Remember that James Wolfe of the Senate Intel committee security staff is believed to have sent the Carter Page TS FISA warrant to Ali Watkins.

The date for that unauthorized release was 17 Mar 2017.

One of the Christopher Steele to Bruce Ohr messages is dated 30 Mar 2017:

“The Senate Intel Committee is leaking like a sieve which is giving us pause for thought on engagement”

How does Steele know the Sen Intel Comm is leaking like a sieve ?

At the March 2017 time,

- Comey is still FBI Dir (fired on 9 May 2017)
- Mueller Special Counsel has not been established yet (appointed on 17 May 2017)
- Strzok/Page text messages have not been release (happens in Dec 2017)

Steele to Ohr on 9 May 2017: “obviously it’s chaotic with you over there right now but we should probably talk again over the next couple of days” (Comey was fired this day)

Steele to Ohr on 15 May 2017: “having now consulted my wife and business partner about the question we discussed on Saturday I’m pleased to say yes, we should go ahead with it”

Ohr to Steele on 15 May 2017: “I chatted with my colleagues and can give you an update when you have a minute”

Steele to Ohr on 22 June 2017: “any news on reengagement yet ?” (Steele is trying to reengage w FBI. At this point Mueller team is working)

Ohr to Steele on 22 June 2017: “Still in process. My colleagues have made the request, but they will inquire again” (who are the Bruce Ohr colleagues ?)

Steele to Ohr on 16 July 2017: “I spoke to my old colleagues last week and they assured me they would not stand in the way of our reengagement with the Bureau”

(Steele’s “old colleagues” – sure sounds like UK Intel Community)

Steele to Ohr on 6 Aug 2017: “”we are frustrated with how long this reengagement with the Bureau and Mueller is taking”

Steele to Ohr on 26 Oct 2017: “Just seen a story in the media about the Bureau handing over docs to Congress about my work and relationship with them. Very concerned about this. Peoples lives may be engangered. I shall also reach out to my other (SC) contacts on this issue tomorrow”

(Who are Steele’s SC contacts ? Lisa Page and Peter Strzok are off the Mueller team at this point)

(On 24 Oct 2017 the Wash Post had an article that identified the Clinton campaign and the DNC as sponsors of the dossier. The article also discussed the House Intel Comm subpoena on Fusion GPS bank records and Glenn Simpson congressional testimony. So Steele is “very concerned”)

Also note the Steele / Ohr messages from John Solomon are identified as

“HPSCI (3-23-18)-DOJ-000027”

That would indicate the House Intel Comm had these messages in March of 2018.

What's Bruce Ohrs motivation? Is his involvement part of his job or is he just helpful?

http://thehill.com/hilltv/risi...told-doj-about-trump

The handwritten notes exposing what Fusion GPS told DOJ about Trump

By John Solomon
Opinion Contributor

A memory stick quietly exchanged in a coffee shop.

An admission of a “Hail Mary” leak.

An unmistakable effort to push the Russia investigation closer to Donald Trump’s inner circle with uncorroborated tales.

Those are just some of the highlights from the day that Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson — paid by Hillary Clinton’s campaign to find dirt on her GOP rival — met secretly with a top Justice Department official, right after Trump won the 2016 election.

And all of it was captured in the official’s handwritten notes — a contemporaneous record that intelligence professionals tell me exposes the flaws plaguing the early Russia collusion case.

For example, Simpson told then-Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr during the Dec. 10, 2016, meeting in a Washington coffee shop that he believed Trump’s longtime lawyer, Michael Cohen, was the “go-between from Russia to the Trump campaign.”

Yet, Simpson allegedly acknowledged that most of the information Fusion GPS and British intelligence operative Christopher Steele developed did not come from sources inside Moscow. “Much of the collection about the Trump campaign ties to Russia comes from a former Russian intelligence officer (? not entirely clear) who lives in the U.S.,” Ohr scribbled in his notes.

In those notes, Ohr repeatedly misspells Simpson’s first name as “Glen.”

Cohen has emphatically and repeatedly denied any role in connecting Russia to the Trump campaign. His lawyer, Lanny Davis, declined comment Thursday.

