Christopher Steele ABC interview slammed by ex-Trump official: 'He's no James Bond'
Steele, unlike 007, is 'not a hero', Kash Patel said
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}A former Trump administration official told Fox News on Monday that ex-MI6 agent Christopher Steele – who largely defended his controversial dossier of salacious allegations against Donald Trump in a recent ABC interview – is not the intrepid British spy he claims to be.
"He's no James Bond," former Defense Department chief of staff Kash Patel told "Tucker Carlson Tonight," after the former spy did a sit-down with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos and implied there is still a potential that allegations in the dossier could still be borne out.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"I think the Russians felt they got pretty good value out of Donald Trump when he was president with the U.S," Steele replied when pressed by Stephanopoulos as to why the salacious video purporting to show Trump in bed with Russian prostitutes had yet to be publicly substantiated.
When asked if a "Trump 2024" bid would be a threat to national security, Steele replied in the affirmative.
Patel told Fox News host Tucker Carlson that the former British agent, along with the FBI, "knew from jump" that the information in the ex-spy's dossier was unreliable.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Former British spy Christopher Steele arrives at the High Court in London, Britain, July 20, 2020. REUTERS/John Sibley
"I hope John Durham is on the march to secure indictments," he added, referring to the Connecticut federal prosecutor's special counsel probe into the origins of the Russia investigation.
Patel said Steele's dossier was known to be unverified when it was given to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) court in a successful bid for a warrant to spy on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
Carlson commented later that the investigation "destroyed [Page's] life" but that his detractors remain unmoved.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Patel said the prominence of people like Steele is why many Americans are now distrustful of federal entities like the FBI.
"[Steele] is Inspector Gadget on Sudafed and now he's crying for the world to love him," he said. "Let’s not forget the lives he wrecked along the way, of American citizens, and the likes of myself and Devin Nunes, because we exposed it, he came after us along with the fake news media. We are fighting on."