FBI officials have told Congress that investigators had not corroborated the dossier’s allegations when it was cited in the FISA applications. But the FISA application shows that the FBI and Justice Department believed Steele to be a “reliable” source. Steele has been compensated for other work by the FBI, and his intelligence has been used in other criminal proceedings, the FISA application says.
“This is an unprecedented moment in FOIA transparency, as never before has a FISA warrant been processed for release,” Bradley Moss, a national security attorney who filed one of the numerous lawsuits for the Page documents, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
“Now, with the actual documents in hand, not political spin written by lawmakers with agendas, the American public can make their own decision on whether anything was inappropriate about the surveillance of Carter Page,” added Moss, who is deputy executive director for the James Madison Project, a government transparency group.
Reached for comment shortly after The Times published the FISA applications, Page told TheDCNF: “I’m having trouble finding any small bit of this document that rises above completely ignorance and/or insanity.”