Regardless of any claims to the contrary by former VP Biden and former President Obama, you have to be amazed on how corrupt and crooked the Obama Administration actually was! Thanks to Judicial Watch, more poop on what should be prosecutable corruption comes to light.
One day before the FBI launched its Trump-Russia investigation, Sovietophile academic Nellie Ohr, wife of DOJ boss Bruce Ohr and an employee of Fusion GPS, met with former British spy Christopher Steele. The upper reaches of the FBI and DOJ – Ohr, McCabe, Comey, Strzok, Page and such – have drawn the most attention in the fake Russia collusion story. It now emerges that the elusive Steele also deployed collaborators at the U.S. Department of State.
As 43 pages of documents obtained by Judicial Watch explain, “State Department ‘Special Coordinator for Libya’ Jonathan Winer played a key role in facilitating dossier author Christopher Steele’s access to other top government officials,” and “prominent international business executives.”
According to the Middle East Institute, Jonathan M. Winer was “deputy assistant secretary of state for international law enforcement, and counsel to United States Senator John Kerry.” Winer has written and lectured widely on, among other things, “corruption, and U.S.-Russia issues,” which seems somewhat removed from the Yale alum’s background.
In November of 2014, Winer sought to hook up Steele with Nelson Cunningham, president of McLarty Associates, a consulting firm co-founded by former Clinton White House Counselor Thomas ‘Mack’ McLarty. Winer’s email describes Steele as “an old friend of mine,” and “a former senior British intelligence officer focusing on former Soviet Union with a number of US and European private sector clients these days…”
In November of 2014, Winer “openly acts as a liaison for Steele,” attempting to set up meetings for “Chris” and referencing “Three Orbis Reports” in the subject line of the email. That same month Winer set up Steele with Ariuna Namsrai of ACPO “one of the world’s leading advisory and advocacy communications consultancies.”
Jumping ahead to January of 2017, movie producer Eric Hamburg forwards an article on the Steele dossier to Winer, proclaiming “Let’s do a movie about this!” Hamburg is the producer of the 1995 Nixon, starring Anthony Hopkins and directed by Oliver Stone. As it happens, Hamburg’s IMDB profile shows him posing with Hillary Clinton.
In February of 2018, Winer wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post claiming that Steele told him in 2016 he had “learned of disturbing information regarding possible ties between Donald Trump, his campaign and senior Russian officials.” Steele and Clinton factotum Sidney Blumenthal approached Winer with “separate dossiers.” No word whether the DNC also paid for Blumenthal’s dossier and whether his high concept featured any Russian whores urinating on a bed. Scenarios like that doubtless had Eric Hamburg panting to produce a movie.
“These documents show that Fusion GPS and Clinton spy Christopher Steele had a close relationship with the Obama State Department,” said a statement from Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton. “The State Department under John Kerry is emerging as another center of the Spygate conspiracy against President Trump.” That should come as no surprise.
Kerry once testified that U.S. actions in Vietnam were “reminiscent of Genghis Khan.” Kerry said the 2015 Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack in France had a “sort of particularized focus and perhaps even a legitimacy” and “a rationale that you could attach yourself to.” Kerry described the terrorist attack as obscurantisme, which even in French fell a bit short. The performance prompted Sen. John McCain to call Kerry, “the most inept secretary of state, certainly in my lifetime.” And when no longer Secretary of State, Kerry still acted like one.
After President Trump nixed the Iran deal, Kerry duly showed up in Iran for back-channel talks. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blasted Kerry for “actively undermining” administration’s policy toward the Islamic Republic.
For his part, Jonathan Winer was a State Department “Special Coordinator” for Libya, but what he managed to coordinate there remains unclear. For Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the murder of four Americans was all about some internet video, and after all, what did it matter?
As the State Department emails obtained by Judicial Watch show, Jonathan Winer was, in effect, Steele’s personal agent with the State Department, the Clinton propaganda machine, and even the entertainment industry. So Winer qualifies as an associate producer of the Russia collusion show, which the Democrat-media axis shows no sign of abandoning. It’s the biggest production on the left since Barry Soetoro teamed with David Axelrod on Dreams from My Father, which official biographer David Garrow called a novel, and the author a “composite character.”
Meanwhile, Attorney General William Barr is aiming at a broad-based, multifaceted investigation of the Russia collusion story’s origins. As other emails obtained by Judicial Watch reveal, the DOJ’s Bruce Ohr, Nellie’s husband, grabbed bonuses while that was going on, and bagged a pay raise after he lost his job as Associate Deputy Attorney General.
Prosecutor John Durham should find out if that was a reward for the Ohrs’ role in the illicit targeting of President Trump. In similar style, Durham might have a look at State Department records, and what they reveal about the multifaceted Jonathan Winer.
Curious observers might note that the State Department did not volunteer the material about Winer’s connections with Christopher Steele. Likewise, no congressional committee and nobody in the establishment media came up with the documents. The revelation resulted from legal action by Judicial Watch, whose motto is “because no one is above the law!” Other pertinent Judicial Watch revelations can be found at this link.
And yet more evidence Dems tried to hide showing the true meddling in the 2016 election was the Obama Administration, the Crooked Hillary Campaign AND probably Russian influence.
In December 2017 the head of opposition research firm Fusion GPS admitted in a court filing that his firm paid Nellie Ohr, the wife of senior Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, to help dig up damaging information on then-candidate Donald Trump.
As noted previously at TGP, Nellie Ohr is a Communist sympathizer connected to Russia as well as a corrupt Never-Trumper.
Author Diana West at the American Spectatorposted an article on Nellie Ohr last year. Nellie Ohr is “the “dossier” spying scandal’s woman in the middle.”
To one side of Ohr, there is the Fusion GPS team, including fellow contractor Christopher Steele. To the other, there is husband Bruce Ohr, who, until his “dossier”-related demotion, was No. 4 man at the Department of Justice, and a key contact there for Steele.
What’s more revealing about Nellie Ohr is the men in her life are protecting her involvement in the Russia scandal:
Notably, the “dossier” men in her life have tried to shield Ohr from public scrutiny, even at professional risk. Her husband, as the Daily Caller News Foundation reports, failed to disclose his wife’s employment with Fusion GPS and seek the appropriate conflict-of-interest waiver, which may have been an important factor in his demotion from associate deputy attorney general late last year.
Under Senate and House questioning, Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson consistently failed to disclose Nellie Ohr’s existence as one of his firm’s paid Russian experts, let alone that he hired her for the red-hot DNC/Clinton campaign Trump-Russia project.
Even Christopher Steele may have tried to keep Nellie Ohr “under cover.” Steele, put forth as the “dossier” author ever since its January 2017 publication in BuzzFeed, does not appear to have let on to his many media and political contacts that he had “dossier”-assistance from at least two fellow Fusion GPS Russian experts, Nellie Ohr and Edward Baumgartner. Baumgartner, interestingly, was a Russian history major at Vassar in the 1990s when Nellie Ohr taught Russian history there.
