Tag: Christopher Steele

Commentary: ‘Russia Forever’ Is an Anatomy of a Left-Wing Obsession

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The more candidate Trump in 2016 trolled the Clinton campaign (e.g., “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing, I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press”), the more the irate left bought into hysterical conspiracy theories.

Finally, the left became completely unhinged after the 2016 victory. An Obama-era Pentagon lawyer published an essay exploring the chance for a military coup. Retired lieutenant colonels called for a Pentagon intervention. Retired four-stars could not decide whether he was Hitler-like, Mussolini, or the architect of Auschwitz. Celebrities competed to find the most savage image of eliminating Trump—whether by combustion, incineration, decapitation, lethal shooting, or stabbing.

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Ex-DOJ Official and Wife Had Bigger Roles in Dossier than Known: Durham Report

RealClearWire

While it’s bad enough the debunked dossier the FBI used to spy on the Trump campaign was paid for by the Clinton campaign and authored by a foreign FBI informant and his carousing researcher, the newly released report of Special Counsel John Durham strongly suggests a top Justice Department official and his wife had an early hand in shaping the political rumor sheet.

According to the 306-page report, former Justice Department prosecutor Bruce Ohr’s wife Nellie Ohr first plowed the ground for the dossier with a series of a research reports she wrote for Fusion GPS, the D.C.-based opposition research firm the Clinton campaign commissioned to dig up dirt on Trump and Russia.

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Commentary: The Tentacles of the Social Media Octopus

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Washington DC

by Victor Davis Hanson   A shared theme in all dystopian explorations of future and current totalitarian regimes – whether China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, or Cuba – is government control of all media information, fueled by electronic surveillance. A skeptical public learns to say one thing publicly but quite another privately. It nervously nods yes at the news while at work, but at home cynically assumes the opposite of whatever is publicly said to be true. RIP, First Amendment Such electronic propaganda has sadly become characteristic of the world’s oldest consensual government. In America we once believed our First Amendment prevented a government monopoly on information. But in the age of globalization, the Internet, and social media, the state has become the enemy – not the protector – of free speech. One obvious sign is that the Biden Administration keeps trying to create new sorts of ministries of truth or “Disinformation Governance Boards.” It alleges such Orwellian censors must combat “disinformation” and “misinformation.” In fact, these bureaucracies are designed to criminalize unwanted free expression while also advancing state propaganda. Among our Washington officials, the following myths were once declared the official version of the “truth”: Mounted border patrol agents “whipped”…

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Commentary: To Spy on a Trump Aide, the FBI Pursued a Dossier Rumor the Press Shot Down as Nonsense

RealClearWire

The FBI decision to spy on a former Trump campaign adviser hinged on an unsubstantiated rumor from a Clinton campaign-paid dossier that the Washington Post’s Moscow sources had quickly shot down as “b******t” and “impossible,” according to emails disclosed last week to a D.C. court hearing the criminal case of a Clinton lawyer accused of lying to the FBI.

Though the FBI presumably had access to better sources than the newspaper, agents did little to verify the rumor that Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page had secretly met with sanctioned Kremlin officials in Moscow. Instead, the bureau pounced on the dossier report the day it received it, immediately plugging the rumor into an application under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to wiretap Page as a suspected Russian agent.

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Commentary: Conspirators in Their Own Words

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For the last five years, the Left—defined as the fusion of the mainstream media, Silicon Valley, the radical new Democratic Party, and the vestigial Hillary Clinton machine—has crafted all sorts of conspiracies to destroy their perceived conservative enemies.

Their method has focused on one major projection: alleging conspiracy on the part of others, which is a kind of confirmation of their own conspiracies to destroy their opponents in general, and Donald Trump in particular.

