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'The Five' blast Adam Schiff over bogus Trump-Russia dossier Panel reacts to the congressman's credibility being challenged on 'The View'
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A former top aide for twice-failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton once said he would have had "no problem" giving journalists the now-discredited Steele dossier, which was funded by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 presidential election.
"The first I learned of Christopher Steele or saw any dossier was after the election," Brian Fallon, who served as Clinton's national press secretary during her 2016 campaign, said during an October 2017 interview. "But if I had gotten handed it last fall, I would have had no problem passing it along and urging reporters to look into it."
STEELE DOSSIER SUB-SOURCE DANCHENKO PLEADS NOT GUILTY TO LYING TO FBI
FILE - Brian Fallon, National Press Secretary for the 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton campaign, speaks during a Bloomberg Politics interview in Manchester, New Hampshire, on Thursday, Feb. 4, 2016. (Photographer: Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Fallon's comments have new meaning after Special Counsel John Durham, who was appointed by the Trump administration to investigate the origins of the Russia investigation, further discredited the already debunked document last week by indicting Igor Danchenko for allegedly making false statements to the FBI.
Danchenko, a Russian analyst, is believed to have been Steele’s primary sub-source for the 35-page dossier, which alleged that former President Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 presidential election over Clinton and claimed that the Kremlin had blackmail material on the former president, including a tape of prostitutes urinating on him in a Moscow hotel.
The dossier – controversially published by BuzzFeed News in its raw form in 2017 – served as the basis for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants against Trump campaign aide Carter Page, and it was originally commissioned by Fusion GPS, a research firm hired by Marc Elias, a lawyer for the Clinton campaign and the DNC. The dossier’s contents have been thoroughly debunked, including by Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation.
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton looks at a smart phone with national press secretary Brian Fallon on her plane at Westchester County Airport October 3, 2016 in White Plains, New York. (Photo credit: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
Fallon, a former CNN political commentator who now serves as the executive director at Demand Justice, repeatedly said in 2017 that he had no idea about the dossier until after the 2016 election but wished he had.
On Oct. 27, 2017, he lamented on Twitter that had he known about the campaign’s involvement in the dossier, he would have "volunteered to go to Europe and try to help" Steele. He added that he would have read the unverified contents of the dossier during a press conference if he had obtained it before Election Day.
"Opposition research happens on every campaign, and here you had probably the most shadowy guy ever running for president, and the FBI certainly has seen fit to look into it," Fallon told The Washington Post the same day as his tweets. "I probably would have volunteered to go to Europe myself to try and verify if it would have helped get more of this out there before the election."
"It would be malpractice in my view for the campaign to not to want to turn over every rock and learn everything it could about Donald Trump," he told CNN’s Don Lemon later that night.
Russian analyst Igor Danchenko arrives at the Albert V. Bryan U.S. Courthouse before being arraigned on November 10, 2021 in Alexandria, Virginia. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
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Danchenko's indictment and plea of not guilty came after Durham last month indicted Clinton lawyer Michael Sussmann for making a false statement. The indictment alleges Sussmann told then-FBI General Counsel James Baker in September 2016 that he was not doing work "for any client" when he requested and held a meeting in which he presented data and evidence of a purported secret communications channel between then-candidate Trump and Alfa Bank, which has ties to the Kremlin.
The indictment against Sussmann says he lied to Baker when he presented data linking the Trump Organization to a secret server that communicated with Alfa Bank. The indictment indicates Durham may be expanding his investigation to bring separate charges again Sussmann or additional defendants.
Fallon did not respond to Fox News' request for comment.
Fox News’ Jake Gibson and Brooke Singman contributed to this report.