were talking to the media about were things in the public record, specifically Carter Page, Paul Manafort had resigned over allegations of illicit relationships with Russian oligarchs and Ukrainian oligarchs. So there was, you know, a lot of open source public information pointing towards the possibility that the Russians had infiltrated the Trump campaign. So we spoke broadly to reporters and encouraged them to look into this.
Q. And did you ever come to find out who the journalists had spoken with at the FBI about the existence of an investigation into Russian interference and possible ties to the Trump campaign?
A. No.
Q. So you had indicated that Mr. Steele said he had — I think your phrase was "broken off" with the FBI. What did you understand that to mean?
A. That Chris was confused and somewhat disturbed and didn't think he understood the landscape and I think both of us felt like things were happening that we didn't understand and that we must not know everything about, and therefore, you know, in a situation like that the smart thing to do is stand down.
