Two Republican senators have recommended that the FBI launches a criminal investigation against Christopher Steele — the author of the disputed Trump-Russia dossier — for what they described as evidence that he made false statements to federal investigators, Politico informs.
“I don’t take lightly making a referral for criminal investigation. But, as I would with any credible evidence of a crime unearthed in the course of our investigations, I feel obliged to pass that information along to the Justice Department for appropriate review,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley said in a joint statement with Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).
The senators did not submit any public evidence to support their request, but they noted they sent a “classified memorandum” to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray containing the basis of their request.
The request does not assess the validity of the Steele dossier, nor does it constitute a criminal allegation. “The referral is for further investigation only,” according to the statement.
Even so, Democrats quickly responded in anger.
“I wasn’t consulted about this referral nor were any of my Democratic colleagues,” Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said, the top Democrat on Grassley’s committee. “I think this referral is unfortunate as it’s clearly another effort to deflect attention from what should be the committee’s top priority: determining whether there was collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia to influence the election and whether there was subsequent obstruction of justice.”
One congressional aide, who wanted to stay anonymous, said the decision by Grassley and Graham to refer Steele to the Justice Department raises an obvious anomaly.
“They are referring to DOJ a criminal prosecution based on documents DOJ gave them and based on witness testimony to the DOJ,” the aide stated.
Steele, a former British intelligence officer, was commissioned in 2016 by research firm Fusion GPS to investigate President Donald Trump’s ties to Russia. The dossier he produced, which Trump has derided as fiction, describes years of illicit connections between Trump, his business and the Kremlin.
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