DOJ official warned Steele dossier was connected to Clinton, might be biased
https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house ... linton?amp
When the annals of mistakes and abuses in the FBI's Russia investigation are finally written, Bruce Ohr almost certainly will be the No. 1 witness, according to my sources.
The then-No. 4 Department of Justice (DOJ) official briefed both senior FBI and DOJ officials in summer 2016 about Christopher Steele's Russia dossier, explicitly cautioning that the British intelligence operative's work was opposition research connected to Hillary Clinton's campaign and might be biased.
Ohr's briefings, in July and August 2016, included the deputy director of the FBI, a top lawyer for then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch and a Justice official who later would become the top deputy to special counsel Robert Mueller.
At the time, Ohr was the associate attorney general.
Yet his warnings about political bias were pointedly omitted weeks later from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant that the FBI obtained from a federal court, granting it permission to spy on whether the Trump campaign was colluding with Russia to hijack the 2016 presidential election.
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A redacted version of the FISA application released last year shows the FBI did not mention any connection to the DNC or Clinton. Rather, it referred to Steele as a reliable source in past criminal investigations who was hired by a person working for a U.S. law firm to conduct research on Trump and Russia.
The FBI claimed it was "unaware of any derogatory information" about Steele, that Steele was "never advised ... as to the motivation behind the research" but that the FBI "speculates" that those who hired Steele were "likely looking for information to discredit" Trump's campaign.
Yet, in testimony last summer to congressional investigators, Ohr revealed the FBI and Justice lawyers had no need to speculate: He explicitly warned them in a series of contacts, beginning July 31, 2016, that Steele expressed biased against Trump and was working on a project connected to the Clinton campaign.
Ohr had firsthand knowledge about the motive and the client: He had just met with Steele on July 30, 2016, and Ohr's wife, Nellie, worked for Fusion GPS, the same firm employing Steele.
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Ohr's extensive testimony also undercuts one argument that House Democrats sought to make last year.
When Republicans, in early 2018, first questioned Ohr's connections to Steele, Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee sought to minimize the connection, insisting he only worked as an informer for the FBI after Steele was fired by the FBI in November 2016.
The memo from Rep. Adam Schiff's (D-Calif.) team claimed that Ohr's contacts with the FBI only began "weeks after the election and more than a month after the Court approved the initial FISA application."
But Ohr's testimony now debunks that claim, making clear he started talking to FBI and DOJ officials well before the FISA warrant or election had occurred.
And his detailed answers provide a damning rebuttal to the FBI's portrayal of the Steele material.
In fact, the FBI did have derogatory information on Steele: Ohr explicitly told the FBI that Steele was desperate to defeat the man he was investigating and was biased.
And the FBI knew the motive of the client and did not have to speculate: Ohr told agents the Democratic nominee's campaign was connected to the research designed to harm Trump's election chances.
Such omissions are, by definition, an abuse of the FISA system.
Don't take my word for it. Fired FBI Director James Comey acknowledged it himself when he testified last month that the FISA court relies on an honor system, in which the FBI is expected to divulge exculpatory evidence to the judges.
"We certainly consider it our obligation, because of our trust relationship with federal judges, to present evidence that would paint a materially different picture of what we're presenting," Comey testified on Dec. 7, 2018. "You want to present to the judge reviewing your application a complete picture of the evidence, both its flaws and its strengths."
Comey claims he didn't know about Ohr's contacts with Steele, even though his top deputy, McCabe, got the first contact.
But none of that absolves his FBI, or the DOJ for that matter, from failing to divulge essential and exculpatory information from Ohr to the FISA court. 
