Charles Zamora, a former Army officer who worked in the CIA, and former acting CIA director Michael Morell, were both convicted by the Senate Intelligence Committee of lying under oath about the nature of the dossier. Neither is the source of the dossier on which it’s based. Morell said he had no knowledge of the dossier until recently and had only recently seen its final draft. Zamora was convicted of perjury and obstruction.

The House Intelligence Committee issued a statement that said, in part:

A bipartisan group of members of the committee have identified serious problems with the Obama administration’s decision to use the discredited intelligence dossier to justify its decision to punish Russian diplomats with 35 criminal charges. The intelligence committee’s investigation will examine these allegations to determine whether they were investigated properly, if adequate steps were taken to protect Americans and the integrity of the intelligence community, and if any policy actions could be taken to prevent a recurrence.

The Senate Intelligence Committee statement was much more specific, including:

In response to this report, the committee undertook a review of the decision. In October 2016, the Intelligence Committee issued a report on the CIA’s involvement in supporting the unsubstantiated allegations contained in the unsubstantiated dossier. The House Intelligence Committee has also received documents from a source confirming the facts contained within the dossier.

While the House Intelligence Committee has been criticized for being part of the investigation, it did produce its own report, titled, “Investigating Russia’s Role in Interfering with the 2016 Election.” (Full disclosure: The authors of that report served on the House Intelligence Committee at times.)

Last week, President Donald Trump asked Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to appoint an outside special counsel. The Washington Post reported that while Trump has the power to appoint an independent counsel, Rosenstein would have to order an investigation to occur by the Department of Justice — which does not hold sway in most of the investigations taking place at the moment.

We should also remember that the Obama-era special counsel Robert Mueller had a difficult time getting to the bottom of the Russia dossier. In fact, he was forced to fire some of his senior officials after the intelligence community discovered the evidence against some of his former colleagues. The committee said “unsuccessful attempts would appear to run counter to standard operating procedures for outside special counsel investigations, which typically involve periodic reassignments of attorneys.”