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Ex-FBI Official Who Helped Launch Crossfire Hurricane Charged With Laundry List Of Crimes


BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | JANUARY 24, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/01/24/ex-fbi-official-who-helped-launch-crossfire-hurricane-charged-with-laundry-list-of-crimes/

Oleg Deripaska at WEF
Monday’s news is a body blow to the FBI, which already has two black eyes from the last seven years of scandals.

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The Department of Justice unsealed twin indictments on Monday against Charles McGonigal, a former FBI section chief involved in the decision to launch the Crossfire Hurricane investigation against then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Here are six takeaways from yesterday’s news.

1. McGonigal Charged with Conspiring with Russian Interpreter to Launder Money — and More.

Monday morning brought breaking news that the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York had unsealed a five-count indictment that charged McGonigal and Sergey Shestakov with violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, and with conspiring to launder money. Prosecutors also charged Shestakov with lying to the FBI. 

McGonigal, as the indictment explained, was previously a “senior official” in the FBI, having been employed by the bureau from 1996 to 2018, and working in Russian counterintelligence, organized crime matters, and counter-espionage. From 2016 until his retirement in 2018, McGonigal was the special agent in charge of the Counterintelligence Division of the FBI’s New York Field Office, a role in which he supervised and investigated Russian oligarchs, according to the indictment.

Shestakov, for his part, is described as a “former Soviet and Russian diplomat,” who was in that role from 1979 until his retirement in 1993. The press release announcing the charges notes that Shestakov is now a U.S. citizen, and he has “more recently served as an interpreter for United States federal courts and prosecutors.”

The indictment charged that McGonigal and Shestakov violated the sanctions imposed by the United States on Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch, in violation of the IEEPA. Specifically, the indictment alleged the duo, in or about 2021, “agreed to and did investigate a rival oligarch of Deripaska in return for concealed payment from Deripaska.” 

According to Monday’s press release, McGonigal and Shestakov negotiated with a representative of Deripaska, identified as Agent-1 in the indictment, “to conceal Deripaska’s involvement” in the relationship “by, among other means, not directly naming Deripaska in electronic communications,” using instead various nicknames, such as “the big guy.” McGonigal, Shestakov, and Deripaska also allegedly used “shell companies,” to hide the payments coming from Deripaska.

McGonigal allegedly first met Deripaska’s representative, Agent-1, while still employed by the FBI, but then in the spring of 2021, after McGonigal had retired from the bureau, he was allegedly solicited to work directly for Deripaska. Specifically, the indictment charged that Deripaska hired McGonigal to investigate a second Russian oligarch with whom Deripaska had an ongoing dispute over control of a Russian corporation. In exchange, Deripaska allegedly agreed to pay the partners $51,280, followed by monthly payments of $41,790, although the payments were made to a New Jersey corporation, which then transferred the funds to McGonigal and Shestakov. 

The activities among McGonigal, Shestakov, and Deripaska’s intermediaries “largely” ceased, according to the indictment, upon the FBI executing search warrants and seizing McGonigal and Shestakov’s electronic devices on Nov. 21, 2021. Shortly before the FBI executed the search warrant, Shestakov allegedly lied to the FBI about his relationship with McGonigal, which formed the basis of the false statement charge against Shestakov.

2. McGonigal Is in More McTrouble

If the indictment in the Southern District of New York were not enough to shake McGonigal’s world, an hour later the Department of Justice released a second press release announcing the unsealing of a second indictment in the District of Columbia. This indictment charged McGonigal with making multiple false statements, concealing material facts, and falsifying records or documents — nine counts in total.

Underlying the nine criminal counts were allegations that McGonigal failed to accurately complete financial disclosure reports, which McGonigal was required to do on an annual basis, and failed to accurately report unofficial foreign travel and ongoing professional or official contracts with foreign nationals. 

The accusations are related to McGonigal’s alleged failure to accurately report his financial situation, connections with foreign nationals, and his relationship with several unnamed individuals. Those individuals are identified as Persons A, B, C, and D, with McGonigal receiving large cash payments in exchange for what appear to be questionable “favors.”

For instance, the indictment described Person A as a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in Albania and who had previously worked for the Albanian intelligence agency. It then alleged McGonigal “hid aspects of his relationship with Person A,” including “that he had accepted more than $225,000 from Person A, had traveled to Europe with Person A, and met numerous foreign nationals through Person A.” 

It was McGonigal, according to the indictment, who approached Person A with the money-making scheme, when “no later than August, 2017,” he “inquired as to whether Person A could provide money to him.” Then on Sept. 7, 2017, Person A allegedly indicated he “was working on the money.” Thereafter, McGonigal traveled with Person A to Albania where he allegedly lobbied the Albanian prime minister on behalf of Person A. 

Over the next several months, McGonigal allegedly received three cash payments from Person A, ranging from approximately $65,000 to $80,000 each time. The indictment further charged that “McGonigal caused the FBI-NY to open a criminal investigation of a U.S. citizen in which Person A would serve as a confidential human source.” 

Specifically, on Nov. 25, 2017, McGonigal allegedly informed a federal prosecutor of “a potential new criminal investigation involving a U.S. citizen who had registered to perform lobbying work in the United States on behalf of an Albanian political party different from the one in which the Prime Minister was a member.” Then on Feb. 26, 2018, the FBI office “formally opened a criminal investigation focused on the ‘U.S. citizen lobbyist’ at defendant McGonigal’s request and upon his guidance.” 

The indictment suggests McGonigal opened the investigation into “the U.S. citizen lobbyist” to further his monetary relationship with Person A and others, with the allegations stressing that McGonigal remained in communication with the prime minister after Person A arranged for them to meet in September of 2017. Person A and Person B, the latter identified in the indictment as a former senior Albanian government official and informal adviser to the Albanian prime minister, both then assisted the FBI in the investigation of “the U.S. citizen lobbyist.” 

Elsewhere, the indictment charged that McGonigal attempted to arrange a meeting with Persons C and D and U.S. government authorities to benefit from the unnamed Person A. Among other things, the indictment claimed that McGonigal proposed Person D pay Person A’s company $500,000 in exchange for the scheduling of a meeting with a representative from the U.S. delegation to the United Nations. McGonigal then worked to coordinate the meeting, according to the charges.

3. The Shockwaves of This Latest FBI Scandal Hit Spygate

The two indictments alone represent another huge scandal to the FBI: McGonigal was no low-level agent but rather a special agent in charge of the Counterintelligence Division for the New York Field Office. And although McGonigal retired in 2018, some of his allegedly criminal conduct took place while still in that position and allegedly involved the launching of an investigation of a U.S. citizen who was lobbying for a political opponent of one of McGonigal’s foreign contacts.

In isolation, yesterday’s news is a body blow to the bureau, which already has two black eyes from the last seven years of scandals. But the New York indictment of McGonigal reverberates more directly to the SpyGate scandal and specifically the failure of the DOJ to pursue Christopher Steele for his own work for Deripaska.

