The dossier story will get more complicated rather than less, as the truth gets revealed.

This is a report from 22 Jan 2018 that picks up on some things that Glenn Simpson said in his testimony to the Nunes committee.

background:

The dossier was given credibility because of Steele's reputation and past work.

In the FISC application for the warrant against Carter Page, the FBI said "based on [Steele's] previous reporting history with the FBI, whereby [Steele] provided reliable information to the FBI, the FBI believes [Steele's]reporting is credible"

But this NY Post story points out that Steele got some inputs directly from someone working for Fusion GPS - Edward Baumgartner.

https://nypost.com/2018/01/22/...awn-do-all-the-work/

Virtually all of the credibility of the so-called Steele dossier — and the Trump-Russia collusion narrative and investigations it spawned — hinges on Christopher Steele’s vaunted reputation as a former British intelligence agent who spied on Moscow and still maintains a network of sources inside the Kremlin.

But now we are finding out from newly released transcripts that he never even set foot inside Russia to compile his dossier, and that he relied instead on an ex-journalist-turned-p.r. consultant to do much of his investigating there

“How was he able to accumulate information in Russia if he didn’t go?” Simpson claimed that Steele ran a “network of subsources or subcontractors” who traveled around Russia and gathered information for him.

But it turns out the primary subcontractor worked not for Steele but for Simpson at Washington-based Fusion GPS, and he contributed key material for the investigation of Trump underwritten by the Clinton campaign. His name is Edward Baumgartner, a British national who speaks fluent Russian and runs a p.r. shop out of London (and who spent 2016 tweeting his forceful opposition to Trump’s candidacy).

While Baumgartner was working on the dossier, he was also working for Simpson on another case to smear an anti-Putin whistleblower in an effort to help Putin-tied company Prevezon defend itself against US charges of money laundering.

As the Prevezon case was winding down, Simpson said he assigned Baumgartner, who shares his enmity toward Trump, to help dig up dirt on him. Baumgartner contributed research targeting the central Trump campaign figures charged in the dossier.

“I remember assigning him to do work in the summer or fall of 2016 on Michael Cohen’s business connections to Russia and Ukraine and his father-in-law’s background in Russia. And so he worked on both. And I think Edward might have also worked on some [Paul] Manafort stuff.”

Cohen was Trump’s lawyer and Manafort was his short-lived campaign chairman. Baumgartner also compiled information on Carter Page, a volunteer Trump adviser. The dossier accuses all three Trump associates of conspiring with Kremlin officials to hack the Clinton campaign and remove US sanctions on Russia.

Asked by intel panel staff if he verified Steele’s “sources in Russia” or corroborated their information, Simpson said he’s never been to Russia himself and couldn’t “evaluate the credibility of someone on the other side of the [Atlantic].” Nor could he confirm that Steele actually spoke directly with any of his Russian sources.

Simpson says he completely deferred to Steele’s expertise and did not question his findings because of his “sterling reputation.” Simpson has pumped this guy up to be the real-life 007 so deep inside the Kremlin, he didn’t have to corroborate his information, yet Steele was so far out of the hunt, his tradecraft so rusty, he apparently had to rely on a Russian translator who flacked for Putin to gather his so-called intelligence.

******************
additionally we now know Steele had inputs from Clinton dirty ops scumbags like Sidney Blumenthal and Cody Shearer.

No wonder Simpson refused to disclose his employees and subcontractors in the transcripts I read, and fought to keep the bank account records from being produced. His memory of work assignments got really vague, too.

Betwen this guy and Nellie Ohr, it might have looked bad.

Here is one of McCarthy’s articles we missed, about Obama, Rice, Comey et al., and her ex post facto memo.

Link

quote:

The dossier story will get more complicated rather than less, as the truth gets revealed.

These names are popping up in recent reports. Sen Grassley is pushing to see who is connected to who.

Several business deals between Manafort and Deripaska went sour. Deripaska is not mentioned in the Mueller indictment of Manafort

I find all of this very confusing. Am I alone?

quote:

I find all of this very confusing. Am I alone?

Not any more confusing that a symphony orchestra. Multiple sections, each with their own instruments. Each row of instruments with their "chairs" placed in order of rank. Everybody playing their own part of the same piece that when put all together makes music.

