The Role of the FBI's Chief Division Counsel in Hiding Dossier Reports

In a previous blog article titled The Temporary Disappearance of Dossier Report 97, I explained the omission of two Dossier reports -- #97 and #105 -- from the first batch of Christopher Steele's Dossier reports that were delivered to the Crossfire Hurricane Team. That first batch was delivered on September 19, 2016. By that date, Steele had completed the following reports:

1) Report 80, dated June 20, 2016

2) Report 86, dated July 26, 2015 (twenty-fifteen)

3) Report 94, dated July 19, 2016

4) Report 95, undated, but apparently written in late-July 2016

5) Report 97, dated July 30, 2016

6) Report 100, dated August 5, 2016

7) Report 101, dated August 10, 2016

8) Report 102, dated August 10, 2016

9) Report 105, dated August 22, 2016

10) Report 111, dated September 14, 2016

11) Report 112, dated September 14, 2016

12) Report 113, dated September 14, 2016

According to the Horowitz report, the first time when FBI's Crossfire Hurricane investigative team received any of those Dossier reports was on September 19, 2016. On that occasion, the team received six Dossier reports -- 80, 94, 95, 100, 101, and 102 (Horowitz page 100).

In other words, the following six completed reports were not included in that delivery:

2) Report 86, dated July 26, 2015 (twenty-fifteen)

5) Report 97, dated July 30, 2016

9) Report 105, dated August 22, 2016

10) Report 111, dated September 14, 2016

11) Report 112, dated September 14, 2016

12) Report 113, dated September 14, 2016

Although my previous blog article was titled The Temporary Disappearance of Dossier Report 97, the article addressed the non-inclusion of two reports -- #97 and #105. My article concluded that those two Dossier reports were not included for the following reason:

Those two reports indicated that Steele was obtaining information from sources who knew about happenings inside Trump's election-campaign staff. In particular,

* Steele wrote that his source for Report 97 was "a Russian émigré figure close to the Republican US presidential candidate Donald Trump's campaign team".

* Steele wrote that one of his sources for Report 105 was "an American political figure associated with Donald TRUMP and his campaign" who knew why Trump had removed Paul Manafort as his campaign manager on August 17.

.... those two reports eventually might cause accusations that the US Intelligence Community was spying on Trump's campaign staff.

I cannot imagine any other explanation. (I welcome suggestions.)

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Because of someone's decision, the Crossfire Hurricane team did not receive Report 97, which included the following passage:

.... the émigré confirmed that an intelligence exchange had been running between them [the TRUMP team and the Kremlin] for at least 8 years. .... TRUMP and his associates duly had obtained and supplied the Kremlin with ... information [about leading Russian oligarchs and their families].

As far as 'kompromat' ... on TRUMP were concerned, although there was plenty of this, he [the émigré] understood the Kremlin had given its word that it [kompromat] would not be deployed against the Republican presidential candidate given how helpful and co-operative his team had been over several years, and particularly of late.

Because of someone's decision, the Crossfire Hurricane likewise did not receive Report 105, which included the following passage:

... a recent meeting between President PUTIN and ex-President YANUKOVYCH of Ukraine .... had been held in secret on 15 August near Volgograd .... revelations about [Trump's former campaign manager] MANAFORT and Ukraine had featured prominently on the agenda.

YANUKOVYCH had confided in PUTIN that he did authorize and order substantial kick-back payments to MANAFORT ... ...

Obviously, both reports would have been important for the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.

Who made that decision -- shortly before September 19, 2016 -- to not deliver those two Dossier reports to the Crossfire Hurricane team?

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To analyze that question -- who made that decision? -- let us consider the physical locations of those two Dossier reports when the decision was made. Before September 19, both those reports were located in only two known locations within the FBI:

1) Gaeta's FBI office in the the USA's Rome Embassy

2) The office of the Chief Division Counsel (CDC) of the FBI's New York Field Office (NYFO)

In this blog article, I will focus on the second location. I begin with the Horowitz report's Executive Summary (page v), which states (emphasis added):

... Steele directly provided more than a dozen of his reports to the FBI between July and October 2016, and several others to the FBI through [Bruce] Ohr and other third parties. The Crossfire Hurricane team received the first six election reports [i.e. Steele Dossier reports] on September 19, 2016 -- more than two months after Steele first gave his handling agent two of the six reports. We describe the reasons it took two months for the reports to reach the team in Chapter Four.

