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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Feb. 6, 2018, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement blasting Special Counsel Robert Mueller for not sticking to the parameters that were set out for him when he was appointed last May:

“Special Counsel Robert Mueller was appointed last May to investigate ‘any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump.’ But so far, in Mueller’s indictments of Paul Manafort and Richard Gates, there is no mention of Russian government officials, and the supposed crimes predate the election campaign of 2016. The guilty plea of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was for not correctly remembering the content of a conversation with the Russian ambassador that actually took place after the election, beyond the scope of Mueller’s probe. That leaves George Papadopoulos, who similarly has pled guilty, but not to colluding with the Russian government, but for lying with investigators. All this points to the conclusion that, actually, there was no Trump campaign-Russia collusion in 2016. If so, then what is the purpose of Mueller’s investigation?

“In the meantime, the Christopher Steele dossier, which was used to obtain at least one secret FISA court warrant against Trump campaign advisor Carter Page before the election has proven to be full of lies and turns out was funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, a fact which was hidden from the FISA court.

“Since that time, former FBI Director James Comey testified that the dossier was ‘salacious and unverified.’ Former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe testified that about the only thing they could corroborate from the Steele dossier was that Carter Page had traveled to Moscow to deliver a commencement address at a university, which was already a matter of public record, and that but for the dossier, there would not have been a FISA court warrant at all. FBI agent Peter Strzok, who had been leading the FBI’s investigation into Trump, told his mistress prior to joining the Mueller investigation that he was a afraid there was ‘no big there there’ on Trump campaign-Russia collusion. And Steele himself, in a libel suit over the dossier in the UK, said the dossier ‘did not represent (and did not purport to represent) verified facts.’ Also, per the testimony of Fusion GPS CEO Glenn Simpson, Steele never traveled to Russia himself and may not have even personally interviewed his sources, instead relying on go-betweens. In the end, nobody confirmed Steele’s sources, including apparently Steele himself. Not Simpson, not the FBI which used the dossier to get the spying warrant.

“Based on these bits of information we now know, it is clear there is little to no basis for an ongoing investigation of Trump campaign-Russia collusion in 2016 during the presidential campaign, because there was none. Special Counsel Mueller has gone far afield from his original mandate, and it’s time he lay his cards on the table.”

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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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.”

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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Feb. 2, 2018, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement urging the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court to rescind all warrants it issued based on the erroneous, DNC-funded Christopher Steele dossier:

“The FISA Court must immediately rescind all warrants that were based on the DNC-funded Christopher Steele dossier if it has not already done so. Additionally, the FISA Court needs to order that all prosecutions based upon evidence through the unlawfully gained FISA Court warrant be dismissed with prejudice as fruit of a poison tree. The Fourth Amendment requires probable cause for a warrant. Everyday criminals receive the most basic constitutional protections, and the Obama Justice Department lied and connived to deny these protections to their political enemies. One of the main remaining questions is who of these faithless Justice Department employees will be fired and prosecuted for illegal spying. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s involvement in this sordid episode disqualifies him from further employment at the Justice Department and he must be terminated if he refuses to resign. This cannot be allowed to stand.”

Attachments:

House Intelligence Committee memo detailing FISA abuses, Feb. 2, 2018 at http://docs.house.gov/meetings/IG/IG00/20180129/106822/HMTG-115-IG00-20180129-SD001.pdf or https://readthememo.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/HMTG-115-IG00-20180129-SD001.pdf

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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