State Department's red flag on Steele went to a senior FBI man well before
FISA warrant

By John Solomon, opinion contributor — 05/14/19 07:00 PM EDT 

 



© Getty Images

In all Washington investigations, the essential questions become who knew it
and when did they know it.

In the case of FBI informant Christopher Steele and the credibility of his
now-disproven
<https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3259984-Trump-Intelligence-Allegati
ons.html> Russia collusion allegations against
<https://thehill.com/people/donald-trump> Donald Trump, we have some
important clarity: Government officials confirm that an October 2016 email
revealing that Steele met with State Department officials — a breach of
protocol for an informant if it was unauthorized — was sent to an FBI
counterintelligence supervisor.

Multiple sources confirm to me that the recipient of the State Department
email was Special Agent Stephen Laycock, then the FBI’s section chief for
Eurasian counterintelligence and now one of the bureau’s top executives as
the
<https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/stephen-laycock-named-assi
stant-director-of-the-directorate-of-intelligence> assistant director for
intelligence under Director Christopher Wray.

The email to Laycock from Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen
Kavalec arrived eight days before the FBI swore to the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court that it had no derogatory information on Steele and used
his anti-Trump dossier to secure a secret surveillance warrant to
investigate Trump’s possible ties to Moscow.

Officials tell me that Laycock immediately forwarded the information he
received about Steele on Oct. 13, 2016, to the FBI team leading the
Trump-Russia investigation, headed by then-fellow Special Agent Peter
Strzok.

Laycock was the normal point of contact for Kavalec on Eurasian
counterintelligence matters, and he simply acted as a conduit to get the
information to his colleagues supervising the Russia probe, the officials
added.

The officials declined to say what the FBI did with the information about
Steele after it reached Strzok’s team, or what the email specifically
revealed. A publicly disclosed version of the email has been heavily
redacted in the name of national security. 

While much remains to be answered, the email exchange means FBI supervisors
knew Steele had contact with State and had reason to inquire what he was
saying before they sought the warrant. If they had inquired, agents would
have learned Steele had admitted to Kavalec he had been leaking to the news
media, had a political deadline of Election Day to get his information
public and had provided demonstrably false intelligence in one case,
<https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/442592-steeles-stunning-pre-fisa-co
nfession-informant-needed-to-air-trump-dirt> as I reported last week.

Current and former FBI officials told me it would be a red flag for an FBI
informant on a sensitive counterintelligence case such as Russia to go
talking about his evidence with another federal agency without
authorization.

Kevin Brock, the former FBI assistant director for intelligence, said the
State Department’s email in October 2016 ordinarily should have triggered
the FBI to re-evaluate Steele as a source. “This is quite important,” Brock
said. “Under normal circumstances, when you get information about the
conduct of your source that gives rise to questions about their reliability
or truthfulness, you usually go back and re-evaluate their dependability and
credibility.

“It doesn’t always mean immediate discontinuation of the source. But there
are policy requirements that you exercise some form of prudence, and conduct
further vetting to determine whether this source can be utilized going
forward. This is particularly true if the source’s information is being used
in an affidavit or some other legal process.”

FBI confidential sources such as Steele sign a confidentiality agreement and
undergo a training session on the dos and don’ts of informing, an event
known in intelligence parlance as an “admonishment.” FBI records show
<https://www.scribd.com/document/410018683/Steele-Admonish-Ment-February-201
6> Steele underwent “admonishment” training and signed an acknowledgement on
Feb. 2, 2016.

The FBI
<https://www.scribd.com/document/410018582/Steele-Termination-Document-FBI>
fired Steele as an informant on Nov. 1, 2016, claiming he was caught leaking
to the news media. But by that time Steele’s intelligence already had been
used as the main evidence to secure a FISA warrant against the Trump
campaign on Oct. 21, 2016.

The public version of Kavalec's email blacked out Laycock’s name as the
recipient and listed an attachment file when it was delivered last month to
the conservative group Citizens United under an open records request. The
blacked-out version contained only a single visible sentence, in which
Kavalec wrote the FBI supervisor: “You may already have this information but
wanted to pass it on just in case.” 

Officials familiar with Kavalec’s email would only describe the contents as
having to do with something Steele told the State Department during
<https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/442944-fbis-steele-story-falls-apar
t-false-intel-and-media-contacts-were-flagged> an Oct. 11, 2016, visit. They
said the attachment was not a copy of Steele’s now-infamous dossier or a
complete set of Kavalec’s typed notes from her conversation with the
informant. Rather, they say, it was information Steele shared with Kavalec
that she felt needed to be transmitted to the bureau. 

The officials also declined to address another mystery that has caught
congressional investigators’ attention: Kavalec had two exchanges with FBI
officials about Steele approximately two weeks before her meeting. The
<https://www.scribd.com/document/410017892/Kavalec-Emails-FBI-September-2016
> email contacts on Sept. 29-30, 2016, have been redacted, except for a
single phrase “Thank you Kathy.” Congressional investigators want to know if
the earlier exchange resulted in Kavalec learning in advance of Steele’s
work for the FBI, or was a further tipoff to the FBI of Steele’s intention
to visit State, a department where he had offered pro bono information in
the past.

An FBI spokeswoman declined comment. Laycock did not respond to phone and
email requests for comment. State officials declined to discuss the
documents.

Republican House and Senate investigators who spent two years reviewing the
Russia case say they were not provided the details of Kavalec’s contact with
Steele or told about the existence of her handwritten and typed notes.

Lawmakers believe the new memos provide additional evidence Steele was
unsuitable to be an informant before his dossier was used to justify a
Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant.   

Their concern is heightened by the fact that Steele was working
simultaneously as an FBI informant and as a paid researcher for Fusion GPS,
the firm hired by  <https://thehill.com/people/hillary-clinton> Hillary
Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee to
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/clinton-campaign-dnc
-paid-for-research-that-led-to-russia-dossier/2017/10/24/226fabf0-b8e4-11e7-
a908-a3470754bbb9_story.html?utm_term=.54f2aeeb6642> find Russia dirt on
Trump in hopes of defeating him in the election.

Congressional Republicans have said publicly for months that the FBI failed
to adequately inform FISA judges that Steele was working for Trump’s rival
and had a bias against the GOP nominee, or that his dossier was unverified
and contained demonstrably false information.

Defenders of the FBI have countered that there isn’t evidence to prove the
bureau knew Steele was leaking to the media or was hired by the Clinton
campaign and the DNC until after the FISA warrant was filed. 

John Solomon is an award-winning investigative journalist whose work over
the years has exposed U.S. and FBI intelligence failures before the Sept. 11
attacks, federal scientists’ misuse of foster children and veterans in drug
experiments, and numerous cases of political corruption. He serves as an
investigative columnist and executive vice president for video at The Hill.
Follow him on Twitter <https://twitter.com/jsolomonReports>
@jsolomonReports. 

EM         -> { Trump for 2020 }

On the 49th Parallel          

                 Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja and Dr. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda is in
anarchy"
                    Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja na Dk. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda ni
katika machafuko" 

 

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