James Baker – the Obama FBI’s top attorney (general counsel) said on Friday that he was skeptical about the Steele dossier, and “concerned” about its veracity when the agency received it prior to the 2016 US election, according to the Daily Caller‘s Chuck Ross.
“It was more information that we viewed, that I viewed, skeptically from the outset, and I was concerned about it and had a jaundiced eye, or looked at it with a jaundiced eye right from the outset,” Baker told MSNBC‘s Chuck Todd, adding “Steele was and had been a source that we thought was reliable. He’s reporting all this information. It looks alarming. We took it seriously, but we tried to vet it.”
The dossier – a collection of memos compiled by an ex-British spy funded by Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign and the DNC – was used by the FBI to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant to spy on Trump campaign aide Carter Page. Steele alleged that Page provided the Trump campaign a Kremlin backchannel during the election.
Baker also told Todd that he thinks the FISA warrants against Page would have been granted without the dossier, and took a pregnant pause when asked if the dossier was used to obtain FISA warrants on other people – saying “I don’t think I should comment on that, I’m not sure what else the government has confirmed,” and adding “I don’t want to confirm or deny anything about other potential FISA applications.” – READ MORE