Senator Grassley’s Referral Memo

Senator Grassley has released the memo that was sent to the DOJ and the FBI, referring Christopher Steele for investigation. However, the memo is heavily redacted, which means that We the People will have to wait to see what Senator Grassley knows that we’re not being allowed to know.

Update 2/6/18: This link goes to a less-redacted version of the memo, approved for release today.

Grassley called for the entire memo, without redactions, to be released to the public:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation signed off on an unclassified version of the criminal referral by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and Crime and Terrorism Subcommittee Chairman Lindsey Graham only after the White House declassified a House Intelligence Committee (HPSCI) Majority memo largely based on the same underlying documents.  Grassley is now calling on the FBI to update the classification of the referral to allow complete disclosure of important context from the documents on which it is based.

“Seeking transparency and cooperation should not be this challenging.  The government should not be blotting out information that it admits isn’t secret, and it should not take dramatic steps by Congress and the White House to get answers that the American people are demanding. There are still many questions that can only be answered by complete transparency.  That means declassifying as much of the underlying documents as possible,” Grassley said.

In a recent article, Sharyl Attkisson explained that the FBI is trying to “suppress” the information; she notably pointed out that there are numerous conflicts of interest should the DOJ/FBI investigate this potential crime (as somebody should):

The Steele criminal referral in essence asks the FBI to investigate a source with whom FBI officials collaborated, and whose evidence they used in a fashion that’s under congressional investigation.

The referral was addressed to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein who himself signed at least one of the questionable wiretap applications using the Steele dossier.

It was also addressed to FBI Director Christopher Wray whose choice for general counsel, Dana Boente, also signed at least one of the wiretap applications. Boente replaced James Baker, a confidante of former FBI Director James Comey, who signed three of the wiretap applications. (Baker was reassigned in December after questions arose about leaks promoting the anti-Trump material in the dossier. Last June, Comey admitted that he secretly orchestrated a leak to the press to prompt a special counsel investigation of any Trump-Russia ties. Robert Mueller was appointed two days later.)

It would seem that the only route available would be for the DOJ to appoint a special counsel. The Senator and the public should demand that special counsel and also the release of the unredacted memo, ASAP.

Feel free to add your analysis of the contents of the memo, such as we can see, in comments below.

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