Former FBI director James Comey reveals in his book that then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper led an intelligence briefing with President Barack Obama about the unverified Michael Steele dossier.
Comey told ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos that Clapper presented the Steele dossier to Obama as “sufficiently reliable” coming from “a reliable source.”
The briefing took place on January 5th in the Oval Office, before Trump was ingratiated and included Obama and his national security team as well as Vice President Joe Biden.
“It was sufficiently reliable that we thought it oughta be part of the entire report,” Comey said about the dossier.
When Clapper told Obama about the unverified sexual accusations against Trump, Obama expressed wariness about briefing the president-elect about that information.
Comey told the Obama team that he would be the one briefing Trump about the information privately and detailed President Obama’s reaction:
He didn’t say a word. President Obama has a great poker face. But he simply turned– so if I’m President Obama, he turned slightly to his left, looked at me, and went like this– and looked back at Director Clapper. So kind of gave me a– Groucho Marx is how I thought of it, double eyebrow raise. Didn’t say a word, but communicated to me at least– and I could be misreading it, ’cause I don’t know President Obama’s eyebrow raises, that sort of– sympathy and concern. Like, “Good luck with that.” And– and that was it.
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