Tag: Steele dossier

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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Nellie Ohr To Testify Before Congress About Work For Fusion GPS

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by Chuck Ross   Congress will interview Nellie Ohr, the wife of Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr, later this week, Texas Rep. John Ratcliffe said on Sunday. Ratcliffe said Sunday that Ohr is expected to appear for a closed-door interview with the House Judiciary and House Oversight & Government Reform Committees, in an interview on Fox News. Ohr worked during the 2016 election cycle for Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm that investigated Donald Trump on behalf of the Clinton campaign and DNC. Fusion hired former British spy Christopher Steele, the author of the infamous anti-Trump dossier that was used to obtain spy warrants against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. While she worked for Fusion, Ohr’s husband, Bruce Ohr, was in contact with both Steele and Glenn Simpson, the founder of Fusion GPS. A former assistant deputy attorney general at the Justice Department, Bruce Ohr was interviewed by the congressional committees on Aug. 28. Republican lawmakers have questioned the Ohrs’ relationship to Fusion GPS and Steele. The husband-and-wife duo met with Steele on July 30, 2016, a day before the FBI opened its counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign’s possible ties to Russia. Nellie Ohr began working for Fusion…

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Special Counsel Robert Mueller Will NOT Present ‘Collusion’ Evidence at Manafort Trial

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Paul Manafort

by Chuck Ross   Special counsel Robert Mueller said in a court filing Friday that his prosecutors will not present evidence regarding Trump campaign collusion with Russia at an upcoming trial for former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. “The government does not intend to present at trial evidence or argument concerning collusion with the Russian government,” reads a filing submitted by Mueller’s team in federal court in Virginia on Friday. The filing sheds light on one of the largest questions looming over the Manafort case. Mueller’s prosecutors have indicted Manafort in federal court in Virginia and Washington, D.C., on a slew of charges related to his consulting work for former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. Manafort ended the work in 2014, and it has been unclear whether Mueller’s team planned to reveal evidence about Trump or the campaign. Manafort is accused in the unverified Steele dossier of directing the Trump campaign’s efforts to coordinate with the Kremlin to help Trump in the 2016 election. The dossier, which was funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and DNC, claims that Manafort worked with former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page on the effort. Both Page and Manafort have said they have never met each other. Manafort has…

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DOJ Gives Congress Missing Strzok-Page Text Messages

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by Chuck Ross   The Justice Department on Thursday gave Congress five months worth of text messages exchanged between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page — two FBI officials involved in the investigations into Hillary Clinton and President Donald Trump’s campaign. The messages, exchanged between Dec. 14, 2016, and May 17, 2017, were initially thought to be missing due to a technical glitch on FBI-issued cell phones. But the texts were recovered by the Justice Department’s office of the inspector general, which is investigating the FBI’s handling of both the Clinton and Trump campaign investigations. Approximately 300 messages were given to Congress, a Justice Department official told The Daily Caller News Foundation. Strzok, the former deputy chief of the FBI’s counterintelligence division, was removed from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia team in July 2017 after the discovery of the text messages. They showed Strzok and Page expressed deep hostility to Trump during the 2016 campaign. Strzok oversaw the FBI’s Russia investigation when it began on July 31, 2016. He was also a top investigator on the Clinton email probe. He helped conduct the interviews of Clinton and several of her top aides. The congressional committees that received the text messages are likely…

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Commentary: Deputy AG Rosenstein Memo to Special Counsel Mueller Proves Probe into Former Trump Aide Manafort is Beyond Scope of AG Sessions Recusal

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Tennessee Star

by Robert Romano   On March 2, 2017, Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself “from any existing or future investigations of any matters related in any way to the campaigns for President of the United States.” Arguably, as far as recusals go, it was too broad and did not narrowly list what specific part of the campaign that Sessions would have an appearance of impropriety. But there it is. This led eventually to the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on May 17, 2017 to investigate, mainly, “any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump…” Since then, Mueller has produced several indictments, including some that appear far outside the scope of Sessions’ original recusal. For example, former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was indicted for supposedly lying to investigators about a conversation he had with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kisylak in Dec. 2016, which was after the election. The interview with FBI agents happened in Jan. 2017. If Sessions was only recused from “matters related in any way to the campaigns for President of the United States,” then how could have Mueller delivered an indictment for actions after the campaign was…

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Commentary: Did the Obama Justice Dept. and the Clinton Campaign Coordinate to Place the Isikoff Piece to Obtain the FISA Warrant on the Trump Campaign in 2016?

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By Robert Romano   Besides the DNC and Clinton campaign-funded Christopher Steele dossier that alleged Trump campaign-Russia collusion that was used as evidence by the Obama era Justice Department to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court warrant against Trump campaign advisor Carter Page, another piece of evidence was a Sept. 2016 Yahoo! News piece by Michael Isikoff that alleged the same. A news story, which turns out, was sourced to Steele himself, anonymous at the time, and was presented as evidence to the FISA court to “corroborate” the Steele dossier. It was circular confirmation, Steele confirming himself in essence, according to the now-released House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence memorandum by Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.): “This article does not corroborate the Steele dossier because it is derived from information leaked by Steele himself to Yahoo News.” But what stands out about the Isikoff piece, besides the fact it became one of the bases on which to spy on a presidential campaign smackdab in the middle of the election, is the fact that Isikoff quotes Justice Department officials confirming that Page was already under investigation. Isikoff referred to a Congressional source who alleged that, in Isikoff’s words, “U.S. officials in the briefings indicated…

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