Will Christopher Steele Be Charged in the UK as a Spy? by Publius Tacitus [UPDATE]

Do you want to know why the FBI continued to insist that the Nunes' memo not be declassified and released to the public? The answer is right there on page 2, (see 1b) in the discussion about what was excluded from the application to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court:

The application does not mention Steele was ultimately working on behalf of-and paid by-the DNC and Clinton campaign, or that the FBI had separately authorized payment to Steele for the same information.

I believe that the part in bold is what the FBI wanted out of the memo because it exposes the uncomfortable fact that Christopher Steele was (and had been for some time) a paid asset of the FBI. That is huge news. In other words, Steele was not a mere consultant or sub-contractor for the FBI. He was being paid to provide information/intelligence to the FBI. There are two classes of FBI "informants." One is serving as a "criminal informant" and the other is as an "intelligence asset." Information from "criminal informants" can be used in a U.S. judicial proceeding and the informant called as a witness. Getting money under that circumstance can be problematic because the source's credibility can be impeached by defense counsel, who can argue that the testimony is purloined.

You do not have to worry about that with an "intelligence asset." In that case the priority is protecting the identity of the source. The fact that Steele had been on the FBI payroll for a while sheds new light on Glen Simpson's testimony (which was leaked by Senator Feinstein) to the U.S. Senate. Simpson testified that Steele told him in late September 2016 that the FBI wanted to meet him in Rome to discuss the dossier.  That struck me initially as quite odd. If Steele was just acting as an average "foreign" citizen who was trying to help the FBI then he could easily have met with the Bureau in London. That city hosts the largest number of FBI agents in the world outside of the U.S. But Steele was asked to go meet in Rome. That's what you do when you are meeting an intelligence asset that the Brits do not know about.

That is the problem.

The United States and Great Britain have had a long standing "understanding" or informal agreement to not recruit each others intelligence and law enforcement personnel as intelligence assets. I chatted yesterday with an old intelligence hand (a U.S. person) who was approached by British MI 6 during a TDY to London. My friend rejected the come on and reported the approach to the CIA Chief of Station (aka COS).  The COS was angry with the Brits. They were not supposed to do that, nor are we.  But sometimes a target is so attractive that very high level permissions to break the agreements are given.

The real irony here is that the Schiff memo is likely to compound the problem for Steele because it is likely to highlight Steele's prior activities on behalf of the Bureau that predate the 2016 election cycle (remember, Steele was hired by Fusion GPS in June 2016). This is the issue that had FBI Director Wray's panties in a knot. When you sign up a foreign source you vow to protect them. When you expose such a source you make it more difficult to recruit new sources.

There may be another twist to this. Was Steele actually operating as an FBI intel asset with the secret knowledge of the Brits? In other words, was he a double agent or an agent of influence? One way to tell will be watching the reaction of the U.K. authorities now that they know that Steele was a paid FBI informant. Imagine the outrage here if one of the former CIA or FBI talking heads that are appearing on punditry circuit was exposed as someone getting paid by the Russian version of the FBI or CIA. It would be ugly.

The media (and the trolls on this blog) are working feverishly to ignored the uncomfortable truths exposed by the so-called Nunes memo. But facts are stubborn things and more facts will be exposed.

UPDATE--Based on some confused comments by our friend The Twisted Genius aka TTG, I need to provide more of the Nunes memo to establish that Steele in fact was a source. According to that memo:

. . .Steele was suspended and then terminated as an FBI source for what the FBI defines as the most serious of violations-an unauthorized disclosure to the media of his relationship with the FBI in an October 30, 2016, Mother Jones article by David Corn. 

If this was a simple matter of Steele, having no official relationship with the FBI, simply reaching out to an old friend to pass on information, then TTG would be right to assert that Steele was not a source. But that is clearly not the case. The FBI can only suspend and terminate a source relationship if that person is a source. Very simple.