Chapter Four's relevant section is titled "Steele Informs Handling Agent 1 in July 2016 about his Election" (pages 95 - 98). The expression "Handling Agent 1" refers to Gaeta. I myself summarize that section as follows.

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On July 5, 2016, Gaeta flew from Rome to London, where he obtained the Dossier's Report 80 from Steele. On that same day, Gaeta flew back to Rome. During the following days, Gaeta discussed Report 80 with his own supervisor, the FBI's Legal Attaché ("Legat") at the Embassy.

Normally, Gaeta and the Legat would request guidance from the FBI's International Operations Division (IOD), which manages the FBI's Legats. However, Gaeta persuaded the Rome Legat that Gaeta would obtain guidance instead from an FBI colleague at the FBI's NYFO. Gaeta previously had worked at the NYFO and knew that this particular colleague would give better guidance than the IOD would give. Gaeta explained to the Rome Legat that his (Gaeta's) "goal was to put the information directly in the hands of people who needed to see it."

The Horowitz report calls Gaeta's NYFO colleague "ASAC 1" (ASAC = Assistant Special Agent in Charge). This colleague's name is unknown to the public.

On about July 12, Steele phoned Gaeta and asked whether he wanted more such reports. Gaeta answered: "Not yet. I'm still dealing with this. I'll get back to you." Therefore it seems that by July 12 Gaeta still had not obtained the Rome Legat's permission to go around the IOD in routing Report 80. It seems further that Gaeta and the Rome Legat eventually agreed to a compromise in which Gaeta could consult with his NYFO colleague but nevertheless would send Report 80 to the FBI's Counterintelligence Division. Despite this agreement, however, Gaeta did not send Report 80 there. The Horowitz alludes to that failed agreement as follows (page 97):

The Legat told us that he recalled Handling Agent 1 's [Gaeta's] proposal to contact NYFO, which he concurred with, but that his expectation was that Handling Agent 1 [Gaeta] would provide Steele's reporting to the Counterintelligence Division (CD) at FBI Headquarters within a matter of days.

The Legat stated that he recalled inquiring about the handling of the reporting when Handling Agent 1 [Gaeta] obtained another report from Steele, Report 94 ... on July 19, 2016 ...

The Legat said that during this time, "I just assumed [Gaeta] was handling it. .. [and] had sent it off [to the FBI's Counterintelligence Division]."

As mentioned above, on about July 12, Steele asked Gaeta whether Gaeta wanted more Dossier reports, and Gaeta told Steele to wait. On the next day, July 13, however, Gaeta did obtain the Rome Legat's permission to send Report 80 to his NYFO colleague. The Horowitz report describes that development as follows (pages 97; emphasis added):

[On July 13] Handling Agent 1 [Gaeta] contacted an Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAC 1) in NYFO ... [and] described the "gist" of the situation to ASAC 1, who responded that he would assess what to do and contact Handling Agent 1 [Gaeta] later.

ASAC 1 told us that the information ... [was] "definitely of interest to the Counterintelligence folks."

ASAC 1 said that after hearing from Handling Agent 1 [Gaeta], he spoke with his Special Agent in Charge (SAC 1) the same day [July 13].

The Horowitz report does not identify explicitly "the Counterintelligence folks", but does indicate subtly that these "folks" were stationed in the NYFO, not in FBI Headquarters.

So, Gaeta (in Rome) described Report 80's "gist" to ASAC 1 (in New York), who in turn described that "gist" to "the Counterintelligence folks", who said they were definitely interested in seeing Report 80 itself. However, the Horowitz report indicates that Gaeta kept Report 80 in his Rome office and did not send it to the NYFO for more than two weeks after those conversations on July 13.

On July 19, Steele e-mailed to Gaeta a second Dossier report -- Report 94. As Gaeta was doing already with Report 80, he likewise kept Report 94 in his Rome office and did not send it to anybody at that time.

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While Gaeta was keeping those two Dossier reports in his Rome office, a decision was made by some unknown persons that the Dossier reports would be delivered ultimately to the NYFO's Associate Division Counsel (ADC), who worked for the NYFO's Chief Division Counsel (CDC). In essence, the Dossier reports would be kept and controlled by the NYFO's CDC office.

