“[N]either U.S. law enforcement nor the Intelligence Community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation,” Durham wrote in the report.
“I think it reveals that Americans are right to distrust the government—even civil servants people in the government,” Dershowitz toldTHE EPOCH TIMES
Imagine someone told you that in the run-up to a U.S. presidential election, the FBI tried to undermine a candidate at the behest of the opposing campaign by cooking up a false narrative of collusion with Moscow.
And let’s say this conspiracy implicated not just the FBI but also the White House, Justice Department, and CIA — and that nearly the entire corporate press went along with it, gleefully spreading the false narrative that this candidate was a Russian agent, running story after story of fabricated nonsense in a coordinated effort to ensure the opposing candidate won.
In normal times, you’d scoff at such an outlandish story, dismiss it as the plot of some half-baked Tom Clancy novel. That could never happen in America, you’d say, where we have free and fair elections, the rule of law, and so on. And anyway, the media would never allow it to happen. They’d be too invested in exposing the conspiracy and claiming, rightly, a Watergate-type story of their very own.
But you’d be wrong. All of that really happened in 2016, recounted in all its jaw-dropping detail in Special Counsel John Durham’s 306-page report, released Monday after nearly four years in the making. The big takeaway from the report is that the Obama-era FBI launched a full investigation of the Trump campaign, codenamed Crossfire Hurricane, in the summer of 2016 despite having zero evidence of any collusion between Trump and Russia.
Not only that, but officials at the highest levels of the U.S. government, including President Obama, knew that the entire false narrative that Trump was colluding with Moscow was completely made up by the Clinton campaign in an effort to weaponize the federal government against Trump and distract from Hillary Clinton’s own email server scandal.
The Durham report recounts how in August 2016, CIA Director John Brennan briefed Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, FBI Director James Comey, and other senior administration officials on what the report calls the “Clinton Plan intelligence,” a scheme Clinton approved in July 2016 “to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security services.”
In other words, all of these senior officials, some of the most powerful people in the federal government, knew as early as the summer of 2016 that the Clinton campaign had a plan to whip up a scandal by falsely alleging collusion between Trump and Moscow. But all of them ignored this important fact when the FBI launched Crossfire Hurricane around the same time on the basis of far-fetched claims that Trump was a Russian agent — claims that were made in the Steele dossier, a slapdash piece of oppo-research the Clinton campaign itself had paid for.
The FBI knew all of this, as did Brennan, yet they ignored it to keep Crossfire Hurricane alive, along with the narrative that Trump was in bed with Russia. That fall, the FBI used the baseless dossier to acquire FISA warrants to spy on the Trump campaign. All of this was eventually leaked to a compliant and incurious new media, and voila! Clinton’s Trump-Russia scandal was born — without a shred of evidence, and indeed despite significant evidence to the contrary.
My colleagues at The Federalist have detailed the shocking contents of the Durham report (here, here, here, and here), but taking a step back from the dizzying array of details, every American needs to understand that what made all of this possible was the stupefying level of corruption and partisan malevolence deep inside our federal government.
The Russia-collusion hoax was concocted and brought to life only because the most powerful people in the U.S. intelligence and law enforcement community wanted an excuse to weaponize the federal government against Donald Trump. They didn’t want him to be president, simple as that. It didn’t matter to them what voters wanted; they thought they knew better. So they felt any abuse of power was justified in preventing Trump from winning the White House.
[….]
Beyond the shamelessness of the media and the corruption of government officials, the Durham report is a sobering reminder that we can’t sustain a self-governing republic under these conditions. When the law enforcement and intelligence agencies of the federal government can be used as a weapon to undermine an outsider candidate for high office, it means our republic is in grave danger.
It means, too, that it would be better if we had no FBI at all than the corrupt agency we have now, which sees fit to traffic in actual disinformation, spread conspiracy theories, and throttle the democratic process whenever a candidate comes along who threatens the status quo. That’s the real lesson of the Durham report, and we ignore it at our peril.
Prosecutor John Durham has finally concluded his report and the FBI’s probe into alleged Trump ties to Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign season. And the findings are HUGE — despite what some in the mainstream media may say. In this clip, Glenn explains exactly what the Durham Report says, what it means for the FBI, and why Glenn wouldn’t be happy until ‘people GO TO JAIL.’
MORE:
Democrats PANIC As Durham Report PROVES Soft Coup Against Trump, Media Tries To COVER IT UP (TIM CAST)
Sen. Josh Hawley on Durham Report: Hillary Needs to be Prosecuted – FBI Needs to Be Disbanded (GATEWAY PUNDIT)
BREAKING: Nunes reacts to release of Durham report (RED PILL PATRIOTS)
Here is the timeline via JUST THE NEWS… the entire article is worth a read:
July 5, 2016: The same day that the FBI clears Hillary Clinton of criminality in the mishandling of classified emails on her hard drive, Steele walks into an FBI agent he knows in London and delivers his first version of the dossier alleging collusion between Trump and the Kremlin. The field office doesn’t act on it immediatetely.
Month of July 2016:A group of computer executives aligned with Clnton and working with Sussmann’s law firm begin looking for evidence in Internet domain name service logs to tie Trump to Russia, eventually coming up with the Alfa Bank theory. “Tech Executive-1 tasked these researchers to mine Internet data to establish ‘an inference’ and ‘narrative’ tying then-candidate Trump to Russia,” Durham wrote in Monday’s court filing. “In doing so, Tech Executive-1 indicated that he was seeking to please certain ‘VIPs,’ referring to individuals at Law Firm-1 and the Clinton Campaign.”
July 26, 2016: CIA Director John Brennan tells President Barack Obama about intelligence that Hillary Clinton has personally approved a plan “from one of her foreign policy advisors to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by Russian security services” in the election. That briefing is captured in Brennan’s handwritten notes.
July 30-31, 2016: Frustrated by inaction by the FBI in London, Steele travels to Washington to meet his friend, senior Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, to relay his research on Trump. Ohr takes the information directly to FBI headquarters and the bureau’s senior leadership, where Steele is eventually brought on as a confidential informant.
July 31, 2016: FBI formally opens the Crossfire Hurricane investigation into alleged Russia-Trump collusion.
Sept. 7, 2016:CIA sends FBI Director James Comey and others the same warning it gave Obama, namely that Clinton has approved a plan to tie Trump to Russia to distract from her email scandal.
Sept. 15, 2016:Another lawyer at Sussmann’s firm briefs the Clinton campaign on the Russia collusion research and efforts to plant a story in the media leaking some of the findings.
Sept. 19, 2016:Sussmann brings the Alpha Bank angle of Russia collusion to the FBI through Baker. The FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane Team, on the same day, gets six of Steele’s memos from the dossier and asks for permission to seek a FISA warrant.
Sept. 21, 2016:FBI lawyers urged Crossfire Hurricane to refocus the FISA on Carter Page predominantly and not fellow Trump adviser George Papadopolous, according to the inspector general.
Sept. 23, 2016:First information leaked from Clinton campaign’s Russia research appears in Yahoo News, including information gleaned from Steele.
Oct. 13, 2016: Steele breaks FBI protocol and goes to the State Department, meeting with senior official Kathleen Kavalec, where the former MI6 agent working for the Clinton campaign briefs officials on his dossier and the Alpha Bank allegations and admits he’s also talking to major news media.
Oct. 21, 2016: FBI secures first FISA warrant targeting former Trump adviser Carter Page in Russia probe.
Oct. 31, 2016: The first news story leaks about the Alpha Bank allegations, and Hillary Clinton calls attention to it as well as putting out a statement by her adviser Jake Sullivan, now President Biden’s national security adviser. “Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank,” Clinton tweeted. Sullivan boasted the allegations in the article “could be the most direct link yet between Donald Trump and Moscow[,] that “[t]his secret hotline may be the key to unlocking the mystery of Trump’s ties to Russia[,]” and that “[w]e can only assume that federal authorities will now explore this direct connection between Trump and Russia.”
