Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson and Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and FBI Director Christopher Wray Friday, requesting documents related to Christopher Steele, the former British operative who compiled the infamous Trump dossier.

Republicans have expressed concern about Steele's role in the origin of the Russia investigation, which they believe has unnecessarily plagued President Trump for two years. Much of the information in Steele's dossier was initially unverified. Some of it has since been corroborated, though many of the sensational claims remain unverified. This has led some to be skeptical about how much the FBI relied on the dossier when opening the counterintelligence investigation into whether Mr. Trump worked with Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election.

"We understand that State Department employees received unverified memoranda Steele authored about candidate Trump and Russia (commonly referred to as the Steele dossier) in the summer of 2016, met with Steele and one of his colleagues in October 2016, documented that October meeting and topics discussed therein, and referred the information to the FBI. We seek all material related to those incidents along with an explanation of when the State Department provided it to the FBI," the senators wrote in the letter.

The letter also claimed that "Steele's intent of the meeting with the State Department was to maximize the impact of the unverified information that he had acquired in an effort to undermine the Trump campaign."

The two chairs have also recently "raised questions about any FBI awareness of leaks to the media and possible efforts to use briefings with the Trump transition team as covert intelligence gathering operations."

Mr. Trump has often pointed to the Steele dossier as the document which instigated the investigation, and has said that the origin of the Russia investigation was the true scandal. </s> Top Republican lawmakers demanded answers Friday on whether the FBI was warned of anti-Trump dossier author Christopher Steele’s "political motivations" before the bureau applied for a surveillance warrant against a Trump campaign aide based in part on that document.

In a pair of letters to FBI Director Christopher Wray and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Sens. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa., cited newly revealed notes that a State Department official took during a meeting with Steele in October 2016, just 10 days before the first warrant application and a month before the presidential election. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has also written separate letters to Pompeo and Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz.

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Those notes, first reported by The Hill, say that Steele’s security firm Orbis was “keen to see this information [in the dossier] come to light prior to November 8,” suggesting that it wanted the information to directly influence the 2016 presidential election.

"Based on the publicly-released version of the typed notes of the meeting, it appears Steele's intent of the meeting with the State Department was to maximize the impact of the unverified information that he had acquired in an effort to undermine the Trump campaign," Grassley and Johnson wrote. "Further, if that information was included in the material submitted to the FBI, then the FBI may have been aware of Steele's political motivations before submitting any FISA application."

They specifically want to know when the State Department shared these details with the FBI. An email from the official, Kathleen Kavalec, was sent on Oct. 13, 2016, though the recipient's identity is completely redacted, as is an attachment.

The notes, as published by The Hill and posted by Citizens United, also point to the involvement of opposition research firm Fusion GPS, noting that firm co-founder Glenn Simpson and colleague Peter Fritch recommended Steele's group for the job.

The dossier was eventually published by BuzzFeed News in 2017 and is filled with salacious and unverified claims about alleged dirt the Russians had over Trump. It is believed to have formed a significant part of the FBI’s application for a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant against Trump campaign aide Carter Page.

Since the release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia report, which did not find evidence of many of the claims within the dossier, fresh scrutiny has returned to the dossier and the role it played in the Page warrant application.

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Republicans have pointed to Steele’s political motivations, as well as the funding of the dossier by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Hillary Clinton campaign, as proof that the origins of the probe were political as well.

“This important information further demonstrates the bias of the primary source of material that was the basis for the Carter Page FISA warrant,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., wrote.

The notes also said that Steele indicated he had been in communication with reporters, which Johnson and Grassley say contradicts the FISA warrant application, “where the FBI repeatedly represented to the court that Steele did not have unauthorized contacts with the press prior to October 2016.”

The lawmakers want to know about the FBI’s communications with the State Department and what information was provided to it about the meetings -- specifically when State provided the notes about the meeting to the FBI. Graham also requested that the State Department make the official who took the meeting with Steele, Kathleen Kavalec, available for a transcribed interview with the Judiciary Committee.

