McCain defends giving dossier to Comey: 'I would do it again'

[XenaLee]

No, but it wouldn't matter because the dossier was not true anyway.

McCain didn't CARE if it was true or not.  He knows it was BS now and he admits that he would "do it again" anyway.  McCain is just being true to his nature.  Hence, the "Snake McCain" nic he has earned.

[Cyber Liberty]

The Daily Signal (Republican, owned by Kristol's son or someone?) started the investigation, right?  The whole process?  They hired Fusion because they were concerned, got bored, turned it over to the Dems.  Fusion working this whole time, hired Steele, who made the dossier.  I don't consider that a lie.  The company was doing opposition research, and they ended up producing the dossier.  The entire process took like six months.  I call it a continuum.  You might characterize it differently, but it's not unfactual (?).

But say only Democrats had hired a firm for oppo research that turned this up.  I honestly think it would need to be checked out.  Whether it was Bush, Clinton, Obama, or Trump.  Sorry, but I can believe concern was warranted.  Aside from the fact that Steele had a good reputation and I think was genuinely concerned.

I guess I'm naive and have read too much Lê Carré, but I always think credible reports involving Saudis, Russians, and other hinckeys should be investigated.

It's a lie to say Republican had any responsibility for the fake dossier.  Fusion did not start that until Daily Signal broke off the arrangement.  Did they want to do "oppo research?"  Sure!  Trump was one of many candidates for the Republicans, so there was oppo done by other Republicans. 
 
Did they start the work on the dossier?  No, that's a lie.  And to your earlier question, I think McCain knew full well the dossier was fake, and was a willing conspirator in pushing the story by giving the FBI what they already had.

[LauraTXNM]

@Cyber Liberty  The thing is, Fusion had started uncovering stuff about Trump and Russia (and stuff about the other primary candidates) because they were paid by "a Republican" through the publication.  When that funding dried up they approached Perkins Coie to see if the Dems wanted to keep going.  Then they kept on and hired Michael Steele and asked him to look at Russia *because they already had found pointers leading them there.  Fusion was hired by Republicans and Democrats, and they hired Steele.  If the Republicans had kept using Fusion, would they still have hired Steele?  It seems likely, since they already knew they were looking at Russia.

I think we're quibbling.  The research process was described as ongoing; it's not like the Democrats told them to hire Steele.  Fusion was already looking at Russia when they approached the Dem law firm.  I have no idea what Comey said about it, but I know what Fusion said.

In any case, I think the issue is whether McCain believed it could be true.  And I don't think we can say for sure either way.  The FBI was already looking at Russia independently because the Australians had told them Papadopoulos was talking about Russians having Clinton emails.  The dossier got a lot of names right, which the FBI were looking at.  The details haven't been proven true or false, and some of the players were not included.  But the dossier was not on its face unbelievable, except for the kinky sex stuff (who knows? Whatever.). 

Anyway, @Cyber Liberty  You know how much I respect you.  I think I just tend to take this stuff seriously, regardless of the subject of the inquiry.

[Cyber Liberty]

@LauraTXNM I understand what you're saying, and there's some truth in there about the use of Fusion by Republicans against Trump, except:  Your description of these activities gives the appearance Republicans were involved in the creation of the dossier, and that is a flat out lie.

It's spin from Democrats trying to throw some guilty mud on Republicans for something that has proven to be a Democrat-only smear job.

I respect you too, so I'm just going to leave it right here, OK?

Added:  I guess I missed your point:  I think McCain didn't care if it was true or not, so I can't fairly say he was "duped."

[Frank Cannon]

@Cyber Liberty  The thing is, Fusion had started uncovering stuff about Trump and Russia (and stuff about the other primary candidates) because they were paid by "a Republican" through the publication.  When that funding dried up they approached Perkins Coie to see if the Dems wanted to keep going.  Then they kept on and hired Michael Steele and asked him to look at Russia *because they already had found pointers leading them there.  Fusion was hired by Republicans and Democrats, and they hired Steele.  If the Republicans had kept using Fusion, would they still have hired Steele?  It seems likely, since they already knew they were looking at Russia.

I think we're quibbling.  The research process was described as ongoing; it's not like the Democrats told them to hire Steele.  Fusion was already looking at Russia when they approached the Dem law firm.  I have no idea what Comey said about it, but I know what Fusion said.

