Senator Lindsey Graham has indicated he plans to call former FBI Director James Comey and former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, as he doubts they were unaware ex-MI6 spy Christopher Steele’s dossier had already been internally discredited before it was invoked to secure a FISA warrant to monitor former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
After former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein denied having knowledge of any altered documents or that the Steele dossier had been disavowed beforehand, McCabe responded by saying Rosenstein’s claim he was misled by him or anyone else at the FBI “are completely false”.
Graham told Fox News 7th June he wants to press McCabe on his knowledge regarding the Bureau’s interview with Steele’s sub-source, who denied the information in the dossier.
“In the warrant application by the FBI and Department of Justice to the FISA court, [McCabe] said the Russian sub-source was truthful and cooperative. Inspector General Horowitz found a memo about the interview with the Russian sub-source saying the Russian sub-source disavowed all the information in the dossier, that it wasn’t reliable, it was bar talk, hearsay, it shouldn’t be used to get a warrant,” Graham fulminated.
Graham said he was determined to ensure high-ranking officials who knew the dossier to be bogus are held accountable for their dishonesty, and not “let the system blame some low-level intel analyst or case agent for defrauding the court”. He doubts a mere analyst and/or case agent would be the only ones aware the sub-source had disavowed Steele’s dossier, and if it could be proven any higher-ups were likewise notified, they would be “in trouble with the law”. He recalled how, according to DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report on Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI attempted to apply for a FISA warrant prior and it was rejected, with none other than McCabe suggesting using the dossier as additional evidence to support the warrant application.
“I believe it goes to the very top, and I’m going to get to the bottom of it and that means Sally Yates and Rosenstein, and McCabe and Comey are all going to come before the committee and they’re going to be asked, ‘What did you know and when did you know it?’”
The senator also noted he’d tried to call the analyst and case agent who interviewed the sub-source to testify, but had so far been unsuccessful.