Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said Sunday he is working on declassifying a bombshell document that proves authorities knew the Steele dossier lacked credibility.
"There's a document that's classified that I'm gonna try to get unclassified that takes the dossier -- all the pages of it -- and it has verification to one side," Graham told Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo. "There really is no verification, other than media reports that were generated by reporters that received the dossier."
The FBI used the dossier from Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer, as justification for surveilling Carter Page, a former Trump aide.
"So, the bottom line is the dossier has never been independently confirmed,” Graham said. “It was used to get a warrant. They knew the author of the dossier was on the Democrat Party payroll. He hated Trump; they got the warrant anyway. Most Americans should be very upset about that. I'm very upset about it. And we're going to get to the bottom of it."
Graham specifically cited the report from The Hill's John Solomon that the FBI was expressly told that Steele, the bureau's confidential informant, had admitted to a contact at the State Department that he was "keen" to leak his discredited dossier for purposes of influencing the 2016 election. Steele also acknowledged that his dossier was funded by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Hillary Clinton campaign.
"Christopher Steele was trying to leak it to everybody," Graham said.
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec’s written account of her Oct. 11, 2016, meeting with Steele was apparently sent to the FBI, according to records unearthed in a transparency lawsuit by Citizens United. Nevertheless, the FBI included claims in Steele's dossier in its successful FISA warrant application to monitor Page. (FoxNews.com)
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"But-for the dossier, there would be no warrant against Carter Page," Graham said. "The meeting on Oct. 11 was 10 days before the FISA warrant application. So the FBI was on notice that their confidential informant went to the Department of State to urge the Department of State to take the dossier and leak it to the public to affect the election. That's about as sick as it gets."
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