The inspector general’s report on FISA abuse concluded that “Steele performed work for Russian Oligarch 1’s attorney on Russian Oligarch 1’s litigation matters,” with Deripaska the generically named “Oligarch 1.” Steele, the OIG report continued, “passed information to Department attorney Bruce Ohr advocating on behalf of one of Russian Oligarch 1’s companies regarding U.S. sanctions.” The report further found that Ohr and Steele’s communications concerning Deripaska occurred “in 2016 during the time period before and after Steele was terminated as a [confidential human source].”

Additionally, the OIG report connected that “Ohr said that he understood Steele was ‘angling’ for Ohr to assist him with his clients’ issues,” and that “Ohr stated that Steele was hoping that Ohr would intercede on his behalf with the Department attorney handling a matter involving a European company.”

Steele had reportedly also previously worked for Deripaska’s London-based attorney Paul Hauser, and Steele “appeared to lobby on behalf of Deripaska through a D.C.-based attorney, Adam Waldman.” Steele, however, never registered as a lobbyist under the Foreign Agent Registration Act, or “FARA.”

Yet Steele has never been charged with violating FARA. Why?

While this question has been asked again and again, the federal charges against McGonigal for his work on Deripaska’s behalf bring this question to the forefront again. 

4. Speaking of Deripaska, There’s Another SpyGate Scandal Unresolved

The raising of Deripaska’s name in yesterday’s indictment also offers the chance to revisit another SpyGate scandal yet unresolved — a lesser noticed one buried in the hundreds of pages of the inspector general’s report on FISA abuse.

As I previously detailed, the IG report noted that on Dec. 7, 2016, Bruce Ohr called an interagency meeting to discuss Deripaska. During that meeting, Ohr apparently suggested trying to work with Deripaska, and later told a subordinate that the basis for the suggestion was that “Steele provided information that the Trump campaign had been corrupted by the Russians,” and that the corruption went all the way to President-elect Trump. So Ohr apparently suggested cutting a deal with a Russian oligarch based on the fake Steele dossier. 

It also appears that agents considered cutting a deal with Deripaska to possibly ensnare Paul Manafort, with the end goal being to take down Trump — another startling possibility that would reveal our FBI viewing Trump as worse than the Russian oligarch.

To date, little has been explored of possible efforts by the DOJ or FBI to go easy on Deripaska for the great goal of getting Trump. But maybe the renewed focus on Deripaska will resurrect these overlooked details.

5. McGonigal’s Role in Crossfire Hurricane Raises Huge Red Flags

The charges against McGonigal also raise concerns about his role in the decision to launch Crossfire Hurricane. 

In his congressional testimony, FBI Agent Jonathan Moffa testified that from July 28 to July 31 of 2016, officials in FBI headquarters discussed whether to open a counterintelligence investigation on Trump, purportedly based on information provided by a “friendly foreign government.” That information consisted of an Australian diplomat telling his American counterpart that Trump’s volunteer campaign adviser George Papadopoulos had suggested the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton. In explaining how he had learned of the discussions over whether to open the investigation that became known as Crossfire Hurricane, Moffa testified he had received an email from McGonigal, the then-section chief in FBI headquarters, that contained the reporting from the friendly foreign government. 

After McGonigal helped decide to launch the Crossfire Hurricane investigation into the Trump campaign, FBI Director James Comey named him “the special agent in charge of the Counterintelligence Division for the New York Field Office” in October of 2016. In that position, McGonigal stayed engaged in aspects of the investigation, with his “team” questioning Carter Page in March of 2017. McGonigal would later also express concerns about the Page FISA leaking after a briefing to the House Intel Committee, and sure enough, a few weeks later the story leaked.

Given that if the allegations in the indictments are true, McGonigal has proven himself willing to be bought, his involvement in Crossfire Hurricane is extremely troubling. 

6. A New Life for Durham

While McGonigal’s involvement in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation raises serious concerns, it also provides one final chance to learn the depth of the SpyGate scandal. With McGonigal facing serious federal criminal charges in two different districts, the incentive for him to seek a deal with the government is high. Given his involvement in the decision to launch Crossfire Hurricane and his later involvement in at least portions of the investigation, he may just have something to offer Special Counsel John Durham.

And McGonigal may have just the attorney to cut that deal: Seth DuCharme. DuCharme is listed as McGonigal’s attorney of record in court filings, and emails released pursuant to FOIA requests show DuCharme previously worked for Durham.

Whether McGonigal has anything of value to Durham, however, remains to be seen.

Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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Stefan Halper Was Just Another Hack Who Helped Peddle the Russia-Collusion Hoax


REPORTED BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | MARCH 21, 2022

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2022/03/21/stefan-halper-was-just-another-hack-who-helped-peddle-the-russia-collusion-hoax/

Stefan Halper on the Bill Walton show

Nearly six years have passed since Hillary Clinton and her cronies launched their plot to frame Donald Trump as a co-conspirator of Russia to distract Americans from Clinton’s scandals. Since then, by bits and pieces, the public has learned of Clinton’s role in peddling the Russia collusion hoax to both the press and intelligence agencies. While there is still much to uncover, a recent exposé of the man the FBI tapped as the key Confidential Human Source (CHS) in investigating the Trump campaign confirmed Spygate’s method of operation: creating mythical men on whose deceitful shoulders the media and the FBI then stood.

While Stefan Halper’s name and the monikers used to identify him in government reports—“Source 2,” or merely “CHS”—appeared regularly in reporting unraveling the Russia collusion hoax, only lately did Halper’s history undergo a thorough vetting. In a recent article, Real Clear Investigations’ Mark Hemingway traced Halper’s history through archived documents and interviews with associates. He uncovered two themes girding Halper’s parallel careers of government informant and Cambridge academic.

Stefan Halper’s Recipe for Success

From his earliest days in government until his retreat from Cambridge University following his outing as a player in the Russian collusion hoax, Halper advanced his professional persona, decade upon decade, by taking creative license with his credentials and exploiting his connections. Puffery appeared in both Halper’s public biography and resumes reviewed by Real Clear Investigations, leaving unanswered the question of whether Halper ever obtained the Ph.D. he claimed later allowed him to reinvent himself as an academic at Cambridge. Before then, Halper appeared to muddle through a variety of low-level jobs in the federal government, until the mid-1970s. That’s when Halper’s career received a boost when he married Sibyl Cline, the daughter of the well-respected Ray S. Cline.

The senior Cline, who held top intelligence positions with the federal government since the second world war, reportedly arranged for the Ronald Reagan State Department to hire Halper. During the Reagan administration, Halper became close to, among others, Oliver North, but after the Iran-Contra scandal and some time in banking and D.C. think tanks, Halper transitioned to academia. He became a professor at Cambridge University in 2001, where three years later he would claim a second Ph.D.