Nov. 8, 2017: Donald Trump wins the election.
Feb 9, 2017: Sussmann takes Alfa Bank allegations and new information to the CIA, again denying he is acting on behalf of a client.
SEE ALSO:
Durham Filing: Text Message Implicates Hillary Clinton Campaign in ‘Conspiracy’ (BREITBART)
Lawyer charged in Durham case asks to block dossier evidence (BREITBART)
In this episode [Dan Bongino] address the disturbing role of the CIA in the plot to spy on Donald Trump. I also address the latest moves on the Canadian truckers.
On Friday, Special Counsel John Durham filed a motion relating to a defense firm’s potential conflict of interest in the Michael Sussmann case. The conflict itself is certainly intriguing, with Sussmann’s lawyers at Latham & Watkins LLP (Latham) having represented potential witnesses in the case, including Perkins Coie, former Perkins Coie (and Clinton Campaign general counsel) Marc Elias, the Hillary Clinton Campaign, and Hillary for America.
The issue that made more noise, however, was Durham’s disclosure that Rodney Joffe – a contractor with deep ties to the Clintons, and what appears to be a deep hatred for Trump – had exploited Executive Office of the President of the United States data he obtained from a “sensitive arrangement” with the U.S. Government to damage President Trump. Here is our initial post on the topic…….
After all, we know that the Hillary Clinton Campaign paid for the Steele dossiers and the work by Fusion GPS. This was arranged through their attorneys (and the DNC attorneys) at Perkins Coie – notably Mark Elias and Michael Sussmann. Elias left the firm this summer. Sussmann was indicted in September 2021 by Special Counsel Durham for giving false statements to the FBI as he was pushing them to investigate the Alfa Bank/Trump hoax.
It is highly likely that the Clinton Campaign was receiving updates on the Fusion GPS/Christopher Steele work once they were hired by Perkins Coie in the spring of 2016. This is work the client – the Clinton Campaign – paid for. (The sharing of this info would be consistent with the Clinton Campaign – notably Jake Sullivan – receiving backchannel updates on the Alfa Bank hoax.)
If the Clinton Campaign was being informed of the work by Fusion GPS, what of the likelihood that the Clinton Campaign was informing the work of Fusion GPS? It was Clintons’ idea to link Trump and Russia in the first place. To develop that theory, associates of the Clinton Campaign (Sidney Blumenthal) were working to corroborate parts of the dossier.
With that in mind, I offer you this bit of information provided by the New York Times in September (emphasis added) suggesting the complicity of the Clinton Campaign:
Some of the questions that Mr. Durham’s team has been asking in recent months — including of witnesses it subpoenaed before a grand jury, according to people familiar with some of the sessions — suggest he has been pursuing a theory that the Clinton campaign used Perkins Coie to submit dubious information to the F.B.I. about Russia and Mr. Trump in an effort to gin up investigative activity to hurt his 2016 campaign. (Emphasis added.)
(Jump To Conversation About Video)CNN’s Jeremy Diamond reported to Twitter on Friday that during a call between President Joe Biden, First Lady Jill and children who were calling into NORAD to track Santa, a dad spoke up at the end of the all and said “Let’s go Brandon,” to which the President said “Let’s go Brandon, I agree.” Video actually exists of this incredible moment when the President echoes the sentiment “Let’s go Brandon” and the First Lady laughs. (POST MILLENNIAL)
I just (12-25-2021) combined the two calls:
RUMBLE— Here is the Father’s call and the Presidential side combined for a real time experience. The original video of the father is HERE| And the video used of the President is HERE
JONATHAN TURLEY has written well on the phrase…. here is a partial excerpt:
Below is my column in The Hill on the growing “Let’s Go, Brandon” movement, which is a unique response to what many people view as a bias media. It is the modern equivalent of the adoption of “Yankee Doodle Dandy” by colonists in using what was a contemptuous expression as a rallying cry of defiance.
Here is the column:
Roughly 250 years ago, a political insult by British troops during the American Revolution was converted into a rallying cry by the colonials. “Yankee Doodle Dandy” was intended to mock the Continental Army as unsophisticated dandies, but the maligned militiamen turned it around to mock the British after defeats like Yorktown. The song is a lasting example of how symbols of contempt can become symbols of defiance.
In a curious way, “Let’s Go Brandon!” has become a similarly unintended political battle cry. It derives from an Oct. 2 interview with race-car driver Brandon Brown after he won his first NASCAR Xfinity Series race. During the interview, NBC reporter Kelli Stavast’s questions were drowned out by loud-and-clear chants of “F*** Joe Biden.” Stavast quickly and inexplicably declared, “You can hear the chants from the crowd, ‘Let’s go, Brandon!’”
Stavast’s denial or misinterpretation of the obvious instantly became a symbol of what many Americans perceive as media bias in favor of the Biden administration. Indeed, some in the media immediately praised Stavast for her “smooth save” and being a “quick-thinking reporter.” But the episode was reminiscent of a reporter standing in front of burning buildings during last year’s riots and calling them peaceful protests. Indeed, even the original profane chant seemed directed as much at the media as Biden — creating an undeniable backdrop to news coverage.
The three-word slogan is now emblazoned across tee-shirts, coffee mugs and even billboards. An anti-Biden “Let’s go, Brandon!” hip-hop song hit the top of the charts on iTunes; soon, there were four such songs with the same refrain. The top song was banned on sites like YouTube and Instagram as spreading “harmful false information.” Yet the effort to bar people from listening to the song only fueled the interest and the movement.
The media’s reaction has fulfilled the underlying narrative, too, with commentators growing increasing shrill in denouncing its use. NPR denounced the chant as “vulgar,” while writers at the Washington Post and other newspapers condemned it as offensive; CNN’s John Avalon called it “not patriotic,” while CNN political analyst Joe Lockhart compared it to coded rhetoric from Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan and ISIS.
The more the media has cried foul, however, the more people have picked up the chant………
So now that you know a bit of the years long MSM peddling, Let’s continue…. referencing his history I ask (I correct some of our misspelling):
RPT:JIM G.what is wrong is spreading lies about a duly elected President and a cockamamie Russian scheme that turned out to be a lie…. as you were told for years. Your continued spreading about, say, the Trump Tower meeting, and I even think you were on board about the Trump contacts with a Russian bank. Those are lies that were a large web of you maligning a sitting President even though many (myself) showing connections to Glenn Simpson and others. Just that example is a far greater faux pas that saying, “let’s go Brandon.” All sin is not equal JIM. And your sins according to Romans 13 are the egregious ones to note.
And for spreading what was known early on to be lies spread by the media, I noted a Scripture that should concern JIM G.
RPT: Proverbs 25:1: “Telling lies about others is as harmful as hitting them with an ax, wounding them with a sword, or shooting them with a sharp arrow.”
JIM G:there was a Trump Tower meeting with Russians during the election. What the motives an intent of those representing Trump were are not clear and remain disputed. As for Trump contacts with a Russian bank, I’m not sure what it is that I said that you perceive was a lie. I never once knowingly said something about Trump that I believed was untrue. If you think you know of a specific time in which I did, I would appreciate you pointing it out so that I can apologize. I mean that sincerely Sean G.
[More on Trump Tower below, but in many conversations on my wall and his I noted much of it over the years]
JIM G. responds:there was clear evidence that Trump welcomed Russia’s efforts to help him get elected and I saw loads of Russian propaganda on social media aimed at helping Trump. Those are not lies.
