On Monday, the committee voted along party lines to make public the four-page, classified memo commissioned by Chair Devin Nunes (R-California), which is currently available only to members of the House of Representatives. A counter-memo prepared by the Democrats, which was not shown to anyone, was approved for reading by Congress but not for the general public just yet.<\/p>\n
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Within minutes, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-California), the ranking member, was in front of the cameras, denouncing the Republicans as unfair and not interested in transparency. Schiff\u2019s claims confused even some news agencies, which initially reported the committee had voted not to release the Nunes memo, rather than to keep Schiff\u2019s classified until it can be read by members.<\/p>\n Earlier in the day, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe suddenly stepped down<\/a> from his post, though he\u2019d previously announced he would stay with the bureau until March. McCabe\u2019s departure came after reports that FBI Director Christopher Wray had read the Nunes memo.<\/p>\n The memo\u2019s contents are unknown. According to media reports, it shows the FBI sought a warrant \u00a0from the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, without disclosing that its evidence was based on the infamous Trump-Russia dossier, also known as the \u201cSteele dossier,\u201d<\/em> which was funded by the Hillary Clinton<\/a> campaign as opposition research against President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n On Tuesday, the Guardian published an exclusive report<\/a> claiming that the FBI is in possession of a second dossier that it says corroborates Steele\u2019s claims. Citing anonymous sources, the UK-based paper reported that the dossier was handed over to the FBI in October 2016 by Steele, who reportedly received it from \u201can American contact,\u201d<\/em> following the bureau\u2019s request for corroborating information.<\/p>\n This \u201csecond dossier\u201d<\/em> was authored by Cody Shearer, a former journalist and political operative for the Clinton White House in the 1990s. According to the Guardian, it confirms Steele\u2019s claim that Trump was \u201ccompromised\u201d<\/em> by the Russian intelligence in 2013, during a trip to Moscow that involved \u201clewd acts\u201d<\/em> at a five-star hotel.<\/p>\n Shearer\u2019s dossier cites an unnamed source from the Russian state security service, the FSB. The Guardian noted it \u201ccannot verify any of the claims,\u201d<\/em> and it was unclear whether the paper was actually given access to the dossier.<\/p>\n Citing a \u201csource with knowledge of the inquiry,\u201d<\/em> the Guardian reported that the FBI was \u201cstill working on\u201d<\/em> the Shearer dossier, suggesting the bureau was taking at least some of it seriously.<\/p>\n \u201cIt raises the possibility that parts of the Steele dossier, which has been derided by Trump\u2019s supporters, may have been corroborated by Shearer\u2019s research, or could still be,\u201d<\/em> Stephanie Kirchgaessner and Nick Hopkins wrote in the Guardian article.<\/p>\n Some Clinton supporters were exuberant at the news of the second dossier\u2019s existence.<\/p>\n 🚨 🚨 🚨 Another dossier independently corroborates much of the Steele dossier🚨 🚨 🚨 <\/p>\n Second Trump-Russia dossier being assessed by FBI https:\/\/t.co\/zlsfSTvlk5<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Zac Petkanas (@Zac_Petkanas) January 30, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n “The FBI…has been given a second memo that independently set out some of the same allegations made in a dossier by Christopher Steele, the British former spy.”https:\/\/t.co\/MsAphzkwZg<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Caroline O. (@RVAwonk) January 30, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n BREAKING: The Guardian reports that the FBI has been given a 2nd dossier\/memo by Cody Shearer, a journalist\/activist, that independently set out many of the same allegations made in a Steele’s dossier, including allegations that Trump was compromised during a 2013 Moscow Trip.<\/p>\n \u2014 Brian Krassenstein🐬 (@krassenstein) January 30, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n Conservatives were more skeptical of the dossier\u2019s provenance, given Shearer\u2019s past. His brother served as an ambassador during the Clinton administration, and his late sister was married to Strobe Talbott, the chief authority on Russia in President Bill Clinton\u2019s State Department, according to ProPublica<\/a>.<\/p>\n During the Benghazi investigation of Hillary Clinton in 2015, the National Review<\/a> called Shearer \u201csomeone with a history of misleading foreign sources, misrepresenting himself as an agent of the US government, and creating trouble for both himself and the United States abroad.\u201d<\/em> NR cited the story about Shearer\u2019s secret trip to Bosnia in the 1990s, where he extorted money from the Bosnian Serbs, claiming he was a secret envoy of the Clinton administration and could negotiate a reduction of war crimes charges.<\/p>\n The Guardian notes that Shearer had shared his dossier \u201cwith select media organisations before the election,\u201d<\/em> without naming the outlets. The Daily Caller reporter Chuck Ross cites a passage from a recent book by the Guardian\u2019s former correspondent in Moscow, Luke Harding, about how he received an email from the \u201cClinton camp\u201d<\/em> that contained the same accusations as in the Steele dossier, but was not Steele\u2019s work.<\/p>\n There’s evidence that the Shearer memo was provided to the Clinton campaign. Guardian journalist Luke Harding recently wrote in his book about Steele dossier: pic.twitter.com\/lrQoE4yjl2<\/a><\/p>\n
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