In accordance with that decision, on July 28 Gaeta sent the two Dossier reports to the NYFO's ASAC 1, who on August 5 delivered the two reports to the NYFO's ADC. Although ASAC 1's supervisor and ADC's supervisor were generally informed about the situation, the two reports did not pass through the two supervisors. Rather, Gaeta e-mailed the two Dossier reports directly to ASAC 1, who e-mailed them directly to the ADC. I assume that ASAC 1 was supposed to delete his own copy after sending it to the ADC.

The Horowitz report (page 99) provides the following details (emphasis added):

The ADC ... was assigned the responsibility of reading Steele's reports and determining whether they were pertinent to any crimes involving public corruption. ....

.... the reports would be placed in a sub-file in NYFO and thereby "walled off" from agents in NYFO, and ... the Assistant Director in Charge of NYFO and the "Executive Assistant Director (EAD) level" at FBI Headquarters were aware of the reports' existence. ...

So, the NYFO's ADC read the Dossier's Report 80 and Report 94 to determine whether they were pertinent to any crimes involving public corruption. The Horowitz does not say what the NYFO's ADC determined about that matter. However, the Horowitz report does mention "public corruption" in another passage (page 72; emphasis added).

[FBI Director] Comey also told us [Horowitz's investigators] that the FBI generally tried to keep [Justice] Department leadership informed about all significant activities to include important public corruption or espionage cases concerning Russian efforts to interfere with the 2016 U.S. elections.

[FBI Deputy Director Andrew] McCabe told us that he did not recall briefing Crossfire Hurricane to [the Justice Department's Deputy Attorney General Sally] Yates; however, his contemporaneous notes of a regularly scheduled meeting with the DAG on August 10 reflect that Yates was briefed on the FFG information [Australian diplomat Alexander Downer's conversation with Trump's foreign-policy advisor George Papadopoulos] at that time.

It seems to me that the NYFO's CDC received and studied the Dossier reports to determine whether the reports should be briefed to the Justice Department of Justice. Two issues were relevant:

1) Public corruption

2) Russian espionage efforts to interfere in the US election.

If the Dossier reports pertained to either issue, then the FBI was obligated to brief the Justice Department. However, the FBI did not brief the Justice Department's Deputy Attorney General Yates about the Dossier on August 10. Rather, the FBI brief Yates only about about Downer's conversation with Papadopoulos -- not about the Dossier.

The ADC surely found that neither report did pertain to his own focus -- to public corruption, to the corruption of government officials in the USA. In that regard, the subsequent decision that Yates did not have to be briefed about the Dossier on August 10 was reasonable.

Surely, however, both reports did pertain to the issue of Russian espionage efforts to interfere in the US election. However, the two Dossier reports were not briefed to Yates. Furthermore, the reports were not even forwarded to the Crossfire Hurricane team.

I think -- reading between the lines of the Horowitz report -- that "the Counterintelligence folks" in the NYFO should have studied the Dossier reports, found that they did pertain to the Russian espionage efforts and therefore recommended that the reports be briefed to the Justice Department. However, the Horowitz report does not say whether those folks thus did study, find and recommend. About that, the Horowitz did not inform the public.

The Horowitz report stated that after the Dossier reports were delivered to the NYFO on July 28, a decision was made that the Dossier reports would be placed in a walled-off subfile in the NYFO. When were the reports actually placed into such a sub-file? The Dossier report says (pages 99-100)

On September 2, 2016, Handling Agent 1 [Gaeta], who had been waiting for NYFO to inform him where to forward Steele's reports, sent the following email to the ADC and counterintelligence supervisor: "Do we have a name yet? The stuff is burning a hole."

