Former Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney and National Review columnist Andrew C. McCarthy joined “Fox & Friends,” Monday morning and explained why the media is missing the most important point about the Steele dossier.
Credit: Maureen Dowling
Listen closely to the exchange between Fox News host Steve Doocy and McCarthy.
Doocy: “Ultimately what the Graham-Grassley criminal referral memo, what it does, is it verifies much of what was in Devin Nunes’ memo that was released about ten days ago, Andy. But then you look at the Christopher Steele dossier, ultimately the Nunes memo has been verified a thousand times you write in National Review Online – a thousand times more than the Steele dossier.”
McCarthy: “Yeah, see this is the big problem. We spend a lot of time talking about Steele’s credibility and it’s certainly worth doing that because it certainly appears that the Justice Department and the FBI concealed major courts of his bias. Simply the fact that he was working for the opposition campaign is something that clearly should have been disclosed. But, that’s not the principle problem with his work product. The principle problem with the dossier is that courts don’t care what the investigative agent’s credibility is. What they want to know is the sources of the factual information that you are asking me, the judge to grant a warrant based on to say there’s probable cause on. I need to know that those sources are believable. You gotta give me something that tells me why I should credit them. The real problem with the dossier is that the sources are these anonymous Russians who are often 3-4-5 steps removed in terms of hearsay from the things that they claim to have seen […] Steele himself has not been to Russia in 20-years.”
McCarthy’s comments should come as concerning as Steele told a UK court that the dossier contains “limited intelligence.”
Steele also admitted part of “his final December memo,” was unvetted.
“Such intelligence was not actively sought; it was merely received,” Steele added.
The dossier contains explosive, but unverified, opposition research that alleges intel ties between Russia and Trump and also claims Russia holds blackmail material over Trump.