I respond, RPT: you said: ” there was clear evidence that Trump welcomed Russia’s efforts to help him get elected and I saw loads of Russian propaganda on social media aimed at helping Trump. Those are not lies.” _______________________ President Donald Trump rejects the narrative that Russia wanted him to win. USA Today examined each of the 3,517 Facebook ads bought by the Russian-based Internet Research Agency, the company that employed 12 of the 13 Russians indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller for interfering with the 2016 election. It turns out only about 100 of its ads explicitly endorsed Trump or opposed Hillary Clinton. [About 50 endorsed Hillary and opposed Trump.] Most of the fake ads focused on racial division, with many of the ads attempting to exploit what Russia perceives, or wants America to perceive, as severe racial tension between blacks and whites. __________________________ This is not what the investigation (a) showed, that Trump was knowingly welcoming any illegal actions. (b) Nothing about what you just said matches any of your despicable rhetoric for years on Facebook. And (c) not a single vote was shown to have been changed. Even Obama’s own guy noted that, Jeh Johnson.
This is no small belief based on what was then known to be lies and now supported with arrests, FOIA requests, and the like. But to be clear,
Nothing comes close in size, scope or harm to the republic than the years-long effort to cripple Donald Trump’s presidency by claiming he conspired with an enemy state to steal the 2016 election and then do its bidding as commander-in-chief. (REAL CLEAR POLITICS)
A BREAK HERE FOR MY AUDIENCE.
Let us deal with the Trump Tower meeting. I had commented on JIM G’s Facebook wall some portions of the below as most of the information known about the meeting were public even then. JIM G. merely referenced WaPo and the NYT and CNN and other sources he posted were wrong). Here are some examples for the reader:
TRUMP TOWER
The infamous meeting at Trump Tower did not focus on Clinton dirt but on Magnitsky Act, newly released FBI memos show.
(April, 2020, JUST THE NEWS | PJ-MEDIA) …The most scintillating information Mueller’s team ascribed to [Russian translator Anatoli] Samochornov in the report was a tidbit suggesting a hint of impropriety: The translator admitted he was offered $90,000 by the Russians to pay his legal bills, if he supported the story of Moscow attorney Natalia Veselnitskya. He declined.
But recently released FBI memos show that Samochornov, a translator trusted by the State Department and other federal agencies, provided agents far more information than was quoted by Mueller, nearly all of it exculpatory to the president’s campaign and his eldest son.
Despite learning the translator’s information on July 12, 2017, just a few days after the media reported on the Trump Tower meeting, the FBI would eventually suggest Donald Trump Jr. was lying and that the event could be seminal to Russian election collusion.
Samochornov’s eyewitness account entirely debunks the media’s narrative, the FBI memos show.
“Samochornov was not particularly fond of Donald Trump Jr., but stated Donald Trump Jr.’s account with Veselnitskya as portrayed in recent media report, was accurate,” according to the FBI 302 report on its interview of the translator. “Samachornov concurred with Donald Trump Jr.’s accounts of the meeting. He added ‘they’ were telling the truth.”
[….]
Solomon notes that “the belated release of the FBI interview report under a Freedom of Information Act request is likely to raise serious questions among congressional oversight committees about why the information was suppressed in the Mueller report, why the FBI kept it quiet for two years while Trump Jr. was being politically pilloried, and why the news media has failed to correct its own record of misleading reporting.”
Similar reporting at Real Clear Investigations notes well:
(March of 2020,REAL CLEAR INVESTIGATIONS) …..Whatever the suspicions raised by the Trump son’s emailed response, “If it’s what you say I love it,” the meeting didn’t live up to the billing, judging from what the translator told the FBI. Bureau notes show he told agents, “There was no discussion of the 2016 United States presidential election or Collusion between the Russian government and the Trump campaign.” The agent notes also state, “There was no smoking gun according to Samochornov. There was not a discussion about ‘dirt’ on Hillary Clinton. Samochornov did not think Hillary Clinton was mentioned by name.”
Samochornov told the FBI that the meeting was 20 minutes long and focused on the Magnitsky Act, which imposes financial sanctions on wealthy Russians, and related matters. He recounted that Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort was apparently so uninterested in the topic that he used his cellphone under the table throughout, and “five to seven minutes after it began” Trump adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner left. FBI notes also record that “Samochornov was not particularly fond of Donald Trump Jr., but stated that Donald Trump Jr.’s account of the meeting with Veselnitskaya, as portrayed in recent media reports, was accurate.”
Fourteen of the 448 pages of the Mueller Report are devoted to laying out in great detail the chronology and circumstances of the Trump Tower meeting. There are no mentions of Samochornov’s flat denial of collusion or his corroboration of Trump Jr.’s description of the meeting as benign, even though report footnotes list the translator’s FBI interview nine times with little elaboration.
The contents of Samochornov’s “302” – the form used by the FBI to report and summarize agent interviews – were first flagged this month by “Undercover Huber,” a pseudonymous Twitter account dedicated to following Trump-Russia news (not to be confused with Justice Department official John Huber, who was tasked with investigating potential FBI misconduct during the 2016 election). The document, with agents’ names redacted, was posted by the FBI under a federal judge’s order to release on a monthly basis 302s underpinning the Mueller Report, following a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by CNN and BuzzFeed.
Samochornov told the FBI that Veselnitskaya had dangled one piece of potentially partisan political information before the Trump officials – the claim that business associates of William Browder, the American businessman behind the passage of the Magnitsky Act, had made illicit donations to Democratic campaigns. Interview notes state that “Samochornov did not know if the donation(s) were made directly to the Clinton campaign, the Democratic National Committee, or a political action committee.”
This allegation, which was trumpeted by Russian President Vladimir Putin, was false. In November of 2017, Reuters reported that Fusion GPS – the Washington, D.C., opposition research firm paid by the Clinton campaign to compile the debunked Steele “dossier” used by the FBI to obtain warrants to spy on the Trump campaign – had provided Veselnitskaya with the bogus Browder-connected dirt before the Trump Tower meeting
Speculation about Russia collusion involving the Trump Tower meeting abounded in media accounts throughout the 2018 midterm elections, raising questions about whether the Mueller team should have disclosed the translator’s information. Mueller did speak out to correct faulty reporting on another matter that appeared damaging to the president, shutting down a BuzzFeed report alleging Trump had directed his lawyer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress.
The Justice Department declined to comment on the assertions in Samochornov’s 302.
The Mueller Report contains information that supports Samochornov’s credibility. It reports that the translator was involved in civil litigation with Veselnitskaya on an unrelated matter. At one point, Samochornov said, the organization that hired him to work with Veselnitskaya on repealing the Magnitsky Act offered to pay $90,000 worth of his related legal fees – if he would corroborate certain statements made by Veselnitskaya.
“Samochornov declined,” the Mueller Report states, “telling the Office that he did not want to perjure himself.”
The FBI’s 302 also records that he explicitly informed the FBI of his legal entanglement during his interview, and Samochornov has a long track record of working as a translator for the State Department and other government agencies on a contract basis. He has been married to Tatiana Rodzianko, a State Department employee, since 2006.
“Samochornov told the interviewing agents that he would have contacted the FBI if he thought the meeting was nefarious,” according to the 302.
REAL CLEAR INVESTIGATIONS laid out the connections between Glenn Simpson (GPS Fusion) and the people involved in the Trump Tower meeting.
(August 2018,POLITICAL INSIDER) ….In an explosive piece at Real Clear Politics, writer Lee Smith breaks down how the meeting was a setup from the get-go – from the very campaign Veselnitskaya pretended she wanted to help take down. As Lee Writes, ” the first line of evidence includes emails, texts, and memos recently turned over to Congress by the Department of Justice. They show how closely senior Justice Department officials and the Federal Bureau of Investigation worked with employees of Fusion GPS, a Washington-based research firm reportedly paid $1 million by Clinton operatives to dig up dirt on the Trump campaign.”