The ADC responded the same day explaining that SSA 1 [Supervisory Special Agent 1 = Joe Pientka] had created an electronic sub-file for Handling Agent 1 [Gaeta] in the Crossfire Hurricane case and that he should forward the Steele reports to it. However, SSA 1 [Pientka] told us that there was a problem with his attempt to send an email to Handling Agent 1 [Gaeta] in early September. SSA 1 said he did not recognize the problem until September 13 and emailed Handling Agent 1 [Gaeta] that day with the case information necessary to upload the reports

So, it seems that perhaps the Dossier sub-file was created at the NYFO belatedly on September 2 and that Gaeta was provided the necessary uploading details on September 13. Even with those uploading details, however, Gaeta was not able to upload anything from his Rome office directly into the NYFO's walled-off sub-file. Therefore, on September 19, Gaeta simply e-mailed all his available Dossier reports -- Reports 80, 94, 95, 100, 101 and 102) to Pientka, who uploaded the reports into the sub-file.

Then, it seems, the Crossfire Hurricane team at FBI Headquarters became able to access those DOssier reports in the NYFO sub-file for the first time.

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The above was my summary of the relevant section of the Horowitz report's Chapter 4.

Another source of information about the routing of the Dossier reports is Gaeta's interview by the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the US House of Representatives. That interview adds the following details:

ASAC 1 was "the ASAC of Public Corruption" (page 28).

After Gaeta queried ASAC 1 on July 13, ASAC 1 did not re-contact Gaeta until July 28 (pages 30-31).

Gaeta e-mailed the Dossier reports to ASAC 1 on that same July 28

On about Friday, July 29, or Saturday, July 30, ASAC 1 told Gaeta to send the Dossier reports directly to the NYFO's CDC.

By Monday, August 1, the NYFO's Special Agent in Charge and Assistant Director in Charge had seen the Dossier reports at the NYFO. Also by August 1, "the EAD level" at FBI Headquarters "is aware of the reports" (page 31). (This "EAD level" seems to be FBI Executive Assistant Director Michael Steinbach. Search for the words EAD and Steinbach in the Horowitz report.)

In about the middle of August, Gaeta communicated with the NYFO's CDC "and another ASAC in the counterintel program in New York", and the latter two advised Gaeta that "there is a unit in Headquarters that needs to see this, some type of investigative unit that's there that you need to send this to" (page 32). (This "unit in headquarters" must be the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane team.)

Gaeta immediately asked those two NYFO officials for the name of a person in that "unit in Headquarters", but Gaeta did not receive a name until three or four weeks had passed (page 32). That name was Bill Priestap (page 33).

Gaeta e-mailed all his Dossier reports to Priestap in "the second or early third week in September" (page 34).

About a week later, Gaeta e-mailed Priestap and asked about the Dossier reports' intelligence value (pages 35-36).

On about September 23 or 24, Priestap e-mailed Gaeta that "the information that - in the dossier corroborated information that they received [REDACTED] that actually predicated all this investigation" (page 36).

Priestap told Gaeta that one or more "Five Eyes" countries "were involved in the investigation and also had seen the reporting from Steele". In particular Australia was involved and had seen the reporting (page 36).

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An unidentified person at the Gaeta interview asked why the NYFO CDC did not send the Dossier reports directly to FBI Headquarters. In other words, why was Gaeta tasked repeatedly  to e-mail Dossier reports from Rome when the NYFO CDC already had all the reports from Gaeta? Nobody at the interview could explain this mystery (pages 38-39).

My explanation of that mystery is that the Dossier reports were given to the NYFO CDC to conceal the fact that Gaeta had sent the reports from his Rome office to anyone else in the FBI. I speculate that the NYFO CDC did not have to register its receipt and possession of the Dossier reports.

The NYFO CDC thus provided a potential plausible denial that any FBI official except Gaeta ever had even seen any of the Dossier reports. Eventually such a plausible denial became unnecessary, because the FBI officially embraced the Dossier reports. Even then, however, the NYFO CDC maintained a fiction that the NYFO CDC never had possessed the Dossier reports. That is why the NYFO CDC itself did not send the Dossier reports to FBI Headquarters.

The Horowitz report maintains that fiction, that plausible denial. The Horowitz report pretends that the Crossfire Hurricane team did not receive any Dossier reports until September 19, even though Priestap must have received Dossier reports long before that date.

The routing of the Dossier reports from Gaeta's Rome office to the Crossfire Hurricane team was deliberately delayed. Part of that delay was the receipt and keeping of the Dossier reports at the NYFO CDC, without normal documentation of that receipt and keeping.

The FBI did not want the public to ever learn the role that the Dossier really played in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation from the very beginning of that investigation.