Former interim Democratic Party boss Donna Brazile says she asked about the origins of the infamous ‘dirty dossier’ just days before the 2016 election and was told she ‘did not need to know’ about it.
Brazile revealed the nugget under a brief interrogation by ‘The View’ cohost Meghan McCain, the daughter of Republican Senator John McCain, himself a Russia hawk who has spoken repeatedly of the various shoes dropping election investigations.
The questioning follows revelations that the dossier, which was first funded by a GOP donor, later got funded through Hillary Clinton campaign and DNC payments – although those payments were obscured by going through Marc Elias, a lawyer for both entities.
‘I asked one question on November 4th and I was told that I did not need to know. And so no, I did not know,’ Brazile said. ‘Because I did not control my money.’
Former interim Democratic Party boss Donna Brazile spoke about the ‘dirty dossier’ as she promoted her new book on ABC’s ‘The View’
Brazile complains in the book about an agreement the Clinton camp executed with the DNC to seize effective control over its staff and operations.
‘Megan you know campaigns. The line item is called legal. The line item is called research. The line item is – the line item, if you asked me today because I have a list of all the DNC consultants. Do I see Fusion GPS, no. But if you asked me was this a question that came up during my tenure as chair, it did on Nov. 4th,’ Brazile said.
McCain kept up her questioning, asking if the dossier research was ‘wrong’ or if it set a bad precedent to ‘pay Russia for opposition research.’
Political intelligence firm Fusion GPS hired former British MI-6 officer Christopher Steele to produce research for the dossier. It contained a web of unsubstantiated allegations about Donald Trump’s business dealing – and also contained unverified information alleging he cavorted with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel room.
Brazile faced questions from co-host Meghan McCain about financing for research that made up the dossier
McCain kept up her questioning, asking if it was ‘wrong’ to have a British national conduct research in Russia
‘I was not involved in the contracting. I don’t know,’ Brazile said. ‘I was not involved in the hiring of this firm. I did not know about the existence of this contract,’ she said of the payments to Fusion GPS.
‘But in terms of opposition research, people go after things that I must tell you in America. When they go after dirt, you saw what Mr. Trump Jr. did. But no I did not go after it,’ she said, turning the tables on the president’s son, who met with a Kremlin-linked lawyer under the promise of dirt on Hillary Clinton.
McCain kept pressing on the morality of the situation. ‘But just do you think it’s wrong to go to Russia to ask for opposition research,’ she asked, referencing Steele’s array of Russian sources referenced in the document.
‘You’re asking me about the dossier and how it was complied. I don’t know how it was compiled. I don’t know who went after it, Meghan. I did not go after it,’ said Brazile.
Brazile’s new book includes claims that Hillary Clinton essentially took over the DNC through a memorandum of understanding before she won the Democratic nomination, and that the party was mismanaged and in debt before she took over after the release of hacked emails
Then she finally allowed: ‘I don’t believe that foreigners should be, unless they’re American citizens, they should have no place in our politics and they should not control our process.’
On other subjects, Brazile took pains to downplay astonishing claims in her book that Clinton essentially took over the DNC through a memorandum of understanding before she won the nomination, and that the party was mismanaged and in debt before she took over after the release of hacked emails.
‘I never used the word rigged in my book. I used the word cancer,’ she said. Her book is called, ‘Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House.’