FBI, warned early and often that Manafort file might be fake, used it anyway
By John Solomon, opinion contributor — 06/19/19 10:30 AM EDT
When the final chapter of the Russia collusion caper is written, it is likely two seminal documents the FBI used to justify investigating Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign will turn out to be bunk.
And the behavior of FBI agents and federal prosecutors who promoted that faulty evidence may disturb us more than we now know.
The first, the Christopher Steele dossier, has received enormous attention. And the more scrutiny it receives, the more its truthfulness wanes. Its credibility has declined so much that many now openly question how the FBI used it to support a surveillance warrant against the Trump campaign in October 2016.
At its best, the Steele dossier is an “unverified and salacious†political research memo funded by Trump’s Democratic rivals. At worst, it may be Russian disinformation worthy of the “garbage†label given it by esteemed reporter Bob Woodward.
The second document, known as the “black cash ledger,†remarkably has escaped the same scrutiny, even though its emergence in Ukraine in the summer of 2016 forced Paul Manafort to resign as Trump campaign chairman and eventually face U.S. indictment.
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https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/449206-fbi-warned-early-and-often-that-manafort-file-might-be-fake-used-it-anyway
