As Democrats continue to focus on some possible way to impeach Trump, House Republicans are trying to find out who started this whole mess.
Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) believes the entire Steele Dossier used to secure FISA warrants was “false and fake.”
The Origins
What were the origins of the claims of collusion against Trump?
That is the question that everyone is trying to answer right now.
How can a special counsel probe be convened without enough solid evidence to result in at least one indictment on collusion?
That is what happens when a bogus document is at the heart of the investigation.
The Steele Dossier, as well all now know, was nothing more than the equivalent of a plagiarized college paper.
Christopher Steele, the man tasked with the assignment from Fusion GPS, used a search tool called iReport to gather his information.
For those of you not familiar with the tool, it gathered headlines based on search criteria.
The problem, though, is not all of the articles it produced were verified.
It turned up results with everything from Fox News to all the conspiracy theory blogs.
For that reason, James Comey debunked the dossier very early on.
However, he also used it to support FISA warrants, and that is where the problem lies.
Rep. Ratcliffe stated, “The questions is, ‘was there a proper predicate?’
“Was there probable cause to believe that there was a conspiracy or collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia?
“So that’s the question that has to be answered.”
False and Fake
Rep. Ratcliffe is a bit more than irked about the Steele dossier being used as the central point of the investigation.
He stated, “Trey Gowdy and I – I think – were the only two Republicans that had the opportunity to see that probable cause evidence, to see all of those FISA applications in unredacted form and they centered around something called the Steele Dossier, which was entirely false and fake, and now Bob Mueller says it was false and fake.
“Now, to be fair, just because Bob Mueller found that there was no evidence of a conspiracy or no evidence of collusion, doesn’t mean that there couldn’t be probable cause to look for it.”
Other than the dossier, though, Americans would love to know how this all got started.
As Rep. Ratcliffe stated, James Comey has “got some explaining to do.”
You can read the full report on Fox News.
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