It appears that the men in Nellie’s life did all they could to prevent Nellie Ohr from being outed for being involved in the dossier because she also has links to the CIA and therefore to John Brennan.
Now this…
New evidence suggests Nellie Ohr was working for the CIA and Fusion GPS when she passed on the junk Trump-Russia dossier and information on the Trump Children to the DOJ-FBI.
2) No-one spends that much time gathering, formatting and distributing that much information for free. She had/has to be a government contracted employee for the DOJ. [At least she was in 2015 and 2016] pic.twitter.com/uc7GVGKwGC
6) And after Fusion GPS got the $$ contract from Clinton to create the Steele Dossier [April 2017]; which became Nellie's primary assignment at Fusion; was exactly when Nellie got the Ham Radio License. pic.twitter.com/7W6LUE2sp4
On Wednesday night during his interview with Sean Hannity – President Trump called Nellie Ohr the author of the phony dossier.
Nellie Ohr has deep involvement with the creation of this fraudulent document.
NEW: Congressional interview transcripts from Fusion GPS employee Nellie Ohr — wife of DOJ official Bruce Ohr — reveal details about her meeting with "Trump Dossier" author Christopher Steele the day before the FBI launched its Trump-Russia investigation.https://t.co/ltWWw2CJ9W
Glenn Simpson (left), Christopher Steele, Bruce and Nellie Ohr
One doesn’t have to be a rocket scientist to comprehend the FBI/DOJ pursuit to get a FISA warrant to spy on Donald Trump based on the Steele Dossier hoax was known by those Obama Administration Departments to be illegal.
BUT since the Dem Party has had a history of breaking the law and getting away with it AND under the belief Crooked Hillary would win election to POTUS on Election Day 2016, the Dems undoubtedly felt safe in lawbreaking spying on then candidate Trump. Even with proof, the Dem machine in government (aka the Deep State) under Barack Hussein Obama felt above the law.
I’m not certain as yet how John Solomon uncovered proof connected to an illegal FISA warrant used against Trump, but he has. Solomon has found Bruce Ohr warned FBI/DOJ the Steele Dossier was tainted and those powers-that-be proceeded anyway to get the FISA spy warrant.
Last night’s Hannity interviewed John Solomon, Sara Carter and Gregg Jarrett on this illegal FISA spy warrant. The general consensus was laws were broken. If laws were broken, the Dem history of zero accountability implies no prosecutions will follow.
If the Trump DOJ ignores the Obama Deep State plants and grows a pair, perhaps a jury formed from WE THE PEOPLE can decide guilty or not-guilty.
According to a new report out by award-winning investigative journalist John Solomon, former top DOJ official, Bruce Ohr warned FBI and DOJ officials that Steele’s dossier was connected to Hillary Clinton and cautioned them it may be biased — weeks BEFORE they obtained a FISA warrant on Carter Page.
Twice-demoted DOJ official Bruce Ohr briefed FBI and DOJ officials in July and August of 2016 and cautioned them about Steele’s connection to Hillary’s camp and warned them about political bias.
Two of the top DOJ officials, Andrew Weissmann and Zainab Ahmad then migrated to Mueller’s team to hunt down President Trump!
This crucial information provided to the FBI by Bruce Ohr was omitted weeks later from the FISA warrant application that the FBI submitted to the court to spy on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign through advisor Carter Page.
Ohr’s activities, chronicled in handwritten notes and congressional testimony I gleaned from sources, provide the most damning evidence to date that FBI and DOJ officials may have misled federal judges in October 2016 in their zeal to obtain the warrant targeting Trump adviser Carter Page just weeks before Election Day.
They also contradict a key argument that House Democrats have made in their formal intelligence conclusions about the Russia case.
Since it was disclosed last year that Steele’s dossier formed a central piece of evidence supporting the FISA warrant, Justice and FBI officials have been vague about exactly when they learned that Steele’s work was paid for by the law firm representing the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
Last year, the House Intel Committee released a 2-page FISA memo showing the dossier formed an essential part of the initial and three subsequent renewal FISA application against Carter Page.
The FBI claimed it was “unaware of any derogatory information” about Christopher Steele, that Steele was “never advised … as to the motivation behind the research” but that the FBI “speculates” that those who hired Steele were “likely looking for information to discredit” Trump’s campaign.
Bruce Ohr’s testimony to congressional investigators last summer revealed FBI and DOJ officials had no reason to speculate. Ohr told investigators that he explicitly warned the FBI officials that Christopher Steele was biased against Donald Trump and was working on a project connected to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
John Solomon continues:
“I certainly told the FBI that Fusion GPS was working with, doing opposition research on Donald Trump,” Ohr told congressional investigators, adding that he warned the FBI that Steele expressed bias during their conversations.
“I provided information to the FBI when I thought Christopher Steele was, as I said, desperate that Trump not be elected,” he added. “So, yes, of course I provided that to the FBI.”
When pressed why he would offer that information to the FBI, Ohr answered: “In case there might be any kind of bias or anything like that.” He added later, “So when I provided it to the FBI, I tried to be clear that this is source information, I don’t know how reliable it is. You’re going to have to check it out and be aware.”
Investigative reporter Sara Carter has the exchange between Trey Gowdy and Bruce Ohr during Ohr’s testimony revealing the names of the top DOJ officials:
Under intense questioning from former North Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy, Ohr named the officials he informed about his contact with Steele.
“I spoke with some people in the Criminal Division, other career officials who dealt with some of these matters,” Ohr told Gowdy.
“Yes,” said Ohr. “So, I was about to tell you. One of them was Bruce Swartz, who is the counselor for International Affairs in the Criminal Division; a person who was working with him at the time, working on similar matters in the Criminal Division was Zainab Ahmad; and a third person who was working on some—some of these matters I believe was Andrew Weissmann.”
John Solomon points out that Bruce Ohr’s testimony about his contacts with top DOJ officials in the summer of 2016 destroys Adam Schiff’s junk counter-memo where he argued that Bruce Ohr’s contacts with the FBI began “weeks after the election and more than a month after the Court approved the initial FISA application.”
The FBI is required to present exculpatory evidence to the FISA court so by omitting this information, it is clear that Obama’s corrupt FBI/DOJ abused the FISA system.
Kelly McLaughlin writing for Business Insider has a list to date of Trump Administration Officials who have DENIED being the identity of the anonymous Deep State Trump traitor. I suspect Attorney General Jeff Sessions or some DOJ/FBI upper echelon Obama hold-over is my suspect. Glaringly, Sessions is not on the McLaughlin denial list.
