FBI offered Christopher Steele $50K to confirm Trump dossier: Judge Napolitano
Fox News senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano on Monday said the FBI offered former British spy Christopher Steele $50,000 if he could “corroborate” the Trump-Russia dossier.
“I believe, just from examining the public sources, that the FBI offered Christopher Steele $50,000 if he could corroborate the dossier. He either couldn’t, didn’t, wouldn’t, and they didn’t pay him the money,” Napolitano told FOX Business' Stuart Varney on “Varney & Co.”
Last Wednesday, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein testified before the House Judiciary Committee for an oversight hearing on Capitol Hill. Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) asked Rosenstein if the FBI paid for the Russia dossier, to which he replied, “I’m not in a position to answer that question.” DeSantis followed up by asking, “Do you know the answer to the question?” Before being interrupted, Rosenstein answered back, “I believe I know the answer, but the Intelligence Committee is the appropriate committee…”
Napolitano said the committee should have continued to press Rosenstein for an answer to DeSantis’s question.
“I would have grilled him and subpoenaed an answer out of him because the American public has the right to know,” he said.
Bruce Ohr, who had previously served in the deputy attorney general’s office, is expected to testify in a closed-door hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Monday and will most likely be questioned about whether the FBI paid for the Russia dossier.
The committee had learned that Ohr spoke with both Steele and Glenn Simpson, who founded Fusion GPS. This has led some Republicans to suspect that former federal officials had been working to sabotage then-candidate Trump.