Have you been given any assurances about when or if your version of events will be made public? SHAPIRO: Of course, you and the Democrats on the committee have a rebuttal memo, which is still classified, and House Speaker Paul Ryan has said he supports releasing it. The Congress shouldn't be cherry-picking intelligence and publishing it for political reasons. The procedure they used to publish this document has never been used before, and for good reason. It's really not only reckless, but misleading for them to do this. None of that is laid out in this document.Īnd the FBI and the Department of Justice are quite right. And there was a lot of other information presented about Carter Page, who had come to the attention of the FBI years before he had any affiliation with the Trump campaign, in connection with a Russian intelligence operation in New York. There were portions of the work that Christopher Steele did that there were pertinent to Carter Page that were included, and some were corroborated. And not only was there other evidence beside the Steele dossier, the way they characterize it as if the entire Steele dossier, including the salacious allegations of this video, were somehow submitted to the FISA court - that's not correct. SHAPIRO: So are you saying there was other evidence besides the Steele dossier that went into the FISA application? Now, you can imagine with any lengthy document you can pull a piece here and you can pull a piece there and you can use it to paint a portrait that would be critical of whoever wrote the document. But the bigger problem is it gives you only cherry-picked facts from the FISA application. Now, there are some things that are in the memo that are just plain false.
SCHIFF: Well, the biggest offense, frankly, is all that this leaves out. What are the biggest offenses in your view? SHAPIRO: You've read the intelligence behind this memo, and you've said the final product that was made public today has dramatic omissions and Distortions.
Congressman Schiff, welcome.ĪDAM SCHIFF: Thank you. The memo says biased FBI agents didn't disclose that the evidence they used to get a warrant came out of paid Democratic opposition research, and that the former British spy who compiled that opposition research was, quote, "desperate that Trump not get elected."ĭemocrats and the intelligence community strongly objected to the release of this memo, including Adam Schiff, the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, who joins us now. This would be the memo from Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee alleging that the FBI and Justice Department abused surveillance powers to target the Trump campaign and to spy on Trump adviser Carter Page. Today the White House authorized its declassification, and now the memo is out. Danchenko was accused of lying to the FBI regarding his sources for some claims in the dossier, in a grand jury indictment obtained by Special Counsel John Durham.ĭurham was assigned by former Attorney General William Barr to probe the origins of the FBI’s Russia investigation.Three days ago, the president said he would release it 100 percent. Intelligence.”Ī primary contributor to the Steele dossier, Igor Danchenko, was arrested last Thursday by federal authorities. Schiff noted in his statement that Steele “is reportedly held in high regard by U.S. The dossier, compiled by former British agent Christopher Steele, contained unproven allegations that hinted the Donald Trump presidential campaign was working with Russia to defeat then-Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. “No, I just think your credibility is,” Ortagus responded.Īt a March 2017 Congressional hearing on Russian actions during the 2016 election, Schiff drew on parts of the Steele dossier for his opening statement. “None of serious misconduct is undercut or diminished by the fact that people lied to Christopher Steele,” Schiff added. We couldn’t have known, for example, that people were lying to Christopher Steele,” Schiff said. “At the beginning of the Russia investigation, I said that any allegations should be investigated.
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