Still, if Sara Carter is correct, declassifying the Carter Page FISA warrant is a good first step of swamp draining and sticking it to the Deep State perpetrating a coup against the duly and Constitutionally elected President Donald Trump.
President Trump is expected to declassify the redacted 20 pages of documents from the controversial Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant that have still not been made public, which allowed the FBI to spy on short-term campaign volunteer Carter Page, numerous sources told SaraACarter.com. This comes after nearly a year of stonewalling by the Department of Justice at the demand of lawmakers, who claim that the 20 redacted pages will reveal explosive information about the FBI’s handling of the Trump-Russia investigation, according to sources.
However, President Trump, who has been under pressure from some DOJ officials not to release the classified documents, “could always change his mind and it’s not a guarantee that it will happen, but the indications are that it more than likely will possibly be before the end of this week,” said a U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the subject.
In July, the Justice Department released over 400 previously top-secret documents connected to the Page warrant. However, more than 20 pages of the FISA document remained highly classified and have only been viewed by a select group of Congressional members and investigators. The lawmakers are now asking that those documents be made public. Behind the scenes, the battle between Justice Department officials and senior members of Congress intensified over the past year, leading lawmakers to call on President Trump to intervene and declassify the documents.
In a 38 minute interview with the Daily Caller Tuesday, President Trump said the White House is “looking at it very seriously right now because the things that have gone on are so bad, so bad. I mean they were surveilling my campaign. If that happened on the other foot, they would’ve considered that treasonous. They would’ve considered that spying at the highest level. Can you imagine if we were doing that to Obama instead of Obama and his people doing that to us? Everybody would’ve been in jail for the next 500 years. OK? Can you believe it, where they paid this guy millions of dollars, it turned out? If you look at all of the things that are happening.”
Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Devin Nunes (R-CA) told Fox New’s [sic] Sean Hannity this month that the remaining classified documents regarding Page need to be declassified because “there is exculpatory evidence that we have seen of classified documents that need to be declassified. The judges should have been presented with this exculpatory evidence that the FBI and DOJ had.”
In July, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R- IA) also requested the declassification of embattled Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr, whose wife Nellie Ohr worked in 2016 as a contractor for the research firm Fusion GPS, which was paid by the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign to investigate Trump’s alleged ties to Russia.
“All these documents will expose how the FBI handled this investigation and give clarity to the public,” said one congressional official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “The American people deserve to know the truth and our country needs to move on.”
The FISA documents, which were heavily redacted by the FBI and Department of Justice are expected to reveal detailed information showing that the bureau withheld exculpatory information from the highly secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) and the role former British spy Christopher Steele had in getting his unverified anti-Trump dossier to the bureau. Steele was hired by Fusion GPS’s Glenn Simpson, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, to compile the dossier.
New documentation obtained by Congress are already revealing the deep ties Ohr had to Steele and the bureau. Recent texts, notes and emails obtained by Congress reveal that Ohr worked as a backchannel for the FBI to move information being collected by Steele to the FBI.
The documentation also exposes Ohr’s inter-workings with the FBI and that he was in communication with former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok and his paramour former FBI Attorney Lisa Page. Strzok was recently fired by the FBI and Page has since left the bureau. McCabe was fired earlier this year after DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz released a scathing report showing that McCabe lied on numerous times to investigators and leaked information to the media.
A recent report by Fox New’s [sic] Catherine Herridge also exposes Ohr’s ties in 2016 to Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel’s lead prosecutor Andrew Weissmann. Weissmann, who was then chief of the DOJ’s criminal fraud division, was “kept in the loop” by Ohr about his contact with Steele and the FBI, according to the report.
Earlier this year, SaraACarter.com revealed that before Weissmann was appointed to the Special Counsel, he arranged a meeting with AP journalists investigating Paul Manafort and his Ukrainian business dealings. On April 11, 2017 Weissmann, the AP reporters and several FBI officials Weissmann brought into the meeting met with the reporters.
According to sources who spoke with this news outlet, the meeting was attended by three different litigating offices. Two employees from the U.S. Justice Department and the other representative was from the U.S. Attorney’s office, according to the sources. FBI agents also attended the meeting, law enforcement sources confirmed.
At the time Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller, and chief Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores also declined to comment.
According to sources, FBI officials at the meeting complained about Weissmann’s failure to follow protocol with journalists. They issued a formal complaint against him to the Justice Department, as they were concerned the meeting with the journalists could harm the ongoing probe into Russia’s involvement in the 2016 presidential election.
Sara A. Carter is a national and international award-winning investigative reporter whose stories have ranged from national security, terrorism, immigration and front line coverage of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Sara A. Carter is currently an investigative reporter and Fox News Contributor. Her stories can be found at saraacarter.com. She formerly worked as a senior national security correspondent for Circa News.
She was formerly with the Los Angeles News Group, The Washington Times, The Washington Examiner and wrote numerous exclusives for USA Today, US News World Report, and Arutz Sheva in Israel.
Her work along the U.S. Mexico border paved a new path in national security related stories in the region. Her investigations uncovered secret tunnel systems, narcotics-trafficking routes and the involvement of Mexican federal officials in the drug trade.
Sara has made appearances on hundreds of national news and radio shows to discuss her work. She has also made guest appearances on Fox, CNN, BBC International and C-Span. She has interviewed numerous heads of State and foreign officials.
She grew up in Saudi Arabia and has traveled extensively throughout the Middle East, Africa, Europe and Mexico.
She has spent more than seven months in …READ THE REST
I just posted an interview in which Rep. Jordan expressed his impressions on House questioning of Bruce Ohr. The impressions were informative, yet this Daily Caller article over the same questioning is specifics about Ohr connections to Steele, Christopher Steele, Fusion GPS’s Nellie Ohr and most concerning; Mueller’s righthand attack dog Andrew Weissmann among other FBI, DOJ and Fusion GPS Deep State nefarious characters.
DOJ official Bruce Ohr testified before Congress on Tuesday about his contacts with Christopher Steele, the author of the dossier
One mystery surrounding Ohr and Steele was who he told at the Justice Department about his interaction with Steele
Ohr testified that he told his peers, but not his superiors, about the dossier-related contacts
Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr told Congress earlier this week that he informed half a dozen FBI and Justice Department officials about his contacts with dossier author Christopher Steele and opposition researcher Glenn Simpson.
Sources familiar with Ohr’s testimony before the House Judiciary and House Oversight Committees told The Daily Caller News Foundation that Ohr informed Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page about his interactions with Steele and Simpson. He also informed Justice Department prosecutor Andrew Weissmann about his dossier-related work.
Weissmann is now serving as right-hand man to Robert Mueller at the special counsel’s office.
