Former British spy Christopher Steele made a stunning admission during an October 11, 2016 meeting with Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec, just 10 days before the FBI used his now-discredited dossier to justify securing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to spy on Trump campaign aide Carter Page and the campaign’s ties to Russia, according to The Hill‘s John Solomon.
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec’s written account of her Oct. 11, 2016, meeting with FBI informant Christopher Steele shows the Hillary Clinton campaign-funded British intelligence operative admitted that his research was political and facing an Election Day deadline. –The Hill
According a typed summary of the meeting – which sat buried for over 2 1/2 years until an open-records litigation by Citizens United – Steele said that his client “is keen to see this information come to light prior to November 8,” the date of the 2016 US election. Also in the meeting was an employee of Steele’s Orbis Security firm, Tatyana Duran.
And according to The Hill, Kavalec’s notes of the meeting – including this stunning admission – do not appear to have been provided to the House Intelligence Committee for its Russia probe, according to former Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA).
“They tried to hide a lot of documents from us during our investigation, and it usually turns out there’s a reason for it,” Nunes told The Hill‘s Solomon, who notes that One member of Congress had transmitted the memos to the DOJ’s Inspector General, Michael Horowitz out of concern that the IG’s office had never seen it either.
The FBI has retroactively classified Kavalec’s notes on 4/25/2019, despite the fact that it was originally marked unclassified in 2016. It is set to “Declassify on 12/31/2041,” 25 years after the 2016 election.
The apparent effort to hide Kavalec’s notes from her contact with Steele has persisted for some time.
State officials acknowledged a year ago they received a copy of the Steele dossier in July 2016, and got a more detailed briefing in October 2016 and referred the information to the FBI.
But what was discussed was not revealed. Sources told me more than a year ago that Kavalec had the most important (and memorialized) interaction with Steele before the FISA warrant was issued, but FBI and State officials refused to discuss it, or even confirm it.
The encounter, and Kavalec’s memos, were forced into public view through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation by Citizens United. Yet, all but a few lines have been redacted after the fact. Officials are citing as the reason national security, in the name of the FBI and a half-century-old intelligence law. –The Hill