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Durham Zeroes In on Clinton Campaign, Could Call Some Aides to Testify, Court Memo Reveals

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Hillary Clinton’s team long fought to keep its ties to Christopher Steele’s dossier from public view, but Special Counsel John Durham is now making clear he has a strong interest in her campaign’s behavior during the Russia collusion probe. He is even suggesting some of her aides could be summoned as trial witnesses.

Durham’s earth-shaking revelation came inside a routine court filing this month in the case of Igor Y. Danchenko, a Russian analyst who was a primary source in 2016 for Steele’s now-infamous dossier. Danchenko has been charged with repeatedly lying to the FBI during the Russia collusion probe and has pleaded innocent.

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Commentary: New Twists in Durham Probe Reveal FBI Danchenko Recordings and Suspicions of Fiona Hill Lies

RealClearWire

The indictment of Igor Danchenko, the “primary sub-source” of Christopher Steele’s infamous dossier, reveals that the FBI electronically recorded several previously undisclosed interviews with the Brookings Institution researcher. Separately, it raises suspicions, according to congressional sources, that his Brookings superior Fiona Hill may have committed perjury when testifying about Steele during President Trump’s first impeachment.

The existence of electronic records of Danchenko speaking to the FBI far more extensively than previously known creates the possibility that much more will come out about the origins of the Steele dossier and the way the opposition research was weaponized. And those under scrutiny in Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation of the origins of the Trump-Russia affair will have to wonder whether information to which they previously attested jibes with the Danchenko recordings.

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Commentary: Christopher Steele Is a Product of Corrupt FBI

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Just as the special counsel’s investigation into the origins of Crossfire Hurricane—the FBI counterintelligence probe launched in the summer of 2016 to sabotage Donald Trump’s presidential campaign—is showing signs of life, one of the central figures in the hoax is attempting to burnish his sullied image.

ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos has produced a documentary featuring Christopher Steele, the man responsible for the so-called dossier bearing his name. “Out of the Shadows: The Man Behind the Steele Dossier,” streamed on Hulu Monday night; promotional clips hinted that, far from a hard-hitting interview exposing Steele for the charlatan he is, Stephanopoulos gave Steele a chance to spin his story ahead of possible new indictments related to John Durham’s inquiry into the Trump-Russia election collusion hoax.

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Investigation: Biden Security Adviser Jake Sullivan Tied to Alleged 2016 Clinton Scheme to Co-Opt the CIA and FBI to Tar Trump

RealClearWire

White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan figures prominently in a grand jury investigation run by Special Counsel John Durham into an alleged 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign scheme to use both the FBI and CIA to tar Donald Trump as a colluder with Russia, according to people familiar with the criminal probe, which they say has broadened into a conspiracy case.

Sullivan is facing scrutiny, sources say, over potentially false statements he made about his involvement in the effort, which continued after the election and into 2017. As a senior foreign policy adviser to Clinton, Sullivan spearheaded what was known inside her campaign as a “confidential project” to link Trump to the Kremlin through dubious email-server records provided to the agencies, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

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Commentary: The New York Times Reveals FBI Role in January 6

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The New York Times often acts as the spin cycle for the Democrats’ dirty laundry. For years, Times reporters have helped get ahead of damning news, especially when it’s related to the Russian collusion hoax, in an attempt to establish the narrative early.

A recent example is the Times article downplaying the pending indictment against Michael Sussman, the Clinton campaign lawyer who acted in cahoots with the FBI to seed the collusion tale before the 2016 election. The article was published the day before Sussman pleaded not guilty of lying to the FBI.

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Twenty Days of Infamy: The January 2017 Red Flags the FBI Blew Past on Russia Collusion

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From its earliest moments, the FBI’s Russia collusion probe was always fraught with warning signs.

Agents were told Christopher Steele provided faulty information, had likely been compromised by Russian intel disinformation, wanted to defeat Donald Trump, had leaked to the media and was being paid by Hillary Clinton, who herself might be carrying out an epic dirty political trick to vilify Trump with false information to distract from her own scandals.