Ohr testified that he informed his Justice Department peers, but not his superiors, about his contacts with Steele and Simpson. One of the superiors kept out of the loop was former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates. Ohr said he was demoted as assistant deputy attorney general in December because he failed to tell Yates and other top officials about his dossier interactions. (RELATED: Trump: ‘How The Hell Is Bruce Ohr Still Employed?’)
Republicans have sought an interview with Ohr to find out why he maintained contact with Steele even after the FBI decided to cut ties with the former British spy just before the 2016 election. The FBI said in applications for spy warrants against Trump campaign adviser Carter Page that the bureau dropped Steele as an informant because he had unauthorized contacts with the media. Despite that, Ohr met and spoke with Steele numerous times through May 2017. Ohr debriefed the FBI at least 12 times following his post-election contacts with Steele.
Weissmann’s contact with Ohr about the dossier is significant because of the mutual interest that Weissmann and Fusion’s Simpson had in former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
Simpson, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, has told Congress that Fusion GPS investigated Manafort’s links to Russian oligarchs as part of its anti-Trump project.
“A lot of what we were talking to the media about were things in the public record, specifically Carter Page, Paul Manafort had resigned over allegations of illicit relationships with Russian oligarchs and Ukrainian oligarchs,” Simpson told the Senate Judiciary Committee during an Aug. 22, 2017 interview.
“So there was, you know, a lot of open source public information pointing towards the possibility that the Russians had infiltrated the Trump campaign,” he added. “So we spoke broadly to reporters and encouraged them to look into this.”
As chief of the Justice Department’s criminal fraud division, Weissmann was investigating Manafort even before the special counsel’s team was formed. Weissmann facilitated a meeting in April 2017 with reporters from The Associated Press to discuss the Justice Department’s investigation into Manafort’s work for former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. Weissmann is the lead prosecutor in two cases against Manafort for that work.
Weissmann has also attracted criticism from Republicans because of his overt support for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He has donated heavily to Democratic political candidates and attended Clinton’s 2016 election night party in New York City.
Ohr’s wife was also a focus of Tuesday’s closed-door interview.
Republicans pressed Ohr about how his wife, a Russia expert named Nellie Ohr, came to work for Fusion GPS.
Ohr testified that Fusion approached his wife for a job and that she began working for the research firm in late 2015. California GOP Rep. Darrell Issa said Ohr testified that his wife was paid $44,000 by Fusion GPS. As The DCNF has reported, Ohr did not disclose his wife’s Fusion income on his annual ethics disclosure form.
Perkins Coie, the law firm for the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee, paid Fusion GPS more than $1 million for the Trump-Russia project. Fusion paid Steele nearly $170,000 for his work.
Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, a Republican who helped question Ohr, said that he believes that Fusion GPS chose Nellie Ohr so that the firm could leverage her husband’s senior position at the DOJ.
“Why did they need Bruce Ohr? Why did Fusion…want to work with Bruce Ohr?” he said in an interview on Fox News Tuesday night.
“My guess is, because he is associate deputy attorney general … that just adds heft and weight to what they were trying to do about this whole dossier, which was the key to everything,” he added.
The special counsel’s office declined to comment on Weissmann’s links to Ohr.
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Martha McCallum interviews Rep. Jim Jordan relating to Trump counsel Don McGahn resignation from White House, BUT MOSTLY on Bruce Ohr revelations in closed door meeting with House Committee. FISA Warrant attained under false circumstances is my take away.
Republican Congressman Jim Jordan says DOJ official Bruce Ohr’s testimony confirmed that the FBI left out ‘important facts’ when presenting the anti-Trump dossier to the FISA court.
FOX News Channel (FNC) is a 24-hour all-encompassing news service dedicated to delivering breaking news as well as political and business news. The number one network in cable, FNC has been the most watched television news channel for more than 15 years and according to a Suffolk University/USA Today poll, is the most trusted television news source in the country. Owned by 21st Century Fox, FNC is available in more than 90 million homes and dominates the cable news landscape, routinely notching the top ten programs in the genre.
The Gateway Pundit has a report that centers on the nefarious Deep State treasonous activity of Nellie Ohr. Old Nellie may be more important than anti-Deep Staters realized. AND it appears info is getting closer to exposing the worst President in American history – Barack Hussein Obama.
As the details behind the Spygate scandal are uncovered, the connections to former President Obama are unearthed.
According to Zero Hedge, the head of opposition research firm Fusion GPS admitted in December 2017 in a court filing that his firm paid the wife of a senior Justice Department official to help dig up damaging information on then-candidate Donald Trump.
Glenn Simpson, co-founder of Fusion GPS, filed the signed declaration in a D.C. court this week affirming that Nellie Ohr, wife of demoted DOJ official Bruce Ohr, was contracted by Fusion through the summer and fall of 2016 “to help our company with its research and analysis of Mr. Trump,” according to the filing. The House Intelligence Committee determined that in November 2016, Simpson met with Bruce Ohr shortly after the election to discuss their findings regarding Russia and Trump. Bruce Ohr lost his senior-level position at the DOJ as associate deputy attorney general after his meetings with Simpson and British spy Christopher Steele, who assembled the Trump-Russia dossier, were discovered.
And why would Fusion GPS hire Nellie Ohr? Aside from the obvious connection to her DOJ husband who was in a position to provide Fusion GPS with information on Trump gathered by US intelligence agencies, Nellie Ohr also represented the CIA’s “Open Source Works” group in a 2010 “expert working group report on international organized crime” along with Bruce Ohr and Glenn Simpson.
The connections between Nellie Ohr and the ‘Spygate’ scandal were hidden at a distance for months.
As noted last week at TGP, Nellie Ohr is a Communist sympathizer connected to Russia as well as a corrupt Never-Trumper.
American Spectator recently posted an article on Nellie Ohr, who they call “the “dossier” spying scandal’s woman in the middle.”
To one side of Ohr, there is the Fusion GPS team, including fellow contractor Christopher Steele. To the other, there is husband Bruce Ohr, who, until his “dossier”-related demotion, was No. 4 man at the Department of Justice, and a key contact there for Steele.
As central as Nellie Ohr’s placement is, her role in the creation of the “dossier” remains undefined. For example, the House Intelligence Committee memo on related matters vaguely tells us that Nellie Ohr was “employed by Fusion GPS to assist in the cultivation of opposition research on Trump”; the memo adds that Bruce Ohr “later provided the FBI with all of his wife’s opposition research.” Senator Lindsey Graham more sensationally told Fox News that Nellie Ohr “did the research for Mr. Steele,” but details remain scarce.
What’s more revealing about Nellie Ohr is the men in her life are protecting her involvement in the Russia scandal:
Notably, the “dossier” men in her life have tried to shield Ohr from public scrutiny, even at professional risk. Her husband, as the Daily Caller News Foundation reports, failed to disclose his wife’s employment with Fusion GPS and seek the appropriate conflict-of-interest waiver, which may have been an important factor in his demotion from associate deputy attorney general late last year.
