Former acting FBI Director-turned-CNN contributor Andrew McCabe ordered a criminal probe into then-President Donald Trump days after he fired FBI Director James Comey, using the discredited source of the Russia “dossier.”
That is the claim made by RealClearInvestigations reporter Paul Sperry, based on newly-released documents.
The FBI initiated its “Russia collusion” investigation in mid-2016 based on the “dossier” compiled by a former British spy, Christopher Steele, who was working for the opposition research firm Fusion GPS. Steele’s work had first been bankrolled by Trump’s conservative critics, then by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (which hid the expenses from the Federal Elections Commission). The “dossier” was soon exposed as a fraud, and the FBI fired Steele as a paid source after he leaked information to the media. Nevertheless, the FBI referred to the dossier in applying for renewals of warrants for surveillance on Trump campaign aide Carter Page.
Now, it appears that McCabe turned to Steele again in an effort to build a criminal case against Trump, a sitting president, apparently in retaliation for Trump’s firing of Comey (who then triggered a Special Counsel investigation).
Sperry writes:
Text messages and congressional testimony transcripts reveal that McCabe’s “Russia team” re-established direct contact with ex-British spy Christopher Steele to build a case against the president for espionage and obstruction of justice after Trump had fired FBI Director James Comey on May 9, 2017.
Comey had previously described the dossier – opposition research alleging Trump-Russia ties that was paid for by the Clinton campaign – as “salacious and unverified.” The FBI had severed ties with Steele in November 2016 due to behavior that convinced his handlers he was not a trustworthy source.
Former federal prosecutors and investigators described the move to RealClearInvestigations as “desperate.” They also said the FBI’s decision to suddenly re-engage with a discredited confidential source raises fresh questions about the evidentiary grounds on which the FBI opened an unprecedented probe targeting the president.
In related news, the FBI responded to a Freedom of Information Act request by releasing heavily redacted documentation on Tuesday of the opening of a criminal probe into Trump in May 2017 — the month that Comey was fired:
Russiagate news: in response to my FOIA request, the FBI has released a heavily redacted copy of the Electronic Communication that opened the FBI's investigation of then-President Donald Trump as a foreign agent of Russia. It's dated May 16, 2017.
— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) December 31, 2024
This followed the opening of… pic.twitter.com/BPnB2dHBEd
McCabe was fired by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions over accusations that he had shared information with the media without authorization. A probe under the Biden-Harris administration cleared him and restored his pension.
Conservatives have long accused McCabe of political bias, especially given that his wife, Jill, had been active in Democratic Party politics, receiving nearly $700,000 in campaign donations from party sources in Virginia.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