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John Durham Sought Christopher Steele’s Notes from a Meeting with The FBI in Which an Agent Said the Ex-Spy ‘Wasn’t Truthful’

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John Durham, the U.S. attorney investigating aspects of the Trump-Russia probe, has sought notes that former British spy Christopher Steele took during his interviews in 2016 with the FBI regarding a since-debunked dossier he penned that accused the Trump campaign of colluding with the Russian government.

An FBI agent who took part in one of the interviews with Steele told Justice Department investigators that the ex-spy “clearly … wasn’t truthful” regarding his contacts with members of the media.

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Trump Working on Declassification of Intel Documents From Hospital, Chief of Staff Says

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President Donald Trump is working to declassify documents related to the Russia investigation while he recovers from coronavirus at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, his chief of staff said Monday.

“This morning we’ve already had a couple of discussions on items that he wants to get done,” Mark Meadows, the chief of staff, said in an interview on “Fox & Friends.”

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FBI Investigated Steele Dossier Source as a Possible Russian Spy Years Before Trump Probe

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The FBI opened a counterintelligence investigation on the primary source for dossier author Christopher Steele, and considered obtaining a warrant to wiretap him in 2010, according to a document released Thursday.

The FBI was also aware of the information about the source, identified elsewhere as Igor Danchenko, by December 2016, according to the document.

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Sen. Ron Johnson Subpoenas FBI Director Christopher Wray for All Crossfire Hurricane Documents

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Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, subpoenaed FBI Director Christopher Wray last week for all documents related to Crossfire Hurricane, the investigation of the Trump campaign’s possible ties to Russia.

The subpoena, issued on Aug. 6, calls for Wray to produce all of the documents related to the probe by Aug. 20.

Johnson is also demanding that Wray hand over all records that the FBI provided the Justice Department’s office of the inspector general for its scathing report on Crossfire Hurricane.

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Senator Lindsey Graham Teases: The FBI ‘Lied Their Ass Off’ to Congress About the Steele Dossier

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Sen. Lindsey Graham on Sunday teased the release of evidence showing that the FBI “lied their ass off” to Congress regarding the reliability of the Steele dossier, which the bureau used as part of its investigation of the Trump campaign.

“I will tell you next week what I found,” the South Carolina Republican said in an interview on “Fox Sunday Futures” with Maria Bartiromo.

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FBI Refuses to Disclose Records on Source Who Undermined Steele Dossier

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The FBI is refusing to release documents related to the primary source for dossier author Christopher Steele, saying in response to a public records request that the information is classified and risks identifying a confidential FBI source.

The source, whose identity remains a mystery, holds key information that could shed light on apparent inaccuracies in Steele’s dossier, which the FBI cited extensively in applications for surveillance orders against Trump campaign aide Carter Page.

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FBI Offered to Pay Christopher Steele ‘Significantly’ to Dig up Dirt on Michael Flynn

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An FBI offer to pay former British spy Christopher Steele to collect intelligence on Michael Flynn in the weeks before the 2016 election has been one of the more overlooked revelations in a Justice Department inspector general’s report released in December.

The reference to the FBI proposal, which was made in an Oct. 3, 2016, meeting in an unidentified European city, has received virtually no press attention. But it might have new significance following the recent release of government documents that show that Steele peddled an unfounded rumor that Flynn had an extramarital affair with a Russian woman in the United Kingdom.

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Newspaper Giant McClatchy ‘Taking a Close Look’ at Its Cohen-Prague Reports in Wake of New Evidence

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McClatchy news service says it is reviewing two reports published in 2018 that claimed to validate a key part of the infamous Steele dossier after declassified information showed that Russian operatives may have fed disinformation to dossier author Christopher Steele.

“We are taking a close look at this new information and will update or correct our story based on its merits. Until then, we continue to stand by our reporting,” McClatchy said in a statement to The Washington Post’s Erik Wemple.