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The new revelations come as Horowitz is believed to be approaching the end of his investigation into the FBI and DOJ’s surveillance conduct in the 2016 election, and whether the agencies acted improperly. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Horowitz's team has questioned why the FBI considered Steele a credible source, and why the bureau seemed to use news reports to bolster his credibility.

President Trump has repeatedly called the Russia investigation a “witch hunt” while Attorney General William Barr told lawmakers last month that “spying did occur” during the campaign. </s> The State Department has largely avoided scrutiny from GOP-led investigations of the Steele dossier, but that changed this week with the release of notes that a State Department official took during an October 2016 meeting with dossier author Christopher Steele.

In letters this week to Sec. of State Mike Pompeo, GOP Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina pressed Pompeo for details about the Oct. 11, 2016 meeting, which was held at Foggy Bottom between Steele and Kathleen Kavalec, the deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs.

Steele, a former British spy, was investigating President Donald Trump and his campaign on behalf of the Clinton campaign and DNC.

Kavalec’s notes from the meeting, which were released this week, show that Steele told her about contacts he had with the media, including The New York Times and Washington Post. They also showed that Steele said that his client for his anti-Trump research campaign (which he did not identify at the time) was “keen” to see information on Trump released prior to the Nov. 8, 2016 election.

Steele also made dubious or inaccurate claims to Kavalec, including that Russia had planted a mole within the DNC and that the Russian government had a consulate in Miami.

The trio of Republicans say that the notes contradict some of the claims that the FBI made in applications for surveillance warrants against Carter Page, the former Trump campaign adviser. The FBI relied heavily on Steele’s unverified dossier to obtain the spy warrants.

In a letter sent to Pompeo on Thursday, Grassley and Johnson, who chair the Senate Banking and Senate Homeland Security Committees, respectively, asserted that any contacts that Steele had with the media would contradict what the FBI claimed the Carter Page warrants.

“If true, that would contradict the Carter Page FISA application where the FBI repeatedly represented to the court that Steele did not have unauthorized contacts with the press prior to October 2016,” they wrote.

“Based on the publicly-released version of the typed notes of the meeting, it appears Steele’s intent of the meeting with the State Department was to maximize the impact of the unverified information that he had acquired in an effort to undermine the Trump campaign,” they added.

Kavalec’s notes were obtained by Citizens United through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. The Hill first published the documents.

“Further, if that information was included in the material submitted to the FBI, then the FBI may have been aware of Steele’s political motivations before submitting any FISA application,” Grassley and Johnson added.

They are asking Pompeo to disclose when the State Department informed the FBI about Steele’s dossier or the meeting with Kavalec. The bureau obtained its first surveillance warrant against Page on Oct. 21, 2016, ten days after the Kavalec-Steele meeting.

In a letter sent Friday to Pompeo, Graham, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, sought communications between Steele and State Department employees, as well as between State employees and the Justice Department regarding Steele.

He is also asking Pompeo to make Kavalec available for a transcribed interview.

Victoria Nuland, who served as Kavalec’s boss at the bureau of European and Eurasian affairs, was the government official who approved an FBI agent in Rome meeting Steele in early July 2016.

Jonathan Winer, who then served as special envoy to Libya, also met with Steele in Summer 2016. The pair had known each other since 2009, and Steele shared more than 100 of his private intelligence reports with Winer over the years. Winer, who shared those reports with others at the State Department, appears to have set up the meeting with Kavalec. He is mentioned throughout Kavalec’s notes.

Winer was also a source for at least two news articles written by reporters who received information from Steele. Michael Isikoff and David Corn revealed in a book they co-authored that Winer was a background source for stories they wrote before the 2016 election. The Daily Caller News Foundation has published emails showing that Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson, who hired Steele, was in contact with Winer the day before Isikoff’s article was published on Sept. 23, 2016.