Simpson admitted in sworn testimony last year to the House Intelligence Committee that he had contact with Ohr after Trump’s election victory. But Ohr’s notes provide the first detailed public account of what the two men actually discussed.

Congressional investigators now are scouring them for evidence that Simpson and Steele had influence over the Russia probe, even after Steele was dismissed as an FBI informant in November 2016. Investigators want to know if any players in the Russia probe gave Congress false testimony.

One notation that stands out is Simpson’s account that he asked Steele to talk with Mother Jones reporter David Corn about their muckraking on Trump and Russia in the final days of the election. At the time, Steele still worked as an FBI source.

Corn’s Oct. 31, 2016, story was one of the most definitive to allege possible ties between the Trump campaign and Moscow, creating an important talking point for Democrats in the final days of the campaign.

“Glen asked Chris to speak to the Mother Jones reporter. It was Glen’s Hail Mary attempt,” Ohr wrote.

When Simpson testified before Congress, he said he and Steele acted out of a sense of duty. “For him it was professional obligations. I mean, for both of us it was citizenship. You know, people report crimes all the time,” he told the Senate Judiciary Committee.

In his House testimony, though, he conceded not knowing if what he and Steele dug up amounted to a crime: “At the time that we — you know, that Chris decided to take this to the FBI, I wasn't convinced of the facts of anything in terms of — I wasn't convinced that there was a specific crime that occurred.”

So, congressional investigators want to know why — if Simpson acted purely on the basis of civic duty — he and Steele went to the press shortly before Election Day with allegations before the FBI completed its work.

Simpson’s lawyer, Josh Levy, did not return a call seeking comment.

Much of the other information attributed to Simpson that December day, according to Ohr’s notes, involved admittedly uncorroborated allegations — such as claims that a computer server in a Russian-owned bank was secretly transmitting messages to the Trump campaign, or that the NRA was secretly taking money from a Russian official. Many of the claims eventually made their way into news reports.

Ohr made clear he took possession of some evidence from Simpson, writing: “Glen gave me a memory stick.”

Early on, Ohr’s notes detail, the conversation focused on a theory apparently offered by Simpson that revolving Trump team members — former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, followed by informal adviser Carter Page, then personal lawyer Michael Cohen — forged a secret channel with Moscow to hijack the election.

All three men long have been cited in the Russia investigation; each denies any coordination with Russia. But Ohr’s notes are the first to quote Simpson as suggesting the three essentially were shark-tooth spies who replaced each other in a secret plot.

“He identified Michael Cohen, a lawyer in Brooklyn w. Russian (Brighton Beach) clients, as the go-between from Russia to the Trump campaign who replaced Manafort and Carter Page,” Ohr’s notes read, quoting Simpson’s alleged narrative.

The notes suggest guilt by association, citing Cohen’s wife and suggesting one of Cohen’s in-laws had real estate dealings in Moscow “with ties to the Kremlin.”

“Cohen may have attended a meeting in Prague, possibly in September, about this,” Ohr quoted Simpson as saying — a claim that became public a month later, in January 2017, when BuzzFeed published a version of Steele’s uncorroborated dossier.

Cohen’s lawyers have rebutted every mention of their client in the dossier, pointedly noting he never has been to Prague.

Cohen, now under investigation by federal prosecutors in New York, has hinted he may have information damaging to Trump. But Russia special counsel Robert Mueller has signaled he's not currently interested in Cohen, letting U.S. attorneys in Manhattan take the first crack at his case.

Two days after Ohr's meeting with Simpson, the senior DOJ official met with the FBI and submitted to an interview about what he had learned.

I shared the Ohr notes I obtained to career intelligence professionals with scores of years of experience analyzing data, sorting the reliable from the garbage.

All had the same reaction: The information, on face value, has the lowest level of credibility. It was second- or third-hand, they noted, and couched with lots of caveats like “may,” “possibly,” and “others disagree.”

The alleged Simpson statement that he went to the media as a “Hail Mary” stood out to those professionals as an act of desperation that they would see as weighing against the motives of an intelligence source.

A couple of the experts flagged that most of what Simpson allegedly told Ohr was not from Moscow — where the alleged plot was supposed to be based — but from a reported Russian in the United States who later seemed to disappear, according to Ohr’s notes.