In addition to the political and other connections Halper accumulated during his 30 years in the D.C. bubble, once at Cambridge, Halper expanded his network across the Atlantic. Halper became cozy with three other characters who later played roles—some prominent—in the Russia collusion hoax. These included Richard Dearlove, the former chief of the British intelligence service MI6; Christopher Andrew, the official historian for the domestic intelligence agency, MI5; and Christopher Steele, who worked under Dearlove at MI6.

Highly Useful Connections

While at Cambridge, the reinvented Halper leveraged his professorship, profiting to the tune of nearly $1 million by writing research papers of questionable worth for the U.S. Department of Defense. Halper added to his wallet by serving as a CHS for the FBI from 2008 until January 2011, when the FBI dropped him for aggressiveness toward a handling agent over a fee dispute. Two months later, the FBI reopened Halper as a CHS, giving him a stern warning that this was his last opportunity with the bureau.

Beyond these money-making ventures that kept Halper connected with players at the DOD and FBI, the academic apparently stayed close to elite members of the American media, including David Ignatius, the foreign affairs columnist for The Washington Post. According to Steven Schrage, who completed his Cambridge Ph.D. under Halper’s supervision, “Halper knew Ignatius for decades” and “bragged’ that “Ignatius was his press contact.”

Another Cambridge student, the Russian-born U.K. historian Svetlana Lokhova who was later sold as a Russian “honey pot,” likewise connected Halper to Ignatius. Lokhova told The Federalist that in May 2018, shortly after Halper was outed as a CIA and FBI informant, she spoke with Ignatius, and when she “registered surprise about Halper’s role” as a CHS, that prompted Ignatius to say he “always found Halper reliable as a source.”

These connections all later proved key to advancing the Russia collusion hoax, but it was Halper’s role as a Cambridge academic that cemented his insertion into the scandal. As a faculty member at the British university, Halper participated in seminars and conferences, including the mid-July 2016 Cambridge University conference at which Halper first met then-Trump campaign advisor Carter Page.

Enter: 2016 Campaign

While initially Halper seemed uninterested in the young Trump advisor, that suddenly changed after Dearlove arrived at the conference and spoke privately with Halper. According to the conference organizer, Halper suddenly “seemed desperately interested in isolating, cornering, and ingratiating himself to Page and promoting him­­­self to the Trump campaign.”

Hillary Clinton surrogate Madeline Albright also attended the conference, serving as a keynote speaker. While there, Albright attended a small, private dinner with Halper. Then, just days after the Cambridge conference ended, Albright proclaimed that “Vladimir Putin wants Donald Trump to defeat Hillary Clinton.” The Clinton booster added that “Russia was likely behind the hack of the Democratic National Committee’s emails.”

That Albright began peddling the Russia collusion hoax in late July 2016, not long after leaving Halper’s side, seems suspect given that earlier that month Halper had forecast a similar approach to defeating Trump during a Cambridge lecture series on “the phenomenon which is ‘Trump’s maverick candidacy.’” At the time, Halper told his audience that “the deficits in Clinton’s campaign” left the election “almost too close to call.” “If the media focuses on Clinton, she will lose, whereas if they continue to focus on Trump, he will lose,” Halper predicted.

Worming Into Trump Campaign Connections

Two weeks later, the FBI launched the Crossfire Hurricane investigation into the Trump campaign. Soon after that, Halper’s long-time handler, Stephen Somma, visited Halper at his home to request his assistance. According to Somma, he proposed meeting with Halper because Halper “had been affiliated with national political campaigns since the early 1970s,” while Somma “lacked a basic understanding of simple issues, for example what the role of a ‘foreign policy advisor’ entails.”

During Somma’s August 11, 2016, visit with Halper, the FBI handler asked Halper whether he knew George Papadopoulos, who then was serving as a Trump campaign advisor. Halper didn’t, but agreed to speak with Papadopoulos.

Halper then volunteered that he knew a second foreign policy advisor, Page, and asked whether Somma and his team had any interest in Page. Halper also told Somma he “had known Trump’s then campaign manager, [Paul] Manafort, for a number of years and that he had been previously acquainted with Michael Flynn.”

Halper’s claim to know Flynn proved another unsupported boast. He nonetheless told Somma and the other members of the Crossfire Hurricane team of an “incident” he supposedly witnessed at Cambridge involving Flynn. According to Halper, after Flynn spoke to a small group over dinner and drinks at Cambridge, another attendee, the Russian-born Svetlana Lokhova, “surprised everyone” and jumped in Flynn’s cab, then left with Flynn to London. Halper added that he was “suspicious of Lokhova” because of her Russian connections. However, contrary to Halper’s tale, Flynn had never met Halper and Halper had not attended the Cambridge gathering at which both Flynn and Lokhova were guests. Halper’s claim that Lokhova left with Flynn also proved false. Nonetheless, press reports later repeated the story and suggested Flynn had been compromised by the unnamed Russian student. Lokhova would later sue Halper for defamation, pinning him as the source of the false reports.

Somma and others, however, seemed unaware of Halper’s fabrication. They couldn’t believe their “luck” that Halper supposedly knew three of the four subjects of Crossfire Hurricane. So, over the ensuing weeks, Halper would wear a wire and question Papadopoulos, Page, and even the co-chair of the Trump campaign, Sam Clovis.

Fabricating an Excuse to Spy on Trump’s Campaign

That Halper could arrange a meeting with one of Trump’s top campaign officials mere months before the November election is a testament to Halper’s 50 years of political schmoozing and ladder climbing—further confirmed when Clovis proceeded to have an unguarded hour-long chat with Halper discussing details about Trump’s strategy to defeat Hillary.

Halper came away from these meetings with nothing of import to the investigation into Trump’s supposed collusion with Russia. Nonetheless, the FBI referenced Halper and portions of his wired conversations with Page in the four FISA applications that resulted in the FBI illegally surveilling Page. Omitted from the FISA applications, however, were comments Page made to Halper that conflicted with portions of the Steele dossier.

While the FBI used only minor details acquired by Halper in the FISA applications, Halper’s cross-continental connections with the intelligence communities, political players, and the press, likely advanced the Russia collusion hoax in ways still fully unknown. This likelihood seems strong when one considers how, when the Spygate scandal began to unravel, the same media that had peddled the Russia collusion hoax began a public relations campaign for the players behind the plot, including Halper.

Running Cover for Spies

At first, the press presented the unidentified Halper as “an American academic” and as “an informant” or “source” whose anonymity had to be preserved to safeguard him. To bolster his credentials, the reporting stressed Halper’s position as a professor, highlighted his longtime work for both the FBI and CIA, and cast him as an informant who “aided the Russia investigation both before and after special counsel Robert S. Mueller III‘s appointment.” Then, in a transparent attempt to paint the still-unnamed Halper as a selflessness patriot, the media focused on the “great risks” informants take “when working for intelligence services.”