While Fusion GPS was employing Christopher Steele to compile his anti-Trump dossier, they were also working with Veselnitskaya. In fact, Veselnitskaya met with Fusion GPS’ co-founder Glenn Simpson the day of her meeting with Trump Jr., and the night of the day before. What could they have possibly talked about, if not the meeting?
Lee notes that while Simpson has denied under Senate testimony that he and Veselnitskaya spoke about the Trump Tower meeting, “she has publicly stated that she used talking points [in the Trump Tower meeting] developed by Simpson for the Russian government in that discussion. Kremlin officials also posted the allegations on the Prosecutor General’s website, and shared them with visiting U.S. congressional delegations.” Veselnitskaya mainly talked to Trump Jr. about removing sanctions on Russia during that Trump Tower meeting, hence the talking points mentioned.
So, Fusion was working with Veselnitskaya to help her advance Russian interests – while employing Christopher Steele to claim that it was Trump conspiring with the Russians. “Simpson approached the Clinton campaign through its law firm and said he could dig up dirt on Trump and Russia,” said one congressional investigator. “The difference between the Trump and Clinton campaigns’ willingness to take dirt on its opponent is that the Clintons went through with it and paid for it. While their source, Glenn Simpson, was working for a Russian oligarch.” The oligarch referenced is Denis Katsyv, who attended the Trump Tower meeting with Veselnitskaya.
FORBEShas a good article on this as well. Again, old news refreshed:
FUSION AND VESELNITSKAYA
Veselnitskaya, a former prosecutor with ties to the Kremlin, hired BakerHostetler to help Cyprus-based, Russian-steered Prevezon Holdings in court, and the law firm hired Fusion in 2014. Businessman Bill Browder had alleged Fusion acted as an agent for Russian interests when it helped go after him as Putin tried to combat the Magnitsky Act.
Browder, head of Hermitage Capital, championed the Magnitsky Act, named for his tax lawyer and corruption whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky, who died in a Russian prison in 2009 after his investigation allegedly uncovered hundreds of millions of dollars of tax fraud implicating Russian officials.
The Justice Department alleged Prevezon laundered fraudulent money, and the company later settled for $5.9 million in what the department called “a $230 million Russian tax refund fraud scheme involving corrupt Russian officials.” Prevezon was owned by Denis Katsyv, whose father, Pyotr Katsyv, is a Putin ally.
The Justice Department unsealed an indictment against Veselnitskaya, now out of reach in Russia, alleging she’d obstructed justice over her “secret cooperation with a senior Russian prosecutor.”
The Senate Intelligence Committee report said the information Veselnitskaya offered during the Trump Tower meeting “was focused on U.S. sanctions against Russia under the Magnitsky Act” and “was part of a broader influence operation targeting the United States that was coordinated, at least in part, with elements of the Russian government.”
The Senate report assessed Veselnitskaya and Rinat Akhmetshin, who accompanied her, both “have significant connections to the Russian government, including the Russian intelligence services,” and Veselnitskaya’s connections “were far more extensive and concerning than what had been publicly known.”
The report noted they “found no evidence that Veselnitskaya used her ties with Fusion GPS to influence the contents of the dossier,” but the senators nevertheless “sought to understand the significance of Veselnitskaya’s relationship” with Fusion co-founder Glenn Simpson “because of the timing of their interactions.”
Simpson denied any foreknowledge of the Trump Tower meeting despite seeing Veselnitskaya the day before, the day of, and the day after.
KEY POINT:I do not know of a “Russian” that was touted by the MSM at Trump Tower that wasn’t connected to Fusion GPS or the Clinton’s.
And I have pointed this out since 2017.
TO RECAP THE TOWER
The meeting was arranged by a publicist (Goldstone with past ties to the Trumps) who puffed up claims of Clinton wrongdoing with the Russians in order to help the wealthy father of a Russian pop singer.. Goldstone was 100% non-political.
Goldstone made up an email that stated: “The Russian attorney, he wrote, had offered to provide the Trump campaign with “official documents and information” that would incriminate Clinton [in her dealings with Russia from p. 113 of Mueller report which has full email]. “This is obviously very high level and sensitive information,” he added, and was “part of Russia and its Government’s support for Mr. Trump.” So point of meeting was not to concoct a plan to collude with Russia but to find out past Russian dirty dealings with Clinton. [if they existed]
The real reason the wealthy Russian lawyer wanted a meeting was to find a way to repeal the Magnitsty Act which sought to punish Russian human rights offenders. The Russian lawyer who showed up knew zero about any Hillary corrupt activities with Russia and the meeting was simply a ruse to raise Magnitsky act claims.
There was no evidence that Trump knew of the meeting or was informed of it before hand. Also, of course, there was ZERO EVIDENCE of Trump and Russian govt working together. Trump sons were told of potential wrongdoing by Clinton and wanted to know what it was. Entirely legitimate whether obtained from Russian citizens or other sources.
How high does the Russia-collusion hoax rate on the scale of U.S. political scandals? Veteran journalist and author, Lee Smith, would say it tops them all. With the Watergate scandal, the American press uncovered corruption and crimes at the highest levels of government, leading to President Richard M Nixon’s resignation. Fifty years on, we find the press fulfilling a much-altered purpose. Lee, author of ‘The Permanent Coup’ and ‘The Plot Against the President,’ joins me to explain why this event represents the darkest chapter in American politics, and the media’s complicity in this.
Shepard Smith at one point reported [and believed] the Steele Dossier as fact, or at least not disproven. Which at that time it was — both in conservative news sources, Congressmen (like Devin Nunes), and the like — shown to be a fabrication. We even knew quite some time ago that the FBI knew it was a complete fabrication. EVEN personalities on FOX NEWS were saying it was bunk! And these three indictments by Prosecutor Durham, the most recent of Igor Danchenko, prove this contention.
The employees of these media corporations know, deep down, what they did. They did the worst thing you can possibly do while calling yourself a “journalist”: they drowned US politics for years in a fake conspiracy theory funded and concocted by criminals for partisan gain.
But we have heard so little about these indictments from these media figures. Why? Because they know that as long as they stay united in silence, the only people who will point out what they did are those they have frozen out of their circle and trained their audience not to hear
The NYT, the WPost, CNN, NBC and the digital liberal outlets are all vastly more guilty of what they have spent years claiming Trump and the GOP are: they basically ran a dangerous disinformation campaign, full of lies, in conjunction with CIA/FBI, and now won’t own up to it.
From the start, Russiagate — which drowned US politics and dangerously ratcheted up tensions with a major nuclear-armed power — was concocted from whole cloth by serial liars paid for by the Clinton campaign and spread by their media servants: David Corn, Isikoff, Frank Foer.
They all made gigantic profit from this set of lies: all of them. Their ratings skyrocketed by scaring liberals about Kremlin control of the US. They wrote best-selling books and gave themselves Pulitzers based on this massive fraud. FBI lied to the FISA court. CIA fueled it all.
The indictments “cast new uncertainty on some past reporting on the dossier by news organizations, including The Washington Post?” LOL The dossier wasn’t just paid for by the Clinton campaign – which they lied about for a year – but the info in it came from a Clinton operative.
What Rachel Maddow in particular did makes her one of the most disgraceful and unhinged media figures ever to work for a major media corporation. Her derangement and lies were off the charts. Yet the liberal networks are bidding for her: because DNC disinformation is their model!
Anyway, for all of those who lied to the public for years — the NYT and WPost reporters, the rich and insulated CNN and NBC hosts, the countless charlatans and politicians like Adam Schiff & John Brennan who wrote bestselling books — none of this will matter. Lies are rewarded.
