'Potentially another crime': Lindsey Graham referring former FBI counterintelligence chief to John Durham
by Jerry Dunleavy, Justice Department Reporter & Daniel Chaitin, Breaking News Editor |
| August 14, 2020 09:35 PM
| Updated Aug 14, 2020, 10:26 PM
Sen. Lindsey Graham revealed on Friday that Bill Priestap, the FBI's former head of counterintelligence, is the official he claims gave misleading information to the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2018 about the reliability of British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s anti-Trump dossier.
The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee told former Rep. Trey Gowdy, sitting in for Sean Hannity on his Fox News show, that he learned the name from FBI Director Christopher Wray, and will hand over whatever information he gets to U.S. Attorney John Durham, who is conducting a criminal inquiry into the Russia investigation. Priestap was a key leader in the FBI's Trump-Russia investigation, code-named Crossfire Hurricane.
"This is a big day for transparency and the rule of law. So [DOJ Inspector General Michael] Horowitz — it's not in his report, Trey, but he found a briefing document dated sometime in February 2018 that was prepared by the FBI because the Senate Intel Committee ... had real concerns about the Russian subsource," Graham said.
"So they asked the FBI to come in and brief them. So I asked Director Wray, 'Who did the briefing?' Well, it's Bill Priestap, who's this guy? He's one of the leaders of Crossfire Hurricane. A year after the subsource told the FBI in 2017 there is zero corroboration for the dossier, I wouldn't trust it with a solid grain of salt, hearsay, bar talk. They knew for over a year, and now, you've got Bill Priestap on Feb. 15, 2018, with four other people from the FBI briefing this Senate Intel Committee, completely whitewashing the truth about the reliability of the dossier," the South Carolina Republican added. "Now, Director Wray has been really good, he's given me the information, more is going to follow, but what I'm going to do with this is turn it over to Durham because I think the briefing in 2018, a year after the subsource told the FBI the dossier was a bunch of garbage, whitewashing that report to the Senate Intel Committee is potentially another crime. So, I'm going to send all of this to Durham when I get it."
more
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/potentially-another-crime-lindsey-graham-referring-former-fbi-counterintelligence-chief-to-john-durham
