Barr: ‘Very Unusual’ For FBI To Rely On Steele Dossier Given ‘Clear Mistakes’

Attorney General William Barr said in an interview that aired Friday that he is investigating what role the Steele dossier played in the Russia probe, and that the salacious document had “a number of clear mistakes.”

“It’s a very unusual situation to have opposition research like that, especially one that on its face had a number of clear mistakes and a somewhat jejune analysis,” Barr told Fox News’ Bill Hemmer.

“And to use that to conduct counterintelligence against an American political campaign is a strange — would be strange development.”

In the interview, Barr spoke at length about an inquiry he launched at the Justice Department into the origins of the Russia investigation. He told The Wall Street Journal in an interview that the investigation is also focusing on what information U.S. intelligence agencies gathered on Trump campaign associates before the FBI formally opened its investigation in July 2016.

Nicki Minaj to star in ‘Shark Tank’- style show for Trump administration

Illegal immigrant’s ‘over-the-top’ sexual assault on elderly woman sends sheriff into rage: ‘Out of control’

Another ActBlue leader pleads Fifth as House investigates alleged foreign donations

Video: Trump Can’t Hold Back After Reporter Asks If He Plans to Nuke a Militarily Defeated Iran: ‘Stupid’

Woke stunt goes horribly wrong as Michigan Dems open convention with brutal ‘land acknowledgment’

Watch: JD Vance Echoes Will Smith in Fiery Response to Abdul El-Sayed’s Comments About Wife

White House brings receipts after media claims noncriminal ICE arrests ‘soaring’: ‘False narratives’

Hasan Piker’s Claim He Doesn’t Hate America Clashes With That Time He Declared ‘I Hate America’

Army Secretary Dan Driscoll Resigns After Internal Disagreements

Ex-House Freedom Caucus chair says GOP isn’t ‘a conservative party anymore,’ but Democrats are ‘worse’

FLASHBACK: Mamdani torched for recycling 9/11 tributes after years of near-identical posts

AOC’s pivot for 2028 has begun. Will it work?

2 Grand Canyon flooding victims photographed on hiking trip in days before deaths

Teen arrested in girl’s murder one year after police said she accidentally shot herself while recording video

Trump Announces Plan to Help Ranchers Going Through Beef Market ‘Hell’

The FBI relied heavily on the Steele dossier, which was funded by the DNC and Clinton campaign, to obtain surveillance warrants against Carter Page, a Trump campaign adviser. But Republicans have accused the FBI of misleading the surveillance court by relying on the dossier given that its allegations were unverified.

Christopher Steele, a former British spy, claimed in the dossier that the Trump campaign was involved in a “well-developed conspiracy of co-operation” with the Russian government to influence the 2016 election. He alleged that Page and other Trump associates, like Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen, were at the center of the scheme.

But the special counsel’s report all but debunked the dossier’s central thesis, while dismissing one specific allegation about Cohen. The report said that prosecutors were unable to establish a conspiracy between the Trump team and Russia. It also said that Cohen did not visit Prague in August 2016, which is where the dossier claimed the former Trump lawyer went to pay off Russian hackers.

Steele and his client, Fusion GPS, shopped the dossier around to numerous journalists. Steele also provided memos from his dossier to the FBI and State Department.

Barr told Hemmer that the answers he has received so far about the origins of the investigations “aren’t sufficient.” He is reportedly working with the directors of the CIA, FBI and Office of National Intelligence on the inquiry.