FBI Thought Steele Dossier Contained Kremlin Misinformation, Declassified Papers Reveal

Declassified footnotes from the Inspector General’s Report on the Russia investigation revealed that the FBI was concerned that the Steele dossier contained misinformation deliberately placed there by the Russian government. The FBI was worried about “the possibility that Russia was funneling disinformation to (former MI6 agent, Christopher) Steele," according to the footnotes declassified at the insistence of Sens. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Ron Johnson, R-Wis.

The infamous dossier was the source of conspiracy theories since it was released in full by BuzzFeed in January 2017. It contained information the former British spy gathered about supposed meetings between Russian intelligence and Trump campaign officials, as well as information about the inner workings of the Kremlin and how they viewed their efforts to impact the 2016 election.

The IG report elaborated on the nature of their concern, asserting that “The FBI was aware of the potential for disinformation in the Steele election reporting and, in part to address that issue, made some effort to assess that possibility. However, in view of information we found in FBI files we reviewed, and that was available to the Crossfire Hurricane team during the relevant time period, we believe that more should have been done."

The IG report revealed that anecdotes from the Mueller investigation which sprung from the Steele dossier, like Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen supposedly taking a trip to Prague to pay off hackers on behalf of the Trump campaign, were sources of concern for the FBI. The report did not elaborate on what specifically they found wrong in this portion of the dossier, but one source whose identity was redacted raised concerns about the validity of that portion, supporting Cohen’s defense made under oath that the allegation is false.

The circumstances surrounding surveillance on foreign policy advisor Carter Page were another concern revealed in the IG report. The application for a wiretap on Page was riddled with errors, and this raises the question of whether the surveillance authorized on Page as a result of these errors was legitimate.

Additionally, the so-called “pee tape” which thrust the dossier into the public’s imagination and is one of the most broadly sourced items in the dossier, is addressed in the IG report as well. The FBI received a warning in 2017 from someone with ties to both the Trump campaign and Russia that the supposed story about Trump’s 2013 trip to Russia was false and was the result of Russian intelligence infiltrating Steele’s network.

The former MI6 agent relied on a “primary sub-source” who was speaking to people inside Russia to gather information, and the newly declassified passages from the Justice Department’s Inspector General reveal that the FBI had reason to believe that his network had been compromised by Kremlin agents.