Nothing to see here except even more evidence that the FBI is totally corrupted beyond your imagination.
According to a witness in the Durham investigation, the FBI offered $1 million to Christopher Steele, a Hillary Clinton opposition researcher, if he could provide any evidence that the Steele Dossier was real.
From the Washington Examiner:
The FBI offered British ex-spy Christopher Steele an "incentive" of up to $1 million if he could prove the allegations in his since-discredited anti-Trump dossier, but the former MI6 agent was unable to back up his claims, according to new court testimony.
The bombshell revelation came during special counsel John Durham's false statements trial against Steele's main dossier source, Russian-born lawyer Igor Danchenko, who has been charged with repeatedly lying to the bureau about his sourcing for information he provided for the dossier in 2016. Danchenko has pleaded not guilty.
FBI supervisory intelligence analyst Brian Auten, who interviewed Danchenko in January 2017 as part of the bureau's Crossfire Hurricane team, was also among the FBI employees who interviewed Steele in early October 2016 in Rome as the FBI sought more details on the dossier. Auten revealed the lucrative reward the bureau had dangled.
The Steele Dossier, the basis for the Russian collusion hoax for years, was never corroborated, but the FBI really really worked hard to find evidence for it. They offered Steele up to $1 million to prove it so they could go after Trump.
That's the level of anti-Trump corruption that's been in the FBI from the start.
Durham himself questioned Auten, who was the special counsel team's first witness in the trial that began with jury selection and opening arguments in a federal courtroom on Tuesday, and he pressed the FBI analyst on whether the FBI offered to provide Steele with any incentives in exchange for information corroborating his dossier's allegations. Danchenko's lawyers unsuccessfully objected to the question, overruled by the judge.
"Yes, it did," Auten said from the witness stand. "Mr. Steele was offered anywhere up to a million dollars" for information "which could help prove the allegations."
But Auten said, "No," when asked if Steele ever provided evidence backing up his dossier claims. The FBI analyst also testified Danchenko never provided corroboration for the dossier's allegations either.
The FBI analyst also testified that other U.S. intelligence agencies looked into the dossier's claims and none could confirm the specific claims in the dossier.
The entire Steele Dossier looks like it was completely fabricated from whole cloth. There's exactly ZERO evidence for ANY of the claims.
They still authorized the FISA warrant.
And you have James Clapper (former Director of National Intelligence), John Brennan (former CIA Director), and James Comey (former FBI Director) all talk for YEARS about Russian collusion as if it were a legitimate scandal.
The real scandal here is the weaponization of the FBI to oppose and undermine the duly elected president of the United States.
Tom Fitton has had it right for 5 years now:
The FBI went too far, essentially putting a $1 million bounty on evidence to go after Donald Trump.
