steele represented to the fbi that he had not talked to anyone in the media about the dossier. and so then the fbi took that, that he was reliable and he had not spoken to the media and went to the fisa court with the application to get a warrant for surveillance of carter page as we have been reporting. well, in this memo, grassley says, quote: the fbi already believed mr. steele was reliable. he had previously told the fbi he had not shared the information with the press and lying to the fbi is a crime. referring to the fact that christopher steele, despite representing that to the fbi, that he had not spoken to the media, did speak at least to yahoo news and mother jones about the dossier and then those stories appeared on top of that the grassley memo tonight now goes on to say that, in fact, the fbi then went back after learning that wait a second, christopher steele misrepresented things and
your eyes can lose vital nutrients. ocuvite helps replenish those nutrients. ocuvite has lutein, zeaxanthin, and omega-3. nourish your eyes to help them be their healthy best. ocuvite eye vitamins. be good to your eyes. sean: fox news chief national correspondent ed henry joins us. he has been going through this grassley memo that has now been unredacted. all right, ed, from your side we went over a lot of it what caught your attention. sean, what s interesting as well is this is a criminal referral that republican senator chuck grassley last month had sent to the justice department about christopher steele. what would be the potential crime? well, grassley is saying in this referral would be that steele may have lied to the fbi. lied about his contact with the media. yahoo news, and mother jones magazine, for example. because this document, this grassley memo is saying that
he tried to have sex with, and how he behaves with women that he s attracted to. he claims he can do whatever he wants to them because he s famous. and when you re a star, they let you do it. you can do anything. whatever you want. reporter: then 30 minutes after that, wikileaks appeared to counterpunch with the release of e-mails from clinton campaign chairman john podesta. this is another hack from one of the hacking organizations that has alleged ties to the russians. reporter: in the middle of that wild news cycle in october, investigative reporter david corn of the left leaning mother jones magazine got wind of something big. something unprecedented, if it was true. his sources told him that russia had something on trump. and the details were written down in a series of secret documents. i was told about the memos in great detail. reporter: david corn discovered who wrote the memos, a former british intelligence officer named christopher steele.
story gave it credibility. the fbi, you know, hadn t just said get lost. they go, whoa, give us more information here. reporter: a few minutes before midnight on halloween 2016, mother jones posted this headline. a veteran spy has given the fbi information alleging a russian operation to cultivate donald trump. it was the public s first glimpse of a story that a handful of reporters had been chasing for months. a candidate with a murky relationship to a hostile foreign power, a russian plot to tamper with our election. possible trump campaign collusion with the kremlin. the story was potentially huge, and intriguing. but it was vague. who was this veteran spy? and what was the russian operation? how serious were these allegations? ultimately david corn s article was swamped by the news cycle. days earlier, the fbi had
the fbi, you know, hadn t just said get lost. they go, whoa, give us more information here. reporter: a few minutes before midnight on halloween 2016, mother jones posted this headline. a veteran spy has given the fbi information alleging a russian operation to cultivate donald trump. it was the public s first glimpse of a story that a handful of reporters had been chasing for months. a candidate with a murky relationship to a hostile foreign power, a russian plot to tamper with our election. possible trump campaign collusion with the kremlin. the story was potentially huge, and intriguing. but it was vague. who was this veteran spy? and what was the russian operation? how serious were these allegations? ultimately david corn s article was swamped by the news cycle. days earlier, the fbi had re-opened an investigation of hillary clinton s use of a