Trump Says John McCain Put Him In ‘Jeopardy’ By Giving Dossier To FBI

President Trump maintained his attacks on John McCain on Wednesday, accusing the late Arizona senator of putting him in “jeopardy” with the FBI by giving the salacious and unverified Steele dossier to James Comey in late 2016.

At a speech in Ohio, Trump also faulted McCain for not contacting him after receiving the dossier, which was funded by the Clinton campaign and DNC.

“I’ll be honest with you, I’ve never liked him much,” Trump said of McCain, who died on Aug. 25, 2018, after a battle with cancer.

“But there are certain reasons for it,” Trump continued.

“John McCain received the fake and phony dossier. You hear about the dossier? It was paid for by Crooked Hillary Clinton. And John McCain got it. He got it. And what did he do? He didn’t call me. He turned it over to the FBI hoping to put me in jeopardy.”

“That’s not the nicest thing to do,” Trump added, while also blasting McCain for voting against a Republican-led effort to repeal Obamacare.

Trump has ramped up his attacks on McCain in the wake of court documents that revealed new details about the Republican lawmaker’s handling of the dossier, which was authored by former British spy Christopher Steele. Trump’s comments have drawn rebuke from some Republicans, including Georgia Sen. Johnny Isakson, who called the remarks “deplorable.”

McCain and an associate, David Kramer, were first told about Steele’s report on Nov. 18, 2016. At McCain’s direction, Kramer to travel to London to meet with Steele, a former MI6 officer.

Kramer obtained a copy of the report and provided it to McCain. On Dec. 9, 2016, McCain met with Comey at FBI headquarters. He long claimed he had no idea whether the allegations in the dossier were accurate, but he believed that the FBI should investigate. Unknown to McCain at the time, the FBI had already obtained Steele’s report through several other channels.

Kramer, a former State Department official, speculated in a Dec. 13, 2017 deposition that Steele and Fusion GPS chose McCain so that a Republican, rather than a Democrat, could present the dossier to Comey.

“I think they felt a senior Republican was better to be the recipient of this rather than a Democrat because if it were a Democrat, I think that the view was that it would have been dismissed as a political attack,” Kramer said in a deposition in a court case involving BuzzFeed, which was sued for publishing the dossier.

The FBI took seriously Steele’s report. Investigators relied heavily on the document to obtain four surveillance warrants against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

The dossier is also the source of salacious allegations that have hung over the Trump administration since BuzzFeed published Steele’s document on Jan. 10, 2017. Steele alleges in his first memo of the dossier that the Russian government has a videotape from 2013 of Trump with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel room. According to Steele’s sources, the Kremlin has used the tape to blackmail Trump.

But more than two years after its publication, the dossier’s most serious allegations about Trump and his associates remain unverified. Serious doubt has been cast on other claims made in the Steele’s report, including that former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen visited Prague in August 2016 to pay off Russian hackers.

Cohen, who has since fallen out with Trump, testified under oath on Feb. 27 that he never visited Prague.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org

Chuck Ross

Share
Published by
Chuck Ross

Recent Posts

President Donald Trump’s Schedule for Wednesday, June 4, 2025

Schedule Summary: President Donald Trump will receive a briefing, sign some proclamations, and participate in…

2 hours ago

Too Late: WaPo Apologizes For Publishing Hamas Propaganda At Face Value

The Washington Post issued a correction Tuesday, saying it published an article that failed to…

4 hours ago

Elon Musk Finally Shares His True Feelings About Big, Beautiful Bill

Elon Musk sharply criticized President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” incorporating vast swathes of his…

4 hours ago

Trump Says New Iran Deal Will Not Allow Uranium Enrichment, Contradicting Reports

President Donald Trump said Monday night his administration’s new Iran nuclear deal would not include…

4 hours ago

No, SCOTUS, The Federal Reserve Isn’t An ‘Independent Agency’

The Supreme Court was surely correct in its recent majority decision acknowledging President Trump acted…

4 hours ago

President Autopen

The Autopen scandal raises many questions: Who was running the country? Are all the pardons…

4 hours ago