Posted on 08/29/2017 12:16:47 PM PDT by gubamyster
In late July, the Justice Department refused a request from the Senate Judiciary Committee — a bipartisan, joint request from Chairman Charles Grassley and Ranking Democrat Dianne Feinstein — to make two top FBI officials available for an interview in the committee's investigation of the Trump dossier and other matters related to the Trump-Russia affair. Citing the Mueller special prosecutor investigation, Justice stated "confidentiality" and the "sensitivity of information relating to pending matters" made it impossible for the two officials, Carl Ghattas and James Rybicki, to talk to the Senate committee that oversees the FBI.
Grassley and Feinstein are still trying — they sent another, more strongly worded, request last Friday. Their efforts show the importance of the FBI in Congress' quest to learn more about the "salacious and unverified" dossier (the words of former FBI Director James Comey), and could signal the FBI will play a key role in Congress' dossier investigation as it plays out in coming months.
Just last week, Glenn Simpson, head of Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm that handled the Trump dossier, refused to tell Grassley's and Feinstein's investigators who funded the effort. But there are other ways to get at the story — and the FBI is the number-one possibility.
That's because the FBI played a role in the case as it happened. Sometime in the process of collecting anti-Trump allegations from paid, Kremlin-linked Russian informants, Christopher Steele — the former British spy hired by Fusion to dig dirt in Russia — decided to take his information to the FBI. That appears to have been in the fall of 2016, at the height of the presidential campaign.
The FBI took the dossier seriously, in part because agents had dealt with Steele before in 2010 in the investigation into FIFA, the world soccer organization. So in October, Steele "reached an agreement with the FBI a few weeks before the election for the bureau to pay him to continue his work," according to a Washington Post report.
It was a mind-boggling development: Federal law enforcement agreeing to fund an ongoing opposition research project being conducted on behalf of one of the candidates in a presidential election. In the end, the FBI reportedly did not pay Steele, possibly because of publicity concerns.
One person whose mind was boggled by the news was Grassley. The Judiciary Committee chairman thought through the implications of the FBI adopting the Fusion-Steele dossier project, and on March 6 sent then-FBI Director James Comey a letter.
"The idea that the FBI and associates of the Clinton campaign would pay Mr. Steele to investigate the Republican nominee for president in the run-up to the election raises further questions about the FBI's independence from politics, as well as the Obama administration's use of law enforcement and intelligence agencies for political ends," Grassley wrote.
Grassley demanded all FBI materials relating to the dossier, plus information on what, if any, actions the bureau undertook to try to verify its contents, and how the bureau used the information. Grassley was particularly concerned about whether the FBI ever presented material from the dossier — unverified, from paid informants — to a court as a basis for obtaining a warrant in the Russia investigation. To do so would amount to using false pretenses to seek court permission to put someone under surveillance.
The FBI took the dossier seriously, in part because agents had dealt with Steele before in 2010 in the investigation into FIFA, the world soccer organization. So in October, Steele "reached an agreement with the FBI a few weeks before the election for the bureau to pay him to continue his work," according to a Washington Post report.
What if the FBI paid for the Dossier?
Byron York? I couldn’t get past the byline.
These Establish fools like Byron York will die long before the American public believes a word of the Trump BS Dossier!
Trump could simply ORDER COMPLIANCE with the legal Congressional Request...and FIRE anyone who refuses or drags their feet.
But he doesn’t have a REAL AG.
he WAPO article of 02/27/2017 reports were that Comey decided not to pay for the dossier as news of it leaked out and was no longer going to use Steele.
The interesting thing is...Comey knew about\had the dossier before McCain pulled his bag-man act in 12/2016 and handed the dossier over to the FBI.
Nobody is going after McCain nor are they connecting any dots.
All the attempts by the Judiciary Committee to obtain information on testimony from the FBI occurred while Obama holder interim director McCabe was in charge. Trump appointee Wray was confirmed on August 2.
No speculation by York whether the new Director will require that FBI to turn over information and require the desired agents to testify before the SJC.
The DOJ is completely corrupt. Don’t let them continue their obfuscations and delays. Subpoena them.
Congress created them, and Congress should end them.
The FBI still hasn’t figured out the PeePee Dossier?
Some names I haven't seen before...
Slowly, so slowly, they edge toward John McCain who gave the dossier to the FBI,
Carl Ghattas, the head of the FBI’s national security division and a legal adviser to McCabe
McLame didn’t realize he was giving the FBI a dossier they already had, and in fact had paid to have produced.
They used McCain; what a stooge!
The Meuller investigation was necessary to freeze Sessions and slow down and hopefully stop any investigation into FBI and CIA corrupto-crats from the Obama organized crime syndicate.
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