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Christopher Steele Refuses to Cooperate with US Prosecutor Looking Into Origins of Trump-Russia Probe

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by Chuck Ross   Dossier author Christopher Steele will not cooperate with U.S. Attorney John Durham’s investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia probe, telling an audience at Oxford University that he believes U.S. investigators have acted in “bad faith.” Steele, a former British spy, said at the Oxford event on Friday that he and his firm, Orbis Business Intelligence, had already “done our duty” by cooperating with a Justice Department inspector general’s (IG) investigation of the FBI’s surveillance of Trump campaign aide Carter Page. According to The Daily Beast, which attended the Oxford event, Steele also criticized the IG, saying that he cooperated with the probe for “four or five months,” and observed “very bad qualities” on the part of government officials. He said some acted in “bad faith.” Reuters reported on Friday that Durham’s team has recently approached Steele seeking an interview. The former MI6 officer rejected the request because he believes that he would not be treated fairly, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. Numerous questions remain unanswered about how Steele collected information for his dossier, and how many of his allegations about Trump associates turned out to be inaccurate. Steele alleged that the Trump campaign, including Page,…

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Commentary: The FBI Did Not Interview Sources of the Fake Steele Dossier After FISA Warrant Was Renewed

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The FBI did not begin the process of validating information from former British spy Christopher Steele that was used as the basis for false Justice Department and intelligence agency allegations that President Donald Trump and his campaign were Russian agents until Jan. 2017 when it began interviewing Steele’s sources, months after spying warrants had already been obtained on the campaign and renewed after the election.

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What to Expect in the Justice Department’s FISA Report

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Michael Horowitz

The Justice Department’s watchdog will release a much-anticipated report Monday scrutinizing the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign in 2016.

Republicans have eagerly awaited the report, believing it will reveal that the FBI abused the foreign surveillance court process in order to spy on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Democrats hope the report will show that the FBI had a sound basis to investigate the Trump campaign.

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Commentary: Did Christopher Steele, Fusion GPS, the Clinton Campaign, and the DNC Make Up the Russia Collusion Hoax?

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by Robert Romano   “This is probably done in conjunction with Fusion GPS that was making this stuff up, they conveniently were able to get this into the FBI, willing takers at the FBI, and this was all to dirty up the Trump campaign. I mean, I have to say, you can’t make this stuff up, but… that’s exactly what they did.” That was Ranking Member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Devin Nunes’ (R-Calif.) reaction in an interview with John Batchelor on May 9, who asked him about a report from The Hill’s John Solomon that details a meeting former British spy Christopher Steele — author of the false allegation paid for by the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign that President Donald Trump was a Russian agent — had with Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec on Oct. 11, 2016. The meeting was memorialized in a memo Kavalec typed up afterward, and cast serious doubts on some of the allegations Steele was making, as well as his credibility. According to Kavalac, Steele was “keen to see this information come to light prior to November 8” to have an impact on 2016 election. The documents came from a Freedom of Information Act…

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Analysis: The Steele Dossier and the ‘Raw Intelligence’ Canard

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by Chuck Ross   Defenders of the FBI’s activities during the 2016 campaign have adopted a familiar refrain over the past 28 months to describe the Steele dossier, that infamous document that served as a road map for the conspiracy theory that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government. “It’s raw intelligence,” according to countless politicos and pundits, including CNN contributor Asha Rangappa, Democratic Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes, former CIA executive John Sipher and numerous other commentators. The spy term, which describes information directly from a source that has not been fully analyzed, is intended to downplay the dossier’s significance to the collusion narrative. Christopher Steele, the dossier author, gathered his intelligence from a trusted network of sources, the argument goes, and provided it to seasoned investigators to analyze. But the charitable defense faces new challenges, especially in the wake of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia report. The problem with the “raw intelligence” canard is that it ignores questions about how Steele obtained his information and what the former spy did with it once he received it. The FBI also treated Steele’s allegations as more than mere raw intelligence. The bureau relied heavily on Steele’s work, even though it was unverified, to obtain spy…