Let's take a quick look at the article by Corn that got Steele terminated. The Corn piece was part of an orchestrated media campaign (we know that from Simpson's testimony that was leaked by Diane Feinstein) in order to put pressure on the FBI and James Comey, who had just announced that new Clinton emails had been found on Anthony Weiner's laptop. Corn wrote:

• On Sunday, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid upped the ante. He sent Comey a fiery letter saying the FBI chief may have broken the law and pointed to a potentially greater controversy: “In my communications with you and other top officials in the national security community, it has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government…The public has a right to know this information.”. . .
• But Reid’s recent note hinted at more than the Page or Manafort affairs. And a former senior intelligence officer for a Western country who specialized in Russian counterintelligence tells Mother Jones that in recent months he provided the bureau with memos, based on his recent interactions with Russian sources, contending the Russian government has for years tried to co-opt and assist Trump—and that the FBI requested more information from him. . . .
• [A] senior US government official not involved in this case but familiar with the former spy tells Mother Jones that he has been a credible source with a proven record of providing reliable, sensitive, and important information to the US government.
• In June, the former Western intelligence officer—who spent almost two decades on Russian intelligence matters and who now works with a US firm that gathers information on Russia for corporate clients—was assigned the task of researching Trump’s dealings in Russia and elsewhere, according to the former spy and his associates in this American firm. . . .
• “It started off as a fairly general inquiry,” says the former spook, who asks not to be identified. But when he dug into Trump, he notes, he came across troubling information indicating connections between Trump and the Russian government. According to his sources, he says, “there was an established exchange of information between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin of mutual benefit.” . . .
• This was, the former spy remarks, “an extraordinary situation.” He regularly consults with US government agencies on Russian matters, and near the start of July on his own initiative—without the permission of the US company that hired him—he sent a report he had written for that firm to a contact at the FBI, according to the former intelligence officer and his American associates, who asked not to be identified. . . .
• The former intelligence officer says the response from the FBI was “shock and horror.” The FBI, after receiving the first memo, did not immediately request additional material, according to the former intelligence officer and his American associates. Yet in August, they say, the FBI asked him for all information in his possession and for him to explain how the material had been gathered and to identify his sources. The former spy forwarded to the bureau several memos—some of which referred to members of Trump’s inner circle. After that point, he continued to share information with the FBI.

There you have it. The story was right in front of us. What is reported in the Nunes memo is consistent with David Corn's article and with what Glen Simpson testified under oath to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Comments

[Sid Finster]

Honestly, I don't think it matters. Steele and Strzok could give sworn public testimony that they invented Russiagate out of whole cloth and fabricated all of the so-called "evidence" and those who want to believe in Russiagate will, stagger, spin frantically, and go right back to believing.

I talka bout "cognitive dissonance" a lot and believe me, I wish I knew what it takes to make people wake the [FAMILY BLOG] up, but there are entire religions based on cognitive dissonance.

[Sid Finster]

Power attracts sociopaths the way catnip attracts cats, or cocaine attracts addicts.

To put it another way: if power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, absolute power also attracts the kind of people who have no business having power.

People will try to get around any law, even a law made in the best and most nobly-intentioned faith. This includes those responsible for enforcing the law.

[Cvillereader]

I would not exclude the possibility that Page, as well as Manafort and Papadopoulos, were plants.

The previous FBI case that Page was involved with did not end until May 2016, which I think is after he became involved with the Trump campaign.

Manafort and Papadopoulos both have connections to shady figures in Ukraine.

And now we are beginning to hear that Victoria Nuland May have steered Steele toward the FBI.

I have no doubt that Obama’s State Department might have been concerned about damaging information held by Putin on its activities.

