FBI ‘had leak’ from Don camp
The former British intelligence agent who compiled the controversial dossier on Donald Trump said the FBI told him it had a “source” inside Trump’s campaign, according to a transcript of a Senate hearing released Tuesday.
Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson testified that when the agent, Christopher Steele, contacted the FBI about information he had that Russia was trying to interfere in the 2016 election, the feds said they found his claims credible.
“Essentially, what he told me was they had other intelligence about this matter from an internal Trump campaign source and that . . . they believed Chris at this point — that they believed Chris’ information might be credible because they had other intelligence that indicated the same thing,” Simpson told the Senate Judiciary Committee in August.
Simpson said Steele first approached the FBI in July 2016 to report what he thought was a crime — espionage and hacking into the computers of the Democratic National Committee. He also said Steele was concerned “whether . . . a political candidate was being blackmailed or had been compromised.”
The agency called Steele back in October after reports of Kremlin tampering in the election began to surface over the summer and told him they believed him, Simpson said.
Asked to identify the FBI’s source, Simpson declined — but, according to reports, his comments refer to an Australian official who had talked with Trump aide George Papadopoulos, who has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.
Simpson had asked Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the Republican head of the panel, to release the transcripts. Grassley did not do so, but on Tuesday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) publicly released the 312 pages of testimony.
Grassley’s spokesman said it’s “confounding” that Feinstein would release the transcript while an investigation is ongoing.
Meanwhile, President Trump’s filed a defamation suit Tuesday against BuzzFeed News for releasing the dossier.
“Enough is enough,” the lawyer, Michael Cohen, tweeted Tuesday night. “Just filed a defamation action against @BuzzFeedNews.”
A spokesperson for BuzzFeed News said the dossier’s “interest to the public is obvious.”