Christopher Steele, former British intelligence officer in London Tuesday March 7, 2017 where he has spoken to the media for the first time . Steele who compiled an explosive and unproven dossier on President Donald Trump’s purported activities in Russia has returned to work. Christopher Steele said Tuesday he is “really pleased” to be back at work in London after a prolonged period out of public view. He went into hiding in January. (Victoria Jones/PA via AP)

The IG Report confirmed the troubling fact that the FBI was using a foreign national paid for by the Clinton team for information from alleged Russian sources against Donald Trump.

That simple fact should trouble any American, that basically the FBI was weaponized against a political opponent and that what was basically opposition research and probable Russian disinformation was then used against a presidential candidate.

The report noted Steele’s efforts both to inform the FBI, apprise the Clinton lawyers, and to influence the media, and ultimately the election.

The report indicated that Steele had “briefed reporters from The New York Times, The Washington Post, Yahoo News, The New Yorker, and CNN” in late September 2016.

From page 105:

The filing states that the briefings were verbal, occurred at the end of September, and “involved the disclosure of limited intelligence regarding indications of Russian interference with the U.S. election process and the possible coordination of members of Trump’s campaign team and Russian government officials.”
Steele told us that the press briefings were taskings from his client, Fusion· GPS, that his firm had to honor, and Simpson has testified that Simpson attended the briefings.

So he was fulfilling his job for Fusion GPS who had been hired by Hillary Clinton and the DNC through Perkins Coie. But Steele also spoke with Perkins Coie directly, according to the report on page 104, footnote 233, in July 2016 (which would have been around the time the FBI investigation was allegedly “opened”) and October 2016 (after the effort to disseminate information to the press).

After speaking with the media, then lo and behold, the Yahoo article ran on September 23 about supposed connections between Carter Page and Russians. The Yahoo article said, “After one of those briefings, Senate minority leader Harry Reid wrote FBI Director James Comey, citing reports of meetings between a Trump adviser (a reference to Page) and “high ranking sanctioned individuals” in Moscow over the summer as evidence of “significant and disturbing ties” between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin that needed to be investigated by the bureau.” Contacts which, of course, didn’t exist.

Then the Hillary Clinton team issued a formal statement the same day referencing the article, decrying the “Bombshell Report About Trump Aide’s Chilling Ties To Kremlin.”

Then they were off to the races with the fake collusion narrative which is still damaging the country to this day. They certainly got their money’s worth.

The report also indicates that Steele was pushing the FBI as to why they had not announced publicly that there was an investigation into Trump. That, of course, would have furthered his desire and his hired goal of helping stop Trump from being elected. He was then upset when Comey, in October 2016, said that the FBI was reopening the email investigation into Clinton and that’s why he decided not to continue with the FBI and then subsequently did an interview with Mother Jones.

From page 175:

Steele told us that by the time of the Mother Jones interview, he and Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS had decided not to continue with the FBI because the FBI “was being deceitful.” In particular, Steele stated that he had asked Ohr and possibly Handling Agent 1 prior to late October 2016 why the U.S. government had not announced that the FBI was investigating allegations concerning the Trump campaign. Steele said that he was told in response that the Hatch Act made it a criminal offense for a federal official to make a public statement within 90 days of an election to the detriment or benefit of a candidate.314 Both Ohr and Handling Agent 1 told us that they had no recollection of discussing the Hatch Act with Steele. Steele explained that he became frustrated with the FBI at the end of October when Corney notified Congress close to the election that the FBI was reopening the Clinton email investigation and The New York Times quoted law enforcement officials as saying that they had found no direct link between Trump and the Russian government.315

So you had a foreign national, paid through Fusion GPS and Perkins Coie, by the DNC and the Clinton team, trying to influence the election and even asking the FBI to announce an investigation, according to the report. He would have been paid by the FBI as well for this, with our tax dollars, but for this break after the Mother Jones interview, when the FBI halted a $15,000 payment they were going to give him, according to page 173.

Can someone explain to me why we had two-plus years of a Russia collusion hoax into the Trump team while this was ignored or excused?

Perhaps John Durham and his investigation will have more to say about this.