After he was outed, the Russia-hoax team continued to highlight Halper’s position as a “Cambridge professor” and long-time CHS to preserve the myth of a respected academic and dedicated and reliable informant. The Washington Post ran a puff piece on Halper soon after his name became public, telling its audience “Halper’s connections to the intelligence world have been present throughout his career and at Cambridge, where he ran an intelligence seminar that brought together past and present intelligence officials.”

The Post continued its gushing profile by highlighting Halper’s collaboration with Dearlove, the former head of Britain’s foreign intelligence service, and their sponsorship of a “seminar that drew Michael Flynn, then director of the Defense Intelligence Agency,” to attend. Also stressed was Halper’s academic work, with the Post noting that Halper had taught “international affairs and American studies at Cambridge from 2001 until 2015, when he stepped down with the honorary title of emeritus senior fellow of the Centre of International Studies, . . .”

The remainder of the article then unquestioningly parroted much of Halper’s resume, before quoting an unnamed U.S. government official saying of Halper: “He thinks well. He writes critically. And he knows a lot of people whose insights he can tap for us as well.”

However, as Real Clear Investigations revealed in its exposé on Halper, he held neither the academic cachet nor the gravitas a seasoned informant might. But what Halper lacked in pedigree, he compensated for with his arsenal of connections that allowed him to whisper into the right ears just what the listener wanted to hear.

In this respect, Halper proves no different than Steele or Rodney Joffe: They are all mythical men, molded by the Clinton campaign, the media, and those complicit in the government to sell the tale of Trump colluding with Russia. In reality, though, they aren’t the James Bond, Jack Ryan, and Jason Bourne that we were sold—they are the Three Stooges with better agents.

Margot Cleveland is a senior contributor to The Federalist. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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DURHAM ARRESTS STEELE’S TOP SOURCE


Reported by MICHAEL GINSBERG | CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER | November 04, 2021

Read more at https://dailycaller.com/2021/11/04/igor-danchenko-arrested-christopher-steele-john-durham-fbi-trump/

BRITAIN-RUSSIA-US-MEDIA-STEELE
(Photo by TOLGA AKMEN/AFP via Getty Images)

Federal agents arrested Igor Danchenko, the primary researcher of a dossier compiled by ex-British spy Christopher Steele, as part of Special Counsel John Durham’s probe into the origins of the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation into former President Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Danchenko was taken into custody on Thursday, the New York Times (NYT) first reported. He was employed by Steele’s firm, Orbis Business International, but was previously investigated during the Obama administration as part of a probe into suspected Russian intelligence officers operating in Washington, DC. Before his time at Orbis, Danchenko worked as a Russia analyst at the liberal Brookings Institute, where he became known for accusing Russian President Vladimir Putin of plagiarizing his economics dissertation. 

Danchenko is charged with five counts of making false statements to investigators.

As part of his work on the Steele dossier, Danchenko claimed to have interviewed six individuals with knowledge of alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. However, during a 2017 FBI interview, Danchenko contradicted many of the dossier’s key assertions. As a result, the FBI concluded that “the reliability of the dossier was completely destroyed,” according to Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham. 

Danchenko has defended his work on the Steele dossier, describing it as “raw intelligence from credible sources” in a 2020 interview with NYT. The dossier served as primary evidence for the FBI’s Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) warrant request for Trump campaign aide Carter Page, a Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General report found.

As part of his investigation into the origins of the DOJ probe into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government, Durham has targeted the production and dissemination of the Steele dossier. He indicted former Perkins Coie and Democratic National Committee attorney Michael Sussmann in September for lying to the FBI’s top attorney during a meeting in which Sussmann passed along allegations against the Trump campaign.

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IG Report Reveals Steele Funneled Claims Through John McCain After FBI Dropped Him


Written by Aaron Klein | 

URL of the original posting site: https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/12/26/ig-report-reveals-steele-funneled-claims-through-john-mccain-after-fbi-dropped-him/

In this Aug. 25, 2009 file photo, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., holds a healthcare town hall meeting in Sun City, Ariz. McCain’s family says the Arizona senator has chosen to discontinue medical treatment for brain cancer. (AP Photo/Matt York) AP Photo/Matt York

Late Senator John McCain provided disgraced former FBI chief James Comey with five separate reports from Christopher Steele that the FBI didn’t previously possess related to unsubstantiated allegations of collusion between Russia and President Trump’s 2016 campaign, the Justice Department’s recent Inspector General report revealed.

There have long been questions about why it was necessary for McCain to pass Steele’s anti-Trump dossier to Comey on December 9, 2016, several weeks after the November 2016 presidential election. By then, Steele had already met numerous times with FBI agents to provide them with his controversial reports. Steele, however, was terminated as an FBI source in the fall of 2016 because he spoke to the news media.

The IG report discloses that McCain gave five new Steele reports to Comey that the FBI did not previously possess, showing that McCain served as a conduit for Steele’s information to reach the FBI even after the British ex-spy was formally cut off as an FBI source.

It is not clear whether McCain knew at the time that Steele had previously been terminated as an FBI source.

The IG report also verifies that a McCain aid obtained the Steele reports directly from Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson, meaning that when McCain transferred the anti-Trump charges to Comey he had to have known that the material originated with a firm that specializes in controversial opposition tactics. Fusion GPS was paid for its anti-Trump work by Trump’s primary political opponents, namely Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) via the Perkins Coie law firm.

States the IG report:

Several weeks later, on December 9, 2016, Senator John McCain provided Comey with a collection of 16 Steele election reports, 5 of which Steele had not given the FBI. McCain had obtained these reports from a staff member at the McCain Institute. The McCain Institute staff member had met with Steele and later acquired the reports from Simpson.

The unnamed McCain staff member is known to be David J. Kramer, who also infamously provided BuzzFeed with the Steele dossier.

BuzzFeed published Steele’s full dossier on January 10, 2017 setting off a firestorm of news media coverage about the document.

Prior to his death, McCain admitted to personally handing the dossier to Comey but he refused repeated requests for comment about whether he had a role in providing the dossier to BuzzFeed, including numerous inquiries sent to his office by this reporter.

In his book published last year, McCain maintained he had an “obligation” to pass the dossier charges against Trump to Comey and he would even do it again. “Anyone who doesn’t like it can go to hell,” McCain exclaimed.

Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio.” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.

Written with research by Joshua Klein.

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DOJ is About to Rerelease Files on Christopher Steele Minus the Redactions


Posted by Steven Ahle | 

URL of the original posting site: https://steadfastandloyal.com/politics/doj-is-about-to-rerelease-files-on-christopher-steele-minus-the-redactions/

The Democrats who are already freaking out because of the failure of their impeachment hearings and today’s release of the IG report just got some more bad news. The DOJ will be releasing documents on Christopher Steele, without the massive number of redactions. Steele says that the DOJ has informed him that they would be releasing his files with none of the blackouts.

