The FBI filed its first application for a FISA warrant on Carter Page on October 21, 2016. According to the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General review, the application was based in relevant part on the Steele Dossier that it had obtained the previous month.
The OIG review determined that the FBI omitted many material facts from the application. In addition to the previously identified omissions, we now learn that the FBI also omitted it had offered Christopher Steele up to $1,000,000 for any information that would support the veracity of the dossier — and that Steele had nothing to offer at that time or any time thereafter.
We learned this only yesterday at the first day of trial in the case brought against Steele sub-source and FBI confidential human source Igor Danchenko by Special Counsel John Durham. The Examiner’s Jerry Dunleavy reports on the testimony elicited by Durham in his examination of FBI supervisory intelligence analyst Brian Auten here. Techno Fog provides excerpts of the trial transcript of Auten’s testimony here. Senators Grassley and Johnson have more on Danchenko here.
Regardless of what happens in the Danchenko case, the Durham investigation has proved something worse than a disappointment. It is more like a bust. That the parties fabricated the Russia hoax as well as those who furthered it within our national security establishment continue to enjoy the freedom to spout their lies somewhere outside the big house is sickening. Justice for their wrongdoing will never be rendered. Not even close.
UPDATE: At the moment I posted this NRO published Andrew McCarthy’s column “Durham Witness Drops Trial Bombshell: FBI Offered Steele $1M to Prove Dossier Claims” (behind NRO’s paywall). He concludes: “Igor Danchenko may well have lied to the FBI about two of his sources, as Durham has alleged. That is the focal point of the ongoing trial, but it is trivial compared to what the trial, in conjunction with information gathered during other investigations, is telling us about the FBI.”
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