not sure how to interpret this

https://abcnews.go.com/Politic...ne/story?id=61001996

Michael Cohen has postponed his third scheduled congressional testimony, his lawyer said Monday, casting further doubt on the prospect of the former fixer for President Trump returning to Capitol Hill before reporting to prison next month.

“The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has accepted Mr. Cohen’s request for postponement of tomorrow’s hearing due to post-surgery medical needs,” his lawyer, Lanny Davis, said in a statement on Monday.

Details of Cohen’s surgery were not immediately clear.

The Senate Intelligence Committee subpoenaed Cohen in January, according to Davis. He was requested to appear on Feb. 12, a source familiar with the matter said.

“A future date will be announced by the Committee,” Davis added in his statement.

Monday’s announcement marks the latest in a series of postponements of Cohen’s congressional testimony.

The House Intelligence Committee announced last week that Cohen’s closed-door testimony had been postponed until later this month. In January, Cohen pulled the plug on a scheduled open hearing before the House Oversight and Reform Committee.

Last week, Davis said in an interview on MSNBC that Cohen “expects to appear on the 28th” in a closed session in front of the House Intelligence Committee, and will “probably” testify in public before the House Oversight Committee in late February.

Though Davis emphasized that “nothing is certain.”

A federal judge sentenced Cohen in December to three years in custody after pleading guilty to financial crimes, lying to Congress and campaign finance violations.

He is scheduled to report to prison by March 6.

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with 3 different congressional committees trying to get Cohen to testify, he might have figured out that even w the best of intentions, he could fall into a perjury trap. And get more charges piled on.

quote:

not sure how to interpret this

Probably just trying to run out the clock before going to prison. Regardless of his public comments, he probably doesn't want to testify under oath to Congress.

more and more reports that the Senate Intel comm hasn't found anything, but DEMs disagree

https://www.nbcnews.com/politi...ump-campaign-n970536

After two years and 200 interviews, the Senate Intelligence Committee is approaching the end of its investigation into the 2016 election, having uncovered no direct evidence of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, according to both Democrats and Republicans on the committee.

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so the good news is there is no evidence of collusion

But this is the Sen Intel Comm where Mark Warner (D) dominates Richard Burr (R) even though Burr is the chairman.

"After it recently emerged in court documents that Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort shared campaign polling data with a man the FBI says is linked to Russian intelligence, Warner called that the most persuasive evidence yet of coordination.

"This appears as the closest we've seen yet to real, live, actual collusion,"

xxxxxxxxxxxx

the "closest we've seen yet"

how desperate these DEM clowns are. All the polls in the summer of 2016 had Clinton winning easily. So what could Manafort have possibly said about campaign polling data ?

Burr won't be a stand up guy here. He has said the Senate report won't say there was no collusion, the public will have to decide.

They will make the report so vague but filled with "hundreds" of campaign contacts w Russians that "must" prove something.

The one solid example of a political campaign colluding w Russians and other foreign agents to interfere in the 2016 election would be the Clinton campaign funding the Steele dossier.

And all their tricks to make Steele's work appear to be "intelligence".


The FBI conspired to overturn the election far more than anything the Russians did.

After a Russian businessman sued Buzzfeed, some court filings have been released.

One of those filings was a more complete release of the Steele dossier. A few things had been blacked out in the document that Buzzfeed released.

Remember the FBI saw the complete document. And said they trusted Christopher Steele.

Some of the things that are blacked out in the report dated 18 Oct 2016:

- lawyer Michael Cohen was married to a woman of Russian origin,

- The woman's father, Efim Shusterman, was a leading Moscow property developer

- Shusterman has a country house in a Moscow village reserved for the Russian top leadership and their close associates

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I guess the FBI got all excited.

All 3 allegations were wrong

7 Big Takeaways From Andrew McCabe’s Planned Coup

McCabe's actions prove that the Russia probe was always tainted and that many in the FBI and DOJ aren’t public servants, but rather incompetent attention-seekers.

If Washington, D.C. were a better place, former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe would be swiftly run out of town. He was fired last year for lying to the FBI’s inspector general at least four times regarding serious questions about multiple abuses that occurred while McCabe sat in a powerful and unelected office.

These abuses included working with former FBI director James Comey to set up former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus for obstruction charges, slow-walking and sabotaging the investigation of yet unseen Hillary Clinton emails found on Anthony Weiner’s computer just before the 2016 election, and failing to report a clear conflict of interest where his wife received a political donation from a close Hillary Clinton ally while he was tasked with investigating Hillary Clinton.

Among other things, McCabe also took part in spying on the Trump campaign through a secret warrant granted by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) court. This spying allowed obedient anti-Trump media figures to report, right before the 2016 election, that the FBI was investigating President Trump—which legitimized the Hillary Clinton campaign’s talking points about Trump and Russia.

Thankfully, although the establishment media cheers McCabe, he may yet face legal trouble as a result of his actions. So to save his skin, and sell his new book to help pay the lawyers—titled “The Threat: How the F.B.I. Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump”—McCabe is on the media circuit.

