Steele admits he used posts from 'random individuals' on CNN website for Trump dossier

Rick Moran @ American Thinker

The dossier that launched several investigations into Donald Trump and his presidential campaign was based, in part, on posts from "random individuals" from a CNN website that allows the public to publish unverified information.

Christopher Steele made the admission in a deposition given in connection with a lawsuit against the dossier. The judge released portions of the deposition this week.

Washington Examiner:

According to deposition transcripts released this week, Steele said last year he used a 2009 report he found on CNN's iReport website and said he wasn't aware that submissions to that site are posted by members of the public and are not checked for accuracy.

A web archive from July 29, 2009 shows that CNN described the site in this manner: "iReport.com is a user-generated site. That means the stories submitted by users are not edited, fact-checked, or screened before they post."

The FBI was able to obtain several FISA warrants based on the dossier. Was the FISA judge told that some of the information was from an internet crank?

He was pressed on this further: "Do you understand that CNN iReports are or were nothing more than any random individuals' assertions on the Internet?" Steele replied: "No, I obviously presume that if it is on a CNN site that it may has [sic] some kind of CNN status. Albeit that it may be an independent person posting on the site."

When asked about his methodology for searching for this information, Steele described it as "what we could call an open source search," which he defined as "where you go into the Internet and you access material that is available on the Internet that is of relevance or reference to the issue at hand or the person under consideration."

Steele said his dossier contained "raw intelligence" that he admitted could contain untrue or even "deliberately false information."

When in doubt, Google it.

The FBI was aware of Steele's "sources" but still used the dossier to convince a FISA judge to issue a warrant against Trump campaign aide Carter Page. That the FBI has, to this day, refused to verify the authenticity of the information in the dossier is not surprising. A document as flawed as this should never have been presented to a FISA court as justification for granting a warrant to spy on Carter Page. It makes the FBI look ridiculous.

THIS IS WORSE THAN I THOUGHT.

Ace of Spades: Did the FBI really fire Christopher Steele, or was it all eyewash?

Because Steele kept in regular, close contact with Bruce Ohr - a TOP FBI offical well after President Trump took office and long after the FBI "fired" Steele for leaking ot the press.

ACE:

Remember, the FBI had fake-fired Christopher Steele in November, 2016 by breaching, allegedly, the requirements that he not speak to the press about his alleged research. He was also told that he was to no longer gather alleged information for the FBI.

The reason I say "alleged" so many times is that now I'm not sure the FBI really fired him. Steele continued working with the DOJ after his firing for cause/for his lack of integrity, in a system probably set up by Sally Yates whereby Bruce Ohr would act as a cut-out to pass Steele's continuing bullshit to the Obama Administration. Despite his alleged "firing" and bar from continuing his operation on behalf of the government.

I begin to wonder if Steele actually talked to reporters with the tacit or explicit approval of Obama Administration officials, and then was only fake-fired because they knew what he'd done violated government policy, and that even though they'd authorized that violation of government policy, they would have to fake-fire him to make it look, as they say, "by the book."

Also remember: The Hillary camp was desperate to get this bullshit narrative talked about in the press, and so of course would want Steele to try to do just that; one can imagine Obama Administration partisans joining her in such a project.

And there's this to support the theory ...

Hundreds of pages of previously undisclosed FBI emails and memos show that the Democrat opposition research firm Fusion GPS, through former British spy Christopher Steele, worked closely with the FBI, and DOJ official Bruce Ohr, to take down Donald Trump before, during, and after the 2016 presidential election.

And even after the FBI officially stopped using the "dirty dossier" author as a confidential source (because he leaked to the media), they turned to then-associate deputy attorney general Ohr as a back channel to Steele.

...

In a new report at The Hill, John Solomon details how Ohr was working with Steele well into the early days of Trump's presidency, even after the FBI terminated its relationship with him.

Ohr, who reported to Obama-era Deputy AG Sally Yates, was demoted last December, but remains employed at the DOJ. Yates was fired by President Trump because of her insubordination over his travel ban.