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Commentary: The Russia Collusion Hoax Lays Bare the Urgent Need for FISA Reform

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by Robert Romano   By far the biggest takeaway from the failure of Special Counsel Robert Mueller to establish that there was any coordination or conspiracy with Russia to interfere in the 2016 election by President Donald Trump, his campaign or any American is that we need immediate and swift reform of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court system that was weaponized against a political campaign to investigate a crime that was never committed. The FISA warrants taken out against the Trump campaign that began in Oct. 2016 relied upon the dossier full of phony allegations by former British spy Christopher Steele that was paid for by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Hillary Clinton campaign. It gave the government access to campaign emails, phone calls, text messages and other communications. This was the same dossier that was briefed to then-President-elect Donald Trump in Jan. 2017 by former FBI Director James Comey, who later told Congress that it was “salacious and unverified” and then was used again when the warrants were renewed. The dossier alleged that President Trump was a bought and paid for Russian agent, that former Trump campaign advisor Carter Page while on a trip to Moscow where he delivered a commencement address at the…

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Commentary: The Tables Turn in Russian Collusion Hunt

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by Victor Davis Hanson   The irony of the entire Russian collusion hoax is that accusers who cried the loudest about leaking, collusion, lying, and obstruction are themselves soon very likely to be accused of just those crimes. Now that Robert Mueller’s 674-day, $30 million investigation is over and has failed to find the original goal of its mandate—evidence of a criminal conspiracy between the Trump presidential campaign and the Russian government to sway the 2016 election—and now that thousands of once-sealed government documents will likely be released in unredacted form, those who eagerly assumed the role of the hunters may become the hunted, due to their own zealous violation of the nation’s trust and its laws. Take Lying  Former FBI Director James Comey’s testimonies cannot be reconciled with those of his own deputy director Andrew McCabe. He falsely testified that the Steele dossier was not the main basis for obtaining FISA court warrants. On at least 245 occasions, Comey swore under oath that he either did not know, or could not remember, when asked direct questions about his conduct at the FBI. He likely lied when he testified that he did not conclude his assessment of the Clinton illegal…

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New Details Emerge of the Path the Steele Dossier Took through Media and the Government

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by Chuck Ross   Court documents released last week in a lawsuit involving the Steele dossier revealed new details about the campaign to disseminate the infamous anti-Trump report to the press and within the U.S. government. Much was already known about Fusion GPS and dossier author Christopher Steele’s efforts to seed the dossier with reporters and government officials. Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson orchestrated several meetings between Steele and Washington, D.C.-based journalists prior to the 2016 election. It has also been widely reported that Steele and Simpson met with government officials in an attempt to ensure that Steele’s unverified findings landed on the government’s radar. A deposition given by David Kramer, a longtime associate of former Sen. John McCain, shed light on even more contacts with reporters and government officials. Kramer’s Dec. 13, 2017 deposition was released on March 14 along with a batch of other documents from a dossier-related lawsuit against BuzzFeed News. By giving the dossier to government officials, Fusion GPS and Steele were able to create news hooks for journalists to write stories airing the dossier’s unverified allegations. That was the case with Yahoo! News, Mother Jones, CNN and BuzzFeed News, all of which published stories not about…

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Christopher Steele’s Deposition Shows How Little Research He Did on Dossier Target

