The House Intelligence Committee could uncover “the most damning evidence to date of potential abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act,” according to The Hill’s John Solomon.
Legislators have requested that the government declassify an email thread between the FBI and the Department of Justice, which includes emails from former Director James Comey, leading FBI investigators in the Russia, and national security attorneys in the DOJ.
According to Solomon, in an op-ed released on Wednesday, “the email exchanges show the FBI was aware — before it secured the now-infamous warrant — that there were intelligence community concerns about the reliability of the main evidence used to support it: the Christopher Steele dossier.”
He adds that “sources tell me the email chain provides the most direct evidence that the bureau, and possibly the DOJ, had reasons to doubt the Steele dossier before the FISA warrant was secured,” though he does not name these sources.
“The exchanges also indicate FBI officials were aware that Steele, the former MI6 British intelligence operative then working as a confidential human source for the bureau, had contacts with news media reporters before the FISA warrant was secured.”
Solomon notes that “the FBI fired Steele… two weeks after securing the warrant” because of his “unauthorized” communications with news media.
“If the FBI knew of his media contacts and the concerns about the reliability of his dossier before seeking the warrant, it would constitute a serious breach of FISA regulations and the trust that the FISA court places in the FBI,” Solomon writes.