“First thing I’m wondering is whether that Russian was part of a ‘kompromat' operation to further roil the U.S. election rather than a whistleblower,” one of the experts opined.

And all wondered why a Justice official — Ohr — who was not in the chain of command in the Russia counterintelligence probe, and whose wife worked for Fusion GPS on the Trump project, interviewed Simpson at all.

The Ohr interview and many other now-public actions in the Russia collusion case are “breaking every protocol at the fundamental level of intelligence gathering,” one highly decorated intelligence professional told me.

Whatever their assessment, Congress has a wide, new mandate to investigate the Simpson-Ohr-Steele contacts with renewed vigor and lots of questions that did not exist just a few short weeks ago: What was on the memory stick? What did Ohr do with the information? Did the FBI rely on it for future court actions? Did the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court that approved surveillance warrants know Ohr was getting information from the Simpson-Steele operation after Steele had been dismissed?

Those answers could make for a long, politically hot autumn in Washington.


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"most of the information ... did not come from sources inside Moscow. “Much of the collection about the Trump campaign ties to Russia comes from a former Russian intelligence officer (? not entirely clear) who lives in the U.S.,”

feels like a multi-prong offense is underway

http://thehill.com/homenews/ho...le-dossier-subpoenas

GOP chairman readies Steele dossier subpoenas

The Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee is readying subpoenas for people connected to the controversial “Steele” dossier, sources tell The Hill.

Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) is preparing subpoenas for Justice Department official Bruce Ohr , his wife Nellie Ohr and Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson , according to two congressional sources familiar with the matter.

The committee will also go after other current and former FBI and DOJ officials including Jim Baker, Sally Moyer, Jonathan Moffa and George Toscas , the sources said.

Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores told The Hill that Goodlatte has been in touch with the DOJ about seeking testimonies from these officials.

A Republican House Judiciary Committee aide confirmed to The Hill they plan to seek such interviews.

"We plan to interview the people [mentioned] in the coming weeks and we will issue subpoenas to compel their attendance if necessary," the aide said.

Goodlatte could issue the orders as early as this week as part of his panel’s joint investigation with the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which is examining FBI and DOJ decision-making during the 2016 presidential election.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"The Hill" is the home of John Solomon. Solomon went to the Hill a while ago. He was formerly at Circa.com w Sara Carter. He writes things that tend to be proTrump.

When Solomon first went to The Hill, a number of the other reporters there complained about him being proTrump. That seems to have died down. A year or so ago Solomon and Carter were at the forefront of breaking new info on the FBI and DoJ.

such a small world

The FBI said the counterintelligence investigation was opened up on 31 July 2016.

Guess who was in DC on 30 July 2016 ?

Christopher Steele





Peter Strzok testified he didn't see the dossier material until mid Sept 2016.

Remarkable coincidences.

Here is something from back on page 4:

29 July 2016 , Strzok starts talking about a new case. Up until then, at least from the texts that have been released, there isn’t any indication that Strzok or Page have heard of Steele’s first reports. (Steele briefed an FBI agent in London on 5 July 2016)

30 July 2016 , Strzok: “f*cking conniving cheating savages. At statecraft, athletics, you name it. I’m glad I’m on Team USA” “Going back through acting DCM. All good, and asked him to keep quiet, but I think it’s likely he will inform main State and they may call over to see what’s going on.”

Speculation: Strzok has heard something about Russian collusion. Steele report ?

DCM = State Dept Deputy Chief of Mission.

Strzok is about to go to London on very short notice.

Rep Mark Meadows says that Bruce Ohr will testify to congress on 28 August

adding:

http://dailycaller.com/2018/08...-interview-congress/

A source with knowledge of the plans tells The Daily Caller News Foundation that Ohr will appear before members of the House Judiciary and House Oversight Committees for a closed-door interview

closed door interview. useless to American people

This message has been edited. Last edited by: sdy,

These revelations about Ohr and Simpson, caused me to reread some of the inerview transcripts of Simpson at the House committee and the Senate committee. These are far too limited. Simpson basically refuses to answer almost all of the critical questions, on grounds of client confidence and similar, and gives sort of vague best I recall answers to many others.

