FBI Failed To Tell FISA Court About Some Concerns With Steele Dossier’s Reliability

The FBI failed to tell surveillance court judges that investigators developed concerns about the reliability of the Steele dossier after interviewing a source for the infamous document, according to a new report.

Steele also reported that Page was part of the Trump campaign’s “well developed conspiracy of cooperation” with Russia, and that it was Page’s idea to release DNC emails through WikiLeaks.

The FBI cited some of that information in four FISA warrant applications, the first of which was submitted on Oct. 21, 2016.

The special counsel’s report undercut many of the allegations against Page. It found that nobody on the Trump team acted as a Russian agent or conspired with Russians to influence the 2016 election. It also found that no Americans were involved in hacking or releasing DNC emails.

Steele’s sourcing for his dossier has largely remained a mystery. It is also unclear what steps the FBI took to verify the dossier.

Michael Horowitz, the inspector general, is expected to release the report on Monday. He will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. The Post also reported that even with the omissions about the reliability of Steele’s information, the FBI still met the relatively low bar needed to obtain the surveillance warrants against Page.

The New York Times has previously reported that FBI agents tracked down and interviewed one of Steele’s sources in January 2017, around the time that BuzzFeed published the dossier. According to The Times, the FBI agents suspected that the source embellished some of the information provided to Steele. The source was not identified, but was described as a Russian speaker living in the West who hailed from a former Soviet republic.