Issa Puts It All Together on Hannity: Russia Link to Dossier Will Show Hillary's Guilty of Collusion
Is Hillary Clinton the agent of Russian collusion in the 2016 election? Well, if her campaign helped fund the Trump dossier, then yes, argues California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa.
In an appearance on Fox News’ “Hannity” on Friday, the House Oversight Committee chairman said that, since the dossier was a major part of obtaining a FISA warrant against Trump campaign employee Carter Page, the role of Russian agents in the document should be examined more closely.
Issa had been in on the closed-door testimony that former FBI Director James Comey gave on Capitol Hill last week before two House committees, much of which centered around how the warrant against Page was obtained.
Hannity began by asking Issa if he believed the bulk of the information that led to the FISA warrant came from the controversial dossier.
“That’s exactly right — that it not only came from the dossier, but as you know, Christopher Steele hasn’t been in Russia in 20 years,” he said. “So even the people, the unknown people responsible for it could easily, easily have in fact been agents of the Russian government, which would mean that Hillary Clinton is the one guilty of the so-called ‘collusion.’
“That’s a great irony there,” Hannity said, stifling a laugh.
Comey’s testimony was remarkable for a number of reasons. CNN, somewhat predictably, called him “exasperated” over the proceedings and wondered why he was answering questions about Hillary Clinton’s email two years on.
However, the fact that Comey couldn’t seem to remember a lot seemed to take up most of the headlines.
“His memory was so bad I feared he might not remember how to get out of the room after the interview,” one lawmaker told The Hill’s John Solomon.
Another said, “It was like he suddenly developed dementia or Alzheimer’s, after conveniently remembering enough facts to sell his book.”
However, what he did remember about the dossier could have been the most damning part of his testimony.
“The towering ex-FBI boss confessed that the FBI had not corroborated much of the Steele dossier before it was submitted as evidence to a secret court to support a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to spy on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page in the final weeks of the election,” Solomon wrote.
“And Comey admitted much of the dossier remained uncorroborated more than six months later when he was fired by President Donald Trump.
“I won’t waste too much time harping on the enormity of this confession. Everyday Americans now know that the FISA court process is an honor system and that the FBI may only submit evidence it has verified to the judges.”
But this wasn’t verified. It was paid opposition research, mostly conducted second- or third-hand, often with paid informants who made wild accusations.
And some of it, assumedly, came from members of Russia’s intelligence community. That’s what’s particularly dangerous here. For all of the talk of Russia offering campaign “synergy” with the Trump campaign, the only actually verifiable synergy probably came via the Trump dossier, which remains as uncorroborated as the day it was used in court to obtain a FISA warrant.
Meanwhile, even after all this, nothing has been found to indicate Trump colluded with the Kremlin.
Given that the DNC and Hillary campaign paid huge sums of money to compile the dossier, perhaps it’s time we started talking about their collusion with elements in Russian intelligence that had every reason, if they were connected in any way to the Kremlin, to destabilize the American political process.
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.