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by Chuck Ross   Christopher Steele acknowledged in a July 2018 court deposition that he relied on a “random” article posted to a CNN website as part of his research for his infamous dossier. In the July 13, 2018, deposition, Steele was asked about the research he did into Aleksej Gubarev, a Russian tech executive who Steele accused of hacking into Democrats’ computer systems. According to a transcript of Steele’s deposition unsealed Thursday, Gubarev’s lawyer asked Steele what information he had gathered on Gubarev or his companies, Webzilla and XBT Holdings. Gubarev sued Steele and BuzzFeed News for defamation for publishing what he claims are false allegations that he hacked Democrats. Steele responded to the lawyer, Evan Fray-Witzer, by citing a July 28, 2009, article published at CNN’s iReports website. Fray-Witzer pointed out to Steele that CNN’s iReports articles “are nothing more than any random person posting things on the Internet.” Steele said he was not aware of that. “No, I, obviously, presume that if it is on a CNN site that it has some kind of CNN status. Albeit that it may be an independent person posting on the site,” said Steele, who admitted the iReports article was the…

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Dark Money Org Gave $2 Million To Group Working with Fusion GPS, Steele

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by Chuck Ross   A dark money group with links to several high-profile liberal activists contributed $2 million to The Democracy Integrity Project, an organization founded by a former Dianne Feinstein staffer that has contracted with Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele to investigate President Donald Trump. Fund for a Better Future (FBF) donated $2,065,000 to The Democracy Integrity Project (TDIP) in 2017, according to IRS filings reviewed by The Daily Caller News Foundation. TDIP was founded on Jan. 31, 2017, by Daniel Jones, a consultant who worked for Feinstein, a California Democrat, when she controlled the Senate Intelligence Committee. Jones has disclosed to the FBI that he hired Fusion GPS and Steele, the author of the anti-Trump dossier, to continue an investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. He also told an associate that TDIP operated as a “shadow media organization helping the government.” Jones suggested to the associate, Adam Waldman, that his TDIP team planted several anti-Trump articles. Little is known about the donors behind both TDIP and FBF. Both of the organizations are 501(c)(4)s, the type of public advocacy group most closely associated with “dark money” contributions. FBF has contributed to a mix of environmental organizations and politically active groups,…

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DNC Refused to Comply With Dossier-Related Subpoena, so BuzzFeed Sued

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by Chuck Ross   BuzzFeed News sued the Democratic National Committee (DNC) Tuesday to force the release of information that the news outlet hopes will help it defend against a lawsuit related to the Steele dossier. BuzzFeed is seeking digital information that could shed light on the cyber attacks against the DNC during the presidential campaign. The news outlet faces three separate lawsuits related to its publication of the dossier, which was written by former British spy Christopher Steele and financed by the Clinton campaign and DNC. The suit against the DNC seeks information that could help defend against a defamation lawsuit filed by Aleksej Gubarev, a Russian tech executive accused in the dossier of using his web hosting companies to hack into the DNC’s computer systems. Gubarev denies the allegations and has argued that BuzzFeed failed to verify the dossier before publishing the report in January 2017. Steele, a former MI6 officer, has acknowledged in a London court, where he is being sued by Gubarev, that the information about the tech executive had not been verified. “As part of the discovery process, BuzzFeed is attempting to verify claims in the dossier that relate to the hacking of the DNC,”…

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Bruce Ohr Testimony Undercuts Adam Schiff’s Defense of FBI

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by Chuck Ross   Justice Department official Bruce Ohr’s testimony about his meetings with FBI officials regarding dossier author Christopher Steele severely undercuts claims made in 2018 by California Rep. Adam Schiff and his fellow Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee. Ohr told lawmakers Aug. 28, 2018, he briefed top FBI officials Andrew McCabe and Lisa Page in early August 2016, just days after he met with Steele, a former British spy who was investigating then-candidate Donald Trump. Ohr testified he told McCabe and Page about his interactions with Steele, who was working at the time for Fusion GPS, a Democrat-funded opposition research firm. The FBI relied heavily on Steele’s unverified dossier to obtain Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Republicans have focused on the Ohrs’ link to the dossier and Steele. In a memo dated Feb. 2, 2018, House Intelligence Republicans, led by then-Chairman Devin Nunes, asserted the FBI filed to disclose in their FISA applications Ohr’s wife, Nellie, worked for Fusion GPS. They also noted in the so-called Nunes memo that the FISA applications do not reveal Steele’s anti-Trump bias. Ohr claimed Steele told him during a meeting Sept. 23, 2016,…

