Taking down the man behind the memos — declassified Republican memos skewer the former British spy who investigated Trump and Russia

Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer, is the author of the Trump-Russia dossier.
Recently published Republican memos attempt to discredit Steele's credibility and the dossier that he produced.
Republicans say the dossier played a central role in justifying surveillance of a former Trump campaign adviser during and after the 2016 election.

The public knew little about Christopher Steele before the 2016 US election. Most people had no idea who he was.

But now the former British intelligence officer is perhaps the biggest — and most divisive — name in Washington.

Steele is the author of the infamous Trump-Russia dossier, also known as the Steele dossier, a collection of memos he compiled before the 2016 presidential election that contains information alleging Russia has compromising information on President Donald Trump, among other allegations.

While the controversial memo that President Donald Trump cleared for release on February 2 admits that Steele's reporting was "minimally corrborated" by the FBI, many of the dossier's allegations remain unverified.

But the FBI has attested to Steele's reliability based on his previous reporting of foreign intelligence to the US government as a former investigator, according to a declassified version of a letter Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley and committee member Lindsey Graham, both Republicans, wrote in January.

That letter, along with the controversial memo, is at the heart of a heated back-and-forth between Democrats and Republicans over Steele's credibility and his role in fueling the early stages of the FBI's Russia investigation.

Rep. Devin Nunes, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, spearheaded the memo. Democrats are trying to release a rebuttal memo pointing out inaccuracies and mischaracterizations they say the Nunes memo contains, but Trump denied its declassification on Friday.

Here's what lawmakers are saying about Steele:

The Nunes memo

The central claim in the Nunes memo is that investigators from the DOJ and FBI improperly obtained a surveillance warrant for Carter Page, who served as a foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.

To obtain a surveillance warrant, the FBI and the DOJ had to submit an application explaining why a so-called FISA warrant was justified. The Steele dossier, according to the memo, was "an essential part" of that application.

The memo also claims:

The Grassley-Graham letter

The Grassley-Graham letter elaborated on most of the claims made in the Nunes memo, providing a more detailed and thorough explanation of alleged abuses by the FBI and the DOJ when they applied for a FISA warrant.

The letter claims:

The Democrats' memo

Democrats dispute the way Republicans characterize Steele and the FBI's actions in both the Nunes memo and the Grassley-Graham letter.

Led by ranking member Rep. Adam Schiff, Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee have drafted a memo of their own countering Republicans' claims of corruption at the FBI and the DOJ.

Trump denied its release on Friday, and Schiff is working on making redactions to the memo.

Taking down the man behind the memos — declassified Republican memos skewer the former British spy who investigated Trump and Russia

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