As such, McCabe sat down for an interview with “60 Minutes,” set to air this Sunday, and the reporting on that interview has provided (for real this time) an absolute bombshell. According to The New York Times, the former deputy FBI director said he was “so alarmed” by Trump’s firing of Comey in May 2017, that he and his fellow FBI officials immediately “discussed whether to recruit cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Mr. Trump from office.”

What’s more, McCabe’s “dire concerns” about Trump also prompted him to order the FBI to investigate Trump for obstruction of justice over the firing of Comey. And McCabe had the FBI officially begin to directly investigate whether Trump had been working with Russia “against American interests.” Then, McCabe—allegedly being so sure that Trump was a Russia colluder after Comey’s firing—worked to make sure the investigation of Trump would last even if McCabe was also forced out.

McCabe isn’t just spilling the beans about himself. In a separate revelation on a CBS morning show, Scott Pelley, who interviewed McCabe for “60 Minutes,” said McCabe confirmed in his interview that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein—at the Department of Justice (DOJ) which often works with the FBI—had suggested wearing a wire in meetings with Trump in order to entrap the president. McCabe also said that Rosenstein and other DOJ officials had participated in discussions about recruiting cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment.

The story about Rosenstein proposing to wear a wire was reported by The New York Times in September of last year, although Rosenstein issued a non-descript (and not entirely convincing) denial. Here’s Pelley:

There were meetings at the Justice Department in which it was discussed whether the vice president and a majority of the cabinet could be brought together to remove the president of the United States under the 25th Amendment. These were the eight days from Comey’s firing to the point that Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel. And the highest levels of American law enforcement were trying to figure out what to do with the president.
And:

They were counting noses. They were not asking cabinet members whether they would vote for or against removing the president, but they were speculating, ‘This person would be with us, this person would not be,’ and they were counting noses in that effort. This was not perceived to be a joke.

According to anonymous FBI officials talking to The Times, McCabe and his associates even kept “contemporaneous memos” on their actions and meetings with Trump—again another effort to find the president guilty of some crime. According to one of these memos, Rosenstein and McCabe determined they needed to peel off eight of the 15 cabinet officials. And Rosenstein suggested that he might have supporters “in the attorney general and the secretary of homeland security.”

Yikes. Here we have a formerly powerful and unelected government official, for all the world to see, admitting that the FBI tried to launch a coup against the constitutionally elected president of the United States, in only the first few months of his tenure. But there’s more going on than that. Here are seven quick takeaways on McCabe’s revelation of his planned coup.

1. McCabe Proves Trump Firing Comey Was Justified
McCabe is trying to construct a defense for his absolutely improper and likely illegal actions by front-running the story. He hopes that political sympathy will taint any legal case against him.

His big excuse is that all this—launching an investigation of the president, trying to entrap him, and trying to boot him out of office—is justified because of the firing of Comey. But Trump’s firing of Comey was justified by Trump’s constitutional powers. Period. Trump was elected, Comey was not.

Comey’s firing was also justified by a laundry list of things he did both before and after the 2016 election. For one, the former FBI director told the president that he wasn’t being investigated, but hinted to Congress that the president was indeed being investigated. That’s one of the more innocent things Comey did.

Even more problematic, Comey seemed to threaten Trump with the most salacious details of an unverified and still-disproven “dossier.” Then Comey used a meeting about the dossier with Trump, which Comey had requested, as the means to allow the media to report on that dossier. Next, there’s Comey and McCabe seeming to set up Priebus, and Comey’s behavior during the Clinton email investigation and just before the 2016 election (which was an effort to cover up for himself, not harm Hillary Clinton’s chances).

In other words, McCabe not only fails to justify his actions, he just shot himself in the foot. Before Comey’s firing, McCabe and Comey had already behaved badly. After Comey’s firing, McCabe was still surrounded by bad actors. All are now in serious trouble. This includes Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and FBI lawyer James Baker. These advisors to McCabe have either been fired for cause, demoted, pushed out, or are under investigation. McCabe’s interview only further proves that the upper echelon in both the FBI and DOJ were incredibly partisan, were plotting against Trump before he even took office, and needed to go.

2. McCabe and His Co-conspirators Only Ever Had The Dossier to Go On
McCabe’s interview confirms that he started a Russia-related obstruction investigation after Comey was fired. But what was the investigation of Trump-Russia collusion based on?

Long after the events of early 2017, once it was crystal clear that former Trump campaign official Carter Page was innocent, former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos was named by McCabe and company, through leaks to the Times, as the pretext that launched the “Russia investigation.” But that never passed the smell test.

For just one example, the FBI got a warrant to spy on Page, not Papadopoulos. And in early 2017, when McCabe admits he started officially investigating Trump, the FBI was still spying on Page and largely ignoring Papadopoulos. Much later, Special Counsel Robert Mueller would go after Papadopoulos, who was sentenced for a thin charge of lying to investigators, and absolutely no collusion was found. But Papadopoulos was barely on the radar in early 2017.

Of course, the FBI was already unofficially investigating Trump and the Trump campaign during the 2016 election. That’s why they were spying on Carter Page, which likely allowed them to spy on the entire Trump campaign. During this time, they had already checked Papadopoulos out, possibly using a Maltese professor with ties to western intelligence agencies. But this was meant to use Papadopoulos to legitimize their investigation. The suspicion of Trump-Russia collusion, and the investigation into the Trump campaign, already existed.

