Thread by @themarketswork

A fair bit of attention is being paid to this footnote from the initial Page FISA.

Specifically, the reference to Steele meeting with the FBI in June 2016.

I'm not as convinced its a real smoking gun.

Michael Gaeta was Steele's handler. We know this from Lisa Page's testimony - among others.

Gaeta and Steele had worked together on the FIFA (not FISA) corruption case several years earlier.

It's likely how Gaeta came to be Steele's handler.

Gaeta flew to London to meet with Steele on July 5, 2016. But he had been in contact with Steele before that - reportedly in late June 2016 about Steele's info.

Which is how Gaeta knew to request permission from Nuland at State for the trip.

I've noted this before:

"After Steele’s company was hired by Fusion GPS in June, he began to reach out to the FBI through Michael Gaeta, an FBI agent and assistant legal attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Rome."
theepochtimes.com/clinton-campai…

Both the Guardian and ABC News reported on these "touches" although the details vary.

On July 19, 2016, Steele’s FBI handling agent, Gaeta, obtains a second report (#94) from him, which states that Carter Page met with Sechin and Diveykin during his Moscow trip.

FBI HQ still does not have the info.

But the info does begin to move through the FBI NYFO.

What is interesting - and should be getting a lot more attention is that on July 28, 2016, Gaeta notes in an email to an FBI supervisor that, according to Steele, the first two Steele reports (No. 80 and No. 94) "may already be circulating at a 'high level' in Washington, D.C."

Is this in reference to Steele's reports circulating through from the State Dept - and into the FBI - via Nuland?

I think this was the initial conduit. And a point of focus.

Who, exactly, got the initial Steele docs from Nuland.

Particularly, what members of FBI leadership.

Note that Gaeta states Steele says "his reports are circulating"

This is separate from the Downer info coming to the FBI via Elizabeth Dibble:

July 26 - Downer to Dibble
July 27 - Dibble to FBI Legal attache
July 28 - Legal attache to Philly FO.
July 28 - Philly FO to FBI HQ