Here’s attorney and Federalist contributor Gabriel Malor with a must read summary of the Grassley–Graham DOJ referral for Christopher Steele regarding possible misstatements he made to the FBI on his anti-Trump dossier.
In summary, the G/G memo raised new questions which makes seeing the underlying warrant application, with the appropriate redactions, more important than ever:
There is some interesting stuff in Grassley/Graham's referral to DOJ. Here's what the G/G referral tells us.
(1) The October 2016 FISA warrant application seeking surveillance of Carter Page disclosed that Steele compiled the dossier at the direction of a political client.— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) February 7, 2018
(2) At the time of the October 2016 warrant application, FBI believed Steele had not previously disclosed dossier information to anyone but FBI and his client.
— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) February 7, 2018
(3) FBI came to learn Steele made a media disclosure in October 2016, broke off its relationship with him, and noted this in its subsequent warrant renewals.
— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) February 7, 2018
(4) FBI believed that was Steele's first media disclosure, and the agency continued to represent as such in the application renewals.
(5) In litigation documents made public in April 2017, Page is revealed to have made media disclosures prior to October 2016.— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) February 7, 2018
(6) FBI did not, subsequent to April 2017, include in warrant renewal applications this new information that Steele had previously lied to the FBI about media disclosures prior to October 2016.
— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) February 7, 2018
(7) The G/G referral states, "Instead the [post-April 2017] application still relied primarily on [Steele's] credibility prior to the October media incident."
— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) February 7, 2018
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Conclusion: we're still where we were after Nunes' memo: what does "primarily" mean, was the application renewal (signed off on by DAG Rosenstein) appropriate, and was it approvable by the FISC?
— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) February 7, 2018
As before, the solution to the partisan he-said, he-said is disclosure of the warrant application and the committees hearing transcripts, with appropriate redactions.
We shouldn't have to take anybody's word for it, not when there are primary sources just hanging out.
— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) February 7, 2018
Noteworthy that the G/G referral and the Nunes' memo both assert that the FISA warrant application and renewals were inappropriate, but they do so in completely incompatible ways.
And both documents fail to establish that the warrant application and renewals were not approvable.— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) February 7, 2018
Here's the Grassley/Graham referral to DOJ, in case you'd like to check my math yourself: https://t.co/G5c9OWoyMO
— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) February 7, 2018
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