As secretary of state prior to the 2016 election, John Kerry was briefed on allegations made in the infamous Steele dossier about Donald Trump, according to a new report.
It was reported last week by the Washington Examiner that congressional investigators have looked into the State Department’s role in handling the dossier, which was put together by Christopher Steele, a former British spy who was investigating Trump on behalf of the Clinton campaign and DNC.
On Wednesday, The Washington Post reported additional details on the State Department’s interactions with Steele and the dossier.
According to The Post, Kerry was briefed in late September or early October 2016 on information collected by Steele.
Jonathan Winer, who at the time served as the State Department’s Special Envoy for Libya, put together a two-page memo on Steele’s allegations that was provided to Kerry.
In a documentary that aired on MSNBC last month, Winer said that he met Steele “at some point in Summer 2016.”
“I heard from Mr. Steele that he had this project related to Russia which implicated contacts between Russians and people associated with…candidate Trump’s campaign,” Winer said in the documentary.
Winer is the second government official outside of the FBI known to have discussed the dossier with Steele. The former MI6 officer also met with Bruce Ohr, who then served as deputy assistant attorney general. Ohr was demoted from that position last month after his contacts with Steele were revealed. Ohr also met after the election with Glenn Simpson, the founder of the opposition research firm that hired Steele to investigate Trump.
Winer said he met Steele in 2009. Since then, the ex-spy has provided private intelligence reports to the State Department on a variety of topics, including the FIFA soccer scandal and on Ukraine-Russia relations.
According to The Post, Kerry and the State Department took no action on the dossier after receiving a briefing of Winer’s memo. That’s because Kerry’s staff learned that the FBI had already been in touch with Steele and had information from the dossier.
Steele first met with an FBI contact in July 2016. He remained in contact with the bureau of the next several months before severing ties shortly before the election.
Winer, who retired from the State Department last year, did not respond to a request for comment from The Daily Caller last week.
Via DailyCaller
