The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee says he believes parts of the Trump dossier

Rep. Adam Schiff.
(Image credit: Getty Images)

On Wednesday, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) lent credibility to the salacious dossier compiled by a British ex-spy that alleges Moscow possesses compromising information on President Trump. Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told The Wall Street Journal that he believes many of the findings in the document to be true, even as its more sensational assertions remain unverified:

"The biggest thing that I think people need to realize about the dossier is that Christopher Steele discovered that the Russians were embarked on a broad effort to help the Trump campaign before our own intelligence agencies came to the same conclusion," Mr. Schiff said. "In the broadest outline of what he investigated, he proved more than prescience — he proved accurate in terms of the Russian involvement and what their motivations were." [The Wall Street Journal]

Schiff also criticized the dossier's detractors, saying they "would like you to believe that if they can discredit the dossier, then you should ignore everything else we've learned." The congressman's comments supporting the dossier's validity stand apart from many of his peers, given the previous attempts by House Republicans to discredit both the dossier and its patrons.

Glenn Simpson — founder of the intelligence firm Fusion GPS, which commissioned Steele to compile his dossier on Trump — testified before the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, albeit behind closed doors. The Guardian reported Wednesday that Steele believes that 70 to 90 percent of his research is accurate.

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President Trump and several of his former campaign aides have been adamant that the dossier is untrue.

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Kelly O'Meara Morales

Kelly O'Meara Morales is a staff writer at The Week. He graduated from Sarah Lawrence College and studied Middle Eastern history and nonfiction writing amongst other esoteric subjects. When not compulsively checking Twitter, he writes and records music, subsists on tacos, and watches basketball.