[turcopolier]

Dr. Puck

They may lie to cover their own previous participation in such activities. pl

[Flavius]

Steele's credibility and reliability are peripheral to appraising the quality of the PC in the affidavit. The critical question has to do with whether Steele's alleged Russian sources were credible and reliable. It would be mind boggling if the Agents handling Steele did not demand to know the identities of his sources so that the information could be characterized for the purposes of the affidavit. Regardless of who was paying Steele, and how many times he was being paid for the same info, and how and to whom he was distributing the info, the quality of his information can not be properly assessed until it is known from whom it came, how it came to be known, and the circumstances under which it was acquired. Unless that was known, it never ahould have been considered to be actionable.
This raises the interesting question of whether our Gov't has any obligation of confidentiality with respect to Steele's alleged sources - off the top of my head, I would think not.
With respect to the Carter Page info, deficient probable cause can be multiplied endlessly by events and by sources and it still doesn't come to pass the threshold of probable cause. In fact, I would look on throwing in the kitchen sink as a sign of something disingenuous going on.
I can think of no valid reason why the FBI and the DoJ would not want to charge Steele with lying to the FBI if it can be demonstrated that he lied to them, particularly in so important a matter. With regard to investigating the provenance of his alleged sources to sustain the charge, there will surely be some severe practical difficulties. Steele is likely relying on those. Possibly they might consider Steele to be a material witness in a wider prosecutorial framework.
It is all very much a mess.

[SmoothieX12]

She was identified in Swiss court as an SVR officer who recruited a high level Swiss law enforcement officer.

Identified by who? From what is known about her--a typical murky raider lawyer with pretty well-off hubby. Do you use "recruitment" instead of bribing or corrupting? While not mutually exclusive, one has to really question motivations.

[RK]

Re: "If Page was an FBI accomplice, there would have been no need for a FISA warrant. Page would have just worn a wire or the digital equivalent of a wire. I covered that in a comment in my last post."

In which case, why all these, why all these Title I vs Title VII vs whatever?!

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/02/05/in-march-2016-carter-page-was-an-fbi-employee-in-october-2016-fbi-told-fisa-court-hes-a-spy/

and this?!

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/02/06/carter-page-interview-with-laura-ingraham/

[Anna]

Schiff is comical? -- Yes. "http://theduran.com/adam-schiff-exposed-putin-puppet-2013-rt-interview-video/ "Adam Schiff exposed as Putin puppet in 2013 RT interview" (Video)
Who would think that Adam Schiff is a progeny of the main financier of the Bolshevik revolution, Jakob Schiff: http://www.wildboar.net/multilingual/easterneuropean/russian/literature/articles/whofinanced/whofinancedleninandtrotsky.html
"One of the greatest myths of contemporary history is that the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia was a popular uprising of the downtrodden masses against the hated ruling class of the Tsars. As we shall see, however, the planning, the leadership and especially the financing came entirely from outside Russia, mostly from financiers in Germany, Britain and the United States. ... This amazing story begins with the war between Russia and Japan in 1904. Jacob Schiff, who was head of the New York investment firm Kuhn, Loeb and Company, had raised the capital for large war loans to Japan. It was due to this funding that the Japanese were able to launch a stunning attack against the Russians at Port Arthur and the following year to virtually decimate the Russian fleet. In 1905 the Mikado awarded Jacob Schiff a medal, the Second Order of the Treasure of Japan, in recognition of his important role in that campaign... On March 23, 1917 a mass meeting was held at Carnegie Hall to celebrate the abdication of Nicolas II, which meant the overthrow of Tsarist rule in Russia. Thousands of socialists, Marxists, nihilists nand anarchists attended to cheer the event. The following day there was published on page two of the New York Times a telegram from Jacob Schiff, which had been read to this audience. He expressed regrets, that he could not attend and then described the successful Russian revolution as "...what we had hoped and striven for these long years". In the February 3, 1949 issue of the New York Journal, American Schiff's grandson, John, was quoted by columnist Cholly Knickerbocker as saying that his grandfather had given about $20 million for the triumph of Communism in Russia."-- What a family!

[pj]

There's an old lawyer joke that comes to mind as I listen to the D's responses to the Nunes memo. "When the facts are against you, pound the law. If the law is against you, pound the facts. If both are against you, pound the table."