In any case, I think the issue is whether McCain believed it could be true.  And I don't think we can say for sure either way.  The FBI was already looking at Russia independently because the Australians had told them Papadopoulos was talking about Russians having Clinton emails.  The dossier got a lot of names right, which the FBI were looking at.  The details haven't been proven true or false, and some of the players were not included.  But the dossier was not on its face unbelievable, except for the kinky sex stuff (who knows? Whatever.). 

Anyway, @Cyber Liberty  You know how much I respect you.  I think I just tend to take this stuff seriously, regardless of the subject of the inquiry.

Thanks for trying to spin more DNC talking points, but no one is buying that garbage anymore except at MSNBC and Daily Kos.....

“When did you learn that the DNC and the Hillary Clinton campaign had funded Christopher Steele’s work?” Baier asked.

“Yeah I still don’t know that for a fact,” Comey responded.

“What do you mean?” Baier replied.

“I’ve only seen it in the media, I never knew exactly which Democrats had funded,” Comey explained, “I knew it was funded first by Republicans.”

“But that’s not true,” Baier interrupted.

“I’m sorry?” Comey said.

“That’s not true, that the dossier that Christopher Steele worked on, was funded by Republicans?” Baier said.

“My understanding was his work started funded by,” Comey explained, “as oppo reseach, funded by Republicans…”

“So Free Beacon said that they had Glenn Simpson and Fusion GPS on a kind of a retainer, but they did not fund the Christopher Steele memo or the dossier,” Baier interrupted. “That was initiated by Democrats.”

“OK,” Baier said. “My understanding was the activity was begun that Steele was hired to look into, was first funded by Republicans, then picked up, the important thing was picked up by Democrats opposed to Donald Trump.”

“So is that why, did you tell President Obama who the dossier was funded by?” Baier asked.

“No, not to my recollection,” Comey responded.

“Did you want to know who it was funded by?” Baier asked.

“I wanted to know what I knew which is it was funded by people politically opposed to Donald Trump,” he clarified. “Which particular opponents wasn’t that important to me.”

“So you still to this day don’t know that it was funded by the DNC or the Clinton campaign?” Baier asked, stunned.

“I’ve read that in the media but I don’t know for a fact,” he added, “and didn’t know when I was at the FBI, who, which exact opponents of the president funded that.”

https://www.theblaze.com/news/2018/04/26/bret-baier-grills-james-comey-about-the-trump-dossier-and-gets-a-very-odd-response

[LauraTXNM]

@Frank Cannon  Thanks for posting the interview!  I don't usually get to watch tv news.  That exchange was hilarious!

-Kisses-
Laura

[Smokin Joe]

Frankly, I think what many are ignoring here is that there are deep state Republicans and Democrats, and that both groups wanted to bring Trump down. There is another faction of people who didn't like Trump anyway, and supported a different GOP candidate early on. I think many of those sat this one out, or did not actively oppose Trump to the point where they would push Hillary, just did not support him either. Effectively, an abstention is still a vote, and the Third Parties bagged a lot of interest as a result (from people who wanted neither Hillary nor Trump and voted that way rather than stay home).

Back to the GOP, though, if we look at the usual suspects when it comes to voting with the Dems on critical issues in Congress, (McCain, Collins, Graham, Murkowski, etc.) the first name on the list is none other than McCain.

Whether motivated by envy, politics, some altruistic defense of 'murica, or the random backscatter of impulses in damaged neurons, I won't speculate, but the bottom line is that as a prominent pol, his handing such a document over would give it a credibility it might not have had otherwise, and that may well have been part of the deep state plan, whether McCain was fully cognizant of that or not.

I won't waste time judging McCain, The Almighty can handle that without my imperfect input.

[skeeter]

Commissioned by Republicans and then Democrats, so not dispositive.  Written by a guy who was considered pretty highly intelligence circles.  If I thought the serious stuff was even possibly true, as would want it to be investigated.  And I think if the roles were reversed, most of you all would, too.

It absolutely was dispositive. There is no doubt the Clinton Campaign FUNDED the dossier. There wasn't at the time McCain sent it to the FBI, all other attempts at obfuscating the matter notwithstanding.

It was oppo research and everyone associated with its use & leaking knew it.

[Free Vulcan]

Let's not forget that the Obama campaign paid 972K to the same firm that hired Steele to do the dossier, at the same time that the DNC and Hillary campaign also transferred them money.