If President Trump is owed apologies from those who jumped the gun by claiming he clearly was guilty of illegal conspiracy, then Trump himself owes apologies to Robert Mueller for so often impeaching Mueller’s integrity and to John McCain for saying McCain improperly handled the famous Steele dossier that played a big role in what became the Mueller investigation.
It is the latter claim that merits attention now, because Trump’s vociferous ally, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, finally has set the record straight on McCain’s actions.
At one point Trump was saying that McCain spread the document all around Washington in order to affect the 2016 election. That claim already had been put to rest by the simple fact that McCain never even knew about the dossier until after Election Day.
The second claim, one that gained more traction, was that McCain knew the dossier was obviously fake and that he was wrong to share it with the FBI. The underlying assumption here is that McCain also knew the FBI was plotting to take Trump down and that he was trying to abet that plot. That assumption, though, is nonsense.
Graham explained as much on Monday. He said that McCain showed him the dossier and that he, Graham, advised McCain to give it to the FBI. He said McCain put it in a locked safe overnight and delivered it to the Bureau the very next day.
Graham said neither he nor McCain knew whether the material was valid, other than that it came from a source, Christopher Steele, who in the past had been considered a reliable intelligence agent. Therefore, Graham said, he told McCain that “the only thing I knew to do with it, it could be a bunch of garbage, it could be true, who knows? Turn it over to somebody whose job it is to find these things out and John McCain acted appropriately.”
As noted by Bloomberg News, McCain’s actions were not essential anyway, because they came “after the FBI [already] had begun an investigation of Trump’s campaign. The FBI already was aware of Steele’s work and referenced it in a secret search warrant related to the Trump campaign investigation.”
Facts matter. Anyone who has been involved in Capitol Hill investigations should know that if apparently actionable intelligence comes one’s way, one should turn it over to the FBI. Second, one might consider also referring it to the Hill’s intelligence committees, but in this case, with McCain’s known aversion to Trump, McCain was right not to do so but instead to rely on the FBI alone. For him to have spread it on Capitol Hill would have been seen as political, whereas the FBI always has been seen as a neutral body.
Those who say McCain should have known the FBI had bad apples trying to undermine Trump are using ex post facto reasoning. The FBI’s longstanding reputation has been as an apolitical, “just the facts” organization. McCain and Graham had no reason, back in December of 2016, to think otherwise.
Unless Trump wants to blame his new friend Graham for conspiring against him, Trump needs to stop accusing the late McCain of malfeasance. Period.