That’s because the so-called Steele dossier was always the impetus for the Russia investigation. But calling this a “dossier” is too generous. This is a Word document that was funded by Hillary Clinton’s campaign, written using paid, shady, and unknown Russians. This Word document was used to spy on the opposing party’s presidential campaign, despite the fact that nothing in the document that wasn’t public information checked out. McCabe and company wanted to believe the dossier. But that’s all they ever had.

3. Much Of This Seems Like A Cover-up
The fact that a shoddy, misspelled, Russian-sourced document paid for by Hillary Clinton tricked America’s “top intelligence officials” is embarrassing. It shows the utter stupidity of many of our so-called elites. But it also opens up the FBI and DOJ to serious reforms, or even opens up these top FBI and DOJ officials, who signed off on spying on the Trump campaign, to potential criminal prosecution. Even McCabe’s action of ensuring the investigation would go on if he was fired should be seen in this light.

That explains much of what has gone on since November 2016. Since the election, these partisans have implemented a sophisticated media leak campaign to generate hysteria, and now that seems to be collapsing. Doesn’t the media always remind us that the cover-up is usually what gets you, not the original crime? As a side note, what happens to the left-of-center media’s ratings and subscriptions if (or when) all this Russia stuff goes away?

4. The Conspirators Might Be Turning On Each Other
It is probably safe to say that Rosenstein is not a big fan of McCabe right now. McCabe’s motivation is simple, aside from trying to juice the sales of his book. He’s in serious legal trouble. He was fired for lying, he has big legal bills, and he may face prison time for his coup attempt. Essentially McCabe is saying, “If I take the fall, I’m going to take everyone else down with me.”

So we might be seeing a bit of a dustup between the FBI and the DOJ, going after each other in the press. Generally, the FBI leaks to The New York Times, and the DOJ leaks to The Washington Post. Don’t be surprised if the DOJ, or Rosenstein in particular, hits back soon in the Post.

5. McCabe Might Be Telling The Truth About Rosenstein
After McCabe again alleged Rosenstein had also plotted against the president, Rosenstein issued another one of his non-denial denials. When the story about Rosenstein suggesting he wear a wire to trap Trump first broke months ago, in an anonymous leak to the Times, many thought Rosenstein was telling the truth when he said his comments were “sarcastic.”

But with the on-the-record claim, and Rosenstein’s refusal to testify in Congress about it, people should become more open to the idea that Rosenstein seriously proposed a wire and the 25th Amendment—as insane as that actually is.

There’s more to this than McCabe going on the record. It wasn’t a good look when Rosenstein refused to testify under oath to House Republicans, when they controlled that chamber, as to whether or not he really did seek to record Trump and invoke the 25th Amendment. House Republicans have also, for a long time, had questions about Rosenstein’s role in signing off on a fourth and final warrant to spy on Page, where the FISA warrant contained serious omissions and misstatements.

Saying he was too busy to testify, Rosenstein ran out the clock on Republicans, who lost the House after the midterm elections. In the next few months, Rosenstein plans on resigning once William Barr is confirmed as the new attorney general. But in his last days at DOJ, he has had plenty of time to secretly meet with reporters and provide his anonymous narrative.

6. The Whole Russia Probe Is Tainted And Corrupt
If there wasn’t enough evidence already, McCabe’s interview provides even more evidence that the Russia probe was tainted from the get-go. Rosenstein signed off on firing Comey. He signed the last secret warrant to spy on a former member of the Trump campaign, Page, who has yet to be charged with doing literally anything wrong. And Rosenstein launched the Russia probe and appointed and oversaw special counsel Mueller after former attorney general Jeff Sessions recused himself.

More fundamentally, for the longest time, top FBI and DOJ officials have been able to hide behind the veneer of objectivity. They claimed to not be investigating Trump, but to only be focusing on Russian interference, wherever that may lead.

Yet the entire fiasco, the entirety of the time, has always been about Trump. There is no real effort to check out the Democratic National Committee (DNC) servers likely hacked by Russia (or somebody). There is no objective effort to make sure Russia doesn’t weaken Americans’ confidence in our elections in the future. Instead, everything—even in the first few months of Trump’s presidency—has been done through the lens of trying to boot Trump out of office.

For McCabe and company, getting rid of Trump would surely eliminate someone they detest, and whose policies are not popular in the Beltway. But it would also justify their lunatic and improper actions during the 2016 election.

7. Comey, McCabe, Clapper, And Brennan Are Unpatriotic Dopes
It used to be that intelligence leaders left their jobs quietly and lived quiet lives. There was an occasional op-ed here and there, and some board service. That changed with the people Barack Obama put in place. The new model employed by Comey, McCabe, former director of national intelligence Jim Clapper, and former CIA director John Brennan swims in cable news gigs, book tours, and hysterical tweets.

Again, this completely undermines their claims that while they were in charge of the all-powerful U.S. intelligence community, they acted as non-partisan straight shooters. They were lightyears away from being straight shooters. And their opposition to Trump was beyond ideological. It was emotional, mostly driven by rage.