They need to sit his ass down in the grand jury and get the details, quit dancing around.

an odd collection of somewhat unrelated inputs

1. JALLEN mentioned going back and rereading Simpson testimony. I've used Simpson's testimony as a reference many times. One little trick: sometimes the downloaded pdf version won't let you use the "find" feature. But Adobe can scan the pdf and convert it to a searchable version.

2. Bruce Ohr makes $187,000 a year at DoJ

3. For those who want more details, a good source is:

https://themarketswork.com/

https://twitter.com/themarketswork?lang=en

these tend to get very detailed.

4. From one of the reports at themarketswork, there is a reference to a Sept 2017 CNN article.

https://www.cnn.com/2017/09/18...-russians/index.html

That CNN article reports that Manafort had a FISA warrant against him in 2014.

It expired.

But after Manafort joined the Trump campaign, the FBI got another FISA warrant on Manafort

from the article:

A secret order authorized by the court that handles the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) began after Manafort became the subject of an FBI investigation that began in 2014. It centered on work done by a group of Washington consulting firms for Ukraine's former ruling party, the sources told CNN.

The surveillance was discontinued at some point last year for lack of evidence, according to one of the sources.

but now Mueller is prosecuting him for it

The FBI then restarted the surveillance after obtaining a new FISA warrant that extended at least into early this year. (that would be early 2017)

Sources say the second warrant was part of the FBI's efforts to investigate ties between Trump campaign associates and suspected Russian operatives. Such warrants require the approval of top Justice Department and FBI officials, and the FBI must provide the court with information showing suspicion that the subject of the warrant may be acting as an agent of a foreign power.

It is unclear when the new warrant started.

Somewhere in the reporting about comunications between Steele and Ohr, there is a line about Ohr being moved on and is there someone already briefed to use as a contact. It suggested the small cabal of plotter in on the scam.

Am I misremembering this? Any clue where it is found?

quote:

Any clue where it is found?

http://thehill.com/hilltv/risi...on-trump-russia-case

Yet, Steele asked Ohr in the Jan. 31 text exchange if he could continue to help feed information to the FBI: “Just want to check you are OK, still in the situ and able to help locally as discussed, along with your Bureau colleagues.”

“I’m still here and able to help as discussed,” Ohr texted back. “I’ll let you know if that changes.”

Steele replied, “If you end up out though, I really need another (bureau?) contact point/number who is briefed. We can’t allow our guy to be forced to go back home. It would be disastrous.” Investigators are trying to determine who Steele was referring to.

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:

quote:

Any clue where it is found?

http://thehill.com/hilltv/risi...on-trump-russia-case

Yet, Steele asked Ohr in the Jan. 31 text exchange if he could continue to help feed information to the FBI: “Just want to check you are OK, still in the situ and able to help locally as discussed, along with your Bureau colleagues.”

“I’m still here and able to help as discussed,” Ohr texted back. “I’ll let you know if that changes.”

Steele replied, “If you end up out though, I really need another (bureau?) contact point/number who is briefed. We can’t allow our guy to be forced to go back home. It would be disastrous.” Investigators are trying to determine who Steele was referring to.

That’s it, thanks. I read and reread the actual texts and thought I was losing my mind. I am somewhat, of course, the ravages of old age and advanced decrepitude being as they are, but still....

I'm with you guys on trying to get to the truth. I'm thankful for Devin Nunes and the rest of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence attempting to conduct oversight.

However, I think we've gotten to the point where this is what the vast majority of the American people now thinks about all of this:



It goes on, and on, and on and doesn't get anywhere... and people are just tired of hearing it.

^^^^
Yup. Know why? It's not "real"; to the masses it is article after article, congressional testimony after testimony, talkin gpoint after talking point, but that is all. There is no power behind any of it. No one has been indicted. No one has been charged. Even the FBI agent who was fired, for lying to the FBI, wasn't charged. So to the great many people this is all political; it is not "real". And it never will be until someone faces real consequences.

Contrast this with the Mueller investigation. To many that is "real". He has indictments, he has guilty pleas, people are being charged. That is "real".

Personally? I expect absolutely NOTHING to come of this whole fiasco. The deep state will keep on trucking and no one will be held to account.

This is the script for a future Hollywood movie and nothing more.

