The Senate Intelligence Committee still is pursuing an interview with Christopher Steele, the former British intelligence officer whose research memos became the infamous dossier detailing alleged Trump campaign collusion with Russia.
“We’re still in conversation weekly,” North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told BuzzFeed News. Asked if Steele had provided any information to the committee, Burr said: “That continues to be the topic weekly.”
Burr said in October that the committee had “hit a wall” in its attempts to investigate the dossier’s explosive claims and that efforts to interview Steele had been unsuccessful. BuzzFeed News first published the dossier in January 2017 after security officials had briefed Trump and then-president Barack Obama about it.
Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the committee’s vice chairman, said he was unsure whether the committee was in weekly contact with Steele’s attorneys. “I know that we are in communications and we obviously would like to get that hearing,” he told BuzzFeed News.
Warner said interviewing the former MI6 agent has been a priority for the committee, which started its investigation in early 2017. “We’ve had that goal obviously from the outset,” he said.
It’s unclear why the interview has failed to take place. Burr simply cited Steele’s “cooperation” as the reason. Warner, asked what is preventing the interview from happening, said: “It’s a good question, since there were indications earlier on at least through intermediaries that he was willing to have an interview.”
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Burr said that despite failing to secure an interview with him, the committee has learned more about Steele and his firm, Orbis Business Intelligence. “I think that we know a lot more about not just him but his company and the array of clients that they had and how they operate,” he said. “I think this is much more comprehensive than anybody would think to begin with.”
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At a rare press conference in October, Burr said, “Though we have been incredibly enlightened at our ability to rebuild backwards the Steele dossier up to a certain date, getting past that point has been somewhat impossible." Burr said that he and Warner had offered to meet Steele privately or with the committee.
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But Burr acknowledged that the committee would have difficulty forcing Steele to be interviewed. “How do you do that?” Burr told BuzzFeed News. “[He’s] not a US citizen, doesn’t live here. We’re going to whatever lengths we can to get him [to testify].”
The Senate Intel Committee Is Still Trying To Set Up An Interview With The Author Of The Dossier (BuzzFeed News)