An associate of John McCain has invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to testify before Congress on his participation in the distribution of the 35-page lie we now know as the Trump dossier, written by former British spy Christopher Steele and paid for by Hillary Clinton and the DNC.
David J. Kramer, who is a central player in how the unverified Trump dossier made its way to the FBI in late 2016, testified before the committee in December in a closed-door session, indicating he had information about the dossier’s sources, according to Fox News. A subpoena was issued for mid-January, as first reported by The Washington Examiner.
The law enforcement source confirmed, however, that Kramer did not appear and has exercised his Fifth Amendment rights.
Yet Kramer gave a videotaped deposition last December in separate civil litigation against BuzzFeed about the dossier and his contact with the former British spy who compiled it, Christopher Steele. Steele was hired by opposition research firm Fusion GPS to write and research the dossier, with funding from the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign.
According to British court records obtained by Fox News as part of its ongoing investigation of the Trump dossier, Kramer was personally briefed in late November 2016 by Steele in Surrey, England. After that briefing, Steele told the British court that an arrangement was made so that Fusion GPS — co-founded by Glenn Simpson – would provide hard copies of the dossier to McCain via Kramer. Shortly afterward, the dossier was given to the FBI, which already had its own copy from Steele.
Steele has refused to testify before Congress. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., have sent a criminal referral to the Justice Department asking them to investigate whether Steele lied about the dossier’s distribution and his media contact.
Fox News has repeatedly reached out to Kramer, and this week posed four questions to Kramer’s Florida attorney Marcos Jimenez, who is handling one of the defamation suits filed by Russian technology oligarchs against BuzzFeed for publishing the unverified dossier in January 2017. Fox News asked why Kramer took the Fifth; why he’s no longer cooperating with the committee; why they want to keep the BuzzFeed deposition under seal; and whether Kramer helped provide the document to BuzzFeed.