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.

Mamdani Keeps Taking Over NYPD Training Facility for Personal Use, and Police Union Officials Are Furious

Bill Gates Claims Artifical Intelligence Will Force Some to Choose an ‘Amish’ Lifestyle

Judge Overseeing Maduro Case in New York Dies Before Trial

ALERT: Dominion-Related Lawsuit Dismissed Against Patrick Byrne Over ‘The Deep Rig’ Film – No Legal Basis for Key Claim

Flavio Bolsonaro declares himself ‘true elected president of Brazil’ after fleeing to US with blessing of the White House

Arab Israeli parties emerge as wild card in parliamentary elections

Woman wearing burka escorted out of Florida county meeting after playing call to prayer recording

Manhattan 9/11 Memorial Desecrated by Anti-Second Amendment Radical

Dem AG’s ‘too many golf courses’ remark goes viral as critics tee off

Police Arrest 3 They Say Planned to Carry Out Mass Shooting at Georgia High School

Fifteen charged in DC drug bust for transnational meth and GBL trafficking ring

Dueling rallies thrust deep-red Lone Star town into the center of the political universe

‘Radical Left Lunatic’ judge Trump wanted impeached takes up Ilhan Omar warrant fight

Mary Peltola’s campaign, Dems backed covert scheme to field spoiler candidates in Alaska Senate race: report

Peltola campaign’s alleged Dan Sullivan spoiler plot takes new turn as DOJ faces major legal hurdle

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.