The GOP chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee admitted Monday that the panel is still in "weekly" contact with Christopher Steele, the author of the explosive Trump-Russia dossier alleging the president had nefarious ties to the Kremlin.
Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) told BuzzFeed News — the first outlet to report on Steele's dossier — that the former British spy has still not appeared before the committee to testify about the dossier.
Nevertheless, the committee has had regular contact with Steele's lawyers since at least last October, when Burr said the group had "hit a wall" in their investigation of the dossier's material.
"I think that we know a lot more about not just him but his company and the array of clients that they had and how they operate,” Burr told BuzzFeed in reference to Steele's firm, Orbis Business Intelligence. “I think this is much more comprehensive than anybody would think to begin with.”
During a press conference last October (a rarity, BuzzFeed's Emma Loop noted), Burr told reporters that he and Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), the committee's ranking Democrat, offered to meet with Steele privately.
"Though we have been incredibly enlightened at our ability to rebuild backwards the Steele dossier up to a certain date, getting past that point has been somewhat impossible," the committee chairman said in the press conference.