The New York Times is reporting that the decision to release the 400 pages of documents was made by AG Bill Barr, to whom President Trump gave the authorization to declassify any and all documents he thinks should be made public. No doubt those documents will show how many people warned the FBI that Steele was not credible.

Almost every word in the Steele dossier is a lie including “a” and “the.” Not one item has been proven to be true. There have been disclosures that even Bruce Ohr and british intelligence warned the FBI about Steele. Everybody can’t be wrong. And for the first time, the Deep State could not stop the truth from coming out.

From Fox News

Steele is poised to be a notable figure in the Horowitz report because he provided opposition research into the Trump campaign’s connections to Russia which was funded by Democrats and the Clinton campaign.

Much of the Steele dossier has been proven discredited or unsubstantiated, including the dossier’s claims that the Trump campaign was paying hackers in the United States out of a nonexistent Russian consulate in Miami, and that former Trump attorney Michael Cohen traveled to Prague to conspire with Russians.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller also was unable to substantiate the dossier’s claims that Carter Page, who worked on the Trump campaign, had received a large payment relating to the sale of a share of Rosneft, a Russian oil giant, or that a lurid blackmail tape involving the president existed.

Horowitz’s report, as described by people familiar with its findings, is expected to conclude there was an adequate basis for opening one of the most politically sensitive investigations in FBI history and one that Trump has denounced as a witch hunt. It began in secret during Trump’s 2016 presidential run and was ultimately taken over by Mueller .

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Alleged ‘Whistleblower’ Eric Ciaramella Worked Closely with Anti-Trump Dossier Hoaxer


Reported by Aaron Klein | 

URL of the original posting site: https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/11/06/alleged-whistleblower-eric-ciaramella-worked-closely-with-anti-trump-dossier-hoaxers/

WASHINGTON, DC – JUNE 20: Former Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland testifies during a hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee June 20, 2018 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. The committee held a hearing on “Policy Response to Russian Interference in the 2016 U.S. … Alex Wong/Getty Images

Eric Ciaramella, whom Real Clear Investigations suggests is the likely so-called whistleblower, was part of an Obama administration email chain celebrating the eventual signing of a $1 billion U.S. loan guarantee to Ukraine.

That and other emails show Ciaramella interfaced about Ukraine with individuals who played key roles in facilitating the infamous anti-Trump dossier produced by Fusion GPS and reportedly financed by Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee. One of those individuals, then-Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland (pictured), received updates on Ukraine issues from dossier author Christopher Steele in addition to Nuland’s direct role in the dossier controversy.

Also part of the email chains was Christopher J. Anderson, who was a special adviser to former special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker. Anderson testified to the Democrat-led House committees running the impeachment inquiry.

Ciaramella’s name comes up in six Obama-era government emails that were released by the State Department as part of two previous Freedom of Information Act requests.  At the time of the exchanges, Ciaramella served as the Director for Baltic and Eastern European Affairs for the Obama-era National Security Council, where he worked on Ukraine policy.  He is now an analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency.

One email, titled, “Loan Guarantee,” involved Nuland, who was reportedly a key champion of the Ukraine loan guarantee policy.

“Hurray,” a celebratory Nuland wrote in response to a translated Ukrainian government announcement about the signing of the $1 billion loan guarantee.  The announcement singles out Joe Biden as being present for the conclusion of an agreement leading to the loan guarantee.

Ciaramella was one of several people CC’d in the email, which was sent from the U.S. ambassador at the time, Geoffrey Pyatt, who was another key champion of the loan guarantee to Ukraine along with Nuland.

The email is one of several that shows Ciaramella in the loop with top officials such as Nuland working on Ukraine policy under the Obama administration.

The loan guarantee was pushed through after Ukraine agreed to several reforms, especially the firing of the nation’s top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin. This at a time that Shokin was reportedly investigating Burisma, the Ukranian natural gas company paying Hunter Biden.  Joe Biden infamously boasted on video about personally threatening to withhold loan guarantees from Ukraine unless Shokin was removed.

Another released email shows Ciaramella himself sending a message to Nuland and others. Most of the contents are blocked out, including the email’s subject line. One non-classified section of that email shows a reply stating, “Embassy Kyiv — coordinated with our USAID mission folks — will have detailed input tomorrow.”

One email involving Nuland was sent two days before the loan guarantee was signed on June 3, 2016. “Can you confirm who will be doing the actual signing for each side?” the exchange asked.

Nuland has come under repeated fire for her various roles in the anti-Trump dossier controversy.

FBI notes also cite career Justice Department official Bruce Ohr as saying that Nuland was in touch with Fusion GPS co-founder and dossier producer Glenn Simpson.

Sen. John McCain, who infamously delivered the dossier to then-FBI Director James Comey, reportedly first dispatched an aide, David J. Kramer, to inquire with Nuland about the dossier claims.

In their book, Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump, authors and reporters Michael Isikoff and David Corn write that Nuland gave the green light for the FBI to first meet with Steele regarding his dossier’s claims. It was at that meeting that Steele initially reported his dossier charges to the FBI, the book relates.

Meanwhile, looped into email chains with Ciaramella was then-Secretary of State John Kerry’s chief of staff at the State Department, John Finer.

An extensive New Yorker profile of Steele named Finer as obtaining the contents of a two-page summary of the dossier and eventually deciding to share the questionable document with Kerry.

Finer reportedly received the dossier summary from Jonathan M. Winer, the Obama State Department official who acknowledged regularly interfacing and exchanging information with Steele, according to the report. Winer previously conceded that he shared the dossier summary with Nuland.

After his name surfaced in news media reports related to probes by House Republicans into the dossier, Winer authored a Washington Post oped in which he conceded that while he was working at the State Department he exchanged documents and information with Steele.

Winer further acknowledged that while at the State Department, he shared anti-Trump material with Steele passed to him by longtime Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal, whom Winer described as an “old friend.” Winer wrote that the material from Blumenthal – which Winer in turn gave to Steele – originated with Cody Shearer, who is a controversial figure long tied to various Clinton scandals.

In testimony last year, Nuland made statements about a meeting at the State Department in October 2016 between State officials and Steele, but said that she didn’t participate.

At a June 2018 hearing, Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) revealed contents of the State Department’s visitor logs while he was grilling Nuland.

At the hearing, Burr asked: “I know you talked extensively with our staff relative to Mr. Steele. Based upon our review of the visitor logs of the State Department, Mr. Steele visited the State Department briefing officials on the dossier in October of 2016. Did you have any role in that briefing?”

“I did not,” Nuland replied. “I actively chose not to be part of that briefing.”

“But were you aware of that briefing?” Burr asked.

“I was not aware of it until afterwards,” Nuland retorted.

Nuland did not explain how she can actively chose not to be part of Steele’s briefing, as she claimed, yet say she was unaware of the briefing until after it occurred. Nuland was not asked about the discrepancy during the public section of the testimony, which was reviewed in full by Breitbart News.

