the continued FISA court warrant renewals at risk?
“And most importantly, the referral further delegitimizes the Christopher Steele dossier. Not only did former FBI Director James Comey call the dossier ‘salacious and unverified,’ but Christopher Steele refused to vouch for his own work in a U.K. court of law stating, the dossier ‘did not represent (and did not purport to represent) verified facts,’ in response to a libel suit against him.
“Why would FBI and DOJ leadership, under President Obama, put the reputation of the DOJ and FBI at risk by knowingly signing legal documents based on a dossier that the author of which refused to vouch for in the end when his own neck was on the line?”
Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.
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