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McCabe admitted FBI was unable to "prove the accuracy" of Steele dossier used for FISA warrants
According to a new report from Fox News, former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe admitted he was unable to prove the accuracy of the Christopher Steele dossier.
This revelation comes from the newly released House intel transcripts.
Per TheHill, the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday released the long-delayed transcripts related to the GOP-led investigation by the panel into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
The committee released 57 transcript interviews from 2017-2018 that reveal what was said behind closed doors as lawmakers sought to determine whether members of the Trump campaign and Russia coordinated to tip the scales of the election. While the committee has already released a report on its findings from the investigation, the transcripts have since been tied up in a classification review.
While former special counsel Robert Mueller ultimately did not find evidence over the course of his own investigation of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, Democrats and Republicans on the committee were divided over the testimonies they received.
Fox News reports former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe admitted in 2017 testimony released Thursday that the FBI was unable to "prove the accuracy" of the so-called Steele dossier, which was famously used to obtain surveillance warrants for former Trump campaign aide Carter Page.
"What is the most damning or important piece of evidence in the dossier that you now know is true?" McCabe was asked in December 2017, according to transcripts released Thursday by the House Intelligence Committee.
"Well, as I tried to explain before, there is a lot of information in the Steele reporting. We have not been able to prove the accuracy of all the information," McCabe replied.
Questioned on former British spy Christopher Steele reporting on Page, McCabe was asked: "You don't know if it's true or not?"
"That's correct," McCabe replied.
The FBI heavily relied upon Steele's now-discredited dossier to obtain a surveillance warrant to spy on Page. FBI officials in the warrant asserted that Page was an "agent" of Russia, though the Mueller probe never established that.
A Justice Department summary declassified in January showed that at least two of the FBI's surveillance applications to secretly monitor Page lacked probable cause.
The DOJ's admission meant that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant authorizations to surveil Page, when stripped of the FBI's misinformation, did not meet the necessary legal threshold and should never have been issued.