Americans have short attention spans. That's what some in our government are counting on. "It's too confusing" equals "guess there's not much we can do about it". Don't fall into that trap.

quote:

Originally posted by radioman:
I find all of this very confusing. Am I alone?

Nope. It is confusing, especially for those who have a life besides Whack-a-mole in DC.

These guys play this game 24/7. There are hundreds, thousands, of players, all trying to or helping someone in various unstable combinations climb the greasy pole.

Just to make it tricky, much of it is conducted in secrecy. “If they don’t know what you are doing, they don’t know what you are doing wrong.”

The Greatest Show On Earth, conducted at your expense, too!

It makes Celebrity Apprentice seems like an old b&w ‘50’s soap opera!

quote:

I find all of this very confusing. Am I alone?

It is near mind boggling confusing and complicated. There are many players with more being revealed as time goes on.

But we have learned a lot over the last few months.

The big picture is that

#1
Hillary Clinton colluded with the Russians to interfere in the 2016 election

She funded the dossier. The dossier was Russian sourced. The dossier was falsely presented to the FBI and U.S. media as an intelligence product by Steele.

My opinion: the dossier is almost complete BS. It is very frustrating the FBI doesn't come out and blow gigantic holes in the dossier. But they are caught because they used the dossier to get surveillance warrants against Carter Page.

Either the FBI was grossly incompetent in reviewing the dossier, or some in the FBI were grossly corrupt to use a fabricated "intel" product as the basis for the FISA warrant.

#2
Democrats are using the complexity and secrecy of the situation to create mass havoc and paint President Trump in the worst possible way. The media are part of the conspiracy to enable this fraud.

If we had an honest media who would dedicate the resources to this investigation, this whole thing would have crumbled long ago.

*************
JALLEN beat me to it

adding: Mueller w his small army came up w 590,000 items of evidence against Manafort.

Think what Mueller's team could have done if they turned their attention to the dossier.

Their honest attention.

And if they brought the fidelity, bravery and integrity back to the FBI.

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:

Either the FBI was grossly incompetent in reviewing the dossier, or some in the FBI were grossly corrupt to use a fabricated "intel" product as the basis for the FISA warrant.

I see grossly incompetent corruption in the FBI.

It's being reported that the D memo has been released.

https://twitter.com/FoxNews?re...serp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

stoic-one, thanks for the heads up.

DEM report here:

edit: JALLEN's link below is a more direct one than the one I had


I went thru it once.

It reveals some more info about the process and is similar to the tricky wording that Feinstein used to attack the Grassley memo.

Will post some specifics after thinking on it more. It is tortuous how Schiff twists things to make it sound like something else. Sure hate redactions.

Link to .pdf version of memo.

Also there is a response from the committee majority which should be read as well. Link

Comments on Schiff memo

Schiff says the FBI did assess Carter Page to be a Russian agent.

We had considered that previously because that appeared to be necessary to get the Title I warrant described by Nunes.

Schiff says the dossier was not the trigger to initiate the initial FBI counterintelligence investigation in late July 2016.

We know Steele briefed the FBI on 5 July 2016 that Donald Trump might be being blackmailed by the Russians. But that was not enough to start an investigation ?

Schiff says the FBI narrowly used info from Steele sources about Carter Page

Schiff earlier had revealed that the only parts of the dossier that were used for the warrant were the parts about Carter Page. That gave the application more credibility because the wild stuff wasn’t presented .


So Schiff can truthfully say the FBI did not include any “salacious” allegations about Donald Trump

That would have been a warning to the court to look for strong verification of the entire dossier

Schiff describes why the FBI viewed Steel as reliable

This cleverly conceals that the FBI had no other verification of the dossier than Steele being a good guy

Schiff says the investigation was triggered by Papadopoulos on 31 July 2016.

It is redacted when Steele started to share his reports w the FBI.

Glenn Simpson told in testimony that Steele briefed the FBI on 5 July 2016

It seems significant that Schiff keeps downplaying the dossier

More in a bit

Starting an investigation is no big deal, open some files, allocate some respurces. It’s the warrant that is actionable, where statutory requirements must be complied with, or not.

Schiff confirms that 4 different judges approved the warrants.

