By Rowan Scarborough - The Washington Times - Sunday, February 4, 2018
The FBI officially authorized payments to Christopher Steele, who wrote the infamous Trump-Russia dossier, but then fired the former British spy for lying to agents about his covert leaks to the news media.
The sequence of events is outlined in the declassified memo released Friday by Rep. Devin Nunes, California Republican and chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
The Nunes memo is the first official confirmation that the FBI hierarchy made a decision to start paying Mr. Steele and why the deal fell through. Justice Department witnesses in public have declined to confirm such a deal.
The memo shows that the bureau was using Mr. Steele’s unverified Democratic Party-financed dossier not only to obtain a court-ordered wiretap on Trump volunteer Carter Page, but it also wanted a commitment to a longer-term financial agreement with the former British intelligence officer to continue investigating President Trump.
If he had not lied, Mr. Steele, who vowed to ruin the Trump candidacy, could have been investigating Mr. Trump from the postelection transition into his presidency.
more
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/feb/4/fbi-authorized-christopher-steele-payments-dossier/
