The hosts on EpochTV are really hammering Christopher Steele now that he’s popped his head out from whatever rock he’s been hiding under for the last five years, and it’s a wonderful thing to see. Steele deserves nothing less than scorn and derision after subjecting the United States to the endless Russia collusion narrative, in addition to giving Adam Schiff a reason to be asked to speak on every mainstream media news program for years, and he never seems to blink.
Kash Patel and Jan Jekielek waste no time in setting the tone for the episode, which could just as easily be called a roast. Jekielek almost looks reluctant to broach the topic of the ABC documentary, while Patel laughs at how painful it was to watch. Neither can be blamed for their feelings or outright guffawing at the ridiculous claims made during the Steele-Stephanopoulos interview given Patel’s in-depth knowledge of the topic (he was in the Trump administration at the time). The viewer quickly gets the sense that both Patel and Jekielek would have been happy if they never had to discuss Steele’s ludicrous, thoroughly debunked dossier again.
They don’t start with Steele, however, Jekielek asking Patel for his history in the debacle to give the audience a quick refresher on the dossier and subsequent investigation into Russian interference. Patel worked with Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), who still sits on the House Intelligence Committee, to get the ball rolling on an investigation into the dossier’s claims and how the FBI handled it. Nunes agreed with Patel to release any information they could to the public and to declassify whatever they could, which ultimately resulted in, among other things, Nunes’ memo in 2018 accusing the FBI and DOJ of misleading the FISA court when obtaining a warrant to spy on Carter Page, a former adviser to the Trump campaign.
From there they do move onto Steele, lambasting him for trying to portray himself as some kind of misunderstood hero just trying to save America from itself. Because Patel is a commentator and not a journalist, he is free to openly and repeatedly say Steele lied (which he does), and to dismiss his interview as a blatant attempt to try to salvage his tarnished reputation. Patel mentions Steele using the same tactic as Fusion GPS and many government entities, where they hope if they just repeat the same lie over and over again people will start to believe it, but Patel is having none of it. He reminds the viewer that Steele was paid hefty sums of money to fabricate absurd stories about Donald Trump and his campaign, stories that the most rabid anti-Trumpers still, inexplicably, believe.
Patel actually laughs outright when Jekielek says that Steele is now trying to portray himself as a nonpartisan when Steele flat out told the FBI that he hates Donald Trump and would do just about anything to make sure he wasn’t elected. One would think that might be a red flag that the FBI couldn’t actually trust anything coming out of Steele’s mouth, but this was Obama’s FBI so the response was more along the lines of, “Sounds good to us.” They dive into Steele’s relationship with Bruce Orr, Steele breaking protocol as a confidential informant to talk to the media, Steele lying to the FBI about talking to the media, and the FBI deciding to turn to Orr once they had to cut ties with Steele, because the FBI couldn’t use Steele as a source anymore for their investigation into Trump. At not even 10 minutes into the episode, Patel is already giving it to Steele with both barrels.
Patel also doesn’t think the timing of this interview is a coincidence given the recent indictment of Michael Sussmann, a lawyer with the Clinton campaign, for lying to the FBI in 2016 about the Trump Organization being tied to Russia. Sussmann has ties to Fusion GPS, which hired Steele to spin his web of lies, and Patel thinks Fusion GPS is probably pretty desperate right now to come across as innocent bystanders. That’s hard to do with Steele hiding in disgrace, hence he’s reappeared to try to convince everyone that the intel in the dossier was solid and properly sourced. It’s possible Steele’s advanced Trump Derangement Syndrome even allows him to believe this assertion, but Patel and Jekielek certainly don’t.
Patel then reminds Jekielek that Steele’s conduct, in providing false information, was so atrocious that the DOJ canceled two of the FISA warrants that were granted based on the dossier. Steele told both the FBI and the media about the dossier, and despite breaking his agreement with the FBI to not go to the media, the FBI unbelievably looked at the media story provided by Steele and decided that because a news organization had reported on the dossier, it must automatically be true. Then again, I think the FBI under Obama was just as eager to keep Trump out of office as Steele, so perhaps it isn’t that unbelievable after all.
Jekielek then mentions Kevin Clinesmith, the first indictment and conviction from the Durham probe who most Americans have forgotten about by now. Clinesmith is the one who changed the FISA court application to claim that Page was not working with the CIA when he actually was, a fact that would have stopped the application in its tracks. Patel suspects Durham is using both Clinesmith and Sussmann as stepping stones to hone in on bigger fish, which is why both Steele and Fusion GPS need to make themselves look credible. They’ve got a long, uphill battle in front of them, and neither host thinks the ABC interview actually did anything to help their public image.
Jekielek decides to then talk about some of the claims made in the dossier and has to bring up the infamous “pee tape.” After chuckling about it, Patel actually comes out pretty heatedly to explain just how easy it was for him and Nunes to debunk the pee tape story, considering Steele not only included what hotel it supposedly took place in, but named the room. All Patel and Nunes had to do was call the hotel (the Ritz Carlton in Moscow) and ask if they had any record of Trump ever staying in that particular room. They did not have a record of Trump staying at the Ritz Carlton at the time Steele claimed, and moreover, the room doesn’t even exist. The story about Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, visiting Prague to do some shady deals with Russian oligarchs was just as easy to disprove, as you can’t get to Prague from the United States by car. A quick check of international flight records showed that Cohen hadn’t been to Prague, and a little more digging revealed that Cohen was in fact in California at the time of the supposed meeting.
Jekielek points out that Steele also still insists that Page was colluding with Russia, when in fact Page was working with the CIA to gather intel on Russia and therefore had legitimate reasons to be in contact with the Russians. This, again, leads back to the importance of Clinesmith changing the FISA application, and Patel explains that the FBI knew about this anyway because Page had worked for them, too. It’s no wonder that Patel sounds irritated with this entire documentary when all it really did was give Steele an opportunity to double and triple down on his demonstrable lies.
This is only halfway into the episode, and I don’t want to say much more about it because “Timing of New Steele Documentary ‘Not a Coincidence’” really has to be seen to be enjoyed. Patel is typically so cool headed and professional that watching him tear into not only Steele but the FBI without restraint is an absolute joy. The same can be said of Jekielek, who is usually reserved but just can’t stop himself from smiling and laughing at how ridiculous the Stephanopoulos interview is, pointing out questions Stephanopoulos maybe kind of should have asked Steele and didn’t. They discuss Steele’s primary source, Igor Danchenko, and his subsources all disavowing the dossier; Andrew McCabe admitting that without Steele’s dossier there never would have been a FISA court application against Page; the fact that Steele hasn’t even been in Russia for 15 years and has actually been sued by Russia’s largest bank and had to pay them money for smearing their reputation; and the Durham probe among so many other topics. Unlike the ABC interview, Patel and Jekielek remember that Steele’s dossier has ruined multiple lives beyond the obvious damage done to Page, including a man whose daughter relapsed into drug addiction after years of being sober. The half hour they spend skewering Steele will have you laughing along with it, so go watch it now and then share it with anyone who needs a giggle.
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