Under Senate and House questioning, Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson consistently failed to disclose Nellie Ohr’s existence as one of his firm’s paid Russian experts, let alone that he hired her for the red-hot DNC/Clinton campaign Trump-Russia project.
Even Christopher Steele may have tried to keep Nellie Ohr “under cover.” Steele, put forth as the “dossier” author ever since its January 2017 publication in BuzzFeed, does not appear to have let on to his many media and political contacts that he had “dossier”-assistance from at least two fellow Fusion GPS Russian experts, Nellie Ohr and Edward Baumgartner. Baumgartner, interestingly, was a Russian history major at Vassar in the 1990s when Nellie Ohr taught Russian history there.
Yesterday, President Trump’s attorney, former New York City Mayor, Rudy Giuliani outed former Obama CIA Director John Brennan as the man in charge of ‘Spygate’. Rudy claims Brennan orchestrated the ‘Spygate’ scandal and was the quarterback:
President Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani announced on Monday evening that he believes former CIA Director John Brennan is the person responsible for the entire Mueller investigation. Giuliani made the claim during a segment of “Hannity” on Fox News.
President Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani announced on Monday evening that he believes former CIA Director John Brennan is the person responsible for the entire Mueller investigation. Giuliani made the claim during a segment of “Hannity” on Fox News.
“She got off because of that fixed investigation. A totally phony fixed investigation run by Peter Strzok who then turns around, the dossier is obtained on the day that they dropped the case against Trump — against Hillary. So that case gets dropped and they had to even up the score,” Giuliani stated.
“The reality is I’m going to tell you. We don’t have the time to go into it, we can do it later, I’m going to tell you who was the quarterback for all of this. It isn’t just Strzok. Strzok is a bit of a puppet. Then there’s Mueller, he’s a puppet. The people working for him, some of them are,” he continued.
Hannity cut of Giuliani saying, “I have a funny feeling you are about to drop a bomb on me.”
Giuliani and Hannity were discussing the firing of disgraced FBI agent Peter Strzok, which happened earlier on Monday.
“Well the guy running it is (John) Brennan and he should be in front of a grand jury. Brennan took an affidavit – a dossier, unless he’s the biggest idiot intelligence agent that ever existed, although he never did much intelligence work, it’s false. You could look at it and laugh,” Giuliani stated.
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It appears that the men in Nellie’s life did all they could to prevent Nellie Ohr from being outed for being involved in the dossier because she also has links to the CIA and therefore to Brennan.
If Brennan is outed as the quarterback of the dossier scandal, then by association, so is his boss, former President Obama.
Now we know that communist sympathizer Nellie Ohr, and the men who surrounded her, her husband, business partners, John Brennan, and by association President Obama, were all connected. Together they attempted to prevent Candidate Trump from being elected and later to remove duly elected President Trump from office.
I just read an Art Moore/WND article with the central theme being President Trump is about to use his authority to declassify documents utilized by the DOJ/FBI to entice a FISC Judge (or Judges) to issue a FISA warrant (i.e. a secret warrant) to spy, err I mean, investigate the Donald Trump campaign for working with the Russians to rig the 2016 election cycle.
I suspect, along with many Conservatives, declassified documents will expose real criminal conspiracy of Democrats loyal to Obama and Crooked Hillary to rig an election victory or fabricate Trump crimes to impeach President Trump.
That sounds like Dem treason that should lead a direct line to Obama and Hillary Clinton. When the documents are declassified we will discover how powerful the Deep State is by whether or not indictments follow.
This is an illegally brought Rigged Witch Hunt run by people who are totally corrupt and/or conflicted. It was started and paid for by Crooked Hillary and the Democrats. Phony Dossier, FISA disgrace and so many lying and dishonest people already fired. 17 Angry Dems? Stay tuned!
Following personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani’s warning that the special counsel investigation of alleged Russia-Trump campaign collusion is about to “blow up,” President Trump tweeted Thursday to “Stay tuned.”
“This is an illegally brought Rigged Witch Hunt run by people who are totally corrupt and/or conflicted,” the president wrote on Twitter.
“It was started and paid for by Crooked Hillary and the Democrats. Phony Dossier, FISA disgrace and so many lying and dishonest people already fired. 17 Angry Dems? Stay tuned!”
The Gateway Pundit blog cited investigative reporter Paul Sperry’s tweet pointing out that Trump is about to declassify the renewal application the Justice Department and the FBI submitted to a FISA court – signed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein – to obtain a warrant to spy on Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page.
Trump also is declassifying the communications of twice-demoted Justice Department official Bruce Ohr with the author of the Democrat-funded, anti-Trump dossier of still unverified Russian propaganda that became the primary evidence submitted to the FISA court to spy on Page.
Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., who has been investigating Justice Department handling of the Hillary Clinton and Russia probes as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said in a Fox News interview Monday that Ohr “is going to become more and more important in this investigation and I think people should pay close attention to it.”
Sperry said in a tweet to look for Trump this month to declassify 20 redacted pages of the June 2017 FISA renewal and possibly 63 pages of emails and notes between Ohr and dossier author Christopher Steele. In addition, the official summaries of 12 FBI interviews with Ohr regarding Steele are expected to be declassified.
“The reality is, the real story is not that this case isn’t going to fizzle,” he said. “It’s going to blow up on them. The real question is, what we talked about before, there’s a lot more to what they did that nobody knows about yet.”
Giuliani indicated the evidence is pointing to a conspiracy by the Democrats to defeat Trump.
There’s “a lot more to the obstruction of justice, to the collusion, to the fake dossier,” Giuliani said.
Hannity commented, “I know some of it.”
The only collusion in the case, the former New York City mayor said, is the intelligence community using the Steele dossier to obtain “several fraudulent FISA wires.”
“Can it get any worse?” Giuliani asked. “I mean, what do we need to know that this is a totally illegitimate investigation based on a report, a dossier that was paid for by Hillary Clinton and the Democrats – probably the biggest illegality so far, the biggest collusion so far. Completely made up.”
Giuliani said he believes “that when this plays out over the next year or two, it’s not going to be about President Trump.”
Citing his sources, Hannity said the truth, when it’s finally revealed, will “shock the heart, the soul, and the mind of any fair-minded American.”
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“We also seek to stimulate a free-and-open debate about the great moral and political ideas facing the world and to promote freedom and self-government by encouraging personal virtue and good character.”
Indeed, WND is a fiercely independent news site committed to hard-hitting investigative reporting of government waste, fraud and abuse.
Founded by Joseph and Elizabeth Farah in May 1997, it is now a leading Internet news site in both traffic and influence.
