Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham pledged March 14 that he will hold hearings to get to the bottom of whether the FBI misled surveillance court judges by using the Steele dossier to obtain spy warrants against a former Trump campaign adviser.
Graham, a Republican, has focused on how the FBI handled the dossier, which was written by Christopher Steele, a former British spy who investigated President Donald Trump on behalf of the Clinton campaign and DNC.
In the dossier, Steele alleged that Page met with Kremlin insiders during the 2016 campaign. Steele also accused Page of working with Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort to conspire with Russians.
Page has vehemently denied the claims, saying that he did not meet with the two Kremlin insiders Steele claims he met.
Graham and other Republicans have argued that the FBI failed to disclose Steele’s political motivations to the FISA judges. The FISA applications noted that Steele was working on behalf of someone who opposed Trump’s candidacy, but they did not identify the Clinton campaign and DNC as the former British spy’s clients.
Steele, a former MI6 official, was hired by Fusion GPS, an opposition research firm that was hired by the Clinton campaign and DNC’s law firm, Perkins Coie.
“Did the court adequately know the source of the document? Without the document, could you have gotten the warrant?” Graham asked rhetorically at Thursday’s event.
“This is a very big deal,” he added.
Ohr said that he told FBI and Justice Department officials about Steele’s remarks, but Republicans have noted that those remarks are not included in the Page FISA applications.
“We’re going to get to the bottom of that the best we can. And we’ll do other stuff, too,” said Graham.