None of these men have been elected, and it is doubtful that any of them could ever be elected. Yet through a corrupt media, they have been thrust to the center stage of American discourse. These aren’t public servants, they are incompetent attention-seekers. They are selfish, and unpatriotic, concerned with protecting themselves from their own misdeeds instead of the good of the country.

http://thefederalist.com/2019/...ccabes-planned-coup/

So, will the new AG be firing anyone or starting an investigation into these criminals?

Is there even a Grand Jury convened to look into McCabes crimes?

Is anyone mentioned in the above article going to be held accountable for their seditious actions? When? Regards 18DAI

^^^^^^^^
Re: “So, will the new AG be firing anyone or starting an investigation into these criminals?”

One can hope, but there’ve been some disappointments – e.g., Wray.

18DAI,

I was going to reply w some thoughts about people being held accountable, but I checked a few web sites before writing those thoughts out.

I found a very disturbing story that just came out.

One of the many questions has been how thorough and honest the FISA judges were. The 4 judges who signed the original Carter Page warrant and the three extensions.

Ben Wittes of Lawfare is a fierce antiTrumper and a champion of James Comey.

A podcast just came out of an interview with former chief FISA judge John Bates.

Bates said:

"I will note and note with some force that I have seen nothing that indicates that the court was misled, that the Department of Justice or the intelligence community made misrepresentations to the court.... ... And not only have I seen nothing that would indicate that, I have heard nothing that persuasively makes that case."

seen at

https://twitter.com/n8jones81

mind boggling

Carter Page FISA warrant and the three extensions were released but heavily redacted

From the parts that are revealed,

#1 The Steele dossier plays a major part of the FBI justification for the warrant. One thing that is not clear (because of redactions) is whether only parts of the dossier about Carter Page were cited, or if more of the dossier appears in the warrants.

#2 The Sept 2016 Yahoo story is identified in the warrant and the FBI states that the story is independent of the dossier material. It was not independent; Steele gave the information to Yahoo. The author Isikoff has publicly admitted that.

#3 The FBI said in the warrant that Christopher Steele did not know the motivations of Fusion GPS in conducting the opposition research. That is a lie. Steele was well aware of this “research” was to stop Donald Trump from being elected.


#4 James Comey has said the dossier material was not verified, other than the FBI considered Steele credible because of previous Steele work as a Confidential Human Source.

#5 The warrant states that Carter Page is an agent of Russia. Page was under FISA surveillance for a year. He has never been charged with anything.

#6 The FBI stated that it is unaware of any derogatory information pertaining to Christopher Steele. Yet Steele has made depositions in court that the dossier material was not verified. He said that the sex tape allegations were 50% chance of being true. None of the specific claims in the dossier against members of the campaign have been proven, or even charged by Mueller.

#7 The FBI “speculated” that Glenn Simpson was “likely” looking for information to discredit Donald Trump’s campaign. The FBI knew full well of the Fusion GPS intent. Bruce Ohr was feeding them the dossier information. Ohr said he told the FBI of Steele’s bias against Donald Trump and Ohr warned the FBI that the dossier material might not be true.

#8 The claims in the warrant against Carter Page are straight from the dossier.

#9 An FBI Supervisory Special Agent declared under penalty of perjury that the information about Cater Page was correct. It was not correct.

I think there is even more, but I get tired of writing all this stuff

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adding another thought

With all the McCabe talk about a counterintel investigation into Donald Trump and wild claims by Clapper & Brennan that Donald Trump is controlled by Russia, and the continued defense of the Steele dossier, it might be time to ask:

was there a FISA warrant against President Trump ?

Thank you sdy for keeping us informed! Much appreciated. Regards 18DAI

saw this video of an interview w Trey Gowdy at CTH

https://youtu.be/DQugrytlaXU

Gowdy is talking about Andrew McCabe's recent comments that in May 2017 he opened a counterintelligence investigation against President Trump and also a criminal investigation.

counterintel investigation : because McCabe thought President was being controlled by Russia

criminal investigation : because McCabe thought President Trump obstructed justice in firing Comey

I was originally confused because I thought McCabe was talking about the FBI counterintel operation opened in July 2016.

He wasn't. There were three FBI investigations going on against the President in May 2017.

In the video, Gowdy says he didn't know about the two additional investigations that McCabe is now talking about. Gowdy also says he doesn't think Paul Ryan or Devin Nunes knew about the 2 additional investigations either.

This is getting pretty freaky.


In another recent interview w Anderson Cooper:

Cooper asked, “Do you still believe the president could be a Russian asset?”

McCabe answered, “I think it’s possible. I think that’s why we started our investigation. And I’m really anxious to see where Director Mueller concludes that.”

https://www.breitbart.com/clip...-be-a-russian-asset/

Another interesting, but long article at Conservative Treehouse... See link below inf interested.

How Long Before We Hear About FBI Recordings in The White House?…

if this pans out, it may be that ADM Rodgers let DJT know that the FBI had active listening devices in the White House. That were removed during various renovations.

https://theconservativetreehou...-in-the-white-house/

The family secret Bruce Ohr told Rod Rosenstein about Russia case

BY JOHN SOLOMON — 02/20/19 10:45 AM EST

Who would have thought that, this deep into the Russia collusion probe, we'd be learning about yet another dossier connected to Hillary Clinton? And, as it turns out, it was sort of a family secret.

