COMEY'S VERSION OF THE FACTS CONFLICTS WITH THE HISTORICAL RECORD

Comey’s version of the facts conflicts with the historical record

By Rowan Scarborough - The Washington Times - Saturday, April 28, 2018

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Fired FBI director James Comey has provided a number of assertions about the Trump-Russia probe that conflict with the historical record.

Whether it involves who paid for the anti-Trump dossier, what Mr. Comey knew about the funding and when its author, Christopher Steele, first met with the FBI, the former director has provided his version of facts that critics say are wrong.

Mr. Comey is on a media tour selling his memoir, “A Higher Loyalty.”

Dossier Funding

Mr. Comey told Fox News anchor Bret Baier this week that Republicans first funded the Steele dossier and then later the money flow shifted to unknown Democrats.

This assertion is one often repeated by liberals to cast blame on Republicans for a dossier that makes a series of election collusion charges that remain unconfirmed publicly today:

Baier: When did you learn that the DNC and Hillary Clinton campaign had funded Christopher Steele’s work?

Comey:  Yes. I still don’t know that for a fact.

Baier: What do you mean?

Comey: I’ve only seen it in the media. I never knew exactly which Democrats had funded. I knew it was funded first by Republicans.

Baier: But that’s not true.

Comey: I’m sorry?

Baier: That’s not true that the dossier the Christopher Steele worked on was funded by Republicans.

Comey: My understanding was his work started funded by — as oppo research funded by Republicans.

The congressional and court records in this matter clearly show that Fusion GPS, a private investigative firm, received funds from a Republican donor to investigate President Trump during the primary season. With Trump’s nomination assured, the funding stopped.

In June 2016, Fusion went to the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign for opposition research funds. With money secured, Fusion hired Mr. Steele, an ex-British spy, who began submitting memos on June 20 that made up the dossier.

His work was based on middleman(men) he paid to collect anti-Tump information from Kremlin spies. The dossier writing did not start until the Democratic money started flowing to Fusion via a law firm.

In a court filing in London, where he is being sued for libel, Mr. Steele provided this chronology:

Between June and early November 2016 [Steele] was engaged by Fusion to prepare a series of confidential memoranda based on intelligence concerning Russian efforts to influence the U.S. presidential election process and links between Russia and Donald Trump.

Mr. Comey has offered no criticism of the dossier or Mr. Steele. Republicans call it a work of fiction that embroiled President Trump in a probe now headed by special counsel Robert Mueller.

Steele-FBI Marriage

Mr. Comey says the FBI did not receive any information from Mr. Steele until after “late July.”

This is important because the FBI and liberal media are trying to downplay the dossier’s role, while Republican says it actually drove and dominated the investigation.

“Late July” is the time the FBI officially opened a counter-intelligence investigation based on a tip about George Papadopoulos, a Trump volunteer living in London.

“The FBI didn’t get any information that’s part of the so-called Steele dossier, as I understand it, until after that,” Mr. Comey told ABC News. “And so the investigation was triggered entirely separately from the Steele dossier.”

But available evidence shows Mr. Steele began funneling information well before late July. And in fact, the dossier and other Democratic Party opposition research made up the driving force for the FBI investigation of the Donald Trump campaign that summer and fall.

In late October, Mr. Steele did a Skype interview with Mother Jones magazine. He told David Corn he had sent his reports to the FBI “near the start of July.”

This is an apparent reference to a July 5, 2016, meeting Mr. Steele had in England with an FBI agent stationed in Rome. Mr. Steele handed him his reports on a supposed conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Kremlin.

The agent read them and remarked, “I have to report this to headquarters,” according to the book “Russian Roulette.”

That meeting was set up by Obama political appointees at the State Department who knew Mr. Steele from his reports to them on Ukraine.

In the Dark

Mr. Comey contended to Mr. Baier that he know only that the dossier was funded by some unnamed Democrat during his tenure. His lack of firm knowledge extended to include briefing President-elect Trump on the dossier’s sleazy prostitute tale during a private meeting on Jan. 6, 2017 at Trump Tower.

Mr. Comey took Mr. Trump aside to tell him there was a report Russia had compromising information on him. The then-FBI director never told him the report was Democratic opposition research.

At the time Mr. Comey claimed ignorance on the dossier’s true funding, senior FBI and Justice officials knew it had been funded by the DNC and the Clinton campaign, according to the majority report of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

“The political origins of the Steele dossier were then known to senior DoJ and FBI officials,” the committee said, referring to the Oct. 21, 2016 wiretap warrant application filed by the bureau.

Republicans say the FBI abused the court process by using unverified material from the other party to spy on the Trump campaign.

Papadopoulos

Mr. Comey asserted that the investigation began in late July “because of reliable information George Papadopoulos was having conversations about obtaining information from the Russians,” he told ABC News.

Mr. Papadopoulos pled guilty to lying to the FBI because he denied he was working for the campaign when he met Kremlin-connected people. He was in London trying to set up a grand meeting between candidate Trump and the Kremlin, maybe even Mr. Putin. He appeared to be freelancing rather than acting on an explicit campaign strategy.

The indictment doesn’t say he was trying to obtain information. It says that during his talk with a Kremlin-connected professor he told Mr. Papadopoulos he heard the Kremlin owned thousands of Mrs. Clinton’s emails.

There has been no evidence publicly that Mr. Papadopoulos or the campaign made efforts to acquire the emails, if they even existed. At the time, the Russians were hacking Democratic Party computers and stealing thousands of messages.

Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn

Mr. Baier asked Mr. Comey if he testified to lawmakers that agents did not believe Mr. Flynn lied to them:

Baier: Did you tell law makers that FBI agents didn’t believe former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was lying intentionally to investigators?

Comey: No …. And I saw that in the media. I don’t know what–––maybe someone misunderstood something I said. I didn’t believe that and didn’t say that.

Mr. Comey’s answer was immediately challenged by people inside the closed House Intelligence Committee hearing room.

“Director Comey’s recollection is flawed if he does not remember telling Congress that his agents told him that they didn’t think Flynn was lying,” Rep. Trey Gowdy, South Carolina Republican, told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson. “He needs to get his lawyers and go back and look at the transcript. We did not mishear. Maybe he misspoke, but that is in the transcript. Director Comey’s recollection is flawed if he does not remember telling Congress that his agents told him that they didn’t think Flynn was lying. He needs to get his lawyers and go back and look at the transcript. We did not mishear. Maybe he misspoke, but that is in the transcript.”

Mr. Flynn pled guilty to lying to the FBI about two phone calls with the Russian ambassador. He was fired by President Trump for misleading Vice President Mike Pence about the calls concerning U.S. sanctions on Russians and businesses. Mr. Flynn is awaiting sentencing.

Mr. Comey tweeted on Thursday, the day of his Fox News interviewed appeared, “The last two weeks were a reminder of the vital role of the press and of open-minded, respectful conversation in our lives. I’m grateful for good and tough questions from reporters across the spectrum and around the world. Look forward to more.”

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