Legislative Blog
J.B. Williams, J.D.
Steele Reports
A Blog about Durham Report
A Bit of Background
The following backgrounds help summarize the author's views on both the general topic: Other and more specifically Durham Report as it relates to that topic.
Brief Summary of Other
Topics here may be related to legal matters but not innately legal. For instance, discussing grocery plastic bags versus cotton cloth bags. The item itself is not legal but many city governments have placed it into legislation.
Summary of Durham Report
The Durham report is the attempt to review what occurred during Crossfire Hurricane. It shows major fails on the part of the FBI to remain non-political and significantly harms their reputation. It makes Watergate look like child's play, even if taken in a light most favorable to the FBI.
Blog Summary
It appears that the first Steele Report was received by FBI and not 'officially' forwarded to Crossfire Hurrican until 3 weeks later. However, Steele did advise the information was gathered by an entity hired by the DNC/Clinton campaign as opposition research. And high ranking members of Crossfire Hurrican were aware of the Steele Report, including at least some of the contents, prior to the official receipt. Without it there was no substantial basis to support the Page FISA.
Steele Reports
Published: 2023-08-09
Steele Report - details
In July 2016, Steele contacted his handling agent in Rome, Italy and requested a meeting. A Report dated June 20, 2016 that detailed the 'salacious information about Donald Trump's alleged sexual activities during trips to Moscow' and how the Kremlin was purportedly 'feeding' information to the Trump campaign regarding his political rivals. Steele said he was hired by Fusion GPS to collection information on Trump; and that Fusion GPS was hired by a law firm that's ultimate client was 'senior Democrats' supporting Clinton. The Agents personal notes of the meeting reflect a notation that 'HC' was aware that Steele was providing the FBI with the information. Steele also advised he was working on additional reports for Fusion GPS.
The Handling Agent's initial reaction was disbelief because he knew of Steele's strong feelings against Russia, and Steele's feeling that a 'Trump-compromised presidency would pose a global problem.' And when the Handling Agent passed the information forwarded, he stated he 'assumed Steele's tasking was politically motivated.'
July 19, 2016, Steele sent an additional report claiming that Carter Page had met with Igor Sechin, Chairman of Russian energy conglomerate Rosneft, and with Igor Divyekin, senior official in the Russian Presidential Administration. They supposedly discussed lifting US sanctions and about the information Russian had that compromised both Trump and Clinton.
There were 75 days between when the Handling Agent received the first Steele report and when it was passed onto Crossfire Hurricane at FBI Headquarters. In fact, the Steele report was received more than 3 weeks before the information from the Australian diplomats was received and Crossfire Hurricane was opened. In the light most favorable to the FBI, the Steele Report was lost in bureaucratic delay. Because of this loss, however, no experienced FBI analyst were able to examine the reports and subject them to appropriate analysis and scrutiny. So upon receipt of the first report, with no corroboration and no verification of the allegations within them, the FBI included the Report in their Page FISA application.
It seems that the Handling Agent had, within days of the first report, requested guidance from the New York FBI office. NYFO Supervisor, Criminal SAC Michael Harpster and the NYFO Chief Division Counsel were both advised of the Steele report and asked for guidance. Two weeks later, the Handling Agent was requested to send the first Steele report via email. The New York office did not recall why there was a 2 week delay. However, on a call on July 28th, it was clear that FBI headquarters official Executive Assistant Director was aware of the report. And the report was received that day and forwarded to Harpster. Harpster stated he did not read the report as he was working on overseeing the Clinton Foundation matter and did not want to taint that issue. So Harpster forwarded them to Assistant Director-in-Charge Rodriguez. Harpster did recall forwarding them to Criminal Cyber Response Coleman and Assistant Executive Assistant Director Johnson; as well as meeting with them in person. He said it appeared like the FBI officials were already aware of the reports. Harpster was scheduled to meet with McCabe the following day.
Meanwhile an NYFO Assistant Division Counsel was ask for legal advice on whether the Steele Reports could be relevant to the Clinton Foundation investigation. He concluded that the Steele Reports were exclusively related to Trump and not relevant to the Clinton Foundation investigation. (I'm not sure why as this supported the claims that the Clinton Plan intelligence talked about. The information did not, however, the basis of where the report was being received did. It appears this piece of information was just conveniently ignored.) He also concluded that Steele could be examined by FBI counterintelligence personnel. When the information was being provided to Crossfire Hurricane it was to be placed in a subfile so that their taint team could review it prior to dissemination to the entire team. And then for some reason the file was not uploaded; although it appeared individuals were already aware of the contents.
On August 22, 2016 Simpson, with Fusion GPS, called DOJ Bruce Ohr. Within the hour, Ohr emailed the Handling agent for status. A phone call was scheduled between the Handling Agent and Ohr on the 24th. Ohr requested FBI status regarding the Steele Report, and was advised FBI Headquarters was working on them. While McCabe was in New York on August 25, 2016, he did not recall discussing the Steele reports. Ultimately the first Steele report was received by Crossfire Hurricane officially on September 19, 2016.
Taken in the best light, the failure to recall the Steele Reports earlier raises questions of whether the FBI had misgivings about the provenance and reliability of them. Nevertheless, within 2 days of official receipt Crossfire Hurricane proceeded to use them as support for probable cause in the initial FISA application for Carter Page.
On October 3, 2016, a meeting with a Special Agent, Acting Section Chief, SIA Brian Auten, Handling Agent for Steele, and Steele occurred in Rome, Italy. The FBI advised Steele they might be willing to pay him in excess of $1,000,000 for corroborating evidence of the allegations in his Reports. They also admonished Steele that the relationship had to be exclusive with the FBI. (Interesting that they were concerned with Steele providing the information to other US Government entities, but did not address the Yahoo News article or the issue of providing any of the information to press. The FBI was aware, at the time of the meeting, that Steele was providing the Reports to the State Department through Jonathan Winer. Winer, in turn, provided them to US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland, a confidant of former-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. But they did not address the Yahoo news article that mimicked the Steele reports. The following was noted by Auten in his notes of the meeting: Steele had 1 primary sub-source; the sub-source had personal contact with Sergei Millian (which was later shown to not be true); 4 US citizens who may have had information regarding Trump and Russia - these were Charles Dolan; US Person 1; US person 2; and US Person 3. Any information from Dolan should have been considered to be tainted, and should have triggered further investigation before it was relied upon.
Post the Rome meeting, the FBI and OI exchanged several drafts of the Page FISA applications. There was concern from Deputy Assistant Attorney General Evans that Steele's decision to talk to the press indicated potential bias. He was advised that Steele had been admonished and was only an FBI source moving forward. An email from October 14, 2016 confirms that Steele did not acknowledge the Yahoo news article until the FBI brought it up with him on October 4. In fact other emails state 'they never asked and don't want to ask.' The footnote relates the leak to the business associate or law firm that hired Steele. When ask later Steele admitted that he and others from Fusion GPS provided journalist, including Yahoo, with the allegations against Page. The OI attorney stated he was pressured by FBI, including Clinesmith's informing him that Director Comey 'wants to know what's going on' and what do we need to do to get this going. The OI attorney said in hindsight he should have been less deferential to the FBI given his concerns about the validity of the assessment. Further the fact that Steele was hired by Fusion GPS, who was working for the DNC/Clinton campaign doing opposition research, was not disclosed to the FISC. In fact, there was a shocking claim that by getting the FISA authorization they would gather data that would support the need for having the authorization, so self-corroboration.
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