NY grand jury indicts former President Trump
(CNSNews.com) - The bulk of the FBI's FISA application to spy on Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page was the Steele dossier -- the opposition research paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democrat Party, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) the ranking member of the House intelligence committee, told Fox News's Sean Hannity Tuesday night.
The rest of that FISA application "is actually the true definition of the insurance policy" mentioned by FBI counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok," Nunes said.
"We believe that insurance policy is not just about investigating the Trump campaign," Nunes said. "We believe it is to ensure that they were able to get the FISA warrant on Carter Page so that they could go in and look at all the e-mails in the (Trump) campaign."
Hannity clarified what Nunes' said: "So Carter Page was just being used to -- it's no small deal. But they violated his constitutional rights to get a back door into to all things Trump campaign, that would be the Trump transition and that would be even the Trump presidency, correct sir?"
"It's horrible what they have done to many Americans," Nunes replied.
Nunes said the FBI and Glenn Simpson's Fusion GPS network -- which hired Steele to dig up dirt on Donald Trump -- "intertwined" at some point, "and they were working in conjunction together on this. And I think that's what the U.S. Attorney (John) Durham is supposed to get to the bottom of."
Fox News reported that Durham, the U.S. attorney in Connecticut, has been on the job for weeks already, although news of his appointment to investigate the investigators broke in the New York Times just this week. Attorney General William Barr has directed Durham to look into the origins of the FBI's Trump-Russia investigation.
"The FBI knew good and well that Steele had a lot of problems," Nunes said. "And I'll say something else about Steele. It's called the Steele dossier. It's really just Clinton opposition research. I think once we get to the bottom of this, what we're going to find is, Steele had a very small role in actually crafting this...These really were the perverted fantasies of Glen Simpson working with the Clinton campaign to say, what can we draw up here that we can spread out lies to the American people, that we can feed into the FBI, and lo and behold, get an investigation going on the Trump campaign. That's really what happened here."
Nunes said the people who prepared the FISA applications "had to have known" there were problems with Steele's research when they applied for the first warrant to spy on Carter Page. "They knew in the first one, yes," Nunes said. "But what's even worse, I think more people become contaminated when you look at the second, third and fourth (FISA application renewals)."
"Imagine that, as an American citizen out there. The government was listening to your calls and reading your e-mails for a year. Scary stuff," Nunes said.