In an astonishing admission, the Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz conceded to lawmakers Wednesday that the FBI’s FISA applications used to continue surveillance on the 2016 Trump campaign were based entirely on sources for the widely discredited Steele Dossier funded by the Democrats.
“The FISA applications relied entirely on information from the Steele… from the primary sub-source’s reporting to support the allegation that Page was coordinating with the Russian government on 2016 U.S. presidential election activities. However, the FBI did not share this information from department lawyers, and it was therefore omitted from the last two renewal applications,” Horowitz said.
The Democrat-funded Steele Dossier was basis for the grand Russian conspiracy theory peddled by deep-state government officials and the media that lead to a two-and-a-half year special counsel investigation with unlimited resources that ultimately vindicated the president.
The Horowitz report illustrates how the primary sub-source’s information fed to the Steele Dossier undercut the dossier’s own claims.
Horowitz’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee comes two days after the release of the long-anticipated Horowitz report on FISA warrants used to spy on the Trump campaign by the FBI in its “Crossfire Hurricane,” investigation that sought to find collusion with the Russian government.
The more than 400-page report highlights glaring omissions from the FBI in seeking permission from the Justice Department to spy on the Trump campaign. While the report itself notes that the inspector general’s investigation on the matter did not find political motivation for the FBI’s reckless civil rights abuses, the report’s own conclusions failed to support the claim. The report even found that without the Steele Dossier, which itself has been widely discredited, there would have been no surveillance of Trump campaign advisor Carter Page.