Alex Jones presents CSPAN footage of Republican rep. from Ohio Jim Jordan as he grills Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee about their true intentions behind questioning Attorney General Bill Bar. </s> • Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee reportedly leaked private text messages between the top Senate Intelligence Committee Democrat and a lobbyist connected to former British spy Christopher Steele.
• The messages were part of Sen. Mark Warner's effort to set up a meeting with Steele.
• The committee and FBI are using Steele's research as a roadmap in the Russia investigation.
• Warner informed his colleagues on the panel of his communications with the lobbyist months before they were leaked to the press.

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Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee leaked the private text messages between a top Senate Intelligence Committee Democrat and a Russia-linked lobbyist to the media, The New York Times reported Thursday.

Sen. Mark Warner, the ranking member on the Senate Intelligence Committee, exchanged the messages with lobbyist Adam Waldman after Waldman said he could put Warner in touch with former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele.

Steele compiled the dossier alleging collusion between President Donald Trump's campaign and Russia. He is a central figure in Republican inquiries about the integrity of the FBI's Russia investigation.

Fox News first published the messages between Warner and Waldman, in which Warner appeared to be working to establish contact with Steele in an effort to get him to testify before the Senate panel as it investigates links between the Trump campaign and Russia.

The messages that were published spanned two months, from March to May of last year. Warner initially tried to set up a meeting with Steele in London, but Steele was worried about leaks and wanted a bipartisan letter from the Senate committee inviting him to testify, according to the messages.

Trump and his supporters, especially those in right-wing media, latched onto the messages.

"Wow! -Senator Mark Warner got caught having extensive contact with a lobbyist for a Russian oligarch," Trump tweeted on February 8. "Warner did not want a 'paper trail' on a 'private' meeting (in London) he requested with Steele of fraudulent Dossier fame. All tied into Crooked Hillary."

Soon after, however, Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, threw cold water on suggestions that Warner had acted to conceal his efforts to contact Steele.

"Sen.Warner fully disclosed this to the committee four months ago.Has had zero impact on our work," Rubio tweeted.

Waldman handed over copies of the messages to the Senate committee last year. In January, The Times reported, a staffer for Rep. Devin Nunes, the Republican chair of the House Intelligence Committee, requested that the messages be shared with the House panel as well. Fox News published the transcripts days later.

Nunes' spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

On Monday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley, who is conducting a separate investigation into alleged FBI misconduct, sent Waldman a letter asking about the nature of his relationship with Steele.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., right, and the committee's Vice Chairman Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va. meet with reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, March 29, 2017. AP Photo/Susan Walsh

Senate investigators sound the alarm over the House Russia probe

The decision by Republicans on the House Intelligence panel to leak Warner's texts reportedly raised red flags for lawmakers on both sides of the aisle on the Senate committee.

Warner and Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Richard Burr were said to be so troubled by the leak that they reported it to House Speaker Paul Ryan, while also raising concerns about the meandering direction of the House Russia probe.

The committee's investigation began by focusing on the extent of Russia's interference in the 2016 election, and whether members of the Trump campaign colluded with Moscow at any point to tilt the race in his favor.

But Nunes confounded his colleagues last year when he secretly traveled to the White House to brief the Trump administration on classified intelligence that Trump later said "somewhat vindicated" his unproven claims that former President Barack Obama ordered the wiretapping of Trump Tower during the election.

Nunes recused himself from the Russia investigation last April amid an ethics probe into whether he disclosed classified intelligence during a press conference. The Ethics Committee closed the case in December. He is still officially recused.

Despite that, Nunes has remained very much involved in the committee's investigation and has since launched his own inquiry into purported corruption and anti-Trump bias within the FBI and the Department of Justice.

Along that vein, Nunes' staff authored a controversial memo last month alleging that the FBI and DOJ abused their surveillance authority when seeking a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page shortly before the 2016 election.

Democrats on the panel later released their own rebuttal disputing many of the central claims in the Nunes memo. </s> WASHINGTON — The Senate Intelligence Committee has concluded that Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee were behind the leak of private text messages between the Senate panel’s top Democrat and a Russian-connected lawyer, according to two congressional officials briefed on the matter.

