As noted in the first FISA application, Steele relied on a primary sub-source (Primary Sub-source) for information, and this Primary Sub-source used a network of sub-sources to gather the information that was relayed to Steele; Steele himself was not the originating source of any of the factual information in his reporting…

The FBI conducted interviews of the Primary Sub-source in January, March, and May 2017 that raised significant questions about the reliability of the Steele election reporting. In particular, the FBI’s interview with Steele’s Primary Subsource in January 2017, shortly after the FBI filed the Carter Page FISA Renewal Application No. 1 and months prior to Renewal Application No. 2, raised doubts about the reliability of Steele’s descriptions of information in his election reports. During the FBI’s January interview, at which Case Agent 1, the Supervisory Intel Analyst, and representatives of NSD were present, the Primary Sub-source told the FBI that he/she had not seen Steele’s reports until they became public that month,
and that he/she made statements indicating that Steele misstated or exaggerated the Primary Sub-source’s statements in multiple sections of the reporting. For example, the Primary Sub-source told the FBI that, while Report 80 stated that Trump’s alleged sexual activities at the Ritz Carlton hotel in Moscow had been “confirmed” by a senior, western staff member at the hotel, the Primary Sub-source explained that he/she reported to Steele that Trump’s alleged unorthodox sexual activity at the Ritz Carlton hotel was “rumor and speculation” and that he/she had not been able to confirm the story. A second example provided by the Primary Sub-source was Report 134’s description of a meeting allegedly held between Carter Page and Igor Sechin, the President of Rosneft, a Russian energy conglomerate. Report 134 stated t hat, according to a “close associate” of Sechin, Sechin offered “PAGE/TRUMP’s associates the brokerage of up to a 19 percent (privatized) stake in Rosneft” in return for the lifting of sanctions against the company. The Primary Sub-source told the FBI that one of his/ her subsources furnished information for that part of Report 134 through a text message, but said that the sub-source never stated that Sechin had offered a brokerage interest to Page. We reviewed the texts and did not find any discussion of a bribe, whether as an interest in Rosneft itself or a “brokerage.”

The Primary Sub-source was questioned again by the FBI beginning in March 2017 about the election reporting and his/ her communications with Steele. The Washington Field Office agent {WFO Agent 1) who conducted that interview and others after it told the OIG that the Primary Sub-source felt that the tenor of Steele’s reports was far more “conclusive” than was justified. The Primary Subsource also stated that he/she never expected Steele to put the Primary Subsource’s statements in reports or present them as facts. According to WFO Agent 1, the Primary Sub-source said he/ she made it clear to Steele that h’e/she had no proof to support the statements from his/her sub-sources and that “it was just talk.” WFO Agent 1 said that the Primary Sub-source explained that his/ her information came from “word of mouth and hearsay;” “conversation that [he/she] had with friends over beers;” and that some of the information, such as allegations about Trump’s sexual activities, were statements he/she heard made in “jest.” The Primary Sub-source also told WFO Agent 1 that he/she believed that the other sub-sources exaggerated their access to information and the relevance of that information to his/her requests. The Primary Sub-source told WFO Agent 1 that he/she “takes what [sub-sources] tell [him/ her] with ‘a grain of salt.”‘

More Detail from the Examiner:

Then comes this gem. The Primary Sub-source said the Steele report might have relied on "multiple layers of hearsay upon hearsay. For example, the Primary Sub-source stated to [FBI, Washington Field Office] Agent 1 that, in contrast to the impression left from the election reports, his/her sub-sources did not have direct access to the persons they were reporting on. Instead, the Primary Sub-source told WFO Agent 1 that their information was 'from someone else who may have had access.'"

So now we have seen not simply that Steele or his primary sub-source were doing the intelligence collection, but that their sub-sources were distant from those they were supposed to be reporting on. This distance between the controlling officer (Steele), the field officer (Primary Sub-source), the other sub-sources, and their targets is a recipe not simply for valueless intelligence material, but self-destructive material. After all, folks were telling Steele's primary sub-source things that they might have overheard, who then provided that reporting to Steele, who then buffered up the reporting as credible.

[Post edited by JMHoo at 12/09/2019 11:12PM]