WASHINGTON — Democratic California Rep. Eric Swalwell does not want to talk about the Steele dossier, which he continues to take seriously despite an unverified salacious claim in it about President Donald Trump.
The Daily Caller asked Swalwell on Wednesday if he buys the claim made in the dossier about the existence of a “pee tape,” to which the Swalwell responded, “Funny you should ask,” before he fled.
Don’t give me that much credit. I walked. I ran this morning. A pitiful 3 miles. This 38-year-old dad of 2 under 2 is sore and tired. https://t.co/REijrVoBtk
— Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) March 27, 2019
Swalwell talked about his thoughts on the dossier’s claims when he appeared on Fox News with anchor Martha MacCallum on Tuesday night.
He said, “I feel very strongly that no candidate, no president-elect, no president, should have conducted themselves the way that Donald Trump has with Russia. He has drawn us so close to a foreign adversary. I’m going to do everything I can as long as I’m in power to always put the United States first.”
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) (L) and committee member Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) return to a closed-door hearing with Michael Cohen, former attorney and fixer for President Donald Trump, following a vote at the U.S. Capitol March 06, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
MacCallum responded, “So it doesn’t bother you that the Clinton campaign paid for a dossier to be put together by someone who had all kinds of ties to intelligence and put together something that was not necessarily factual. That kind of engagement…”
“What part of it was not proven factual?” Swalwell asked several times, until MacCallum mentioned the “salacious story of what happened in a hotel,” referencing the dossier’s claim of a “pee tape” recorded in a Moscow hotel during Trump’s stay there in 2013. (RELATED: Top Counterintelligence Official Claims Obama State Department ‘Indulged In Sexual Favors’ At The Moscow Ritz)
Former FBI Director James Comey admitted in a closed-door testimony last December that the FBI did not verify claims in the dossier before it was referenced as a basis for spying on former Trump adviser Carter Page in 2016.
Christopher Steele, the dossier’s author, and former MI6 agent, had admitted in a deposition released two weeks ago that he used unverified information in the dossier he found from “a user-generated citizen journalism initiative by CNN, iReport, which no longer operates,” the cable news network reported.
Steele thought, according to the deposition, that CNN iReport had “some kind of CNN status. Albeit that it may be an independent person posting on the site,” but it was, in fact, a distinct citizen journalism project created by CNN that enabled users to post stories, photos, and videos.
“Do you understand that they have no connection to any CNN reporters?” a lawyer asked Steele during his deposition last June. “I do not,” he responded.
Kerry Picket is a host on SiriusXM Patriot 125