By his own account, senior Department of Justice (DOJ) official Bruce Ohr played an essential — and unorthodox — role, carrying politically tainted allegations of Donald Trump-Russia collusion to the FBI during the 2016 election.

First, it was unverified intelligence starting in July 2016 from Trump-hating former British spy Christopher Steele, the author of the infamous Russia dossier.

Next, it was sketchy intelligence starting in August 2016 from Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson, an opposition-research contractor who hired Steele and was paid to help Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign develop political dirt on Trump.

And now we learn, from testimony that is still being kept secret from the public, that Ohr admitted to Congress last year that he also took Russia information that his wife, Nellie, assembled against Trump on a computer drive and delivered that to the FBI in 2016 — a revelation that has raised fresh concerns in Congress about a possible conflict of interest.

Nellie Ohr worked for Fusion GPS and, for a time, worked on the same Clinton-financed Russian research project as Steele, according to the testimony.

DOJ ethics rules forbid department officials from working in cases where a spouse has a financial interest, a prohibition that Bruce Ohr said he knew about when he forwarded his wife’s evidence to the FBI.

The way Ohr described it, his wife’s research was like an additional dossier assembled from Fusion GPS research to augment what Steele was separately providing the FBI.

“She (Nellie Ohr) provided me with a memory stick that included research she had done for Fusion GPS on various Russian figures,” Ohr told congressional investigators.

“And the reason she provided that information to me is, my understanding was, it related to some of the same — it related to the FBI’s Russia investigation. And she gave me that stick to give to the FBI.”

Ohr’s revelation about his wife adds yet another example of people connected to the Clinton machine flooding the FBI with anti-Trump Russia research during the 2016 election.

Steele’s dossier was the opening salvo. A document sent to the State Department by Clinton proteges Cody Shearer and Sidney Blumenthal was another. A thumb drive given by Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussman to FBI general counsel James Baker was a third. Simpson's thumb drive given to Bruce Ohr was a fourth. And Nellie Ohr’s thumb drive would be a fifth. At least three of those work products — those from Steele, Shearer/Blumenthal and Nellie Ohr — resemble what many people might consider a dossier.

Before Ohr gave his testimony, there was only a single hint that he and his wife had helped the FBI: a solitary sentence in a January 2018 memo on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuses by House Intelligence Committee Republicans. It was mostly overlooked because it lacked much detail.

Now we know, belatedly, what Ohr forwarded and who in the chain of command knew about it.

Ohr said he told the FBI about his wife’s role at Fusion GPS but did not divulge his role as an evidence courier for his spouse to any of his DOJ supervisors — except for one.

Ohr testified that he told Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the man who was overseeing the Trump-Russia probe, more than a year ago that he had taken information his wife assembled against Trump at Fusion GPS and gave it to the FBI.

“What I had said, I think, to Mr. Rosenstein in October of 2017 was that my wife was working for Fusion GPS,” Ohr testified. “... The dossier, as I understand it, is the collection of reports that Chris Steele has prepared for Fusion GPS."

“My wife had separately done research on certain Russian people and companies or whatever that she had provided to Fusion GPS,” he added. “But I don’t believe her information is reflected in the Chris Steele reports. They were two different chunks of information heading into Fusion GPS.”

A spokeswoman for Rosenstein did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Ohr said his wife generally knew what the FBI might be investigating because she had joined her husband for a breakfast with Steele on July 30, 2016, right before Steele, a former MI6 agent, began working as an informer on the FBI’s Trump probe.

“Basically she was concerned that maybe the FBI might want her information as well, and so (she) provided the information to me,” he explained in his testimony.

In a matter of weeks, in the shadows of a presidential election, Ohr took derogatory information about Trump from Steele (a contractor at Fusion GPS just like his wife), a thumb drive from Simpson (his wife’s boss) and then another thumb drive from his wife and delivered all of it to the FBI.

And Ohr admitted his conduct was extremely unusual.

“You can’t think of a single case where you inserted yourself into a chain-of-custody other than this one?” then-Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) asked him at one point.

“That’s right,” Ohr answered.

He also was pressed about whether his wife became involved in any of his other cases over a three-decade career.

“I don’t recall my wife being involved in any of these other cases,” Ohr answered.

Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) asked Ohr if he understood that there were DOJ rules against becoming involved in cases where his family would have “a financial benefit.”

“Yes,” Ohr answered. Later, he expanded what he understood the requirement to be.

“If I was working on the case I would probably have to get off the case,” Ohr said. “... My wife can work for whoever she works for, but I can’t work on a case where she’s getting a financial benefit.”

“So in this case she was getting a financial benefit?” Ratcliffe asked.

“Right,” Ohr answered.

But then the senior DOJ official insisted his role in providing the FBI evidence from his wife’s fellow contractor (Steele), from her boss (Simpson) and from her as well did not constitute “working on the case.”

Ohr’s testimony also revealed that the DOJ’s internal watchdog, the inspector general (IG), was interested in his actions. “They have asked to interview me and I will talk with them,” Ohr explained.

No matter what the IG investigation finds, it is clearer today than ever before that Ohr played an essential role in feeding a Clinton-financed political opposition-research project to the FBI.

