It was quite an admission about how desperately the Obama administration had targeted former President Donald Trump.
Earlier this month, a top FBI official testified that the agency offered “up to $1 million” to former British spy Christopher Steele if he could prove the allegations found in his infamous dossier — the document that formed the basis for the Justice Department and U.S. intelligence agencies to pursue Trump during the Russia-collusion hoax.
According to CNN, FBI supervisory analyst Brian Auten testified at the criminal trial of Igor Danchenko, the primary source for Steele’s dossier who was charged with lying to the FBI, that Steele never got the money.
Why? Because he couldn’t prove the allegations against Trump. Yet the FBI went after Trump and his associates anyway in the politically motivated investigation.
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Yet U.S. Sen. Rick Scott wants to know more.
On Friday, the Florida Republican sent a letter to Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz demanding to know more about how and why taxpayers’ resources were used in this case.
“Recent trial testimony elicited by Special Counsel John Durham revealed the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in October 2016, offered the author of the infamous Steele Dossier $1 million to corroborate the salacious claims of Russian collusion with members of a presidential campaign,” Scott wrote.
“This is a shocking revelation, not only because it further amplifies the FBI’s egregious abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act using unsubstantiated and uncorroborated information to surveil an American citizen, as well-documented in your own 2019 report on the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, but also because the sum in question raises serious concerns about the FBI’s allocation of the U.S. taxpayer dollars appropriated to it by Congress.”
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Accordingly, Scott asked Horowitz to explain:
- What would have been the funding source for $1 million offered to Steele or similar payments in either cases.
- How the FBI reviews and approves such payments to outside groups or individuals, and what records it has of such payments.
- What role, if any, does Horowitz’s office have in overseeing the FBI’s payments of federal taxpayer money, and if there are any audits of these payments.
“I appreciate your dedication to rooting out fraud, waste, and abuse in the U.S. Department of Justice,” Scott continued. “Americans must be able to have complete confidence in the integrity of our Federal government, including its allocation of U.S. taxpayer monies.”
The senator asked Horowitz to respond by Nov. 11.
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