Supposedly Reliable Steele Acted 'Crazy,' His FBI Handler Says. 'People's Ears Were Bleeding.'https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2020/09/09/supposedly_reliable_steele_acted_crazy_his_american_handler_says_peoples_ears_were_bleeding_at_the_fbi_125142.html“Crazy†was the term the FBI agent used to describe the behavior of Christopher Steele, author of the now-debunked Trump-Russia dossier. “I've seen crazy source-related stuff in 20 years in New York and this was one of the craziest," the veteran agent testified to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
Nevertheless, the FBI continued to rely on Steele’s allegations – that Donald Trump and his team were conspiring with Russians who possessed compromising information – to justify its surveillance of the Trump campaign. Without evidence to verify Steele’s claims, the FBI fell back on its assertion that the former British intelligence agent was reliable.
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Gaeta had a long history with the London-based Steele, who had started his own firm, Orbis Business Intelligence, after leaving the British spy service MI6 in 2009. Between 2013 and 2016, the bureau had paid Steele $95,000 to pass along tidbits on Eurasian organized crime; Gaeta was his contact at the bureau. It was Gaeta whom Steele approached in July 2016 with wild and depraved stories of collusion and kompromat. Gaeta became the “handling agent†for Steele’s participation in Crossfire Hurricane. Among his tasks was to get Steele paid (a process that came along slowly) and to see to it that Steele didn’t violate the FBI’s rules on confidentiality.
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Gaeta was astonished, then, when shortly before the 2016 election an article appeared in Mother Jones titled “A Veteran Spy Has Given the FBI Information Alleging a Russian Operation to Cultivate Donald Trump.†The sub-headline asked, “Has the bureau investigated this material?†Gaeta was convinced Steele was the source for the article and confronted him about it. Steele readily admitted he was behind the Mother Jones story.
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Gaeta assumed at first a delay in payment had made Steele go rogue.
“Yes, I'm owed the money, but that's secondary," Steele told Gaeta. "I'm very upset about – we’re very upset – about the actions of your agency." By the “we†in “we’re very upset†one can reasonably infer that Steele was speaking about himself and his client, Fusion GPS head Glenn Simpson (whose client, not counting cutouts, was Hillary Clinton’s campaign).
The handling agent was shocked: “I had no idea what he was talking about.†Before Gaeta could inquire further, Steele started railing about ''your Director†and his "reopening of the investigation.†This was an apparent reference to former FBI Director James Comey’s decision to reopen the probe into Hillary Clinton’s private email server after 340,000 copies of State Department emails between Clinton and her close personal aide, Huma Abedin, were discovered on a laptop used by Abedin and her husband, Anthony Weiner. He was a disgraced congressman under investigation by the bureau’s New York office for sending sexually explicit messages and photos to an underage girl.
At which point it all became clear to the handling agent: “I'm now understanding that he did this because he was upset that the Director's reopening of the investigation was going to negatively affect the election for Hillary Clinton.â€
So, in July, 2016 the FBI agent who was Steele's handler viewed his comments and actions as, "I've seen crazy source-related stuff in 20 years in New York and this was one of the craziest". Shortly before the election Gaeta knew Steele was not acting as an FBI source but as an operative of the Clinton Campaign.
