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CAccording to a new report, hristopher Steele, author of the case that played a key role in the Trump-Russia investigation, will not help the Attorney General William Barr's investigation of investigators.
The investigative firm of Steele, a source close to Orbis Business Intelligence, told Reuters that the former British spy "would not cooperate" with US prosecutor John Durham, to whom Barr has entrusted the task of reviewing the origins of the counter-intelligence investigation. President Trump's presidential campaign and the way the Justice Department and the FBI conducted the investigation.
This revelation came a few days after the Trump order told Barr that he "had the authority to declassify the information" and ordered the intelligence community to "cooperate quickly and fully with the Attorney General's investigation into the surveillance activities conducted during the 2016 presidential election ". Durham because he "was looking for someone who is tenacious, who has the habit of looking at sensitive documents involving government activities, who has a reputation for being fair and impartial."
Neither the Department of Justice nor Steele's affairs reacted immediately to the Washington ExaminerRequest for comments. The Durham office said it has no comment at the moment.
According to the report, Steele "could cooperate" with the independent investigation of the Inspector General of the Ministry of Justice, Michael Horowitz, reporting a change in mentality of Steele. In April, Politico had announced that Steele had "refused to be questioned by the Inspector General, citing in particular the potential impropriety of his involvement in an internal investigation of the Ministry of Justice as a foreign national and former British intelligence agent ". could even "refute the qualifications of the Inspector General" with a public statement.
Since the beginning of 2018, Horowitz has been studying the potential abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and is taking a close interest in the possible misuse of Steele's unchecked record by the GM and the FBI. . Barr said that the Horowitz survey should be completed in May or June.
Steele cooperated with the investigation of the special advocate Robert Mueller on the Russian interference investigation in the 2016 election and presented a written testimony to the Intelligence Committee of the Senate.
According to an April New York Times report, the FBI reportedly contacted some foreign sources of Steele in an attempt to determine their credibility. As of January 2017, agents had concluded that certain elements of the file could be based on "rumors". and hearsay "that has been" passed from source to source ". The agents felt that some of the information provided by Steele could even be based on "Russian misinformation".
Steele's file, which contained unverified claims about Trump's ties to Russia, was a key element of the FISA applications used to justify warrants of surveillance against Trump's former campaign advisor, Carter Page. Steele worked for Fusion GPS, which received funding from the Clinton campaign's Perkins Coie law firm and the Democratic National Committee. Steele's Democratic benefactors have not been revealed to the Foreign Intelligence Oversight Court.
This month, Barr said that "it is very unusual to conduct opposition research like this – especially a case that at first sight had a number of errors." net and a somewhat juvenile analysis. "James Comey and former FBI General Counsel James Baker have been defending their case over the last few weeks.
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