Senate Judiciary Republicans refer dossier author Chris Steele to DOJ for criminal investigation

Thomson Reuters

FILE PHOTO - Sen. Chuck Grassley speaks with reporters ahead of votes on Capitol Hill in Washington

Republican Senators Chuck Grassley and Lindsey Graham issued a criminal referral to the Justice Department on Friday urging the department to examine whether the former British spy Christopher Steele made false statements to the FBI "about the distribution of claims contained in the dossier."

In a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Chris Wray, Grassley and Graham wrote: "Attached please find a classified memorandum related to certain communications between Christopher Steele and multiple US news outlets regarding the so-called 'Trump dossier' that Mr. Steele compiled on behalf of Fusion GPS for the Clinton Campaign and the Democratic National Committee and also provided to the FBI."

"Based on the information contained therein, we are respectfully referring Mr. Steele to you for investigation of potential violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1001, for statements the Committee has reason to believe Mr. Steele made regarding his distribution of information contained in the dossier," the Senators wrote.

"I don't take lightly making a referral for criminal investigation," Grassley said in a statement. "But, as I would with any credible evidence of a crime unearthed in the course of our investigations, I feel obliged to pass that information along to the Justice Department for appropriate review."

Graham said in a separate statement that "after reviewing how Mr. Steele conducted himself in distributing information contained in the dossier and how many stop signs the DOJ ignored in its use of the dossier, I believe that a special counsel needs to review this matter."

The Senators did not disclose what led them to believe that Steele had misled the FBI. And it is unclear why the DOJ would not have moved to charge Steele if the FBI had found evidence of wrongdoing in their interviews with him.

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Steele's relationship with the bureau long pre-dated his role in collecting information about Trump's Russia ties, and the FBI took his intelligence seriously insofar as it corroborated aspects of the investigation they had already opened into the Trump campaign's ties to Moscow.

Additionally, there is no evidence that Steele himself was ever under FBI investigation or gave a formal interview to the bureau, raising questions about whether his comments to federal agents regarding the dossier were material.

Legal experts said the referral seemed politically motivated insofar as it did not appear to provide information to the FBI that the bureau did not already have.

"A referral that offered evidence of lying to Congress would be more likely to give the FBI something new and would be more likely to carry some weight," said William Yeomans, a former deputy assistant attorney general who spent 26 years at the Justice Department.

"If they are giving the FBI information it already has that suggests Steele lied to the FBI, the referral has little import. The bottom line is that the referral only matters to the extent it gives the FBI relevant evidence or otherwise unknown and credible allegations," he said. "Otherwise, it should be viewed as a political act."

Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti largely agreed.

"This is either a PR stunt or an attempt by Senators who control DOJ funding to undermine the investigation," Mariotti said in an interview. "Either way, it's problematic, because it seems like an attempt to influence DOJ charging decisions."

Josh Levy, a lawyer for Fusion GPS, said in a statement that "publicizing a criminal referral based on classified information raises serious questions about whether this letter is nothing more than another attempt to discredit government sources, in the midst of an ongoing criminal investigation. We should all be skeptical in the extreme."