[Eric Newhill]

Sid,
IMO, It matters that Adam Schiff's sister is married to George Soros' son and that Soros was a major donor to Schiff's campaign.

The big players begin to look like pawns.

[SmoothieX12]

Regardless of who was paying Steele, and how many times he was being paid for the same info, and how and to whom he was distributing the info, the quality of his information can not be properly assessed until it is known from whom it came, how it came to be known, and the circumstances under which it was acquired. Unless that was known, it never ahould have been considered to be actionable.

Situational and tactical awareness 101. You got that right. Information is not a knowledge--two are totally different things. I do, however, have one objection--NO, it is NOT regardless who were paying Steele, in fact--it is a crucial matter and that is what Nunes Memo was about and did--it anchored the issue where it should be anchored and around which this whole affair will continue to revolve, as it should--preprogrammed fallacy, in fact politics-driven bogus of an "intelligence". The very notion that surveillance was initiated based on the outright fabrication is the real scandal. That is why Dens were going apoplectic. It is damn difficult now to sink the issue in procedural and legalistic BS once the Memo is nailed to the doors of a "cathedral". As for Steele, I hope he is now well-guarded from possible slip on a banana skin and accidentally falling, seven times in a row, on a knife he was carrying, accidentally, of course. But then again, 10-15 shots from 9-mm to own head is also a very popular homicide method.

[Thomas]

"I have no doubt that Obama’s State Department might have been concerned about damaging information held by Putin on its activities."

Yep, when you are in charge of the state administration there is all sorts of information available to you, such as radar and communication records for a country along your border or all the info gained thanks to a lazy federal official's lack of concern for security over convenience.

[Jack]

TTG

In your comment #34 you note the DNI claim of Russian interference in the election. That is not the issue here. The issue here is the narrative sold by Clapper, Brennan, Hillary Clinton and the media that Trump colluded with the Russian government to steal the presidential election. And the related issue of surveillance of the Trump campaign.

That and the firing of Comey is the core basis for the appointment of Mueller. Comey claimed he was fired for investigating the Trump collusion, which lead to ginned up hysteria.

Why is everyone conflating Russian interference in the election with the allegations of Trump's collusion with the Russian government? They are two different matters. The question that needs to be answered is if the latter allegations and the subsequent FBI investigation of Trump and his campaign were based on legitimate evidence or for partisan political purposes?

It seems to me that you too are conflating these two matters. What exactly is your position on the collusion allegations and the law enforcement and IC narrative on that matter? Why are the DOJ and FBI obstructing the Congressional investigation into the activities of the FBI, DOJ and the IC relating to their investigation of Trump and his campaign? The Nunes memo and the evidence it is based on is about the FBI and DOJ investigation of the Trump campaign. It has nothing to do with if Russia interfered in our election. In fact other than the DNI report there has been no evidence presented by the IC validating the claim of Russian interference.

If we have to have a more sane discussion and not talk past each other, IMO, we must separate the two issues of Russian interference from Trump's collusion allegation and the resultant IC/law enforcement investigation.

[robt willmann]

Well, the House Intel Committee memo, Republican version, says on page 2, lines 7-8:

"Steele was a longtime FBI source who was paid over $160,000 by the DNC and Clinton campaign [etc.]..."

That is pretty clear: "Steele was a longtime FBI source ...." How long, one might wonder?

Joe100,

Carter Page does appear to be a little odd. He enthusiastically shows up for multiple television interviews grinning quite a bit and seemingly without a care in the world.

The memo has obviously been edited down. The first neon sign I saw was on page 1: "The FBI and DOJ obtained one initial FISA warrant targeting Carter Page and three FISA renewals from the FISC". A FISA order must be renewed every 90 days. Four times 90 is 360 days. Day one was 21 October 2016, the memo tells us. Donald Trump was elected president on 8 November 2016. He was sworn in on 20 January 2017. Carter Page was under surveillance until October 2017, a little over three months ago. On what grounds? Who was he talking to or communicating with, other than the hosts of television shows?