Nuland previously served as chief of staff to Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott under Bill Clinton’s administration, and then served as deputy director for former Soviet Union affairs.

Nuland faced confirmation questions prior to her most recent appointment as assistant secretary of state over her reported role in revising controversial Obama administration talking points about the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attacks. Her reported changes sought to protect Hillary Clinton’s State Department from accusations that it failed to adequately secure the woefully unprotected U.S. Special Mission in Benghazi.

Likely ‘whistleblower’

A RealClearInvestigations report by investigative journalist and author Paul Sperry named Ciaramella as best fitting the description of the so-called whistleblower. Officials with direct knowledge of the proceedings say Ciaramella’s name has been raised in private in impeachment depositions and during at least one House open hearing that was not part of the formal impeachment proceedings.

Federal documents show Ciaramella also worked closely with Joe Biden and worked under Susan Rice, President Obama’s national security adviser. He also worked with former CIA Director John Brennan, an anti-Trump advocate who has faced controversy for his role in fueling the questionable Russia collusion investigation.  Rice participated in Russia collusion probe meetings and reportedly unmasked senior members of Trump’s presidential campaign.

Sperry cites former White House officials saying Ciaramella worked for Biden on Ukrainian policy issues in 2015 and 2016, encompassing the time period for which Biden has been facing possible conflict questions for leading Ukraine policy in light of Hunter Biden’s work for Burisma.

Mark Zaid and Andrew Bakaj, the activist attorneys representing the so-called whistleblower, refused to confirm on deny that their secretive client is indeed Ciaramella.

“We neither confirm nor deny the identity of the Intelligence Community Whistleblower,” the lawyers told the Washington Examiner in response to an inquiry about Ciaramella.

Zaid and Bakaj added, “Our client is legally entitled to anonymity. Disclosure of the name of any person who may be suspected to be the whistleblower places that individual and their family in great physical danger. Any physical harm the individual and/or their family suffers as a result of disclosure means that the individuals and publications reporting such names will be personally liable for that harm. Such behavior is at the pinnacle of irresponsibility and is intentionally reckless.”

On Sunday, Trump responded to press reports naming Ciaramella, calling him a “radical” known for his close ties to Brennan and Rice.

“Well, I’ll tell you what. There have been stories written about a certain individual, a male, and they say he’s the whistleblower,” Trump told reporters. “If he’s the whistleblower, he has no credibility because he’s a Brennan guy, he’s a Susan Rice guy, he’s an Obama guy.”

Trump added, “And he hates Trump. And he’s a radical. Now, maybe it’s not him. But if it’s him, you guys ought to release the information.”

Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio.” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.

Joshua Klein contributed research to this article.

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Christopher Steele won’t cooperate with John Durham review of Russia investigation


Reported by Jerry Dunleavy | May 28, 2019 05:13 PM

URL of the original posting site: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/christopher-steele-wont-cooperate-with-john-durham-review-of-russia-investigation

Christopher Steele, author of the dossier that played a key role in the Trump-Russia inquiry, will not assist Attorney General William Barr’s investigation of the investigators, according to a new report.

A source close to Orbis Business Intelligence, which is Steele’s investigative firm, told Reuters that the British ex-spy “would not cooperate” with nor answer questions from U.S. Attorney John Durham, whom Barr has tasked with reviewing the origins of the counterintelligence investigation into President Trump’s presidential campaign and the way that the Justice Department and FBI conducted the inquiry.

This revelation comes days after Trump’s order stating Barr was given “full and complete authority to declassify information” and ordering the intelligence community “to quickly and fully cooperate with the Attorney General’s investigation into surveillance activities during the 2016 presidential election.” Barr said he picked Durham because he “was looking for someone who is tenacious, who is used to looking at sensitive material involving government activities, who has a reputation for being fair and evenhanded.”

Neither the Justice Department nor Steele’s business immediately responded to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment. Durham’s office said they had no comment at this time.

The report said Steele “might cooperate” with DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s independent investigation, signaling a shift in Steele’s thinking. In April, Politico reported that Steele “declined to be interviewed by the inspector general, citing, among other things, the potential impropriety of his involvement in an internal Justice Department investigation as a foreign national and former British intelligence agent.” That report said Steele might even “rebut the Inspector General’s characterizations” with a public statement.

Horowitz has been looking into potential Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuse since early 2018 and is “homing in” on the potential misuse of Steele’s unverified dossier by the DOJ and FBI. Barr has said Horowitz’s probe should be done by May or June.

Steele did cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and submitted written testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee.

According to a New York Times report from April, the FBI reached out to some of Steele’s foreign sources in an attempt to determine their credibility, and as early as January 2017 agents had concluded that some of the dossier’s contents may have been based on “rumors and hearsay” which were “passed from source to source.” The agents believed that some of Steele’s information may have even been based on “Russian disinformation.”

Steele’s dossier, which was packed with unverified claims about Trump’s ties to Russia, formed a key part of the FISA applications that were used to justify surveillance warrants against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Steele was working for Fusion GPS, which received funding through the Perkins Coie law firm from the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. Steele’s Democratic benefactors were not revealed to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

Barr said this month that “it’s a very unusual situation to have opposition research like that — especially one that on its face had a number of clear mistakes and a somewhat jejune analysis.” Barr’s pointed critiques of the Steele dossier’s flaws comes after former FBI Director James Comey and former FBI General Counsel James Baker defended their handling of the dossier in recent weeks.

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Book Provides New Details About Major Steele Dossier Source


Reported by Chuck Ross | Reporter | 12:11 PM 03/13/2018

During the 2016 presidential campaign, the founder of the opposition research firm behind the Steele dossier tipped a major news network off to Sergei Millian, a Belarus-born businessman who has been identified as a source for the salacious claims made in the dossier. Glenn Simpson, the founder of Fusion GPS, provided the tip to ABC News despite having doubts about the veracity of Millian’s claims about President Donald Trump.

That’s according to “Russian Roullette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump,” a book written by Michael Isikoff and David Corn that hit shelves on Tuesday. The two veteran journalists report that Simpson told ABC News about Millian, the chairman of the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce, during the heart of the 2016 campaign.

ABC News reporter Brian Ross dutifully followed up on the lead, grilling Millian during the 2016 campaign about supposed contacts with Trump as well as to the Kremlin.  According to Isikoff and Corn, former British spy Christopher Steele revealed to Simpson that Millian was “Source D” for the dossier, which was funded by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

“Simpson would later learn from Steele the identity of Source D, the main source for the ‘golden showers’ allegation: It was Sergei Millian,” the book reads. 

“Source D” is described in a June 20, 2016, memo written by Steele as “a close associate of TRUMP who had organized and managed his recent trips to Moscow.” The dossier claims that the source — now known as Millian — confirmed that the Kremlin had been feeding the Trump team intelligence on Clinton. 

The information had been “very helpful” to the campaign, Millian said.

