Hannity on criminal investigation by Justice Department: ‘Evidence is overwhelming’
Fox News’ Sean Hannity joins Bret Baier on ‘Special Report.’
The evidence of surveillance abuses by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI during their investigation into Russian activities during the 2016 presidential campaign is "overwhelming," Fox News host Sean Hannity told "Special Report" Thursday.
Discussing the latest developments in Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham's criminal investigation into the origins of the Russia probe, Hannity alleged that the "premeditated fraud" began with the notorious Steele dossier -- which was pivotal to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants the bureau obtained for former Trump aide Carter Page as part of the Russia investigation.
RUSSIA ORIGINS PROBE TO YEILED SIGNIFICANT DEVELOPMENTS: BARR
Documents recently released by the Senate Intelligence Committee indicate that there were strong doubts about the reliability of the Steele Dossier as early as December 2016. As the FBI and CIA worked together to create an Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) to present to President Barack Obama, those in the CIA camp, according to the now-declassified interviews conducted by the Senate Intelligence Committee, worried that the FBI was playing up the Steele Dossier too much.
"The whole thing was debunked that early and then they continued with what I called premeditated fraud on the FISA court," Hannity told Bret Baier. "I believe that the evidence is overwhelming."
"Despite numerous warnings going back as early of August of 2016," Hannity emphasized, "we know that in January of 2017, the sub-source for Christopher Steele was very clear with the FBI. That was, 'Yeah, it was bar talk. None of this was true.'"
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Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham told Hannity earlier this month that the FBI previously assured lawmakers that there was no reason to doubt the dossier and the primary sub-source that Steele used to put together the dossier, despite the fact the source had previously said that the file mischaracterizes the information he gave Steele.
Graham argued, however, that the unnamed sub-source “told the FBI that the dossier is a bunch of bar talk, hearsay, never corroborated,” and that it should be taken “with a grain of salt,” but “they continued to use it against Carter Page to get a warrant in April and June [2017],” he explained.
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"Without the dossier," Hannity said Thursday, "they don't get the FISA application, ruining Carter Page for four years and spying on the presidential candidate [and] transition team deep into the presidency,"
"Time will tell if we have equal justice under the law, equal application of our laws."
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