Senator Richard M. Burr of North Carolina, the committee’s Republican chairman, and Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat, were so perturbed by the leak that they demanded a rare meeting with Speaker Paul D. Ryan last month to inform him of their findings. They used the meeting with Mr. Ryan to raise broader concerns about the direction of the House Intelligence Committee under its chairman, Representative Devin Nunes of California, the officials said.

To the senators, who are overseeing what is effectively the last bipartisan investigation on Capitol Hill into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, the leak was a serious breach of protocol and a partisan attack by one intelligence committee against the other.

The messages between Mr. Warner and Adam Waldman, a Washington lawyer, show that the senator tried for weeks to arrange a meeting with Christopher Steele, the former British spy who assembled a dossier of salacious claims about connections between Mr. Trump, his associates and Russia. The Senate committee has had difficulty making contact with Mr. Steele, whom it views as a key witness. And Mr. Waldman, who knew Mr. Steele, presented himself as a willing partner. </s> Former British spy Christopher Steele made a stunning admission during an October 11, 2016 meeting with Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec, just 10 days before the FBI used his now-discredited dossier to justify securing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to spy on Trump campaign aide Carter Page and the campaign’s ties to Russia, according to The Hill‘s John Solomon.

According a typed summary of the meeting – which sat buried for over 2 1/2 years until an open-records litigation by Citizens United – Steele said that his client “is keen to see this information come to light prior to November 8,” the date of the 2016 US election. Also attending the meeting was an employee of Steele’s Orbis Security firm, Tatyana Duran.

And according to The Hill, Kavalec’s notes of the meeting – including this stunning admission – do not appear to have been provided to the House Intelligence Committee for its Russia probe, according to former Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA). – READ MORE </s> One of the more difficult aspects of the Trump/Russia investigation has been the Senate running a relatively bipartisan effort, yet the House committee has been actively squabbling as “recused” committee head Devin Nunes keeps trying to release memos and generally obsfucate investigations into whether Russia attempted to influence the election and if so, why. The two committees have not been particular fans of each other, but new allegations have stepped up the animosity, as the Senate Intelligence Committee has alleged House Republican’s leaked a Senator’s text messages to Fox News.

It starts with ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mark Warner. Warner, and indeed the Senate as a body, has been attempting to bring Christopher Steele, the author of a dossier that notoriously alleged Trump hired prostitutes to urinate on a bed Obama slept in, to testify. They’ve already spoken to his boss, Glenn Simpson, but would like to ask Steele more questions. As part of those efforts, Warner contacted attorney Adam Waldman, who is reportedly close to Steele. Waldman has extensive (and publicly disclosed) contacts with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, so Waldman, for the sake of transparency, submitted copies of the messages, and Warner informed his colleagues of his efforts.

Then the House requested the Senate’s documentation, which it shared. And then, somehow, Warner’s text messages wound up on Fox News, practically straight from the congressional copier, according to a New York Times report:

The documents published by Fox News appear to back up the senators’ accusation. Though they were marked “CONFIDENTIAL: Produced to USSSCI on a Confidential Basis,” suggesting that they had come from the Senate panel, known as the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the person familiar with the congressional requests said that the stamp was misleading and that other markings gave away their actual origin… Specifically, the copy of the messages shared with the Senate was paginated, and the one submitted to the House — while preserving the reference to the Senate committee — was unpaginated… A lawyer for Mr. Waldman independently concluded that the House committee had probably shared the document and sent a letter to Mr. Nunes complaining about the leak, according to a person familiar with the letter.