He also provided shocking allegations about Trump’s activities in Moscow during a November 2013 trip to the Miss Universe pageant. Source D, aka Millian, was present in Moscow where Trump engaged in “perverted” conduct, according to the dossier. This conduct allegedly included employing prostitutes to perform a “golden showers” show in front of him in his hotel room. Trump wanted to defile the room because it was where former President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle had stayed years before, according to the dossier.

Isikoff and Corn report that Millian was not aware his comments were being used to spy on Trump. “Like all of those who had spoken to Steele’s collector, Millian was an unwitting source; he had no idea his conversation with the collector would be passed along to Trump’s political foes,” they wrote.

Reached by The Daily Caller News Foundation, Millian disputed Steele’s claims and the new book.

“It’s all garbage news,” he told TheDCNF.

“Never happened,” he added, saying that he “was not in Moscow on that night.”

Millian’s involvement in the dossier was of apparent concern to Simpson, according to “Russian Roulette.”

“The memo had described Millian as a Trump intimate, but there was no public evidence he was close to the mogul at that time or was in Moscow during the Miss Universe event,” the book reads. “Had Millian made something up or repeated rumors he had heard from others to impress Steele’s collector? Simpson had his doubts. He considered Millian a big talker.”

Those doubts did not stop Simpson from telling ABC News about Millian, whose real name is Siarhei Kukuts.

“For Simpson, Millian was now an investigative target. He tipped off ABC News, which conducted an on-air interview with Millian,” the book reads. It is unclear whether Simpson told ABC that Millian was a source for the dossier.

Ross, the investigative reporter at ABC, conducted the interview with Millian in July 2016. The interview largely flew under the radar, though it was cited in a few articles published before the election about Trump’s supposed ties to mysterious Russians. Though Millian is not Russian, he runs a trade group that caters to Russian businesses.

He was one of “very few people who have insider knowledge of Kremlin politics…who has been able to successfully integrate in American society,” Millian claimed.

Millian met Trump in Florida in 2008 and was an official broker for Trump Hollywood, he said. Trump has done “hundreds of millions of dollars” of business with Russians, he also claimed.

“Trump team, they realized that we have a lot of connections with Russian investors. And they noticed we bring a lot of investors from Russia,” Millian said.

Asked why Trump likes Russia, Millian responded with an answer that slightly mirrors the allegations in the dossier.

“He likes Russia because he likes beautiful Russian ladies,” Millian said in the awkward interview with Ross. “He likes talking to them, of course. And he likes to be able to make lot of money with Russians, yes, correct.”

Ross then quizzed Millian about any links he had to the Kremlin or to Russian spy services.

“Are you involved in any way with Russian intelligence agencies?” Ross asked.

“Absolutely, no,” said Millian.

Unknown at the time was Millian’s friendship with Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos. Papadopoulos has since pleaded guilty for lying to the FBI about contacts with Russian nationals. He was also told by a Russian-linked professor about emails that had been stolen from Democrats.

In his ABC interview, Millian denied sharing information with Russian government officials but acknowledged having friends in the Kremlin and discussing American politics with them.

“Usually if I meet top people in the Russian government, they invite me to the Kremlin for the reception, so of course I have a chance to talk to some presidential advisers and some of the top people,” said Millian.

The ABC News interview with Millian resurfaced shortly after Trump’s inauguration when the network — along with The Wall Street Journal — broke the story that Millian was “Source D” for the dossier.  Simpson was tight-lipped about Millian during his testimony in November before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Asked by California Rep. Adam Schiff, a Democrat, whether Millian was a source, Simpson said: “I’m not in a position to get into the identity of the sources for the dossier for security reasons, primarily.”

Simpson also described research that Fusion GPS had done on Millian, though without noting he had provided some of the information to the media. Millian has kept a low profile since the release of the dossier, issuing vague denials about being a source for the dirty document. Congressional committees investing Russian interference have tried but failed to contact Millian for interviews.

Simpson, Steele and Steele’s business partner, Christopher Burrows, have all expressed reservations about the “golden showers” incident, according to Isikoff and Corn. Steele has lowered his degree of certainty that the incident happened. “It’s fifty-fifty,” he has told associates.

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Today’s Ann Coulter Letter: “Anatomy of a Coup”


Commentary by Ann Coulter  | Thursday Feb 15, 2018 11:07 AM

URL of the original posting site: http://humanevents.com/2018/02/15/anatomy-of-a-coup/

Every place you look in Robert Mueller’s investigation, the same names keep popping up: FBI agent Peter Strzok and sleazy, foreign private eye — or “British intelligence agent” — Christopher Steele.

So it’s rather important that they both are Trump-hating fanatics, and one was being paid by Trump’s political opponent in a presidential campaign. 

Steele is the author of the preposterous dossier that sparked the special counsel investigation, and Strzok is the FBI agent involved at every crucial turn of both the Trump and Hillary investigations.

As we found out from the House Intelligence memo, Steele told Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr that he “was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president.” (Ohr’s wife worked for Fusion GPS, and, like Steele, was being paid by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.)

In the hands of Trump-obsessive Peter Strzok — he of the estrogen-dripping texts to his Trump-hating FBI lawyer mistress — the dossier was used to obtain a warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act against Trump’s alleged “foreign policy adviser,” Carter Page. The FISA warrant against Page constitutes the last crumbling piece of the “Russia collusion” story.

Strzok was the person who instigated the Russia investigation against Trump back in July 2016. He was the lead agent on the investigation into whether Hillary, as secretary of state, sent classified information on her private email account. (Conclusion: She had — but it wasn’t any of the FBI’s business!) He volunteered for the Mueller investigation and remained there, right up until his Trump-hating texts were discovered by the inspector general of the FBI. (He was also, one surmises, the authority for many of the media’s lurid, anonymously sourced claims about how the investigation was proceeding.)

Most strangely, Strzok was the FBI agent who asked Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Flynn, about his phone call with the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak.

There was nothing wrong with Flynn’s conversation with Kislyak, but Flynn later pleaded guilty to lying to an FBI agent about it, based on a secretly recorded intercept of the phone call. The question remains: Why was any FBI agent even asking about a perfectly legitimate conversation? No one seems to know. But we do know the name of the FBI agent who asked: Peter Strzok.

Aside from Strzok’s girl-power text to his mistress upon Hillary becoming the first female presidential nominee — “About damn time!” — his most embarrassing message to her was about the Russia investigation:

“I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office (FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe) — that there’s no way (Trump) gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40 …”

The media have tied themselves in knots trying to explain this text as meaning anything other than its obvious, natural meaning. To wit: “Although the worst is unlikely (Trump wins/you die before age 40), you still prepare by taking out ‘insurance’ (we take Trump down with the Russia investigation/your family gets a payout).”

I keep looking for a plausible alternative interpretation, but they’re all absurd; e.g., The Washington Post points out that even with an insurance policy, YOU STILL DIE! (Yes, and even with the Russian investigation, TRUMP IS STILL PRESIDENT.) Everyone except American journalists understands that Strzok’s “insurance” was their plan to tie Trump up with an endless investigation. Which, coincidentally, is exactly what they’ve done.