WND has broken some of the biggest, most significant and … READ THE REST
Intro to ‘BREAKING: Bruce Ohr Docs Raise Serious Questions’
Intro by John R. Houk, Editor
By Sarah Carter
Posted on August 9, 2018
John Solomon, Sara Carter & Sean Hannity 8/8/18
I watched Sara Carter report on Hannity last night on issue that Bruce Ohr was more involved in the Steele Dossier frame-up of President Trump than previously thought. How does she know? Newly discovered documents of Ohr notes indicating earlier dates on Steele Dossier collaboration between Bruce Ohr (DOJ), Strzok and other FBI cadres as well as the fired Christopher Steele. Ohr was acting as a go-between betwixt Steele and the FBI, even though Steele had been fired.
Long after being fired from the FBI’s Russia probe, UK spy Christopher Steele emailed with Bruce Ohr in August 2017 about being reinstated to help Mueller. Steele was paid by Fusion GPS to work for Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the DNC to dig up Russian dirt on Trump. In November 2016, Steele was deemed “not suitable” to serve as an FBI informer after being caught leaking information to the pro-Clinton media.
Story at The Hill by John Solomon and Sarah Carter.
A law enforcement sensitive document written by senior Justice Department official, Bruce Ohr, is raising serious concerns amongst congressional investigators regarding testimony provided to Congress on the involvement of FBI special agents in the probe into the Trump campaign and its alleged Russian ties.
Nov. 21, 2016, the handwritten document lists former FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok, his paramour FBI Attorney Lisa Page and Special Agent Joe Pientka (who along with Strzok interviewed former National Security Advisor Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn).
Strzok, who was the lead investigator in the FBI’s investigation into Trump, was removed last August from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation after the DOJ’s Inspector General discovered a barrage of anti-Trump text messages between him and Page. Page, who was working as the general counsel for now fired Deputy Attorney General Andrew McCabe, is no longer with the FBI.
Page’s name on Ohr’s notes raises a number of questions, particularly since she would not have normally been involved in national security investigations, a congressional investigator said. It also raises a number of questions regarding McCabe’s possible involvement and whether was he authorizing any meetings or communications with Ohr in regard to the Trump investigation, the investigators noted.
Ohr was demoted twice by the Justice Department for his failure to disclose that his wife, Nellie Ohr, worked for the now-embattled research firm Fusion GPS, which produced the infamous anti-Trump dossier. The new document is only one in a series of notes commemorating his communications with dossier author, Christopher Steele, which have been obtained by the congressional oversight committees investigating the FBI’s handling of the Trump Russia investigation.
Another congressional investigator told SaraACarter.com that the notes written by Ohr raise “concerns of previously undisclosed communications with the FBI and Ohr and how extensive these communications were. It also raises concerns about testimony given by Lisa Page, who downplayed her interactions with Ohr in her (July 13) testimony to Congress.”
The notes at the bottom of the memo state, in sloppy writing, “no prosecution yet, pushing ahead on M case,” in reference to Paul Manafort, who is now facing years old charges on financial crimes and money laundering, according to congressional investigators.
Ohr also stated, “may go back to Chris,” in reference to Christopher Steele.
“The more we learn about this, the more it seems like Bruce Ohr was a really key figure in this circle comprising those both outside and inside the government who were colluding with each other to manufacture the Trump-Russia investigation,” said a third congressional staffer involved in the Russia investigations.
Separate Documents Reveal FBI’s Backchannel Investigation Conducted by Ohr
In a separate, but related matter, a slew of documents and emails obtained by congressional investigators also shows that the FBI failed to disclose to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) that it had a backchannel investigation with senior Obama Justice Department officials that continued to use and obtain information from Steele.
Steele was a central figure in the separate investigation being conducted by Ohr and Fusion GPS. According to the documents, Ohr and his wife were working closely with Steele and channeling information to the FBI.
The new onslaught of documents obtained by the oversight committees seems to show a pattern, considering the FBI also failed to disclose important information in its FISC warrant application to spy on short-term Trump campaign volunteer, Carter Page.
On Monday, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes revealed that Obama’s FBI failed to include “exculpatory evidence” in its FISA application against Page. If proven true, this violation has enormous implications, according to a congressional source with knowledge of the investigation.
“Ohr was basically allowing himself to be run as a source so the FBI could communicate with Steele even after they fired him,” said another congressional source who maintains that the exculpatory evidence should have been included in the application and the court should have been aware.
___________________
Intro to ‘BREAKING: Bruce Ohr Docs Raise Serious Questions’
About [Sarah Carter] National Security Correspondent
Sara A. Carter is a national and international award-winning investigative reporter whose stories have ranged from national security, terrorism, immigration and front line coverage of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Sara A. Carter is currently an investigative reporter and Fox News Contributor. Her stories can be found atsaraacarter.com. She formerly worked as a senior national security correspondent for Circa News.
She was formerly with the Los Angeles News Group, The Washington Times, The Washington Examiner and wrote numerous exclusives for USA Today, US News World Report, and Arutz Sheva in Israel.
Her work along the U.S. Mexico border paved a new path in national security related stories in the region. Her investigations uncovered secret tunnel systems, narcotics-trafficking routes and the involvement of Mexican federal officials in the drug trade.
Sara has made appearances on hundreds of national news and radio shows to discuss her work. She has also made guest appearances on Fox, CNN, BBC International and C-Span. She has interviewed numerous heads of State and foreign officials.
She grew up in Saudi Arabia and has traveled extensively throughout the Middle East, Africa, Europe and Mexico.
She has spent more than seven months in Afghanistan and Pakistan since 2008. Her work on Afghan women and children addicted to Opium garnered first place in Washington D.C. AP award. She embedded with troops on Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan and … READ THE REST
TRUMP REACTS TO FISA MEMO: “I Think It’s Terrible. I Think It’s a Disgrace What’s Happening in Our Country”
When you read the FISA Memo you must realize it was sanitized to allegedly protect sources and methods of investigation. Even so, it is not a difficult stretch to understand the nefarious nature that Donald Trump was targeted before and after the November 2016 election by Obama Administration leadership (probably including Obama himself). The weaponized police state of Obama, the Dems AND Crooked Hillary tried to feloniously steal the election and failing that, STILL use false and/or fake data to impeach a duly elected President.
AND the American free press (aka the Leftist MSM) have been full participants in disseminating the falsified/fake data to an American public of which many believe the Mainstream Media is still a credible source of news.
So, this is what I’m going to do for my blog readers. First, I am posting a Fox News’ Catherine Herridge report. Second, the FISA Memo sourced from the Western Journal. WJ leaves out the intro on the original Memo so I am extracting from a pdf downloaded from SCRIBD courtesy of the fake news channel CNBC.com. Last but not least – third, BPR review article entitled, “7 biggest takeaways from the FISA memo that was just released”.
