Christopher Steele testified in court that his emails were ‘wiped,’ documents related to dossier 'no longer exist'

Ex-British spy Christopher Steele testified in court that his emails and documents related to his infamous dossier have been "wiped" clean.

Last month, Steele told a British court that documents and correspondence with his main source for anti-Trump dossier no longer exist. The Daily Caller obtained a transcript from Steele's deposition on March 18.

The former MI6 officer testified in court that his communications regarding the Steele dossier were "wiped" in December 2016 and January 2017, according to the transcript.

Steele, who previously ran the Russia desk at MI6 headquarters in London, was testifying at a deposition on March 17-18, which stemmed from a defamation lawsuit brought by three Russian bankers: Petr Aven, German Khan, and Mikhail Fridman.

Hugh Tomlinson, a lawyer for the owners of Alfa Bank, questioned the ex-spy following the bank owners' libel suit against Steele and Orbis Business Intelligence, a London-based private intelligence firm co-founded by Steele. A memo in the Steele dossier accused the Russian bankers of corruption and illicit ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In December 2019, Steele's lawyers said, "the Primary Sub-Source's debriefings by Obris were meticulously documented and recorded."

On March 18, Steele testified that the "meticulously documented and recorded" debriefings from the primary sub-source "no longer exist," according to the transcript.

Steele said that other communications related to the dossier were deleted, including from a personal email account that he used for the Fusion GPS project.

"As I understand your position, you have no contemporaneous notes or emails, save for your notes of interactions with the FBI; is that right?" Tomlinson asked Steele.

"I believe that is true, yes," Steele responded.

Steele also said he had no records of his dossier memos, including "Report 112," that alleged cooperation between Alfa Bank and the Kremlin.

"You have no record of anything, have you?" Tomlinson asked.

"I haven't got any records relating to the creation of 112," Steele replied.

Tomlinson asked, "Or indeed any of the other memoranda?"

"No, they were wiped in early January 2017," Steele answered.

According to the report from Daily Caller: "Steele said that a Hushmail account he used in late December 2016 was 'wiped' clean. He also said that communications with Fusion GPS on his company's computer network were scrubbed on Jan. 5, 2017."

Earlier this month, a Department of Justice watchdog found that FBI officials knew that information that flowed into the Steele dossier was likely tainted with Russian Intelligence disinformation.

In the report, the Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz labeled "Person 1" as a "key Steele sub-source."

"According to a document circulated among Crossfire Hurricane team members and supervisors in early October 2016, Person 1 had historical contact with persons and entities suspected of being linked to Russian Intelligence Services," the document read.

The document reported that Person 1 "was rumored to be a former KGB/SVR officer."

"In addition, in late December 2016, Department Attorney Bruce Ohr told SSA 1 that he had met with Glenn Simpson and that Simpson had assessed that Person 1 was a RIS officer who was central in connecting Trump to Russia," the document stated.

The FBI's Crossfire Hurricane, which was the investigation between Russian collusion with Donald Trump in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, "included at least two intelligence reports stating that key parts of the reporting from Christopher Steele—reporting that "played a central and essential role" in the decision to request FISA orders —were part of a Russian disinformation campaign," according to Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.).

Last month, Steele said he would not cooperate with John Durham's investigation into the FBI Russia probe.