Politics

Andrew McCabe Opens Up About Steele Dossier, Origins Of Trump-Russia Probe

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
Chuck Ross Investigative Reporter
Font Size:
  • Andrew McCabe offered his most candid remarks to date on the FBI’s decision to open the Trump campaign investigation, as well as about the Steele dossier.
  • The former FBI deputy director was largely defensive of both, but he said dossier author Christopher Steele acknowledged he could not vouch for the accuracy of some parts of his report.
  • McCabe, a CNN analyst, is under Justice Department investigation. He spoke at an event hosted by his CNN colleague, Carl Bernstein.

Andrew McCabe, the embattled former FBI deputy director, said at a recent event that former British spy Christopher Steele disclosed to FBI investigators that his infamous anti-Trump dossier should not be taken as “gospel,” and that he could not vouch for the accuracy of some of the material in the infamous document.

McCabe, who spoke Oct. 3 at an event hosted by journalist Carl Bernstein, was defending the FBI’s handling of the Steele dossier by insisting investigators were aware of the document’s flaws during the Trump probe. The FBI’s handling of the dossier is the subject of a Justice Department inspector general’s investigation that began in March 2018.

McCabe, who was fired from the FBI on March 16, 2018, also described in the most detail to date how the FBI decided who to initially investigate as part of Crossfire Hurricane, the counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign.

McCabe said the FBI opened its case in late July 2016 based on information about Trump adviser George Papadopoulos.

“We open the case, and then we think, ‘OK, now who are we actually going to investigate?'” McCabe said at the event, which aired Tuesday on C-SPAN.

“Who do we know who is associated with the campaign who has known, significant ties to Russian intelligence?” he asked rhetorically. “We quickly come up with four names that will not surprise you.”

McCabe, who served as deputy director of the FBI during the investigation, defended the FBI’s decision to open the investigation, which initially focused on Papadopoulos, Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn and Carter Page.

He also sought to defend Steele and his salacious dossier, which the FBI used to obtain surveillance warrants on Page.

“It is raw source reporting,” McCabe said, “and Steele presented it as such.”

“We knew that Steele was working a number of different sources, some of which has sub-sources, and sub-sub-sources, and he would represent that in the reporting, as any good source should. It didn’t come with his imprimatur of, ‘this is all gospel.’ It was like, ‘this is what I’m hearing,'” said McCabe, who is under Justice Department investigation.

“That’s how good sources report.”

McCabe said Steele had “a very solid track record” of providing information to the FBI.

WATCH:

“Some of it he felt was pretty solid, others he made clear, like, ‘Hey, I’m getting this from one person, and I can’t vouch for this sourcing chain, and I’m just giving it to you for your information.'”

Republicans have accused the FBI of misleading the FISA court by relying on Steele’s unverified allegations to obtain the warrants. They’ve ramped up that criticism in the wake of the special counsel’s report, which undercut some of Steele’s most explosive allegations.

Steele, a former MI6 officer who worked in 2016 for the DNC and Clinton campaign, said the Trump campaign was involved in a “well-developed conspiracy of cooperation” with the Russian government to influence the 2016 election. Steele also said Page was directly involved in that operation.

But Robert Mueller, the former special counsel, said there was no evidence of a Trump-Russia conspiracy, or that any Trump associates worked as Russian assets. Page was not charged in the investigation.

Numerous questions remain about what Steele told the FBI about his investigation, and how the bureau sought to verify the document. And while McCabe and Bernstein defended Steele’s methods, they did not address the apparent inaccuracies related to Page.

Bernstein offered his own defense of Steele.

“Steele didn’t pretend that the information was definitive,” the veteran reporter said, briefly noting his own familiarity with the dossier.

Bernstein was one of four CNN reporters who worked on the Jan. 10, 2017, story that revealed intelligence officials briefed then-President-elect Donald Trump on the salacious allegations from the dossier.

That CNN piece prompted BuzzFeed News to publish the dossier in full.

It was revealed earlier this year that Steele directed David Kramer, a longtime associate of the late Sen. John McCain, to meet with Bernstein in early January 2017 to discuss his information regarding Trump. (RELATED: John McCain Associate Provided The Dossier To A Dozen Reporters)

“I met with Mr. Bernstein at Mr. Steele’s request,” Kramer said in a deposition in a lawsuit involving BuzzFeed. “And I believe Mr. Bernstein had been in touch with Mr. Steele and so Mr. Steele asked me if I would meet with him and talk with him about it. Since Bernstein was in the U.S. and Steele was in London.”

Before CNN’s report, McCabe sent emails within the FBI and to then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates saying the network was likely going to publish details about the dossier.

“Flood is coming,” read the subject line of McCabe’s Jan. 8, 2017, email to FBI leaders.

“CNN is close to going forward with the sensitive story,” he wrote, referring to the dossier. “The trigger for [CNN] is they know the material was discussed in the brief and presented in an attachment.”

It is unclear how McCabe knew that CNN was working on the story.

There is no evidence that McCabe provided the tip to CNN, though he was fired from the FBI for displaying a “lack of candor” to DOJ and FBI investigators about authorizing leaks to the media about an investigation of the Clinton Foundation. CNN hired McCabe as a law enforcement analyst Aug. 23. (RELATED: FBI’s Top Press Officer Accepted Baseball Tickets From CNN Reporter And Lied About It)

McCabe also discussed at the event how FBI officials decided who from the Trump campaign to include in its counterintelligence investigation, Crossfire Hurricane.

He described how the Australian government provided a tip to the FBI in July 2016 regarding an Australian diplomat’s conversation with Papadopoulos. The diplomat, Alexander Downer, stated in a memo that Papadopoulos said Russia might help the Trump campaign closer to the election.

The Australians provided the information after WikiLeaks began releasing emails stolen from the DNC. The FBI opened the counterintelligence investigation, Crossfire Hurricane, on July 31, 2016.

WATCH:

McCabe indicated that investigators decided only after opening a case against Papadopoulos to add three other Trump officials to the investigation.

“We open the case, and then we think, ‘OK, now who are we actually going to investigate?'” he said.

“Who do we know who is associated with the campaign who has known, significant ties to Russian intelligence?” he asked rhetorically. “We quickly come up with four names that will not surprise you.”

McCabe identified Papadopoulos, Manafort, Flynn and Page.

He cited Manafort’s longstanding work for a pro-Russia Ukrainian political party, and Flynn’s “very public interactions with Vladimir Putin and other Russians,” as the rationale for investigating the two Trump advisers.

McCabe said Page was included because of the energy consultant’s past involvement in a counterintelligence investigation of a group of suspected Russian spies. Page was interviewed in 2014 and 2016 during an investigation and prosecution of a Russia intelligence agent who investigators claimed tried to recruit Page.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel