If you think Charles McGonagal's relationship with Oleg Deripaska was bad, wait til you hear about @Chris_D_Steele. Steele was a far bigger player in the Trump-Russia probe than McGonagal. A thread:
While Steele was working for the FBI and for Democrats, he lobbied DOJ officials on behalf of Deripaska, who had visa issues at the time. He claimed that Deripaska was not the Kremlin puppet that U.S. officials believed. The DOJ's inspector general report has details:
Steele worked for Deripaska's attorney on Deripaska's legal matters, including sanctions and visa restrictions.
The FBI team investigating Trump/Russia, which relied heavily on Steele's dossier, *claims* they didn't know of this relationship but would have wanted to know.
These Keystone Kops didn't think to look at Steele's source file, which had info about his links to oligarchs, until after they cut him off as a source because of his deception.
FBI's Transnational Crime Intelligence Unit raised concerns about Steele's ties to oligarchs back in 2015. Unsurprisingly, all of the Crossfire Hurricane investigators pass the buck regarding who had responsibility to vet Steele.
From a declassified footnote in that report. Representatives for *five* Russian oligarchs used Steele as an intermediary to contact the FBI.
At a crucial point in Crossfire Hurricane (days before the first FISA would be granted), Steele was lobbying for Deripaska. He contacted DOJ's Bruce Ohr regarding sanctions on Deripaska's company.
As of February 2017, Steele was still working for Deripaska. What we don't know is whether Steele worked for Deripaska after he was personally sanctioned in 2018, and whether he still works for him.
2 reasons why this matters:
*It's hypocritical for Trump-Russia investigators to be on an oligarch's payroll.
*Steele/McGonagal were compromised by working for Deripaska and vulnerable to disinformation. This is worse for Steele, who was paid by Deripaska during Trump probe
>@ByronYork had emails back in 2018 showing Steele's lobbying for Deripaska: washingtonexaminer.com/news/emails-sh…
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