The memo creates the impression that the Steele paper was used in each of the four FISA applications, but that is not completely clear.

Furthermore, the memo clearly says that James Comey signed three FISA applications in question and Andrew McCabe signed one. But when it comes to the Justice Department lawyers, the language gets vague: Sally Yates, Dana Boente, and Rod Rosenstein "each signed one or more FISA applications on behalf of DOJ". Why not say the exact number each one signed? Is the memo talking only about the four Carter Page applications or other additional applications with respect to the DOJ lawyers?

[Richardstevenhack]

Second the recommendation to read Mercouris' piece which I referred to in an earlier thread. It's a masterpiece which is very precise in analyzing the exact legal words of the GOP memo.

Today Alexander has posted a more speculative analysis of the Lindsay/Grassley referral letter which asks the DoJ if Steele should be hit with possible criminal charges.

Grassley’s, Lindsey Graham’s referral on Steele: did US media, Clinton campaign provide content for Trump Dossier?
http://theduran.com/grassley-lindsey-graham-referral-steele-us-media-clinton-campaign-trump-dossier/

The referral letter - which is heavily redacted and thus set out in full in Alexander's piece - suggests that not only did Steele use unverifiable information allegedly from Russia, but ALSO very likely received additional unverified information along the course of the production of his reports which may - may not - have originated from associates of the Clintons. Alexander points to the Cory Shearer "second dossier" as a likely example.

Steele may also have received and included in his reports unsolicitied information from media sources.

Mercouris points out that all this - if proven - would render the Steele dossier even less credible than it is. And it would tar both the media and the Clinton campaign as having contributed to the "constitutional crisis" it seems to be shaping up to.

[Richardstevenhack]

"If you accept the DNI ICA on Russian interference in the election a lot Steele's stuff has panned out."

Of course, if one accepts the DNI ICA after Scott Ritter ripped it a new one, one is obviously willing to believe anything Clapper, Brennan and the rest of these serial liars tell one.

Denying the concept of a "vast Russain conspiracy to use Pokemon to influence the election" is just common sense.

See, I can write snark, too.

[blue peacock]

Jack

You make an important distinction that is being lost in these discussions.

It is well known that Russia runs intelligence operations in the US, just like the US does in Russia. I assume Col. Lang, TTG and Publius Tacitus ran spooks & intelligence operations in the Soviet bloc. And probably Putin did the same in the NATO bloc. This has been going on for decades and is nothing new.

What is new is the hysteria surrounding the loss of the election by Hillary Clinton and the attempt to explain the loss to Trump's collusion with the Russian government. This narrative as you point out was sold hard by Clapper, Brennan, et al and the complicit media who were convinced of Hilary's win.

This controversy is about very specific questions around the investigation of Trump and his campaign for their alleged collusion with the Russian government. And additionally, there are specific questions about the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton's mishandling of classified information. That is the crux. How were these two separate investigations by the same people at the FBI & DOJ run?

The Congressional Republicans want to learn more about these two investigations. The DOJ, FBI, the IC, the Democrats and the media want to sweep the truth of these two investigations under the rug. What many Americans want to know is, was there a conspiracy against a national presidential candidate and a legitimately elected POTUS by a previous administration from a rival party? What role if any did partisan bias play in these two investigations?

I agree with you that we ought to have two separate discussions. One, did the Russians interfere in our election and if so, how did they do it and what impact did it have? Two, was there a conspiracy against presidential candidate Trump and a President-elect Trump by the Obama administration? If so, who participated in it and how did they do it?

[SmoothieX12]

Mercouris points out that all this - if proven - would render the Steele dossier even less credible than it is.

