The man who was Senator John McCain’s go-between about the controversial Trump dossier is finally speaking out. He is revealing how the former British spy who researched the document, containing salacious allegations about the president, helped to release it to the FBI, the media and Capitol Hill.
“My mission was essentially to be a go-between and a messenger, to tell the senator and assistants that such a dossier existed,” Sir Andrew Wood told Fox News.
Wood explained how last year ex-British spy Christopher Steele told him to reach out to McCain about the document, but insisted that he himself had never read it.
The dossier was commissioned by Fusion GPS, an opposition research firm, while the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign provided funding.
Wood said that he was approached by Steele in August of last year, who had come “to tell me what was in it, and why it … was important. He made it very clear … yes, it was raw intelligence, but it needed putting into proper context before you could judge it fully.”
According to Wood, at that time, Steele had “already been in contact with the FBI.”
Fox News reviewed British court documents which show that Steele received over $160,000 by Glenn Simpson, Fusion GPS’s founder, to push the research to several U.S. media outlets, with which he met on several occasions.
“Each of these interviews was conducted in person and with a member of Fusion also present,” say records associated with separate civil litigation against Steele and Fusion GPS.
Wood added that he himself had heard of the firm, but not of Mr. Simpson as well.
The dossier was handed off to McCain three weeks after Trump won the election, at a Canadian security conference. McCain gave the dossier to the FBI in January.
“Late last year, I received sensitive information that has since been made public. Upon examination of the contents, and unable to make a judgment about their accuracy, I delivered the information to the Director of the FBI,” McCain said.
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