And, clearly, it was a family business.

John Solomon is an award-winning investigative journalist whose work over the years has exposed U.S. and FBI intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal scientists’ misuse of foster children and veterans in drug experiments, and numerous cases of political corruption. He is The Hill’s executive vice president for video.

https://thehill.com/opinion/ju...in-about-russia-case

sdy,

Thanks for all the work compiling all this information. It helps the rest of us understand more in depth what has been happening.

C1steve,

Kind words, but no need to say thanks.

Probably somewhere in this long thread I have written similar words to this post.

As a country, we have always acknowledged the wonder of the passing of presidential power after an election. Every 4 or 8 years, someone steps down from the most powerful position in the world and hands off to someone else.

It has always gone relatively smoothly.

Until 2016.

The obama administration, the Clinton campaign, the FBI, the DoJ, the intel agencies, and several media giants tried to frame Donald Trump. They are still trying to frame Donald Trump. Very few Americans understand the existence and scope of the true conspiracy to overturn the 2016 presidential election.

The story is huge. Dozens (hundreds ?) of players, involving several countries, and extending at least for the last 3 years. And it remains largely hidden from the public. People glaze over in disbelief when you try to walk them through it.

One of the biggest enablers has been a media environment that helps the liars and the conspirators execute their attack. An honest and responsible media community would have destroyed and exposed this plot long ago.

Honest and honorable govt leaders and elected officials would have stopped this plot from ever occurring.

But here we are. My hope is we share our knowledge on this, collectively try to comprehend it, and commit to help expose the whole filthy community of traitors and cowards who want to overturn the 2016 election.

I was confused for a very long time about what was happening because I never dreamed the FBI leadership was so corrupt and scheming. We need DoJ and FBI leadership that is fierce in its determination to earn back the trust of the American people. We haven’t seen that yet.

https://www.washingtontimes.co...arded-anti-trump-re/

Anti-Trump resistance discards once-celebrated dossier: 'They're trying to memory-hole it'

The infamous anti-Trump dossier, once toasted by the FBI and liberals, has faded from Washington’s political dialogue

The FBI had embraced the opposition research written by former British spy Christopher Steele and funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee in 2016. Congressional Democrats frequently cited its unverified collusion charges in 2017.

Today, Democrats seem to have left the document behind.

References to the dossier are nonexistent in “The Threat,” the newly released memoir of former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe.

There is also no mention of dossier writer Mr. Steele or Fusion GPS, the investigative firm that hired him — and continues to investigate President Trump with Democratic funding

“The dossier is the linchpin of McCabe’s meddling in the 2016 election, and the Russian intelligence information provided to him by the Clinton campaign was central to keeping an important stage of the bogus Trump
investigations alive,” Mr. Caputo said

“Now that we know he weaponized FBI investigations to destroy the president and his allies, it doesn’t surprise me at all that he’d like us all to forget the Clinton-Kremlin dossier. The dossier will be his undoing.”

As of Wednesday on his book tour, Mr. McCabe did not have one media question about the dossier, The Daily Caller reported

The same media handed out a prestigious White House press award to CNN for reporting the dossier’s existence in January 2017.

Likewise, former FBI Director James B. Comey downplayed the dossier in his 2018 memoir, “A Higher Loyalty.” He wrote briefly about the document, such as the time he briefed President-elect Trump about it in their first meeting.

But on his book tour, Mr. Comey said he didn’t know who first briefed him on the dossier’s existence. He said he doesn’t know who funded it and argued that it doesn’t matter.

A House Republican report said the FBI was aware weeks before the election that Democrats had funded the dossier.

Rep. Adam B. Schiff, California Democrat and chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, lavished Mr. Steele with praise in 2017. As the committee’s top Democrat, he read Mr. Steele’s charges at a much-watched hearing that March. So did his fellow liberal committee members.

Today, he has ramped up another Russia investigation. He said he will continue his hunt even if special counsel Robert Mueller finds no collusion .

Missing from his detailed Feb. 6 mission statement is any mention of Mr. Steele’s evidence or the dossier. A check of transcripts from Mr. Schiff’s January and February appearances on CNN, NBC and MSNBC did not uncover a dossier reference.


Of Mr. Steele’s dozen or so criminal charges of collusion, none has been proved publicly . No Trump associate has been charged in any conspiracy with Russia.

Mr. Mueller has brought two sets of indictments against Russian hackers and social media trolls. No American knowingly took part, the indictment says.

Asked why the FBI appears to have put aside the dossier, Nunes spokesman Jack Langer said, “McCabe didn’t mention it because they’re trying to memory-hole it.”

The FBI cited the dossier as evidence to get at least one known wiretap warrant on Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page. The bureau didn’t tell the judge who authorized the warrant that the Democratic Party financed the dossier.

⦁ The FBI was one of the agencies that included the dossier in an appendix to the intelligence community’s assessment that Russia hacked Democratic Party computers and committed the crime to help candidate Trump.

⦁ FBI officials received multiple dossier briefings from Mrs. Clinton’s political operatives and visited Mr. Steele in Britain to receive allegations firsthand

Among the dossier’s most sensational charges: Mr. Trump was a Russian informant for eight years; then-Trumpattorney Michael Cohen traveled to Prague to meet with Kremlin figures and plan a cover-up; and Mr. Page and campaign chairman Paul Manafort together orchestrated the hacking with Moscow.