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Victor Davis Hanson Commentary: Defeat and the Dossier Explain Everything

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by Victor Davis Hanson   Donald Trump’s former consiglieri Michael Cohen, along with being charged with tax avoidance and improper business deals, allegedly is guilty also of trying to leverage money and attention by exaggerating his influence with candidate and later President Trump. In other words, Cohen to spec followed the standard creepy daily fare for Washington and New York wannabe fixers. But did we need Robert Mueller’s 18 months and $40 million to uncover and redirect to federal attorneys what was largely self-evident? Could not the U.S. government long ago, without the prompt of a special counsel, have uncovered that Michael Cohen did not fully pay his taxes—in the manner of an Al Sharpton, Timothy Geithner, and Tom Daschle? The diabolical Cohen also tried to enforce, extend, or create non-disclosure agreements (Swampese for hush money) with two women from Trump’s past. The two reappeared out of nowhere in 2016, apparently to translate their alleged Trump hookups of a few hours in years past to notoriety and additional profit in the new age of “President Trump.” Swamp Crimes In other words, Michael Cohen was a sort of rough-hewn version of former Bill Clinton crony Vernon Jordan. The latter, remember, was…

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Trump Dossier Research Chief Glenn Simpson Declines US Congress Interview Request

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Reuters   The Republican chairman of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on Friday subpoenaed a U.S. research firm founder to give a deposition on his hiring of a former British spy to compile a dossier on alleged links between U.S. President Donald Trump’s associates and Russia. Representative Bob Goodlatte, a Republican from Virginia, announced the move on Twitter a day after receiving a letter in which lawyers for Glenn Simpson, the founder of Fusion GPS, said that their client “will not agree to an interview” requested earlier this week. “As part of our joint investigation into decisions made by DOJ in 2016, today I subpoenaed Glenn Simpson to appear for a deposition,” Goodlatte posted on Twitter. Goodlatte said in a separate Twitter post that former FBI Director James Comey, former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch and other former Justice Department officials have been invited “as witnesses. Will subpoena them if necessary.” Simpson’s lawyers also sent their letter to House Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy, who is conducting with Goodlatte a probe into the Justice Department’s decision to investigate possible collusion between Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russia. The top Democrats on the committees, Elijah Cummings and Jerrold Nadler, in a statement…

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Just Released: Here’s What The FBI Is Hiding About Christopher Steele

Tennessee Star Staff

by Joe Simonson   The FBI released its internal records on Christopher Steele, the former British spy behind the controversial “Russia dossier.” One problem: Nearly every page has been redacted. The total records, made public Friday, span 71 pages and contains various documents showing payments to Steele, who is referred to as a “Confidential Human Source,” over an unlisted period of time. While most of the documents are nearly completely redacted, they do show that in February 2016 the FBI had “admonished” Steele. “Verbally admonished the [Confidential Human Source] CHS with CHS admonishments, which the CHS fully acknowledged, signed and dated,” the document reads. However, according to NBC, ” an admonishment is typically given when a person begins a stint as a confidential informant and annually thereafter. It is a briefing on the rules of being an informant to ensure the source complies with guidelines set by the Attorney General, and usually not criticism of the source.” The documents also reveal that Steele disclosed to a third party that he was working for the FBI as an informant, as well as the fact that Steele was the source for a news article. By Nov. 1, the agency signaled that it…

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Fusion GPS, Russian Dossier Firm, Paid Journalists for Work

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Fusion GPS, the liberal research firm that funded and distributed the anti-Trump dossier, has paid three journalists for work related to Congress’ Russia probe, according to court filings. Lawyers representing the House Intelligence Committee made the assertion in a bid to force Fusion to turn over additional bank transactions involving reporters, law firms and a media company. …

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