Victoria Nuland (Credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images)
“Last month, during a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing, it was revealed for the first time that “[f]ormer British spy Christopher Steele visited the State Department in October 2016 and briefed officials there about his work on the infamous anti-Trump dossier.” During questioning of President Barack Obama’s assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, Victoria Nuland, committee Chairman Richard Burr disclosed that “[b]ased upon our review of the visitor logs at the State Department, Mr. Steele visited the State Department, briefing officials on the dossier in October 2016.”
Nuland, who in June 2016 had authorized the FBI to meet with Steele in London, denied attending the October 2016 meeting with Steele. She also “said in previous interviews that she and other State Department officials referred the dossier to the FBI,” but as The Daily Caller’s Chuck Ross noted, “Burr’s revelations suggest the agency maintained interest in Steele and his report much longer than previously known.”
Saturday’s release of the FISA applications now exposes a new troubling detail: The DOJ sought the FISA surveillance order based on the information provided “by the U.S. Department of State” “in or about October 2016.” When considered in light of last month’s revelation that Steele had met with State Department officials in October, it now appears that the Obama administration’s State Department bore equal responsibility for presenting the FISA court unverified hearsay to justify spying on the Trump campaign. (Read more: The Federalist, 07/23/2018) (Archive)
