steele material, my sense of it remained similar to how it had stood at the beginning. some things we could corroborate, a lesser number we could show were inaccurate, and with the vast majority we just couldn t say. we treated it all accordingly. after trump became president, christopher steele was in hiding for a while and then he stayed more or less off the radar for years. peter strzok and his colleagues at the fbi who pursued the counterintelligence investigation into president trump and his campaign, they were all fired or hounded out of their jobs. but then last month christopher steele popped up again. he did an hour-long interview special with abc news george stephanopolous. in that interview christopher steele said he stood behind his work and said he believes nothing in those reports has been disproven. we ve all been wondering about the timing of that. why did he come out to publicly defend his work? well, now maybe this is it. today the special counsel that was appointed
and players, that we knew to be accurate and consistent with our understanding of the way putin and the russians were operating. at the same time, many other pieces of steele s information, most of them in fact, were devilishly hard to either prove or refute. but peter strzok, fbi s top counterintelligence official, he had to try. his team created a spread sheet of every statement in christopher steele s reports to try to run each one down. they attempted to identify all the confidential sources and subsources in the reports to try to analyze the quality of their intelligence and where possible to interview those sources. peter strzok himself flew to europe to meet in person with people who knew christopher steele and his work who all knew christopher steele to be diligent and truthful. this is how he sums it up in his book. in mid-2017, the end of the time i worked with the group verifying and pursuing the steele material, my sense of it remained similar to how it had stood at the beg
essential role in the decision to seek a fisa order. chris: horowitz says it wasn t part as you told bret baier, it was not part of a broader mosaic. he said it played an essential role in establishing probable cause. he said in fact he says if it hadn t been for the steele dossier the fbi wouldn t even have submitted a fisa application that had been reviewed in april of 2016 or august of 2016. decided not to do it. they get the steele dossier. they do i had. it was not part of a broader mosaic. that is what you said sir? i m not sure he and i are saying different things. what his report says the fbi thought it was a close call until they got the steele report, put that additional information in and that tipped it every to be probable cause. it s a long fisa application. includes steele material. lots of other material i don t think you are saying different things, i think you are, sir because he is saying you re saying part of a broader mosaic just one element. he is saying the tipp
reporting played a central and essential role in the decision to seek a fisa order. chris: horowitz says it wasn t part as you told bret baier, it was not part of a broader mosaic. he said it played an essential role in establishing probable cause. he said in fact he says if it hadn t been for the steele dossier the fbi wouldn t even have submitted a fisa application that had been reviewed in april of 2016 or august of 2016. decided not to do it. they get the steele dossier. they do i had. it was not part of a broader mosaic. that is what you said sir? i m not sure he and i are saying different things. what his report says the fbi thought it was a close call until they got the steele report, put that additional information in and that tipped it every to be probable cause. it s a long fisa application. includes steele material. lots of other material i don t think you are saying different things, i think you are, sir because he is saying you re saying part of a broader mosaic just one
reporting played a central and essential role in the decision to seek a fisa order. chris: horowitz says it wasn t part as you told bret baier, it was not part of a broader mosaic. he said it played an essential role in establishing probable cause. he said in fact he says if it hadn t been for the steele dossier the fbi wouldn t even have submitted a fisa application that had been reviewed in april of 2016 or august of 2016. decided not to do it. they get the steele dossier. they do i had. it was not part of a broader mosaic. that is what you said sir? i m not sure he and i are saying different things. what his report says the fbi thought it was a close call until they got the steele report, put that additional information in and that tipped it every to be probable cause. it s a long fisa application. includes steele material. lots of other material i don t think you are saying different things, i think you are, sir because he is saying you re saying part of a broader mosaic just one