While Fox News obviously won’t disclose its source, it’s pretty clear who Warner and Republican Senator Richard Burr, head of the Senate Committee, believe did it. Elsewhere in the New York Times reporting, it notes that Warner and Burr complained to House Speaker Paul Ryan about Nunes, and Nunes’ spokesman, when contacted by the Times, didn’t deny that the leak came from the committee. Burr and Warner didn’t recommend any specific sanction or action be taken against Nunes, but they are clearly upset. And it will likely cause more problems, as now the Senate has no reason to believe the House committee will respect its work, or the data it gathers. </s> Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia (left) and Sen. Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican, spoke to House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) about their concerns over the leak, according to The New York Times. (Aaron Bernstein / Reuters)

The Senate Intelligence Committee has found that Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee are responsible for leaking to Fox News confidential text messages between the Senate panel’s highest ranking Democrat and a Washington lobbyist associated with a Russian billionaire, sources familiar with the situation told The New York Times on Thursday.

Two Senate committee members ― Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), whose texts were leaked, and Sen. Richard M. Burr (R-N.C.), the panel’s chairman ― were “perturbed” by the findings and discussed them with House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) last month, the sources told the Times.

The senators, whose committee is conduction an investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, reportedly relayed to Ryan their concern about the direction of the House panel under the leadership of its chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.). Nunes drafted and pushed for public release a controversial memo last month accusing the Justice Department and FBI of impropriety in their separate probe into the Russian meddling and possible connections to President Donald Trump’s campaign.

Fox News touted the text exchange as an “exclusive,” but even some Republicans discounted its worth.

Warner disclosed to his committee months before the leak that he had reached out last year to lobbyist Adam Waldman, who runs a firm that worked with a Russian oligarch named Oleg Deripaska in 2009 and 2010. Warner hoped Waldman could connect him with Christopher Steele, the former British spy who wrote the now infamous dossier that, among other things, alleges a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.

The leaked communication also appears to fall in line with Warner’s duties on the intelligence committee. Nevertheless, Trump seized on the shell of a controversy to attempt to discredit the investigations into the role Russia played in influencing the 2016 election.

Both the timing of the Fox News report and markings on the documents they published indicated to the Senate committee that Republicans on the House committee were behind the leak, the sources told the Times.

The documents containing the texts were leaked just days after one of Nunes’ staff members asked the Senate committee to share copies of the exchange with the House committee, one source said. Additionally, neither the documents sent to the House committee nor the ones published by Fox News contained page numbers, while the original copy possessed by the Senate committee did.

Watch news, TV and more on Yahoo View. </s> US President Donald Trump has approved the release of a secret Republican memo, that reportedly alleges FBI abuse of power.

It is believed the memo relates to the manner in which FBI conducted its inquiry into alleged Russian meddling in US elections.

According to The Washington Post, the memo - which was prepared by the office of House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes - raises concerns over the surveillance of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

Speaking to reporters in the last hour, President Trump claimed the memo tells a "disgraceful story" adding that "a lot of people should be ashamed."

He has now sent it back to Congress, where it is expected to be released.

Earlier today, President Trump accused FBI and US Justice Department leaders of 'politicising' investigations in favour of Democrats.

The memo has been fuelling controversy for days in the US.

It was written by Republican congressional staff members – and Democrats have insisted it is aimed at derailing the ongoing investigations into the Trump campaign.

Republican members of the committee previously voted to publicly release the memo.

Earlier this week, the FBI took the extremely rare step of commenting publicly on the matter – warning that the bureau harboured "grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy."

Democrats, meanwhile, have accused Republicans of using the memo as part of partisan efforts to "discredit the investigations into the Trump-Russia scandal".

The opposition party's leaders in both the House and Senate have called for Nunes to be removed from his committee role over claims he had altered parts of the memo before sending it to the White House.

The memo is believed to claim that the FBI and Justice Department relied on claims within a controversial and unverified dossier prepared on Donald Trump and Russia in order to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) warrant on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

That dossier - which contains various as yet unverified allegations - was prepared by former British spy Christopher Steele.

It has subsequently emerged the document was initially produced as part of opposition research during the 2016 election campaign.
Republicans Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley request documents related to Christopher Steele, author of the Trump–Russia dossier, in a letter to United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the FBI Director Christopher Wray.