Chairman, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
United States Capitol
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Mr. Chairman:
On January 29, 2018, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (hereinafter “the Committee”) voted to disclose publicly a memorandum containing classified information provided to the Committee in connection with its oversight activities (the “Memorandum,” which is attached to this letter). As provided by clause 11(g) of Rule of the House of Representatives, the Committee has forwarded this Memorandum to the President based on its determination that the release of the Memorandum would serve the public interest.
The Constitution vests the President with the authority to protect national security secrets from it disclosure. As the Supreme Court has recognized, it is the President’s responsibility to classify, declassify, and control access to information bearing on our intelligence sources and methods and national defense. See, e.g., Dep’t of Navy v. Egan, 484 US. 518, 527 (1988). In order to facilitate appropriate congressional oversight, the Executive Branch may entrust classified information to the appropriate committees of Congress, as it has done in connection with the Committee’s oversight activities here. The Executive Branch does so on the assumption that the Committee will responsibly protect such classified information, consistent with the laws of the United States.
The Committee has now determined that the release of the Memorandum would be appropriate. The Executive Branch, across Administrations of both parties, has worked to accommodate congressional requests to declassify specific materials in the public interest.1 However, public release of classified information by unilateral action of the Legislative Branch is extremely rare and raises significant separation of powers concerns. Accordingly, the Committee’s request to release the Memorandum is interpreted as a request for declassification pursuant to the President’s authority.
The President understands that the protection of our national security represents his highest obligation. Accordingly, he has directed lawyers and national security staff to assess the
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1 See, e.g. S. Rept. 114-8 at 12 (Administration of Barack Obama) (“On April 3, 2014 . . . the Committee agreed to send the revised Findings and Conclusions, and the updated Executive Summary of the Committee Study, to the President for declassification and public release”); H. Rept. 107-792 (Administration of George W. Bush) (similar); E.O. 12812 (Administration of George H.W. Bush) (noting Senate resolution requesting that President provide for declassification of certain information Via Executive Order).
_________________________________
declassification request, consistent with established standards governing the handling of classified information, including those under Section 3.1(d) of Executive Order 13526. Those standards permit declassification when the public interest in disclosure outweighs any need to protect the information. The White House review process also included input from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Justice. Consistent with this review and these standards, the President has determined that declassification of the Memorandum is appropriate.
Based on this assessment and in light of the significant public interest in the memorandum, the President has authorized the declassification of the Memorandum. To be clear, the Memorandum reflects the judgments of its congressional authors. The President understands that oversight concerning matters related to the Memorandum may be continuing. Though the circumstances leading to the declassification through this process are extraordinary, the Executive Branch stands ready to work with Congress to accommodate oversight requests consistent with applicable standards and processes, including the need to protect intelligence sources and methods.
Sincerely,
Donald F. McGahn II
Counsel to the President
Here’s the Full Text of the FISA Memo Written by Rep. Devin Nunes
In all cases, any typographical emphasis — whether bold type, italics or underline — is original to the memo. Our goal here was to provide as accurate a representation of the original document as possible while still making it a little easier to read than the facsimile versions currently available online. — Ed. Note
January 18, 2018
To: HPSCI Majority Members
From: HPSCI Majority Staff
Subject: Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Abuses at the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Purpose
This memorandum provides Members an update on significant facts relating to the Committee’s ongoing investigation into the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and their use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) during the 2016 presidential election cycle. Our findings, which are detailed below, 1) raise concerns with the legitimacy and legality of certain DOJ and FBI interactions with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), and 2) represent a troubling breakdown of legal processes established to protect the American people from abuses related to the FISA process.
Investigation Update
On October 21, 2016, DOJ and FBI sought and received a FISA probable cause order (not under Title VII) authorizing electronic surveillance on Carter Page from the FISC. Page is a U.S. citizen who served as a volunteer advisor to the Trump presidential campaign. Consistent with requirements under FISA, the application had to be first certified by the Director or Deputy Director of the FBI. It then required the approval of the Attorney General, Deputy Attorney General (DAG), or the Senate-confirmed Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division.
The FBI and DOJ obtained one initial FISA warrant targeting Carter Page and three FISA renewals from the FISC. As required by statute (50 U.S.C. §,1805(d)(l)), a FISA order on an American citizen must be renewed by the FISC every 90 days and each renewal requires a separate finding of probable cause. Then-Director James Comey signed three FISA applications in question on behalf of the FBI, and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe signed one. Then-DAG Sally Yates, then-Acting DAG Dana Boente, and DAG Rod Rosenstein each signed one or more FISA applications on behalf of DOJ
Due to the sensitive nature of foreign intelligence activity, FISA submissions (including renewals) before the FISC are classified. As such, the public’s confidence in the integrity of the FISA process depends on the court’s ability to hold the government to the highest standard—particularly as it relates to surveillance of American citizens. However, the FISC’s rigor in protecting the rights of Americans, which is reinforced by 90-day renewals of surveillance orders, is necessarily dependent on the government’s production to the court of all material and relevant facts. This should include information potentially favorable to the target of the FISA application that is known by the government. In the case of Carter Page, the government had at least four independent opportunities before the FISC to accurately provide an accounting of the relevant facts. However, our findings indicate that, as described below, material and relevant information was omitted.
1) The “dossier” compiled by Christopher Steele (Steele dossier) on behalf of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Hillary Clinton campaign formed an essential part of the Carter Page FISA application. Steele was a longtime FBI source who was paid over $160,000 by the DNC and Clinton campaign, via the law firm Perkins Coie and research firm Fusion GPS, to obtain derogatory information on Donald Trump’s ties to Russia.
a) Neither the initial application in October 2016, nor any of the renewals, disclose or reference the role of the DNC, Clinton campaign, or any party/campaign in funding Steele’s efforts, even though the political origins of the Steele dossier were then known to senior DOJ and FBI officials.
b) The initial FISA application notes Steele was working for a named U.S. person, but does not name Fusion GPS and principal Glenn Simpson, who was paid by a U.S. law firm (Perkins Coie) representing the DNC (even though it was known by DOJ at the time that political actors were involved with the Steele dossier). The application does not mention Steele was ultimately working on behalf of—and paid by—the DNC and Clinton campaign, or that the FBI had separately authorized payment to Steele for the same information.
