Today Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsay Graham released a set of talking points [full pdf below – AND here] from the FBI during a briefing on February 14, 2018 to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
The unknown FBI briefer is informing the SSCI about the reliability of Chris Steele’s primary sub-source, and whether he agrees with the Dossier content & conclusions:
At first blush the impression from the release; and indeed the expressed position as outlined by Graham in the release; is that some unknown entity from the FBI was misleading the SSCI in February of 2018 about Christopher Steele and the perspective of his primary sub-source. However, there’s a deeper story.
Within the release it must be noted the date of the briefing material is February 14, 2018. The unknown FBI briefer is saying, in essence, the primary sub-source doesn’t dispute the Dossier material. Obviously this position is demonstrably false given how the PSS said the Dossier was full of “rumor”, “gossip”, “innuendo” and “bar talk”.
The FBI briefer is misleading the Senate and so today we see the angry position expressed by Graham as he reveals this misleading briefing. However, five days prior to this briefing, on February 9, 2018, the text messages between SSCI Vice-Chairman Mark Warner and Chris Steele’s lawyer, Adam Waldman, were released. This frames the accurate context to consider the position of the SSCI and FBI briefer on Feb 14, 2018.




