Christopher Steele's "Dossier" Had A Hot Tip the FBI Didn't Bother Fact-Checking: That Notorious Liberal NeverTrumper Rick Wilson Was a Trump Campaign Worker

Christopher Steele's sources are very reliable, and totally not just made up.

Even after the 2016 presidential election, Trump-Russia dossier author Christopher Steele and company kept coming up with allegations that Donald Trump and his campaign had conspired with the Kremlin.

On Dec. 12, 2016, the FBI was informed of a new, specific claim from Glenn Simpson, Steele's patron at opposition research outfit Fusion GPS -- a tip with the whiff of a smoking gun: "A former Trump campaign official, possibly Rick Wilson, was talking about some of the Trump ties to Russia and the Trump Campaign tried to sue him for violating his non-disclosure agreement."

What a remarkable break for the bureau. If true, a Trump insider, with closely guarded secrets to tell, could have provided agents with firsthand evidence of collusion with Russia. So, did the FBI hurry to chase down the one person most able to verify the claim -- Rick Wilson himself, a veteran political strategist and Republican operative?

Eric Felten reports Rick Wilson saying the FBI never contacted him about this big tip.

Of course, this "tip" is ludicrous; Rick Wilson was obviously working for someone else from very early in that campaign cycle (either Rubio or Jeb!; Rick Wilson pushed that story that Ted Cruz was supposedly having affairs with six female aides, long before Trump even heard of it).

He was a vicious NeverTrumper.

And yet Christopher Steele's "sources" said that he might have been the "former campaign aide" ready to spill the beans on Trump.

Eric Felten makes a great point: The FBI investigated all the claims that could not be proven or disproven easily. Or proven or disproven quickly.

This allowed them to spin their wheels forever crediting the dossier as possibly true, but still "unverified."

Why not take a close look at one "tip" that could be disproven very quickly -- that Rick Wilson had been a campaign operative for Trump?

Maybe because the FBI didn't want to disprove the "Dossier"? Maybe because they wanted to keep it in a nebulous state of being maybe true, maybe false for as long as it was needed to get FISA warrants on Trump?

posted by Ace of Spades at 11:59 AM

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