2) The Carter Page FISA application also cited extensively a September 23, 2016, Yahoo News article by Michael Isikoff, which focuses on Page’s July 2016 trip to Moscow. This article does not corroborate the Steele dossier because it is derived from information leaked by Steele himself to Yahoo News. The Page FISA application incorrectly assesses that Steele did not directly provide information to Yahoo News. Steele has admitted in British court filings that he met with Yahoo News — and several other outlets — in September 2016 at the direction of Fusion GPS. Perkins Coie was aware of Steele’s initial media contacts because they hosted at least one meeting in Washington D.C. in 2016 with Steele and Fusion GPS where this matter was discussed.
a) Steele was suspended and then terminated as an FBI source for what the FBI defines as the most serious of violations—an unauthorized disclosure to the media of his relationship with the FBI in an October 30, 2016, Mother Jonesarticle by David Corn. Steele should have been terminated for his previous undisclosed contacts with Yahoo and other outlets in September— before the Page application was submitted to the FISC in October — but Steele improperly concealed from and lied to the FBI about those contacts.
b) Steele’s numerous encounters with the media violated the cardinal rule of source handling — maintaining confidentiality — and demonstrated that Steele had become a less than reliable source for the FBI.
3) Before and after Steele was terminated as a source, he maintained contact with DOJ via then-Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr, a senior DOJ official who worked closely with Deputy Attorneys General Yates and later Rosenstein. Shortly after the election, the FBI began interviewing Ohr, documenting his communications with Steele. For example, in September 2016, Steele admitted to Ohr his feelings against then-candidate Trump when Steele said he “was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president.” (Emphasis Nunes’.) This clear evidence of Steele’s bias was recorded by Ohr at the time and subsequently in official FBI files — but not reflected in any of the Page FISA applications.
a) During this same time period, Ohr’s wife was employed by Fusion GPS to assist in the cultivation of opposition research on Trump. Ohr later provided the FBI with all of his wife’s opposition research, paid for by the DNC and Clinton campaign via Fusion GPS. The Ohrs’ relationship with Steele and Fusion GPS was inexplicably concealed from the FISC.
4) According to the head of the FBI’s counterintelligence division, Assistant Director Bill Priestap, corroboration of the Steele dossier was in its “infancy” at the time of the initial Page FISA application. After Steele was terminated, a source validation report conducted by an independent unit within FBI assessed Steele’s reporting as only minimally corroborated. Yet, in early January 2017, Director Comey briefed President-elect Trump on a summary of the Steele dossier, even though it was — according to his June 2017 testimony — “salacious and unverified.” While the FISA application relied on Steele’s past record of credible reporting on other unrelated matters, it ignored or concealed his anti-Trump financial and ideological motivations. Furthermore, Deputy Director McCabe testified before the Committee in December 2017 that no surveillance warrant would have been sought from the FISC without the Steele dossier information.
5) The Page FISA application also mentions information regarding fellow Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos, but there is no evidence of any cooperation or conspiracy between Page and Papadopoulos. The Papadopoulos information triggered the opening of an FBI counterintelligence investigation in late July 2016 by FBI agent Pete Strzok. Strzok was reassigned by the Special Counsel’s Office to FBI Human Resources for improper text messages with his mistress, FBI Attorney Lisa Page (no known relation to Carter Page), where they both demonstrated a clear bias against Trump and in favor of Clinton, whom Strzok had also investigated. The Strzok/Lisa Page texts also reflect extensive discussions about the investigation, orchestrating leaks to the media, and include a meeting with Deputy Director McCabe to discuss an “insurance” policy against President Trump’s election.
+++
7 biggest takeaways from the FISA memo that was just released
By declassifying the memo, President Trump just blew up Washington, D.C.
The controversial FISA memo, released by the House Intelligence Committee to the public on Friday, contains a number of bombshell revelations related to the FBI’s surveillance on the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.
At least one Republican, Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona, concluded that the document shows “clear and convincing evidence of treason.”
Here are the biggest takeaways.
Andrew McCabe admitted the dossier was used as the justification to secure a FISA warrant on Carter Page
Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon).
“Deputy Director McCabe testified before the Committee in December 2017 that no surveillance warrant would have been sought from the FISC [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court] without the Steele dossier information.”
The FBI’s probe into the Trump campaign was triggered by aide George Papadopoulos
“The Papadopoulos information triggered the opening of an FBI counterintelligence investigation in late July 2016 by FBI agent Pete Strzok.”
The FBI had no evidence of a connection between Papadopoulos and Page
Former Trump adviser Carter Page. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite).
“The Page FISA application also mentions information regarding fellow Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos, but there is no evidence of any cooperation or conspiracy between Page and Papadopoulos.”
The FBI knew the DNC and Clinton campaign were behind the dossier–but didn’t disclose that knowledge to the FISA court
Former FBI Director James Comey. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File).
“Neither the initial application in October 2016, nor any of the renewals, disclose or reference the role of the DNC, Clinton campaign, or. any party/campaign in funding Steele’s efforts, even though the political origins of the Steele dossier were then known to senior and FBI officials.”
“The initial FISA application notes Steele was working for a named US. person, but does not name Fusion GPS and principal Glenn Simpson, who was paid by a US. law firm (Perkins Coie) representing the DNC (even though it was known by DOI at the, time that political actors were involved with the Steele dossier).”
The FBI paid Christopher Steele to work on the dossier
Christopher Steele, the former MI6 agent who compiled the Trump dossier. (Photo by Victoria Jones/PA Images via Getty Images).
“The application does not mention Steele was ultimately working on behalf of – and paid by – the DNC and Clinton campaign, or that the FBI had separately authorized payment to Steele for the same information.”
Top DOJ official Bruce Ohr met with Steele in 2016 and told the FBI the British spy had an anti-Trump bias
Glenn Simpson, co-founder of Fusion GPS, which paid for the dossier on behalf of the DNC and Clinton campaign. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais).
“Before and after Steele was terminated as a source, he maintained contact with DOJ via then-Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr, a senior DOJ official who worked closely with Deputy Attorneys General Yates and later Rosenstein.
“Shortly after the election, the FBI began interviewing Ohr, documenting his communications with Steele. For example, in September 2016, Steele admitted to Ohr his feelings against then-candidate Trump when Steele said he ‘was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president.’
“This clear evidence of Steele’s bias was recorded by Ohr at the time and subsequently in official FBI files, but not reflected in any of the Page FISA applications.”
The memo reveals which officials green-lighted surveillance on Carter
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik).
“As required by statute, a FISA order on an American citizen must be renewed by the FISC every 90 days and each renewal requires a separate finding of probable cause.
“Then-Director James Comey signed three FISA applications in question on behalf of the FBI, and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe signed one. Sally Yates, then-Acting DAG Dana Boente, and DAG Rod Rosenstein each signed one or more FISA applications on behalf of DOJ.”
In response to the memo, President Trump said “it’s a disgrace what’s happening in our country” and that “a lot of people should be ashamed of themselves.”
Pres. Trump says GOP memo has been declassified: "Congress will do whatever they're going to do. But I think it's a disgrace what's happening in our country…A lot of people should be ashamed of themselves." https://t.co/OfR9pu29Wopic.twitter.com/wJHEptrGrk
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