'The FBI received evidence that Russian disinformation polluted the infamous Steele dossier, according to information declassified Friday from the Justice Department inspector general’s report of the FBI’s surveillance of the Trump campaign.
FBI officials also had concerns as far back as 2015 of dossier author Christopher Steele’s relationship to Russian oligarchs, but those were never shared with the FBI team that led the Trump investigation.
Despite those red flags, the FBI continued relying on Steele’s information in applications to obtain surveillance warrants against Carter Page, the former Trump campaign aide.
The bombshell disclosures were made Friday in response to repeated requests from Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson to disclose four redacted footnotes in the IG report.
“It’s ironic that the Russian collusion narrative was fatally flawed because of Russian disinformation,” the two Republicans said in a statement. “These footnotes confirm that there was a direct Russian disinformation campaign in 2016, and there were ties between Russian intelligence and a presidential campaign – the Clinton campaign, not Trump’s.” (RELATED: Mystery Footnotes From FISA Report Set For Declassification)
The senators said they expect a “fuller declassification” of the footnotes over the next few days. CBS News published portions of the unredacted footnotes Friday afternoon.
Steele, a former MI6 officer, was hired in 2016 by the Clinton campaign and DNC to investigate Donald Trump’s possible ties to Russia. He shared the information with the FBI, which used it to obtain wiretap authorization against Page.
The FBI received assessments in 2017 that Russia’s intelligence service, RIS, pushed disinformation to Steele regarding former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen and a 2013 trip that Trump made to Moscow, according to one footnote.
Cohen visited Prague in August 2016 to meet with Kremlin insiders to pay off Russian hackers, Steele said in the dossier.
The Russian government was blackmailing Trump with video footage of him with prostitutes in Moscow in 2013, Steele also noted. (RELATED: Investigate The Dossier As Russian Disinformation, Intel Experts Say)...'
https://dailycaller.com/2020/04/10/fbi-russian-disinformation-steele-dossier-trump/