FROM EIR DAILY ALERT
MI6’s Christopher Steele Visited State Department in October 2016, Before U.S. Election
June 20, 2018 (EIRNS)—During a hearing today on the U.S. government’s response to Russian “meddling” in the 2016 election, Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, reported that MI6 operative Christopher Steele visited the State Department in October 2016, and briefed officials on the contents of his dirty dossier on Donald Trump.
As the Daily Caller writes today, Steele’s visit to the State Department before the November 2016 elections had not been previously reported. This fact was revealed in Burr’s exchange with Victoria Nuland, then-Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, who went through contortions to distance herself from Steele, although admitting she first saw memos from him on the dossier in mid-July 2016. It was Nuland who also signed off on a meeting between Steele and the FBI’s legal attaché in Rome in late-June 2016.
But she insisted to Senator Burr that she never saw the entire Steele dossier “until it was published in the U.S. press.” Nuland had also asserted last February that she decided to refer the dossier to the FBI, as it didn’t fall under her purview. Today, in twisted syntax, she emphatically stated that she “actively chose not to be a part” of Steele’s October 2016 briefing, also claiming that she “was not aware of [it] until afterwards.” Hardly believable.
But as the Daily Caller pointed out, Burr’s revelations “suggest [the State Department] maintained interest in Steele and his report longer than previously known.” The House Intelligence Committee is also looking into the State Department’s handling of the Steele dossier, and specifically wants to know what Nuland and other officials did with the Steele information. What’s clear is that Steele had plenty of contact with the entire gaggle of Clinton operatives, among them former State Department official Jonathan Winer, a Steele associate since 2009 who passed summaries of the dossier to others at State, including to Secretary of State John Kerry. At the very least, Kerry was briefed on the dossier, although it’s unknown whether he met with Steele during the latter’s October 2016 visit.
Winer was also the source for journalists Michael Isikoff and David Corn who wrote articles based on Steele’s allegations prior to the 2016 election.