I would go on a limb here and even state that Steele's "contacts" or "network", rezidentura or whatever in Russia where he was stationed in 1990-92 are almost predictable and they are worthless by now. So, whenever the term "sources" in Russian "government" are used I kinda have a feeling that those are the same "sources" who constitute main foreign contributors to American (and British) "Russian Studies" field--rather a wasteland of propaganda cliches and memes. There is also a really interesting Ukrainian angle in all that. But you see, even Lindsey Graham could be sometimes of some utility, not that it is his integrity speaking.;-)

[Cvillereader]

There is definitely something off about Carter Page’s demeanor.

His life story, as has been reported, also seems bereft of a lot of details.

We know that he has a master’s degree from Georgetown, an MBA from NYU, and a PhD from University of London.

He reportedly worked for Merrill Lynch in Moscow, and then started his own consulting firm.

The press hasn’t been able to find one person that either remembers him, or has anything positive to say about him. And there are no reports of a family of any type.

All of this seems out of place for someone who did very well at the Naval Academy, and was s member of the CFR.

In an interview last week, Nunes said that Page should never have been the subject of a FISA warrant, and had not held a job for several years.

How exactly has Page supported himself, including his extensive obtaining multiple advanced degrees?

He almost sounds like a caricature of the gray man.

[Account Deleted]

Jack

This cannot be said enough. The 'Russian interference' narrative was a non story right from the beginning. The 'Trump collusion' narrative on the other hand is the mother of all stories; both for those who take it at face value and in a different sense, for those of us who question its origin and motivations. Conflation of the two must not be tolerated.

[VietnamVet]

All

I second the thanks for the public service that PT & TTG are providing by sharing their expertise. I admit I am confused. I’ve decided that is the intention. The GOP memo documents that the FISA court is a highly unjust Star Chamber. The same congressmen who declassified this memo passed the FISA extension just weeks before knowing this. No wonder the author Trey Gowdy is not seeking re-election. If there had been any factual basis to Russiagate, it would have been released by now, a year later. This supports the contention that there is an intelligence community/media counter coup underway against Donald Trump. The Memo joins the list of proofs that the rule of law is dead in America.

[DianaLC]

Hmmmm.....with this group of Democrats, especially their last candidate for POTUS, I think you might be thinking "shades of Vince Foster."

I know, I know....he killed himself.

[Keith Harbaugh]

Regarding Susan B. Glasser,
I think it is worth noting that she seems to be a real Putin-hater,
as indicated in this book review:
"Putin’s Russia, guided by its totalitarian past, has no future"
review by Susan B. Glasser of Masha Gessen’s The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia.
Washington Post Book World, 2017-10-24
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/putins-russia-guided-by-its-totalitarian-past-has-no-future/2017/10/04/0c6a43f8-9fb0-11e7-9c8d-cf053ff30921_story.html

Further, although some will no doubt think this should not be mentioned,
I think it is worth noting that Ms. Glasser is Jewish.
Not that there is anything wrong with that,
but it is worth noting how many of the Russophobes in America seem to be of that ethnicity.
More than one would expect by random chance.

[wisedupearly Ceo]

So many rabbit holes and apparently all that guides which hole is taken is personal bias.
Has GOWDY stated that the warrant was issued illegally?
Would the one memo 2016/94 be sufficient to issue a warrant? I am assuming that at least some part of that memo could be verified.
Remember that the submission is not to find PAGE guilty of some crime and jail him.

One point. STEELE is a known MI5 officer. He has a track record. He is reporting what his contacts told him. If he is lying, if the "information/disinformation" in even just one of the memos was provided by a third party and STEELE does not know the sources claimed in the memo, then all of the dossier must be dropped. If one of STEELE's sources lied to him, does that render the remaining items suspect? I think not.
This is not like the CURVEBALL scandal where all key "proof" for WMD was derived from the testimony of one source, STEELE claims that there were many sources.

Would not want to be the FBI's contact with STEELE, or indeed anyone in the intel community. Its damned if you do act and damned if you don't act.

[turcopolier]

Wised up early CEO

You alaways have a choice. pl