A dispute has broken out over which government official pushed the unverified and controversial Steele dossier in an effort to surveil the Donald Trump 2016 presidential campaign, Fox News is reporting.
The dispute broke into the open after Attorney General William Barr named a U.S. Attorney to examine the origins of the Russia investigation and determine if intelligence collection involving the Trump campaign was “lawful and appropriate.”
Fox News sources said a late-2016 email chain indicated that then-FBI Director James Comey had told bureau subordinates that then-CIA Director John Brennan had pushed to be included in an intelligence community assessment on Russian interference.
But a former CIA official, in a statement to Fox News, blamed Comey.
"Former director Brennan, along with former (Director of National Intelligence) James Clapper, are the ones who opposed James Comey’s recommendation that the Steele dossier be included in the intelligence report," the official said.
"The intelligence analysts didn't include it when they were doing their work because it wasn't corroborated intelligence, therefore it wasn't used and it wasn't included. Brennan and Clapper prevented it from being added into the official assessment. James Comey then decided on his own to brief Trump about the document."
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told Fox News he would push to declassify documents exposing the FBI’s poor efforts to corroborate the dossier.
"There's a document that's classified that I'm gonna try to get unclassified that takes the dossier -- all the pages of it -- and it has verification to one side," Graham said.
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