Polarization of media means virtually every major media corporation — CNN, NBC, NYT, WPost, NPR -have an exclusively Dem audience. These Dems don’t want to hear that they were lied to and, even if they knew, they’d be fine with it: for the right cause. So zero consequences.
But if you are someone who hates these media outlets and the liars who work for them to your core, know that your hatred is valid, justified and righteous. They are a toxic force in US political life. They don’t lie, smear and propagandize on occasion: it’s their core function.
MEDIA….
Jesse Watters
Jesse Watters discusses how the media latched on to the Russia collusion narrative on ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight.’
(Key in the below is that he worked for a Russian energy company. Why would Russians want Trump out? See my past “Bullet Points” on the issue.)
Dan Hoffman
Former CIA station chief Dan Hoffman reacts to federal agents arresting the primary sub-source who contributed to the Trump-Russia dossier
Jonathan Turley
Brett Tolman
Former federal prosecutor Brett Tolman reacts to the principle source of the Steele Dossier being charged with five counts of lying to the FBI.
Government Agent Whose Altered Email Enabled the Russia Hoax Won’t Spend a Day in Jail or Pay Any Fine
The Russia hoax undermined a duly elected president and continues to divide the nation. But one of the key figures who abused the trust of the people will not face prison time, reports Fox News.
Former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith was sentenced to 12 months probation and 400 hours of community service Friday after pleading guilty to making a false statement in the first criminal case arising from Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia probe.
That false statement had major consequences. The altered email cast suspicion on Page and thereby Trump, and created a false justification to wiretap Page.
[….]
What about the abuse of trust, the destruction of the FBI’s reputation, undermining the FISA court system, and the Russia hoax Clinesmith enabled and which still infects millions of American minds to this day?
“Altering the email has forever changed the course of my life,” Clinesmith said. “I have lost the means to provide for my growing family…lost the ability to give back to my nation… the shame and remorse will stay with me forever.”
The Trump presidency was not allowed to get off to anything like a normal start and was undermined by this case for most of its four years. Trump never truly overcame it despite being exonerated by the Mueller report, which found no American anywhere colluded with the Russians to impact the 2016 election.
Politico reports the prosecutors wanted Clinesmith to spend time in jail.
While prosecutors urged the judge to send Clinesmith to prison to send a message to others in government not to try something similar, Boasberg said he believed that message had already been sent.
Another message has been sent. Clinesmith will be the only Russia hoax figure prosecuted and he need not worry. Some left-wing foundation will give him a do-nothing job before long. Or CNN or MSNBC will give him an on-air analyst role.
POLITICO noted the judge saying “he believed that message had already been sent.” I doubt anyone in my own family — bedsides me and my boys and wife — knows that the Russian Collusion case has been shown to be a hoax. These are like retractions in a paper… front-page headlines splash the New York Times or the Washington Post, and then a month later a retraction is given on D3… which no one sees… so they think the headlines are still true. Trump was correct when referring to it as a witch hunt.
Recent declassified documents do not add information to the issue, they merely show that the above authors of books and columns to be 100% vindicated!
People making decisions based off of the NYTs, CNN, NPR, ABC, NBC, CBS, Washington Post, MSNBC, and the like… were LIED to for 3-years. The result?
Gallup Poll Shows 78% Of Democrats Mistakenly Believe Russia Changed Election Results
Not one intelligence agency or even Obama’s head of the Homeland Security Dept has supported that. I bet a lot of people (I would say almost all except for my sons) know the following:
President Donald Trump rejects the narrative that Russia wanted him to win. USA Today examined each of the 3,517 Facebook ads bought by the Russian-based Internet Research Agency, the company that employed 12 of the 13 Russians indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller for interfering with the 2016 election. It turns out only about 100 of its ads explicitly endorsed Trump or opposed Hillary Clinton. Most of the fake ads focused on racial division, with many of the ads attempting to exploit what Russia perceives, or wants America to perceive, as severe racial tension between blacks and whites…. [RPT addition: about 50 were pro-Hillary]
Democrats and “Republicans” just continue to believe nonsense based on some late-night talk show comedians and CNN/NPR. (I say “Republicans” because many who claim to be “Reagan Republicans” would today think his favorite publication [HUMAM EVENTS] is for white supremacists.) The L.A. Times use to carry columns by Dennis Prager and other conservative thinkers. No more are they carried by the paper.
Frankly, it’s sad. And dangerous… they are ripe to believe BIG LIES about Republicans and Trump.
Poll: 61 Percent of Democrats Say Republicans Are ‘Racist,’ ‘Bigoted,’ ‘Sexist’ (2016)
49% of Democrats think Trump voters are racist…. Fifty-seven percent (57%) of self-described political liberals believe those who vote for Trump are racist. (2019)
86% of Democrats think Trump is a racist
How do you make headway with these corporate news feeders of CNN/MSNBC?? I imagine Trump gaining in almost every major demographic means nothing to them? Trump gained more in these categories than in 2016…
Male Hispanics;
Female Hispanics;
Male Blacks;
Female Blacks;
Female Whites.
The only category he lost numbers in since 2016 were white males. Like I say, Trump needs to go back to racism school. But the tactics of the Left have not changed a bit… just more people truly believe it. And they expect us to be civil, and unite — exactly when did Democrats practice the “civility” to which they wish to return?….
When Barry Goldwater accepted the 1964 Republican nomination, California’s Democratic Gov. Pat Brown said, “The stench of fascism is in the air.”
Former Rep. William Clay Sr., D-Mo., said President Ronald Reagan was “trying to replace the Bill of Rights with fascist precepts lifted verbatim from ‘Mein Kampf.'”
Coretta Scott King, in 1980, said, “I am scared that if Ronald Reagan gets into office, we are going to see more of the Ku Klux Klan and a resurgence of the Nazi Party.”
After Republicans took control of the House in the mid-’90s, Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., compared the newly conservative-majority House to “the Duma and the Reichstag,” referring to the legislature set up by Czar Nicholas II of Russia and the parliament of the German Weimar Republic that brought Hitler to power.
About President George Herbert Walker Bush, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., said: “I believe (Bush) is a racist for many, many reasons. … (He’s) a mean-spirited man who has no care or concern about what happens to the African American community. … I truly believe that.”
About the Republican-controlled House, longtime Harlem Democratic Rep. Charlie Rangel, in 1994, said: “It’s not ‘s—-‘ or ‘n——-‘ anymore. (Republicans) say, ‘Let’s cut taxes.'” A decade later, Rangel said, “George (W.) Bush is our Bull Connor,” referring to the Birmingham, Alabama, Democrat segregationist superintendent of public safety who sicced dogs and turned fire hoses on civil rights workers.
Donna Brazile, Al Gore’s presidential campaign manager, in 1999, said: Republicans have a “white boy attitude, (which means) ‘I must exclude, denigrate and leave behind.’ They don’t see it or think about it. It’s a culture.” The following year, Brazile said: “The Republicans bring out Colin Powell and (Rep.) J.C. Watts, (R-Okla.), because they have no program, no policy. … They’d rather take pictures with Black children than feed them.”
About President George W. Bush, former Vice President Al Gore said: “(Bush’s) executive branch has made it a practice to try and control and intimidate news organizations, from PBS to CBS to Newsweek. … And every day, they unleash squadrons of digital brownshirts to harass and hector any journalist who is critical of the President.” Digital “brownshirts”?
About George W. Bush, George Soros, the billionaire Democratic donor, said: “The Bush administration and the Nazi and communist regimes all engaged in the politics of fear. … Indeed, the Bush administration has been able to improve on the techniques used by the Nazi and communist propaganda machines.”
Former NAACP Chairman Julian Bond, in a 2006 speech at historically Black Fayetteville State University said, “The Republican Party would have the American flag and the swastika flying side by side.”
Former Gov. Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee in 2005, described the contest between Democrats and Republicans as “a struggle between good and evil. And we’re the good.” Three years later, Dean referred to the GOP as “the white party.”
