Gowdy: Did FBI Rely on a Document That Looks Like the National Enquirer Prepared It?

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) is starting to lose patience with the stonewalling FBI and DOJ.

He told Fox News host Bill Hemmer on “America’s Newsroom” this morning that as interesting as the question of who paid for the “dirty dossier” is, the real question is whether the Justice Dept. and the FBI relied upon its dubious “findings” to launch the Russia investigation.

“I want to know whether the nation’s premier law enforcement agency relied on a document that looks like the National Enquirer prepared it,” Gowdy, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said.

The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign helped pay for the opposition research that resulted in the salacious dossier alleging collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Fusion GPS hired former British spy Christopher Steele to conduct the research. Steele went on to share some of his findings with the FBI, which may have used the information to obtain a FISA warrant.

The House Intelligence Committee subpoenaed the FBI and the Justice Dept over two months ago for documents relating to the Russia dossier, but so far neither department has complied. On Sept. 8 Gowdy told Fox News host Martha MacCallum that he doubted that the DOJ subpoena had made it up to Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ level. Gowdy figured that the attorney general would soon know because the committee had set a new deadline for both the DOJ and FBI to produce the documents — September 14. That deadline was ignored.

The former prosecutor told Hemmer that he thinks he knows the answer to the question of whether the FBI used anti-Trump oppo research to launch the Russia investigation, but he wants to be able to prove it.

“The fact that the Department of Justice — not the Obama Department of Justice — the Trump Department of Justice will not give Congress access to that information says a lot about why we are looking into the Department of Justice and decisions they made and did not make,” Gowdy complained.

“I think the FBI is very interested in preserving its reputation,” he told Hemmer. “If they relied upon an unsourced, unvetted document to launch a really important investigation and use it in court filings, then I think our country is big enough to handle that truth.”

https://youtu.be/yNPmRgLbdbM