Posted on 09/06/2018 7:01:50 PM PDT by yesthatjallen
July and August 2016 one day may be remembered as the infamous summer of Steele and Ohr.
That’s because new evidence shows former Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr’s efforts to influence the FBI’s Russia probe — on behalf of Donald Trump-despising British spy Christopher Steele — started much earlier than previously described.
For much of the past year, many in Congress have labored under the notion that Ohr, then the No. 4 Department of Justice (DOJ) official, began assisting the FBI’s probe into Russia election collusion only after Trump won the 2016 election.
Lawmakers’ belief was rooted in reports showing Ohr’s first documented interview with FBI agents occurred in November 2016, and in testimony from Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson, who mentioned Ohr’s involvement in the probe as starting after Thanksgiving 2016.
But now, based on Ohr’s own account in a closed-door congressional interview and other contemporaneous documents, congressional investigators have learned that Ohr made his first contact with the FBI about Trump-Russia collusion evidence in late July and early August 2016. And his approach was prompted by information he got from his friend, the former British intelligence agent Steele.
The discovery is one of several key pieces of evidence emerging in recent weeks that explain how the FBI probe pivoted suddenly from looking at the conduct of Trump adviser George Papadopoulos to consuming a document now infamously known as the Steele dossier.
The FBI formally opened the Trump campaign probe — code-named Crossfire Hurricane — on July 31, 2016, based on an Australian diplomat’s claim that Papadopoulos, a young Trump campaign foreign policy aide, appeared to have prior knowledge that Russia had derogatory information it planned to release on Hillary Clinton.
Agents feared Papadopoulos might be looking to create contacts in Moscow to gain access to that Clinton dirt.
But multiple sources tell me the FBI soon received information — now considered highly classified — that undercut the theory of the Papadopoulos case. One source described the evidence as “indisputably exculpatory,” while another said the information “put the predicate used to start the case in reversal.”
Whatever the nature of that classified evidence, the FBI’s own account in court records shows agents suddenly seemed to lose a sense of urgency about the Papadopoulos allegation. They inexplicably waited about six months to interview both the Trump campaign aide and the European professor who allegedly alerted Papadopoulos to the Russia dirt and introduced him to Moscow contacts.
Instead, agents pivoted more aggressively to a different set of allegations of Russia-Trump collusion, those gathered by former British MI6 agent Steele, who at the time was working to dig up dirt on the GOP nominee as part of a Fusion GPS project funded by Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
Steele first approached the FBI about the raw intelligence of possible Trump-Russia ties on July 5, 2016, when he stopped by the bureau’s office in Rome. Whatever transpired there, that first contact was not enough to cause the FBI to start an immediate probe.
Then Ohr, the No. 4 DOJ official, intervened, according to the newly discovered information.
Ohr’s account to Congress and his contemporaneous notes show he had multiple contacts with Steele in July 2016. One occurred just before Steele visited the FBI in Rome, another right after Steele made the contact.
A third contact occurred July 30, 2016, exactly one day before the FBI and its counterintelligence official, Peter Strzok, opened the Trump probe officially.
Steele met with Ohr and Ohr’s wife, Nellie, in a Washington hotel restaurant for breakfast. At the time, Nellie Ohr and Steele worked for the same employer, Simpson’s Fusion GPS opposition research firm, and on the same project to uncover Russia dirt on Trump, according to prior testimony to Congress.
Ohr told lawmakers that his wife made about $45,000 for her work at Fusion in 2015 and 2016 and he disclosed to FBI officials that he might have a conflict because his wife worked for the same firm as Steele for a period of time.
Steele’s email asking for the July 30, 2016, breakfast suggested he had information to discuss about a “favorite business tycoon.” GOP investigators believe that could have been a reference to Trump.
Ohr has said he thinks the reference may have been to Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, a man both he and Steele hoped to “flip” as a prosecution witness against Trump presidential campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
Congressional Democrats are more inclined to believe Ohr’s description. But the differences in opinion really don’t matter. That’s because Ohr acknowledged to Congress that the July 30, 2016, meeting involved a discussion about the allegations Steele had been gathering against Trump and Russia.
More significantly, Ohr told Congress the information related by Steele that day so concerned him that it prompted him to reach out to the FBI and pass it along, even though he knew he had a conflict of interest, given his wife’s work for Fusion on the same project.
According to my sources, Ohr called then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe the same day as his Steele breakfast and met with McCabe and FBI lawyer Lisa Page on Aug. 3 to discuss the concerns about Russia-Trump collusion that Steele had relayed.