No public evidence has surfaced to substantiate those charges. Mr. Page and Manafort have never met

seems anti-climatic, but Michael Cohen's open congressional testimony today put the issue to rest of the Steele dossier claims that he went to Prague. To Prague where he supposedly met w Russians to get cash payments to hackers who had worked against the Clinton campaign.

https://dailycaller.com/2019/0...ague-steele-dossier/

“Have you ever been to Prague?” South Carolina Rep. Ralph Norman, a Republican, asked Cohen during a House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing.

“I’ve never been to Prague,” said Cohen, adding: “I’ve never been to the Czech Republic.”

So Cohen said it publicly in testimony to congress. No more guessing, no more bullshit stories from McClatchy reporters. And of course a big blow to the credibility of the Steele dossier.

McClatchy reporters put out a second story late last December (2 months ago) that Cohen's cell phone had been detected in Prague in late summer 2016.

https://www.mcclatchydc.com/ne...rticle219016820.html

"Both of the newly surfaced foreign electronic intelligence intercepts were shared with Special Counsel Robert Mueller, people familiar with the matter said. Mueller is investigating Russia’s 2016 election interference and whether Trump’s campaign colluded in the scheme. Mueller also is examining whether Trump has obstructed the sweeping inquiry.

McClatchy reported in April 2018 that Mueller had obtained evidence Cohen traveled to Prague from Germany in late August or early September of 2016, but it could not be learned how that information was gleaned."

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so are there any consequences for these reporters ?

A major question is how much of the full dossier went into the Carter Page FISA warrant. We don't know because of the massive amt of redactions in what was released.

I've often wondered if when the dossier first got to the FBI (McCabe, Strzok, Lisa Page, etc) in July 2016, did they actually believe it was true?

At the very beginning did they really think they were saving the country? And they rushed a FISA warrant(s) through and started a counterintel operation against the REP candidate for president.

Then after a matter of weeks/months, it dawned on them that they had totally fell for phony and fabricated Clinton campaign op research.

How would they explain to Donald Trump after he was elected ?

It would destroy the credibility and public confidence in the FBI. So they didn't tell Donald Trump he was being investigated, but they kept on trying to prove something, anything, that could lead to impeachment.

As the dossier became more and more publicly suspect, the FBI downplayed how "important" it was and started saying the counterintel op was trigged by Geo Papadopoulos. (which is truly absurd)

They were willing to ruin the Trump presidency to avoid the embarrassment to the FBI. And the ruined careers of all involved.

The threat was actually much more than FBI embarrassment. The public reaction might well have been demands to break up the FBI.

I think something along these lines is why DoJ/FBI is keeping the full FISA warrant redacted.

Hiding behind a smoke screen of "national security" to protect the FBI, DoJ, and the FISA Court.

a very good article about one of the lawsuits against Christopher Steele

https://www.washingtontimes.co...al-to-begin-in-fall/

Christopher Steele will face a London defamation trial later this year, one of two court cases in which he was forced to produce his first and only on-the-record statements on how he investigated and spread Democratic Party opposition research.

the London trial will start this fall, sometime between mid-October and mid-December.

A half-dozen libel lawsuits have been filed against Mr. Steele and other dossier-related operatives. The one filed in London in 2017 by Russian entrepreneur Aleksej Gubarev would be the first to reach trial.

In his final of 17 dossier memos in December 2016, Steele accused Mr. Gubarev, a large supplier of computer servers, of hacking into Democratic Party computers under pressure from Russian intelligence. Mr. Gubarev, a resident of Cyprus, immediately denied the charge. There has been no evidence he did the intrusion.

Gubarev was not one of the Russians charged by Mueller

Mr. Gubarev sued BuzzFeed in Florida for publishing the discredited 35-page dossier, which listed his name as a criminal hacker. A federal judge dismissed the case, but not because she ruled the charge was true. Rather, she ruled that BuzzFeed had a right to publish since the FBI was using Mr. Steele’s charges to investigate President Trump.
In Britain, libel laws don’t favor the press the way they do in the U.S.

Comey briefed Donald Trump on part of the dossier in early Jan 2017. Immediately someone leaked that to CNN. That gave CNN the "hook" they needed to report on the dossier

This is a very important point. The U.S. judge dismissed Gubarev's suit against Buzzfeed because the dossier was being discussed by the FBI. U.S. law allows news media to report on things like that. No matter at all whether the information was true or not

Mr. Gubarev’s lawsuit [ against Steele] has avoided the issue of dismissal because Mr. Steele’s defense isn’t that the dossier is true, said Val Gurvits, Mr. Gubarev’s U.S.-based attorney. Mr. Gubarev heads XBT Holdings, which includes the server provider Webzilla.

“They didn’t have a motion to dismiss,” Mr. Gurvits told The Times. “It doesn’t work that way in England. Because they did not allege truth as a defense, they did not have a right to file for summary judgment. That’s a huge issue, by the way, that most of the press conveniently ignored. Christopher Steele is not arguing that the allegations against Gubarev are true.”

the trial is slated to start between Oct. 21 and Dec. 18 in 2019

Mr. Steele and his Orbis Business Intelligence firm also are being sued for defamation in London by three Russian oligarchs tied to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Mr. Steele accused Alfa Bank’s Mikhail Fridman, Petr Aven and German Khan of paying cash bribes to Mr. Putin.

