John McCain aide spread Steele dossier around Washington during Trump's presidential transitionWashington Times, Mar 14, 2019
David Kramer, the then-Sen. John McCain aide who leaked the discredited Christopher Steele dossier on President Trump, testified in a libel case that he spread the unsubstantiated anti-Trump material all over Washington during the presidential transition.
Mr. Steele, a former British spy, testified in the same case that he relied on an internet gossip page to try to verify one of his key charges.
Mr. Kramer, a former State Department official and a Trump detractor, leaked the Democrat-financed dossier material to The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post’s Fred Hiatt, CNN’s Carl Bernstein, National Public Radio, McClatchy news service and others, he said during his deposition in the libel case.
But his most momentous meeting was with Ken Bensinger of BuzzFeed. In Washington during the Christmastime holidays, he let Mr. Bensinger read the dossier. He then stepped away.
The reporter took cellphone photos. They ended up on Jan. 10, 2017, on BuzzFeed’s website, forever changing political history.
“He said he wanted to read them, he asked me if he could take photos of them on his — I assume it was an iPhone,†Mr. Kramer told the court in a libel case brought against BuzzFeed by a Russian entrepreneur.
U.S. District Court in Miami unsealed court files Thursday, marking the first time Mr. Kramer’s version of events has become public.
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