The warrant dates were 21 Oct 2016, early Jan 2017, early Apr 2017, and late June 2017. With authorized surveillance of Page thru late Sept 2017.

Schiff argues that the FISA was not used to spy on Trump or his campaign.

More clever technical BS. Carter Page had left the campaign right after the Isikoff report in September. The only reason that Page was in the crosshairs was because he was a member (a very marginal member) of the Trump campaign


Schiff says part of the argument that Page was a Russian agent came from the 2013 case where 2 Russians tried to recruit him.

Recruiting of American business people is SOP for the Russians. There is no report that Page was actually recruited in 2013. The FBI debriefed Page after the incident.

After saying the dossier wasn’t important, Schiff says the dossier parts about Page are evidence Page needed to be surveilled.

Schiff says there are multiple independent sources that corroborate Steele’s report.

They are all redacted. How many times have we heard there wasn’t any verification of the dossier? Even McCabe said that

Schiff says the surveillance provided valuable intelligence

All redacted

Schiff describes very general references in the FISA application to an unnamed person hiring Steele to conduct research. That unnamed person was hired by a law firm to research Trump ties to Russia. The motivation for the research was not revealed to Steele. The FBI speculates that the motivation was to discredit the Trump campaign.

Unnamed person = Simpson, law firm = Perkins Coie, Source#1 = Steele, Candidate #1 = Donald Trump

No mention that the Clinton Campaign funded the research

Schiff says the FBI has undertaken a rigorous process to vet the dossier

We haven’t seen any vetting

Some reports have Page as an undercover agent of the FBI, at least back in 2013 when those Ruskies were being surveilled.

We need to know exactly what that arrangement was. It would be a fascinating situation to employ Page for a few years then trade him for a player to be named later and a draft choice.

I want to know how one becomes a “campaign aide” for a given campaign. According to the testimony, Page had almost as little to do with the campaign as I did. Unpaid, no duties..... where does the status kick in? I would have been a perfect choice to a job like that.

last comments on the first look

Schiff says that Steele had been an FBI paid human source for some time. On matters unrelated to the Russia investigation.

Schiff says the FBI did not use the Isikoff article to corroborate the dossier, but rather to inform the court of Pages’ public denials of the meetings in Moscow.

Maybe the biggest Schiff deceit in his report. The Isikoff article came from Steele. Steele’s whole report is highly suspect and unproven .


Schiff’s description of Bruce Ohr is almost bizarre. He says “ Bruce Ohr is a well respected career professional” and just glosses over that Ohr’s wife worked for Fusion on the opposition research. Schiff argues that Ohr was not involved in the FISA warrant.

Best thing here is to see what happens down the road w Ohr, who has already been removed from 2 high level DoJ positions. If Ohr wasn’t dirty, why isn’t he fighting those demotions ?

Schiff says the REPs are demonizing Strzok and Lisa Page for their texts. He says neither of them served as affiants on the FISA warrants.

Schiff notes that Strzok wrote part of the Comey speech about Clinton being “extremely careless” , and thus damaging Clinton just prior to the election.

A terrific example of how they play the game. Schiff was right that Strzok wrote that. But what he doesn’t say is that Strzok changed the words so Clinton wasn’t prosecuted

JALLEN,

Carter Page and Papadopoulos had bullseyes painted on them when Donald Trump told the Wash Post they were campaign advisors.

Donald Trump was in a tough spot. Almost no one wanted to support his campaign. Unfortunately, low level types like Page, Papadopoulos, and Manafort filled that vacuum for a short while.

Glenn Simpson saw blood in the water w those names.

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:


Schiff notes that Strzok wrote part of the Comey speech about Clinton being “extremely careless” , and thus damaging Clinton just prior to the election.

A terrific example of how they play the game. Schiff was right that Strzok wrote that. But what he doesn’t say is that Strzok changed the words so Clinton wasn’t prosecuted

Changing the words wasn’t a direct factor in non prosecution. That was at best a mere avoidance of the express words of the statute, a PR issue. ”Grossly negligent” the words of the statute, is legally the same as “extremely careless,” the words Comey used, albeit spelled and pronounced differently.

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

Nunes' response to the dims memo:

https://www.scribd.com/documen...es-Majority-Response