After Hurricane Katrina, Democratic Missouri Senate candidate Claire McCaskill said George W. Bush “let people die on rooftops in New Orleans because they were poor and because they were Black.”
Feminist superlawyer Gloria Allred, in 2001, referred to Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice as “Uncle Tom types.”
Then-Sen. Hillary Clinton, in 2006, said, “The (Republican-controlled) House of Representatives … has been run like a plantation. And you know what I’m talking about.”
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Democratic National Committee chairwoman in 2011, said “Republicans … want to literally drag us all the way back to Jim Crow laws.”……
I bet almost all of my family believes Trump mocked a disabled man’s handicap; think that when he said “there are fine people on both sides” he was saying there were “fine Nazis or white supremacists;” or think that racists and white supremacists have voted Republican in general; or that the bodies natural defenses in immunity are non-existent and only “vaccines” can bring immunity.
These are dangerous lies to believe.
Here is more regarding the latest declassified documents… one of the biggest lies the media has pushed in it’s life
The First Trump Declassified “Russia Document” Christopher Steele’s 2017 Confession To The FBI — Steele told FBI he leaked Russia collusion story to help Clinton and Great Britain, and was connected to his primary dossier source by former NSC staffer and impeachment witness Fiona Hill. (JUST THE NEWS)
….The FBI report of an interview agents conducted with Steele in September 2017, nearly a year after he had been terminated as an informant, provided explosive information about his motives in working simultaneously for the FBI and the opposition research firm for Clinton’s campaign. The document was obtained by Just the News and at times reads like a confession from the now-infamous former MI6 agent and author of the anti-Trump dossier.
Steele told agents that then-FBI Director James Comey’s decision to reopen the Clinton email investigation in fall of 2016 became his tipping point for leaking the anti-Trump collusion research that his company Orbis Intelligence had gathered and given to the FBI.
“STEELE explained that as the election season went on, they as a company were riding two horses — their client and the FBI — and after FBI Director James Comey’s reopening of the Hillary Clinton investigation, they had to pick one horse and chose the business client relationship over the relationship with the FBI,” the interview report stated.
“They followed what their client wanted, and they spoke to the press,” the report noted.
Steele and his partner Christopher Burrows even suggested the FBI deserved some of the blame for the decision to leak to the news media and Sen. John McCain’s office.
“STEELE and BURROWS described the overall situation as being one where it was ‘your [FBI] fault’ and ‘our fault,'” the memo reported, adding that Burrows was also upset the FBI had not paid Steele for his anti-Trump work.
The two British citizens told the FBI that concerns about the impact of a Trump presidency also motivated them…..
Mainstream Media before Trump was President and immediately when he set foot into the Oval Office was creating false stories about him. For instance, MLK’s Bust story an hour after Trump was elected: “On the evening of January 20, TIME White House correspondent Zeke Miller incorrectly reported that the bust of Martin Luther King Jr. had been removed from the Oval Office.” Most major news outlets carried it right away, and this was the beginning of 16 fake stories by early February that people ate up: Hence #FakeNews
The same people lapped up the phony Russia investigation, helping push the false narrative of Democrats for almost 3-years:
…McCabe’s own notes from the May 16, 2017 meeting don’t mention that Rosenstein had been discussing firing Comey since January. But five days later in a new meeting, McCabe quoted Rosenstein as confirming the termination had been in the works for months and was not really driven by the Russia probe…. (Obstruction Boomerang: FBI Knew DOJ Was Preparing To Fire Comey Long Before Trump Ordered It)
People who believed in this stuff and made decisions based on it ARE the problem with our body-politic. More than Trump. Spreading lies that were bigger than Obama’s Iran Deal thingy and bigger than any Trump lie. Seditious lies cooked up by Hillary in 2016.
The New York Times has issued an absurdly written correction to a story about President Trump and Russian meddling.
White House reporter Maggie Haberman falsely claimed in her report that 17 intelligence agencies all agreed Russia tried to interfere in the presidential election, reiterating a thoroughly debunked liberal talking point.
[….]
Haberman’s story repeated a claim liberals began circulating following a declassified report from the Director of National Intelligence in October on the Russian influence campaign. Since the DNI heads up 17 agencies, it was easy to frame the declassified report as a consensus built on 17 separate assessments. In fact only the three agencies who reviewed the matter signed off on that consensus.
The former director of national intelligence, James Clapper, said as much in a May Senate hearing. The assessment was a “coordinated” product from the FBI, the NSA and the CIA, he said, working under the “aegis” of the DNI. It was not signed off on by 17 agencies. That makes sense, as some of the agencies — Coast Guard intel perhaps most obviously — would have little to do with election hacking.
The Daily Caller News Foundation also addressed the claim in a fact check of a Hillary Clinton interview in May where she again repeated the phrase. Certainly, none of the other agencies disagreed on the record, but that’s to be expected if they didn’t conduct a separate analysis…..
More on the second claim regarding the Steele Dossier being Russian propaganda — even though it was touted for over 2-years in the pages of the NYT:
Who knew? …On Saturday, the New York Times published a story about how the “Mueller Report [was] likely to renew scrutiny of the Steele Dossier.” The Times reports that the dossier’s contents could even have been a Russian disinformation operation aimed at then-candidate Trump. Which comes as no surprise to conservatives who have been following the story.
Remember, the Steele dossier came about because the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC paid a law firm, which then hired Fusion GPS to dig up dirt on Trump. Fusion GPS then paid a former British intelligence officer, Christopher Steele, who leaned on contacts close to the Kremlin to get information that was used in the preparation of the dossier.
Is it any wonder that those Russians, who wanted to sow discord in the United States, would jump at the opportunity to provide misinformation, knowing that the media would eat it up?…
As it turns out, back in January 2018, New York Times reporter Scott Shane, the lead reporter on this story, was a member of a panel that somewhat resembled the Star Wars cantina scene at the International Spy Museum titled “Unpacking the Russia Story with the Experts Who Have Covered It.” The video is cued up to the appropriate cut for your convenience:
And regarding the New York Times correction to a story about Trump’s tax plan:
The New York Times issued an embarrassing correction after a report that attacked President Donald Trump’s recently passed tax plan got the numbers about as wrong as could be.
The lengthy Feb. 23 feature, headlined, “Get to Know the New Tax Code While Filling Out This Year’s 1040,” sought to detail how Trump’s tax plan would hurt middle-class families. A hypothetical couple — christened Sam and Felicity Taxpayer — would see their tax bill rise by nearly $4,000, according to the story.
Then came the correction saying the family would actually see taxes go down.
The Wall Street Journal’s James Freeman mocked the Times piece before the Old Gray Lady issued the correction.
“Even perennial tax-increase advocate Warren Buffett is now acknowledging the economic benefit of the Trump tax cuts, but The New York Times newsroom still won’t concede the point,” Freeman wrote on Feb. 27. “Will criticism from a liberal law professor persuade The Times to reconsider?”
Well, The Times did reconsider — but it may still not be 100 percent accurate…..
The New York Times had to issue an embarrassing correction to its story about another decades-old accusation of sexual misconduct against US Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh — because it failed to tell readers that the alleged victim doesn’t even remember the incident.
As The Post reported in its front-page story Monday, the Times piece omitted that crucial fact.
The Times article had been adapted from a book on Kavanaugh by two of its reporters, Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly. The newspaper claimed that Max Stier, a former classmate of the justice years ago at Yale University, had allegedly seen Kavanaugh pull his pants down at a party, and his friends then pushed his penis into the hands of a female student….
The New York Times was forced to issue four corrections to a failed hit piece against Foundation for Defense of Democracies founder Mark Dubowitz.
