Washington Examiner - Political News and Conservative Analysis About Congress, the President, and the Federal Government by Jerry Dunleavy, Justice Department Reporter |
The Senate Intelligence Committee’s Republican leader said every intelligence agency warned the FBI not to rely on the “ridiculous things” in British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s discredited dossier.
Sen. Marco Rubio, the panel’s acting chairman who presided over the release of its fifth and final report on Russian meddling this summer, criticized the bureau during an appearance on Sunday Morning Futures on Fox News, noting that the intelligence community warned the FBI the dossier might contain Russian disinformation. He told the show’s host, Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo, that he believes the actions taken by some in the FBI were criminal, and that there was likely more wrongdoing that has not yet been made public.
“I think the real weapon was the FBI, individuals in the FBI, and the report says that. … The FBI behaved very poorly with the things they did in 2016, and the aftermath of that election were terrible,” the Florida Republican said. “We pointed out to those things, for example, the reliance on this dossier that actually the intelligence community, including the CIA, told the FBI not to use those documents that they weren’t reliable. Every single one of the intelligence agencies, separate from the FBI, said that the dossier was not the kind of document they should be relying on, we shouldn’t even be talking about it, because it could very well be something the Russians completely made up and put out there and sow the information in order to create all sorts of havoc.”
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz released a report in December that criticized the Justice Department and the FBI for at least 17 “significant errors and omissions” related to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page and for the bureau’s reliance on the Democratic-funded Steele dossier. Declassified footnotes from Horowitz’s report indicated the bureau became aware that Steele’s dossier might have been compromised by Russian disinformation, and FBI interviews showed Steele’s primary subsource undercut the credibility of the dossier.
“The implications here are frightening, and that is you could go and hire some former spy, go up and make up stories and put it in this document, and get someone in the U.S. government to put the official seal of approval on it as something that is serious, and have it leaked on the eve of an election and influence the outcome of an election, and that is the implication that could have happened here,” Rubio said. “It all happened post-election — we spent two years fighting off the ridiculous things in that dossier, and the intelligence community told them, ‘We don’t know what this thing is, some of the stuff doesn’t even add up, don’t use it,’ and they insisted on using it anyway for their own internal purposes, and went to a court, and relied on it for a court, so that was clearly wrongdoing.”
“Some people in the FBI wanted that document to be true,” Rubio said of the Steele dossier, adding, “And it wasn’t.”
“When you knowingly lie to a court, it is,” Rubio said after being asked if he thought there was any criminal wrongdoing. “And we’ll learn more. I have a feeling that there are things that they did that we don’t even know about yet that are far worse than what’s been publicly revealed. … I have a feeling that some of the conduct goes beyond anything any of us know about yet.”
After Bartiromo asked if he thought there should be indictments, Rubio said U.S. Attorney John Durham was looking at that, referencing the guilty plea of former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith, who he speculated is cooperating with the criminal inquiry into the Russia investigation. Clinesmith pleaded guilty to a false statements charge for fraudulently altering a CIA email to state Page was “not a source.”
“I anticipate that we’ll see some criminal charges here,” Rubio said. “Clearly there was perjury and lying to a court, but the question goes deeper, and that is was it knowingly or part of a broader effort, a coordinated effort where a bunch of people in law enforcement sworn to uphold the law colluded to violate it.”
Attorney General William Barr claimed any actions taken by Durham won’t affect the 2020 election. Barr has stressed that former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Joe Biden, the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee, are not under criminal investigation. Democrats in the House and Senate have called for Horowitz to investigate Durham’s investigation.
Bartiromo also pressed Rubio about the Senate Intelligence Committee’s decision to block Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley from gaining access to witness interviews from his committee’s Russia inquiry.
“I wasn’t chairman at the time, but Sen. Burr and Sen. Warner told the witnesses that we won’t turn over your testimony to our committee unless you agree to that,” Rubio said, adding that if Grassley and Johnson “want to interview these people, they most certainly have the right to issue subpoenas and interview whoever they want.”
Johnson and Grassley are looking at the Trump-Russia investigation, and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham is also reviewing its origins, with fired FBI Director James Comey testifying before his panel on Sept. 30.
