Comey pushed to include discredited Steel dossier in intelligence files

Rowan Scarborough:

The FBI pushed in 2016 to include the discredited dossier into the official intelligence community assessment that Russia interfered in the election to help Donald Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton, two former senior officials said.

The officials told The Washington Times that as the historic ICA, as it is known, was being drafted, the FBI wanted to fold in allegations and observations from dossier writer Christopher Steele.

One source said then-FBI Director James B. Comey directly advocated inclusion. A second source said FBI officials definitely wanted Mr. Steele’s charges on Kremlin behavior included but could not single out Mr. Comey as the main driver.

The sources said James R. Clapper, then director of national intelligence, and John O. Brennan, then director of the CIA, objected on grounds that the dossier remained largely unconfirmed information from a former British spy, not vetted U.S. intelligence.

“The IC assessment was corroborated intelligence that involved what the intelligence community agreed with,” the source said. “The dossier was a totally separate thing that had not gone through that type of process, so it should not be included. That was the decision that was made.”

The two former officials declined to discuss motives for why the FBI wanted to elevate the dossier from outside political research to part of the official government record.
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The FBI relied greatly on the dossier to persuade a judge to sign a wiretap warrant on Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page in October 2016. The application, largely on the word of Mr. Steele, said Mr. Page was an agent of Russia. Mr. Page has denied all parts of the dossier that pertain to him. He has not been charged.

Former FBI Assistant Director Peter Strzok, who led the Trump investigation, text-messaged his lover that the dossier allowed him to open new avenues of investigation.

Today, none of Mr. Steele’s specific collusion charges against Trump people has been confirmed publicly.

In a London court, where Mr. Steele is being sued for libel, he filed a declaration that backtracked from the confidence he expressed in the dossier. He wrote of an “extensive conspiracy” between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. But in court, he talked only of “possible” collusion and said all of his allegations needed to be verified. Some allegations were unsolicited call-ins.

Mr. Comey’s dossier history includes the day in January 2017 when he requested a private meeting with President-elect Trump at Trump Tower to brief him on the dossier’s most salacious item — that he had engaged with Russian prostitutes in Moscow in 2013.

Mr. Comey, Mr. Clapper and Mr. Brennan had just briefed Mr. Trump on the ICA. Mr. Clapper urged Mr. Comey go further and tell him about the dossier.

Mr. Comey didn’t tell Mr. Trump that the product was opposition research financed by Democrats.
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I suspect Comey's motives were both political and tactical.  He probably thought that such a move would give the document more credibility and make it easier for him to push his Russian collusion hoax.  We are left to conclude that the top leadership in the FBI knew the document was a fraud and wanted to use it anyway because of their animus toward Donald Trump or they were so hyped on their plot to destroy him that they ignored the evidence.  Neither conclusion should be ruled out at this point.