By Quin Hillyer at the Washington Examiner;
Special counsel Robert Mueller may have every good reason to use part of the infamous “Steele dossier,” with careful discernment, as a legitimate source for his investigation into Russian-related misdeeds in the 2016 election.
A source that is unreliable on some fronts still can be reliable on others. Law enforcement organizations across the country legitimately and regularly use sketchy sources to develop leads which result in the arrest and just prosecution of criminals. Indeed, it’s par for the course.
A petty grifter can say something like “I swear on the Bible that I saw Johnny at the crime scene,” and then offer up all sorts of lies about why he himself was at the scene as well – but the central fact of Johnny’s presence could be unassailable even if investigators previously didn’t know Johnny was there. They could then track down Johnny, who could offer entirely reliable information as a witness that leads to the arrest of the real perpetrator.
I saw this myself when Republicans on Capitol Hill were investigating the various Clinton-related scandals collectively known as “Whitewater” during the mid-1990s….
….[later in the column] ….
In Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation, the public has very little idea what other evidence, perhaps vast, might be in Mueller’s hands. We don’t know whether, or how much, of that evidence verifies material that first came to investigators’ attention via the Steele dossier. We do know that some of Steele’s information was indeed true.
To say that “part of the Steele dossier” was instrumental in one set of FISA warrant requests is hardly to disqualify those entire requests, much less the much broader probe that existed entirely apart from, and long before, those requests were made. What matters is not the source, but the ultimate, independent verification of the information…
[The full column is at this link.]
