In the fall of 2016 just before the presidential election, then FBI Director James Comey informed Republican candidate Donald Trump they had received "materials" alleging salacious misconduct by the business man. Comey warned the candidate the information could be used as blackmail.
Those "materials" Comey referred to was the now infamous and fake Russian dossier put together by British spy Christopher Steele. Steele was paid for the "opposition research" by the Clinton campaign and the DNC.
When Comey briefed Trump, he knew where the funding for the dossier came from but failed to disclose those facts at the time.
"Did you tell him that the Steele dossier had been financed by his political opponents?" ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos asked in an interview set to air this weekend.
"No. I didn’t," Comey responded.
"But did he have a right to know that?" Stephanopoulos followed up.
"That it had been financed by his political opponents? I don't know the answer to that," Comey said.
As a reminder, it wasn't publicly revealed until well into 2017, after Trump was elected, that the dossier was funded by Team Clinton. Further, Hillary Clinton herself denied multiple times any involvement or connection to the dossier.
Hillary Clinton was unaware of the now-infamous dossier of allegations about Donald Trump and Russia prior to Buzzfeed's publishing of the document earlier this year, a source familiar with the matter has told CNN.
Clinton was disappointed that the research from the document was not made public before she lost the 2016 election, the source said.
The New York Times first reported on Wednesday that Clinton didn't know about the dossier until it was published, citing two associates who discussed the matter with her.
The news comes a day after the law firm representing the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee acknowledged it helped fund opposition research on President Donald Trump that ultimately resulted in the dossier.
When Clinton got caught funding it and therefore lying about the dossier, she and her team justified the move as "opposition research." During her justification, she issued a number of additional falsehoods.
Not surprisingly, Clinton misrepresented the original hiring of Fusion GPS by a Republican donor. That donor was Peter Singer, who hired the firm on behalf of the Washington Free Beacon to do research on all of the GOP candidates during the primary, including Trump. Fusion GPS did not employ Christopher Steele, a British spy, to do any of this work. When the Clinton campaign hired Fusion GPS after Trump won, Steele was hired and worked with Russian officials to come up the infamous and salacious dossier.
Keep in mind the Clinton campaign and DNC officials have denied paying for the dossier for nearly a year, but were forced into an admission after a subpoena from House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes revealed both entities had in fact employed Fusion GPS to create the dossier.
Tonight at 11/10c, Trevor and Hillary Clinton discuss the Steele dossier and Trump's ties to Russia. pic.twitter.com/dxJoAPTj8D
— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) November 1, 2017
Comey's book, A Higher Loyalty, comes out next week.
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