A few months ago I mentioned that McCabe would never be charged and would sue to get his benefits back. Guess what? He is. All part of the plan. By never charging him he can claim wrongful termination and bias. It will either go to court and his benefits will be reinstated or a future DOJ will settle with him. The deep state takes care of their own. They will not let him down.

http://www.foxnews.com/politic...-info-on-firing.html

that exchange about "Just want to check you are OK" caught my attention too.

that is 31 Jan 2017. shortly after the inauguration

Steele keeps communicating w Ohr all the way to Nov 2017

Then Ohr was demoted on 7 Dec 2017

I think the chain of command at DoJ looks like this:

AG (Session)
Deputy AG (Rosenstein()
Associate Attorney General
Associate Deputy Attorney General

Ohr was one of several Associate Deputy Attorney Generals

Pretty far up the food chain

former Associate Deputy Attorney General Scott Schools was one of the main interfaces from Rosenstein to the Mueller team

I think there are 5 or 6 Associate Deputy Attorney Generals

According to Rosenstein, Bruce Ohr was not involved in the Russian interference investigation

Rosenstein:

“Any involvement Mr. Ohr had in this matter was without my knowledge.”

I think a lot depends on whether you are an Associate, a Deputy, an Associate of a Deputy or a Deputy of an Associate.

I believe Ohr was portrayed as No. 4 in the DOJ, with 2 roles. Director of Organized Crime Drug Enforcement for one thing.

quote:

There is no power behind any of it. No one has been indicted. No one has been charged. Even the FBI agent who was fired, for lying to the FBI, wasn't charged. So to the great many people this is all political; it is not "real". And it never will be until someone faces real consequences.

Contrast this with the Mueller investigation. To many that is "real". He has indictments, he has guilty pleas, people are being charged. That is "real".

Yep.

The people elect DJT as President. The people elect Republican majorities in both the House and the Senate. And yet... the Deep State (mostly Democrats) still seems to have all the real power in Washington. The government seems broken. It doesn't seem to be representative.

I see it as further evidence that far too much power is concentrated in the Federal government leviathan based in Washington, DC. Most of what the Federal government does, other than Defense, could and should be devolved back to the States to do (or not do).

Part of the defense against tyranny is building in a certain amount of hopeless inefficiency and unconquerable ineffectiveness into the system, grinding the most ambitious tyrant into blubbering frustration.

The factory is designed to be inefficient and unappetizing at sausage making, and nearly impossible to make anything else.

The Clintons have been the biggest challenge to our system and look how they ended up. They maybe got away with some unhappy stuff, but it foiled them in the end.

regarding Andrew McCabe,

I don't think a decision has been made public yet on whether or not McCabe will be prosecuted for lying to the FBI.

It would be very awkward for Flynn and Papadopoulos to be prosecuted for lying to the FBI, but not McCabe. The DoJ IG report nailed McCabe on that pretty good.

The lawsuit that has been filed by McCabe's lawyer is to get documents about why McCabe was fired. The claim is the FBI and DoJ have been unresponsive.

I agree it is frustrating we have heard literally nothing from John Huber.

But I remain optimistic that the slow roll out of very damaging information will continue. A lot hinges on the Carter Page FISA warrant.

And I expect there will be more to reveal about the FBI spying on the Trump campaign. (e.g. Stefan Halper)

I am very grateful for the congressional committees that are taking the attack to the conspirators that are trying to take down Donald Trump. It is looking much worse than anything I had ever imagined.

was looking up some things about Mueller and came across this tidbit

Here is an org chart of FBI (from 2014)



The bottom ellipse shows the Counterintelligence Division where Peter Strzok used to work.

That division is part of the top ellipse showing the National Security Branch

From a 2011 interview w Mueller:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPE1kPK0TGc

starting at 38:40, Mueller says the FBI and CIA exchange personnel and his #2 person in the FBI National Security Branch is from the CIA .

Brennan probably didn't have to work very hard to pass his "intelligence" to the FBI

quote:

Originally posted by mbinky:
Personally? I expect absolutely NOTHING to come of this whole fiasco. The deep state will keep on trucking and no one will be held to account.

And some people complain when the lawyers chime in.