continuing to hype it existed but never letting anybody see it. essentially, this was this was put up or shut up moment. this was a put up or shut up moment when putting up was not the better of the two options. the central claim of their weeks of hype, their whole campaign to release the memo is somehow this mel ev memo would prove the dossier by an mi 6 officer christopher steele, the campaign was based around the idea this memo would prove that the steele dossier is what led to the whole russia investigation. now the problem with that argument with having created that expectation about the secret memo is the secret memo actually conceded that it was not the christopher steele dossier. the fbi started a counter intelligence probe into the trump campaign s ties with russia because of what turned out to be well-pounded counter intelligence concerns about a
washington in september of that year and briefed multiple journalists including one from yahoo! news, me. so i am free to talk about that and say yes, in fact, he did. i heard i met him and heard when the work he was doing and the concerns he had that he had picked up about carter page s contacts in moscow during that trip in july. i then went when checking out christopher steele, talked to people who had worked with him, talked to others about carter page and how he had been on the radar screen of u.s. officials for some time. and i did confirm what to me was most significant part of what christopher steele had to say, which was that his material had been presented to the fbi, the fbi was very interested in it
it says it is derived from information leaked by steele himself to yahoo! news. joining me now is the correspondent for yahoo! news. compa michael, this gets confusing for some who are not read in temperature give me context so i can understand the reference to you in that memo. well, i have to say, i was as surprised as anybody that i was cited in the memo and apparently was cited before the fisa court. but the story that i wrote in september 2016 was the first story to reveal that there was u.s. intelligence investigation of somebody associated with the trump campaign. and that was carter page. christopher steele has acknowledged that he came to
that there was insufficient disclosure of who christopher steele was. and senator lindsey graham has raised the question publicly and in his letters to the fbi saying is christopher steele an informant for the fbi or is he in fact a political hired gun, an opposition researcher? and he asked the question can you be both. and so, rachel, what we decided to do was to kind of dive into that question and understand as best we can who is christopher steele, what were his assignments, and how did he deal, and did he deal, with what would seem to be an inherent contradiction? a guy who is talking to the fbi about things he s learned from russia sources on the one hand and a man, a professional, moved to the private sector, who feels he has obligations to a private client who happens to be working in this case for a law firm that
steele, the former lead agent on russia matters for mi6 in britain. attacking him really appears to be the centerpiece if not the whole game plan for what is now a republican full court press to try to save this presidency and stop the investigation into him that has already brought resulted in two guilty pleas and multiple felony charges against two trump campaign officials. now, in the house, republican devin nunes has released his classified memo that he now admits misstates how the fbi used chris steele s information in court to get a surveillance warrant. that s what s happening in the house against christopher steele. in the senate it s republican senator chuck grassley along with republican senator lindsey graham. they are literally trying to get the justice department to bring criminal charges against christopher steele and in the middle of this scrum with the president reportedly meeting in person today at the white house with deputy attorney general rod