Former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens recently spoke with journalist John Solomon about Donald Trump’s recent declassification of “secret” documents related to Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
“FBI has tried to keep many of these documents secret,” Greitens said in a Thursday Twitter thread of the conversation. “Incldng, Christopher Steele admits he created Trump-Russia collusion hoax to distract from Clinton email scandal.”
Steele is a British former intelligence officer turned private investigator who is behind the dossier that fueled the Russia investigation. As The Inquisitr reported, Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report last year found that the FBI came to believe at some point that the intelligence contained at least two false statements that stemmed from a Russian disinformation operation.
According to Solomon, the newly leaked information revealed an interview with Steele that took place one year after he was fired as an informant for the Russia probe. During the talk, Steele allegedly revealed he was leaking information to create the Russia narrative because Hillary Clinton was concerned about the email scandal that marred her 2016 presidential run.
“So, the Russia narrative, the collusion narrative, it was there to help Hillary Clinton. That’s what he says in his own words.”
Greitens noted that Democrats continued to claim Trump conspired with Russia to win the election even after they knew Steele’s claims were untrue.
Steele’s document was created by Orbis Business Intelligence and was funded by a conservative American newspaper before it was picked up by Clinton and the Democratic National Committee. The dossier that went public allegedly contained a mix of information from two of his reports — the one funded by Clinton, and another he initiated on his own.
Still, Steele previously suggested he did not want the Russia dossier to go public. In a statement released during a court appearance linked to a failed lawsuit against Steele, the investigator claimed he was unaware at the time of the document’s publication that reporters were in possession of a copy. According to Steele, he would have stopped the document from being released to the public if he could.
According to TIME , Mueller’s report found multiple instances of Trump’s campaign in contact with Russia, despite not finding sufficient evidence to establish conspiracy.
“But while Mueller may not have found any evidence that Trump associates conspired with Russia to interfere in the election, they nonetheless had a lot of contact with Russians leading up to Election Day.”
Notably, former Trump campaign staffer Paul Manafort shared campaign polling data with Konstantin Kilimnik and remained in contact with him throughout 2016.