Last week, the Times published a piece aimed at portraying Dubowitz as corrupt, unethical, and incompetent because he opposed former President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran and applauded President Donald Trump for withdrawing the U.S. from the horrendous pact.
The embarrassing article falsely claimed that a GOP donor with financial ties to the United Arab Emirates gave FDD $2.7 million to fund an anti-Qatar conference; that Dubowitz “paid himself” twice as much as others who head think tanks; that Dubowitz created his own salary to far exceed his peers in the industry; and that the FDD is connected to Israel’s Likud Party.
Every single one of those claims is completely false, and the Times was forced to issue a lengthy correction admitting that its error-ridden piece had to be updated.
As noted by the correction, here’s the truth: Dubowitz’s compensation is determined by a board of directors, meaning he doesn’t arbitrarily create his own salary; his annual salary is almost identical with other think tank leaders; the FDD is not directly tied to the Likud Party in any way; and GOP donor Elliott Broidy gave $360,000 for the FDD conference, not $2.7 million….
These weren’t minor errors where someone’s name was misspelled or the date of an event was wrong. This was intended to be a disgusting, salacious, hit piece against Dubowitz because he gave credit to Trump for pulling out of the Iran deal.
The piece is uniquely embarrassing because of the volume of the embarrassing errors and how easy it should have been for editors to catch the erroneous claims.
While CNN previously insisted that the FISA warrant against Page did not use the infamous and debunked Steele dossier, in a Senate hearing on Wednesday, IG Michael Horowitz confirmed that the warrant was “entirely” reliant on it. The report also showed that FBI investigators knew the dossier was bogus and presented it to the FISA court as a reliable source of information.
In an astonishing admission, the Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz conceded to lawmakers Wednesday that the FBI’s FISA applications used to continue surveillance on the 2016 Trump campaign were based entirely on sources for the widely discredited Steele Dossier funded by the Democrats.
“The FISA applications relied entirely on information from the Steele… from the primary sub-source’s reporting to support the allegation that Page was coordinating with the Russian government on 2016 U.S. presidential election activities. However, the FBI did not share this information from department lawyers, and it was therefore omitted from the last two renewal applications,” Horowitz said.
The Democrat-funded Steele Dossier was basis for the grand Russian conspiracy theory peddled by deep-state government officials and the media that lead to a two-and-a-half year special counsel investigation with unlimited resources that ultimately vindicated the president.
The Horowitz report illustrates how the primary sub-source’s information fed to the Steele Dossier undercut the dossier’s own claims….
BTW, for 2-years I was told that the Steele Dossier was only PART of the warrants. NOPE. I was right, others woefully wrong.
Some Additional Stuff
In an article noted by POWERLINE, Tucker Carlson notes how the media is partially responsible for the “cover-up” of facts regarding the spying on an American citizen – via JEWISH WORLD REVIEW:
Thanks to the Department of Justice Inspector General’s report, we now know for certain what has been, for those paying attention, fairly obvious. The Steele dossier played a central role in the genesis of the Russia hoax and was used to justify extensive spying on former naval officer and Annapolis graduate Carter Page.
The top two leaders of the FBI were closely involved in this fiasco. Other powerful people knew what was happening and lied to cover it up. That all was confirmed by the IG report. The report was a disaster for the credibility of top leaders in Barack Obama’s FBI, and it’s also a big problem for the American news media.
For example, in early 2018, Washington Post intelligence and national security correspondent Shane Harris lectured Kim Strassel of The Wall Street Journal about how little she knows about the story.
“Yes,” he wrote, “I am telling you the dossier was not used as the basis for a FISA warrant on Carter Page.” That’s false. And yet, Harris hasn’t apologized or even acknowledged his incompetence.
Or take NBC News’s so-called intelligence correspondent Ken Dilanian. In the summer of 2018, he smugly tweeted, “Trump is wrong about Carter Page, the dossier and the FISA warrant.” But it looks like Trump was right, and he was wrong.
CNN Newsroom anchor and chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto did admit the Steele dossier might have been used for the warrant. But don’t be impressed. He lectured readers that “the FBI would corroborate information in the dossier on its own before using such intel to justify the FISA warrant.” Of course, that didn’t happen. In fact, the FBI hid information showing the dossier was false. Did Sciutto issue a correction? Of course not. But it does seem a little unfair to focus on Jim Sciutto. He was merely following the lead of almost everyone else at CNN, all of whom were frantically trying to convince us that the dossier was irrelevant:
Evan Perez, CNN senior justice correspondent: “You know, a lot of people will focus on the dossier, a lot of people will focus on a FISA, of Carter Page, and they’ll say they were spying on a campaign. But at the beginning, this is all about what Russia was doing.”
Shimon Prokupecz, CNN crime & justice correspondent: “Now Republicans were trying to claim that the dossier was key to getting the FISA, the surveillance warrant for Carter Page. But the Democrats memo clearly shows it wasn’t key.”
James Clapper, CNN national security analyst: “Even the earlier version of the redacted FISA authorization to me had enough information in it to indicate that the dossier was certainly not used as the primary source.”
Everything you just read turned out to be wrong. Has CNN retracted the comments or apologized? That’s a rhetorical question. Apologies require introspection and integrity. At CNN, they’re doubling down. CNN’s Don Lemon explained that, by definition, everything CNN reported was true….
CHUCK ROSS add to the media blame by noting that a Washington Post reporter is going back and doing a series on how the Steele Dossier was proffered as fact. In this latest article, Rachel Maddow is under the microscope: “WaPo Columnist Rips Rachel Maddow For Hyping Steele Dossier“
…According to the IG report, the FBI was unable to corroborate any of Steele’s allegations of collusion involving the Trump campaign. Steele’s primary source for the dossier also disputed key allegations in the document. Steele told FBI agents in October 2016 that one of the main sub-sources for the dossier was a “boaster” and “embellisher,” the report further stated.
Wemple laid out a timeline of Maddow’s coverage of the dossier, noting that she tended to hype developments that cut in favor of Steele’s reporting, while ignoring information that undermined the ex-spy.
“When small bits of news arose in favor of the dossier, the franchise MSNBC host pumped air into them,” wrote Wemple. “At least some of her many fans surely came away from her broadcasts thinking the dossier was a serious piece of investigative research, not the flimflam, quick-twitch game of telephone outlined in the Horowitz report.”
“She seemed to be rooting for the document,” he noted.
According to Wemple, Maddow touted reports from other news outlets that claimed parts of the dossier were corroborated. On May 3, 2017, she said on her show that “more and more” aspects of the dossier had been “independently corroborated.”
On Oct. 5, 2017, she said that “a lot” of the claims in the dossier were “dead to rights.” On April 16, 2018, she hyped a story published by McClatchy that the special counsel’s team had received evidence backing up the dossier’s allegation that former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen visited Prague in August 2016 to meet Kremlin operatives. The IG report said that the allegation was “not true.”
Maddow appeared so convinced of the dossier’s accuracy that she aired an hour-long special report on Dec. 8, 2017 hyping Steele’s reporting.
[….]
Maddow has only mentioned the Steele dossier once on her show since the release of the IG report. But instead of discussing the report’s critique of Steele, Maddow asserted that the IG debunked a GOP theory that the dossier was the spark for the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign.
“She was there for the bunkings, absent for the debunkings — a pattern of misleading and dishonest asymmetry,” says Wemple.
And where is the full-court-press in discussing how Adam Schiff has been shown to be woefully wrong at best, and a liar at worst (THE LID):
….Schiff ‘s also lied when he claimed the Justice Department was truthful with the FISA court about “Steele’s prior relationship with the FBI.”
Page 364 of Horowitz report says the “source characterization statement asserting that Steele’s prior reporting had been “corroborated and used in criminal proceedings,” which overstated the significance of Steele’s past reporting and was not approved by Steele’s FBI handling agent, as required by the Woods Procedures”
[….]
