When the Steele dossier dropped in January 2017, there were a whole lot of questions.
Had the Trump campaign really colluded with Russia during the 2016 campaign? Did Moscow sway the election? Did that tape — you know, that tape — really exist?
Three-and-a-half years later, there are a whole host of other questions, none of which reflect so well on those who uncritically bought the narrative put forth in the dossier in the first place. We now know, of course, there was no collusion and that the Kremlin didn’t tamper with votes.
However, we now have to ask how much the FBI knew about how the dossier was opposition research. We have to wonder why BuzzFeed published the dossier in the first place when no other reputable media outlet would. And more importantly, we need to know why it seems like everyone on the other side — but not Trump, which at this point should be clear — colluded with Russia.
On his Friday show, conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh asked the same questions.
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This came in the wake of the revelation that Christopher Steele’s primary source had been investigated by the FBI for his suspected contact with Russian intelligence, according to Fox News.
“A footnote in the Inspector General’s report contains information, which up till now has been classified and redacted, bearing on the reliability of the Steele dossier,” Attorney General William Barr wrote in a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
“The FBI has declassified the relevant portion of the footnote, number 334, which states that ‘the Primary Sub-source was the subject of an FBI counterintelligence investigation from 2009 to 2011 that assessed his or her contacts with suspected Russian intelligence officers.’”
The news was originally broken by CBS News’ Catherine Herridge.
“The primary sub-source for the Steele dossier was deemed a possible ‘national security threat’ + the subject of 2009 FBI counter-intel probe. According to new records, those facts were known to Crossfire Hurricane team in December 2016,” she tweeted Thursday.
#Durham BREAKING: The primary sub-source for the Steele dossier was deemed a possible “national security threat” + the subject of 2009 FBI counter-intel probe. According to new records, those facts were known to Crossfire Hurricane team in December 2016. @LindseyGrahamSC pic.twitter.com/I6Gp4fv98C
— Catherine Herridge (@CBS_Herridge) September 24, 2020
“The source, folks … Trump was right,” Limbaugh said on his show Friday, according to a transcript on RushLimbaugh.com aptly titled, “Everybody Colluded with Russia — Except Trump!”
“Now, the Steele dossier, remember, there’s not a single thing in it that is true. There’s not an allegation,” Limbaugh said. “There’s not an assertion. There’s not a single word in it that is true. It is literally made up. The source for the Steele dossier was investigated by the FBI for being an asset for Russia.
“The guy had contacts in Russia. Trump has been right about this from the get-go. The FBI knew the Steele dossier was bogus. They knew there was nothing to it. They still went and got FISA warrants. But what this news is today, is the sub-source — which really is not the deal. He’s the primary source. This guy’s actually the primary source. This is the guy that fed Steele the BS. So in a way, he’s actually the primary source,” he continued.
“They call him the sub-source because Steele’s name is on the dossier, so he is presumed to be the primary source. But he was fed this stuff by a Russian agent, a Russian asset.”
The source was identified by journalist Paul Sperry as Igor Danchenko, who once worked for the Brookings Institution, a liberal think tank.
BREAKING: FBI relied on information from a suspected Russian spy to spy on a US citizen–Trump adviser Carter Page–and finger HIM as a Russian spy. The FBI had opened a counter-intel investigation on Igor Danchenko yet never told FISA court while using his disinformation on Page
— Paul Sperry (@paulsperry_) September 25, 2020
The fact that the source had previously been probed by the FBI was known to the team investigating alleged Russian collusion in December 2016, “which means that Obama knew about it,” Limbaugh said. “They knew that somebody who had been investigated as a Russian spy attempting to undermine the United States was the primary source.”
In July, Fox News had already reported that authorities knew the information the source provided the FBI was “second and third-hand information and rumors at best.”
Limbaugh thought it was significantly worse than that.
Were the people behind the Steele dossier responsible for Russian collusion?
“They knew he was a liar, they knew he made things up out of whole cloth, and they still went to get [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] warrants based on this guy and Steele,” Limbaugh said.
“They knew it was all lies! Adam Schiff, everybody knew. We’re just now finding out ourselves. This sub-source, Ukraine,” he said. “Remember, it turns out this guy worked closely with Lieutenant Colonel — O say can you see — Vindman, who was a good friend of the whistleblower.”
Why is Steele’s dossier still important, though?
As Limbaugh pointed out, “the FBI never told the FISA court about the investigation of this Russian spy that took place between 2009 and 2011. The FBI withheld that information. They continued to re-up their applications at the FISA court to surveil Carter Page and the Trump campaign. The FBI vouched for information supplied by a suspected Russian agent.
“They knew that he was lying. They knew he was a Russian asset,” he said. “The same FBI that tried to tell how horrible it was that Trump was involving the Russians in our elections. They were. The FBI, MI5, MI6 in the U.K. My lord, folks, I mean, these people were so thick and into it with Russians, that it’s even a bigger crime what they did to Mike Flynn.”
And not only that, they’ve used it to hijack the narrative for years.
Limbaugh may have put it best at the outset: “Folks, I am of the opinion that it looks to me like everybody in that town was colluding with the Russians except for Trump. For crying out loud.”
Hillary Clinton’s campaign, the Obama administration, the FBI, Christopher Steele — they all had Russian collusion on their hands.
But because it was meant to prevent Trump from winning the election, it was apparently the good kind of collusion — or at least, that’s what the left would have you believe.
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