The FBI formally documented the apparent anti-Trump bias of British ex-spy Christopher Steele shortly after the November 2016 presidential election — yet despite the red flags, continued to use his unverified dossier in multiple Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court warrant application renewals, records obtained by Fox News show.
The partially redacted documents, first obtained by Judicial Watch, also revealed that top Justice Department official Bruce Ohr maintained contact with Steele for at least six months after Steele was fired by the FBI for unauthorized media contacts in November 2016. The records further confirmed that Ohr knew of Steele’s anti-Trump bias before the 2016 election.
“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told Fox News’ “Hannity” Thursday evening. “I know personally there’s a lot more out there.”
The summaries of FBI interviews with Ohr, known as 302s, indicated that Ohr knew by September 2016 — a month before the initial FISA application to surveil the Trump campaign — that an individual with links to the dossier was “desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being the U.S. President.”
“Ohr believes [redacted] wanted to blunt or foil the Kremlin’s plans,” the FBI document continued, while recounting claims pushed by Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm behind the dossier that was funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee (DNC).
A source close to the matter told Fox News that “this had the effect of putting a senior DOJ official on notice that a witness/source had an extreme bias.” – READ MORE