Schiff claimed the FBI conducted a “rigorous process” to vet Steele’s allegations, and the Page FISA application explained the FBI’s reasonable basis for finding Steele credible. But Horowitz disagreed on Page 383 and 384 of his report.
We determined that prior to and during the pendency of the FISAs the FBI was unable to corroborate any of the specific substantive allegations against Carter
Page contained in the election reporting and relied on in the FISA applications, and was only able to confirm the accuracy of a limited number of circumstantial facts,\ most of which were in the public domain, such as the dates that Page traveled to Russia, the timing of events, and the occupational positions of individuals referenced in the reports.
In addition to the lack of corroboration, we found that the FBI’s interviews of Steele, the Primary Sub-source, and a second sub-source, and other investigative activity revealed potentially serious problems with Steele’s description of information in his election reports. None of this was told to the court.
The Steele report also contended that the Russians had evidence that while staying at the Ritz-Carlton in Moscow Trump hired a hooker to give him a “golden shower,” ignoring the fact that the POTUS is something of a germaphobe and would never do that with a stranger. Page 188 of the Horowitz report explains the FBI knew the source who told Steele about the supposed incident was joking:
The Primary Sub-source explained that his/ her information came from “word of mouth and hearsay;” “conversation that [he/she] had with friends over beers; ” and that some of the information, such as allegations about Trump’s sexual activities, were statements he/she heard made in “jest.”
The Primary Sub-source also told WFO Agent 1 that he/she believed that the other sub-sources exaggerated their access to information and the relevance of that information to his/her requests. The Primary Sub-source told WFO Agent 1 that he/she “takes what [sub-sources] tell [him/ her] with ‘a grain of salt.”
[….]
The Horowitz report proves that Adam Schiff, the man who is leading the effort to impeach President Trump, lied to America about the FISA report….
LIBERTARIAN HUB notes this recent rumination from Baker and then the FLASHBACK video:
…In an interview on CNN, Baker went further in his critique of the bureau than did FBI Director James Comey, who said Sunday that he believed the FBI was “sloppy” in its efforts to obtain Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants against Page.
“Sloppiness is completely unacceptable. That is not the way you operate in front of a federal court. I don’t know what word you want to use, it’s terrible, it’s unacceptable, it shouldn’t happen. That is not the way we should be filing matters in front of a federal court,” Baker told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.
“I was distressed about it. I was completely distressed about it,” Baker said of his response to the inspector general’s (IG) findings.
Baker has testified that he personally reviewed the FISA applications against Page, given their political sensitivity….
Watch James Baker lie. Now that the truth is out, these older interviews are hilarious!
(Hat-Tip to OK BOOMER) Trey Gowdy shares his biggest takeaways from the DOJ Inspector General’s FISA abuse report on ‘The Story with Martha MacCallum.’
The next article is thanks to AMERICAN GREATNESS:“Ratcliffe: Dems Withholding Transcript That Reveals How ‘Whistleblower Got Caught With Chairman Schiff’”
…Ratcliffe pointed out that Democrats keep using the word “demand” do describe Trump’s suggestion to the Ukraine president that corruption involving former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden should be looked into.
“Guess which word isn’t anywhere in the transcript?” Ratcliffe asked before informing the committee that the word is “demand.”
“Nowhere in that transcript does the president make a ‘demand,’” he declared. “Do you know where the word ‘demand’ came from? It came from the whistleblower. That’s the first time we heard the word demand,” Ratcliffe explained.
When he notified the Inspector General for the Intelligence Community, he said President Trump made a demand! He thought he could do that because he thought no one would ever be able to prove that because what president would take the unprecedented step of releasing a transcript with a foreign leader. This president did! Something that the whistleblower never expected.
President Trump, we keep hearing, got caught. President Trump, we keep hearing, is obstructing justice. The president that took the unprecedented step of releasing a transcript so that everyone could see the truth is not obstructing congress. The president didn’t get caught. The whistleblower got caught. The whistleblower made false statements. The whistleblower got caught with Chairman Schiff!
Ratcliffe noted that rather than run the impeachment inquiry out of the House Judiciary where it belonged, Democrats put the highly conflicted chairman of the Intelligence Committee in charge of the case.
“The person who got caught with the whistleblower!” Ratcliffe exclaimed.
The Texas Republican recalled how Schiff had initially denied having any contact with the anti-Trump complainant identified online as Eric Ciaramella (seen below shaking hands with former president Barack Obama).
[….]
The president took the unprecedented step of releasing a transcript so everyone could see the truth.
Here’s another transcript everyone should see: sworn testimony confirming that the whistleblower didn’t tell the truth both verbally and in writing. But Schiff won’t release it. pic.twitter.com/uRCvDPK1rg
When questioned by Ratcliffe during his closed door testimony on October 4, Atkinson revealed information about a potential link between Schiff or his staff and the whistleblower.
Responding to a question about the transcript on Twitter last month, Ratcliffe said: “It’s because I asked IG Atkinson about his ‘investigation’ into the contacts between Schiff’s staff and the person who later became the whistleblower. The transcript is classified ‘secret’ so Schiff can prevent you from seeing the answers to my questions.”
I know why @paulsperry_ It’s because I asked IG Atkinson about his “investigation” into the contacts between Schiff’s staff and the person who later became the whistleblower. The transcript is classified “secret” so Schiff can prevent you from seeing the answers to my questions
This article excerpt comes by way of RED STATE: “Kimberley Strassel: ‘Buried in the IG Report is a Line that Poses an Enormous Question, Central to Everything’”
Buried in the IG report is a line that poses an enormous question, one that is central to everything, and really must be answered. Remember: According to all relevant players, prior to July of 2016, nobody had a Trump-Russia collusion narrative on their minds.
Indeed, the FBI says it was only the Downer tip-off at end-July that spurred the investigation. Downer for his part says it was public revelation in July of the DNC hack that caused him to finally wonder about collusion and connect his spring conversation with Papadopoulos.
Fusion GPS’s Glenn Simpson, meanwhile, in Senate testimony, “stress[ed]” he hired Steele in May to look at Trump’s “business activities” in Russia….By Simpson’s telling (under penalty of perjury), Steele just sort of stumbled on this much “broader” “political conspiracy.”
But here is what Steele told the IG: That in May 2016, Simpson approached Steele to “assist in determining Russia’s actions related to the 2016 election”; “whether Russia was trying to achieve a particular election outcome”; and…
“whether there were any ties between the Russian government and Trump and his campaign.” (Page 93) Seems Simpson had a pretty good bead on the “narrative” long before the govt. claims to have had it and before even his own source had reported it to him. Huh.
Let’s hope Attorney John Durham provides some answers on who exactly knew what in the spring of 2016.
The answer could be that Glenn Simpson and his wife, Mary Jacoby, wrote the script a long time ago.
Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) appeared on Fox News’ “Hannity” in the spring to discuss the origins of the Steele dossier. He said it should really be called the “Simpson” dossier. Although Christopher Steele likely contributed “stories” to the dossier, and his years of experience in British intelligence lent credence to the document, Nunes said he believed that Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson may actually have written the majority of it.
[….]
Simpson hired Christopher Steele in June 2016. According to Smith, Steele had been “identified as a British spy in 1999.” He had been chief of the “Russia desk when Russian assassins killed FSB defector Alexander Litvinenko in London and was hardly in a position to make discreet inquiries. Still, Simpson must have thought Steele’s name at a minimum would be useful in marketing whatever his firm pulled together. Reportedly, Steele had a good relationship with the FBI, and journalists love spies who spill secrets.”
(I have said for a long time he will be a rich man.)
Former Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page discusses the details of the IG report, allegations of FISA court abuse and his meeting with Russians in 2016.