Contrary to every single person talking on MSNBC, the issue is not whether FBI agents are allowed to have political opinions. In a probe of the president, FBI agents shouldn’t be dying to take him down for political reasons.

You want drug enforcement agents to be hungry to shut down drug cartels. You want organized crime prosecutors to be hungry to dismantle the mob. You want your maid to be hungry to clean your house. But the staff on a special counsel’s open-ended investigation of the president aren’t supposed to be hungry. They’re supposed to be fair.

This is an investigation with no evidence of a crime, apart from politically motivated, anti-Trump investigators relying on a Hillary-funded dossier.

Also contrary to every single person talking on MSNBC, Steele’s dossier is not like a neighbor who hates you telling the police you’re cooking meth in your basement. The police still have to investigate, don’t they?

First of all, if after 18 months of police work, the only evidence that you’re cooking meth in your basement is STILL your neighbor’s bald accusation, reasonable people will conclude that your neighbor is a liar. That’s what the Steele dossier is. It was the only evidence of Trump’s collusion with Russia 18 months ago, and it’s the only evidence of Trump’s collusion with Russia today.

Moreover, it’s not just the informant who hates the target. The investigators do, too. This is more like a police officer calling the police on his wife, sending himself on the call, shooting her, then writing up the police report concluding it was a justified shooting.

When your entire investigation turns on a handful of people with corrupt motives, maybe it’s time to call off the investigation.

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Trey Gowdy Gives Clues To What’s In FISA Abuse Memo [VIDEO]


Reported by Chuck Ross | Reporter | 12:16 PM 01/28/2018

Lawmakers have been reluctant to discuss a classified four-page memo alleging that the FBI and Justice Department abused the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in order to spy on Trump campaign associates, but South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy provided several clues on Sunday to what’s in the controversial document.

In an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” Gowdy posed several questions to host Chris Wallace and his viewers that hinted at the allegations in the memo, which could be released by the House Intelligence Committee as early as this week.

“If you think your viewers want to know whether or not the dossier was used in court proceedings, whether or not it was vetted before it was used, whether or not it’s ever been vetted — if you are interested in who paid for the dossier, if you are interested in Christopher Steele’s relationship with Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee, then, yes, you will want the memo to come out,” Gowdy told Wallace.

“Do you want to know that the Democratic National Committee paid for material that was never vetted, that was included in a court proceeding?” he asked rhetorically. 

“Do you want to know whether or not the primary source in these court proceedings had a bias against one candidate? Do you want to know whether or not he said he’d do anything to keep that candidate from becoming president?”

Gowdy’s reference to a source who said they opposed Donald Trump is unclear, though he would seem to be talking about Christopher Steele, the former British spy who wrote the dossier. Steele had been hired by Fusion GPS, an opposition research firm that was paid $1 million by the Clinton campaign and DNC to investigate Trump. Steele met with FBI agents in July 2016 and several months later to discuss his investigation of Trump. The bureau and DOJ reportedly used Steele’s work in an application for a surveillance warrant taken out against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

Republican lawmakers have pressed the FBI and DOJ over how heavily they relied on the dossier for the warrant and for the investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government. Republicans also want to know whether the agencies vetted the dossier prior to using it in any FISA application.

In a Senate hearing last June, former FBI Director James Comey called the dossier “salacious and unverified.” Gowdy declined to confirm reports that the dossier was used to obtain the FISA warrant. He said that that information is classified at this point and he’s not allowed to discuss it. But Republicans will be able to get around that restriction if the Intelligence Committee votes to release the memo, which Gowdy helped write.

Democratic lawmakers have called the memo a set of talking points aimed at helping Trump, and the Justice Department sent a letter to committee chairman Devin Nunes calling the release “extremely reckless.”

In his interview, Gowdy said that he has suggested that Nunes allow the FBI and Justice Department to view the memo prior to its release. But he says that the information contained in the document is based on information already provided by those agencies.

“There’s nothing in this memo the Department is not already aware of,” Gowdy said on Sunday.

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Federal Judge Deals HUGE Blow To Fusion GPS In Bank Records Battle


Reported by Chuck Ross | Reporter | 9:27 PM 01/04/2018

A federal judge has ruled against Fusion GPS in the Trump dossier firm’s quest to block the release of its bank records to the House Intelligence Committee. Judge Richard Leon shot down all four of Fusion’s arguments against the release of 70 records of transactions involving some of its clients as well as journalists and researchers it has paid since Sept. 2015.

Fusion sued its bank, TD Bank, in October, to prevent it from complying with a subpoena issued by the House Intelligence Committee, which has been looking into Fusion’s role in putting together the dossier. That subpoena, issued by committee chairman Devin Nunes on Oct. 5, prompted Perkins Coie, the law firm that represented the Clinton campaign and DNC, to reveal that it had hired Fusion GPS in April 2016 to investigate Trump. Fusion, which was founded by three former Wall Street Journal reporters, later hired Christopher Steele, a former British spy with experience in Moscow.

Fusion argued that the court should quash the committee’s subpoena on four separate grounds. The company argued that the subpoena for bank records lacked a valid legislative purpose, that it was too broad and the records being sought were not relevant to the committee’s Russia probe, that it violated Fusion’s First Amendment rights, and that it violated statutes prohibiting the release of bank records to government authorities.

Leon shot down all of the arguments, including Fusion’s assertion that Nunes had no grounds to issue a subpoena because he had recused himself back in April from the Russia probe.

“Unfortunately for plaintiff, the record contradicts its claims,” wrote Leon, a George W. Bush appointee.

Leon rebutted the claim — pushed by Fusion and Democrats alike — that Nunes had actually recused himself from the investigation. He pointed to Nunes’ oft-cited press release in which he ceded control of the committee’s day-to-day operations to Texas Rep. Conaway. But “nowhere in this press release did Chairman Nunes ‘recuse’ himself from the Russia investigation,” Leon notes. “He retained the power to issue the Subpoena at issue in this case.”

Leon also said that the committee’s subpoena is not overly broad. He noted that it has already been revealed that Fusion ordered Steele to brief several news outlets on the dossier. Therefore, the subpoena may reveal “relevant information” about payments to reporters.

The Intelligence committee has stated in past court filings that Fusion’s bank records shows that it has made nine separate payments to three unidentified journalists who wrote about or commented on Russia-related issues during the presidential campaign and into 2017. Fusion also did work for a Russian businessman with links to the Kremlin. The oppo firm was paid by the businessman’s law firm, BakerHostetler.

Leon also dismissed the idea that the bank subpoena violates Fusion’s First Amendment right to free association.

“Plaintiff points to no authority to support its theory that the freedom of association protects financial records,” says Leon.

Leon did not set a date for when TD Bank must release the Fusion bank records.

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