Another thing I don’t see stressed enough: Identifying Steele’s motive as oppo research seems like sufficient context even if he had known the ultimate client was DNC. But all evidence is that he didn’t. In which case... how could it possibly be relevant? lawfareblog.com/dubious-legal-…
Given that he was hired by Fusion, which in turn was hired by Perkins, there’s no reason to think he would have known the ultimate client at the time. But then the argument that the specific client is somehow crucial to evaluating Steele’s credibility becomes pretty mysterious.
He might, of course, have INFERRED that Democrats would be the most likely funders of such research. But the FISC can draw the same inference. And either way, it’s hard to come up with a plausible story on which it makes any difference.
How does that go? “We’d like you to look for any derogatory info you can dig up on Trump’s ties to Russia.” I’ll contact my sources! “The DNC is paying.” Oh, in that case I’ll just make stuff up.