The three Russian billionaires sued Fusion GPS, Mr. Steele’s handler, in a court in the District of Columbia. A judge dismissed the case, prompting an appeal.

Without these two London libel cases, the public might never know details of Mr. Steele’s campaign to spread unverified charges against Mr. Trump. He has filed at least two declarations in the Gubarev case and one in the Alfa lawsuit.

Among Mr. Steele’s disclosures in Gubarev v. Orbis:

- He was hired by the Washington investigative firm Fusion GPS in June 2016 to “prepare a series of confidential memoranda based on intelligence concerning Russian efforts to influence the U.S. presidential election process and links between Russia and Donald Trump.” Fusion co-founder Glenn Simpson told Congress he didn’t give Mr. Steele such a specific charge.

The FBI FISA warrant said that Steele didn't know what the motivation of the op research was.

- Orbis associate Andrew Wood met postelection with Sen. John McCain and an associate, David Kramer. The meeting started the process of placing the dossier in their hands to deliver to FBI then-Director James B. Comey. Mr. Steele, a former MI6 intelligence officer posted in Moscow, also provided some dossier material to British intelligence.

(It emerged in the Florida case that Mr. Kramer leaked the dossier to BuzzFeed . Court filings show BuzzFeed journalists put complete trust in Mr. Steele’s work. Mr. Steele said he made it clear to Mr. Kramer that the dossier should be used only in McCain’s official capacity.)

- The charges against Mr. Gubarev in the December memo were “unsolicited intelligence” and “raw intelligence” that “needed to be analyzed and further investigated/verified.” He said, “Such intelligence was not actively sought; it was merely received.”

Steele claims someone just provided him the information without Steele asking for it

- The “raw intelligence” included supposed details on then-Trump attorney Michael Cohen making a secret trip to Prague in August 2016 to meet with Putin aides and engineer a hacking cover-up

The dossier didn’t contain the identities of Mr. Steele’s sources. He describes them as “a former top Russian intelligence officer,” a “senior Russian Foreign Ministry figure,” a “former top level Russian intelligence officer still active inside the Kremlin” and a “senior Kremlin official.”

so which presidential campaign got investigated by the FBI for working w Russia to influence the 2016 election ?

Mr. Steele, at Mr. Simpson’s urging, briefed news outlets during September and October 2016 trips to Washington: The New York Times, The Washington Post, Yahoo News, The New Yorker and CNN.

Mr. Steele’s dossier emphatically stated there was an “extensive conspiracy” between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin to hack computers and spread stolen documents.

In contrast , in his court declaration Mr. Steele talks only of “possible coordination of members of the Trump campaign and Russian government officials.”

Among Mr. Steele’s disclosures in Fridman, Aven, and Khan v. Orbis:


- Mr. Steele said Fusion hired him to obtain information that Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton could use to challenge the 2016 presidential election should Mr. Trump win. No congressional testimony suggested this motive.

insurance policy ?

- “Internet traffic data suggested” that a computer server at Trump Tower were directly linked to Alfa bank for communications.

this was pushed by a Clinton supporter - a university professor

(This charge has not been supported by public evidence. Cybersleuths say the server in question sits outside Philadelphia spewing marketing spam that includes Trump hotels .)

- Mr. Steele made dossier disclosures to Strobe Talbott, a longtime Washington fixture as a journalist, deputy secretary of state under President Clinton and a former president of the Brookings Institution. He now serves as chairman of the State Department’s Foreign Affairs Policy Board.

Strobe Talbott, long time close Clinton friend

Besides Mr. Kramer, McCain, journalists and Mr. Talbott, Mr. Steele briefed a John F. Kerry aide at the State Department; Justice Department attorney Bruce Ohr, who relayed information to the FBI; and the FBI directly in Italy and Great Britain, and by phone and messages.

more good news about depositions

https://dailycaller.com/2019/0...s-steele-deposition/

A federal judge in Florida on Thursday ordered the release of depositions given by former British spy Christopher Steele and a longtime associate of late Republican Arizona Sen. John McCain in a lawsuit filed against BuzzFeed regarding Steele’s anti-Trump dossier.

U.S. District Court Judge Ursula Ungaro overruled requests by Steele and David Kramer , the former McCain associate, to keep depositions they gave in the BuzzFeed lawsuit under seal.

Ungaro dismissed a lawsuit filed against BuzzFeed on Dec. 19, 2018, by Aleksej Gubarev, a Russian businessman accused in the dossier of using his companies to hack into DNC computers.

The depositions by Steele and Kramer, a former Department of State official, are likely to shed light on how the dossier was compiled and disseminated to U.S. government officials and the press. Ungaro ordered the documents’ release for March 14.

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pretty sad that we learn more about the Steele dossier from lawsuit depositions in cases filed by Russians , than we ever have from our FBI and intel agencies.

Sounds like Steele is gonna rack up some legal fees. I wonder who will pay them for him.