McCain Associate Subpoenaed About "Steele Dossier"

Byron York reporting.

McCain associate David Kramer went to London to pick up the "Steele Dossier" (if Steele really is the author) and get briefed on it. He took it to McCain, who took it to the FBI, which already had most of it, as Steele was giving it to them "in installments."

In his last round of questioning by the House Intelligence Committee, Kramer said he knew who the Soviet, I mean Russian, sources for the dossier's outrageous claims were, but "declined" to say who they were. (Instapundit notes he hears that Kramer took the Fifth on this question.)

Now Kramer's being subpoenaed specifically to answer those questions, and I imagine the Committee will be prepared for him to take the Fifth or otherwise refuse to answer.

Here's why this is important, per Byron York:

[T]here is another reason to know Steele's sources, and that is to learn not just the origin of the dossier but its place in the larger Trump-Russia affair. There is a growing belief among some congressional investigators that the Russians who provided information to Steele were using Steele to disrupt the American election as much as the Russians who distributed hacked Democratic Party emails. In some investigators' views, they are the two sides of the Trump-Russia project, both aimed at sowing chaos and discord in the American political system.

Investigators who favor this theory ask a sensible question: Is it likely that all the Russians involved in the attempt to influence the 2016 election were lying, scheming, Kremlin-linked, Putin-backed enemies of America -- except the Russians who talked to Christopher Steele?

It is a sensible question-- all Russians are scheming liars, except the ones peddling evidence-free claims about Trump?! -- which is why the Democrats and the media and the Never Trumpers (but I repeat myself thricely) never ask it.

posted by Ace at 01:33 PM

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