Ohr disclosed to lawmakers that he made another contact with the FBI on Aug. 15, 2016, talking directly to Strzok. Within a month of Ohr passing along Steele’s dirt, the FBI scheduled a follow-up meeting with the British intelligence operative — and the path was laid for the Steele dossier to support a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to surveil Trump campaign aide Carter Page.
Just as important, Ohr told Congress he understood Steele’s information to be raw and uncorroborated hearsay, the sort of information that isn’t admissible in court. And he told FBI agents that Steele appeared to be motivated by a “desperate” desire to keep Trump from becoming president.
There is now growing confidence that the FBI’s sudden pivot from Papadopoulos to Steele was driven by several individuals, all with serious political baggage: Page and Strzok exchanged text messages about their desire to stop Trump from becoming president; Steele admitted he was desperate to keep Trump from the presidency; Ohr’s wife worked for the firm hired by Clinton to find dirt on Trump; and McCabe’s wife was a Democratic candidate in Virginia whose campaign got hundreds of thousands of dollars of electioneering help from Clinton ally and former Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe.
Ohr’s new account could be potentially explosive, both for Republicans trying to make the case that the FBI engaged in misconduct in investigating Trump and for the DOJ inspector general’s probe into whether the FBI misled a federal court in seeking the Trump campaign warrants.
Far more investigation needs to be done to resolve what happened. But there are now more serious questions about the FBI’s conduct, thanks to Ohr’s candor.
For starters, why did the FBI allow Ohr to participate in the Steele matter when there was a known conflict with his wife’s employment? And did they ever disclose that conflict to the court?
Why did the FBI fail to fully disclose to the court that Steele was being paid by Democrats to help defeat Trump, or that Steele himself was desperate to stop Trump?
Did agents misrepresent “hearsay” evidence as corroborated intelligence?
And should the FBI have shut down the probe — after the original predicate about Papadopoulos was called into question — rather than pivoting to Steele, especially since two key bureau employees involved in it, Strzok and Page, had their own expressed desire to keep Trump from winning the presidency?
The answers to these questions are essential to the American public and its ability to continue to trust the very important work of the FBI, the DOJ and the larger intelligence community.
John Solomon is an award-winning investigative journalist whose work over the years has exposed U.S. and FBI intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal scientists’ misuse of foster children and veterans in drug experiments, and numerous cases of political corruption. He is The Hill’s executive vice president for video.
I wonder if Nellie was hired for her expertise as a translator, or for her connection to the FBI through her husband.
I suspect the latter.
A particularly devious move would be for Steele to have written all of the dossier himself, and had it translated into Russian for Nellie to translate back into English. That would be really cute... if she was hired primarily as a backdoor, she had to be given something plausible to do.
Hannity only had a few minutes to begin discussing the following today, because Fox went to the Trump rally, but what was being said by Solomon, Carter & Jarrett (from memory) sounded like this has become a major investigation on multiple fronts:
6 Sept: Washington Examiner: Grand jury impaneled to probe fired FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe: Report
by Naomi Lim
Federal prosecutors in Washington are using a grand jury to investigate whether fired FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe purposely misled government officials over his role in an unauthorized disclosure to a newspaper in 2016, according to a report.
The grand jury, impaneled for months, has summoned more than one witness who may be required to testify if McCabe is charged and the matter goes to trial, the Washington Post reported Thursday.
A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia declined to comment to the Post...
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/grand-jury-investigate-fired-andrew-mccabe-report
the intro before Hannity’s guests came on.
Youtube: 55 secs: BREAKING: Andrew McCabe Grand Jury Convenes. 9/6/18
A grand jury has been convened to hear if charges should be brought against Andrew McCabe over the FISA court warrants. Perhaps others.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dhq_TfsYFPc
“”””Steele’s email asking for the July 30, 2016, breakfast suggested he had information to discuss about a “favorite business tycoon.” GOP investigators believe that could have been a reference to Trump. “””””””””””
Do ya think????
More investigation is needed? What the hell has the special council been doing for two years?
How about the inspector General?
How about Huber?
Hillary,and Obama,Lynch,Jarrett Rice ,Powers,were all involved in this scam
“And his approach was prompted by information he got from his friend, the former British intelligence agent Steele.”
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Lol. The Russophobe nuts’ favorite MI6.
Video: 5mins56secs: Lou Dobbs: Grand Jury impaneled to probe fired FBI director Andrew McCabe: report
Victoria Toening on the report that prosecutors in Washington impaneled a grand jury to look into the case of former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.
https://news.ava360.com/grand-jury-impaneled-to-probe-fired-fbi-director-andrew-mccabe-report_0899acd55.html
The Deep State planned insurance... just in case Trump won.
This was planned long before the election.
6 Sept: Real Clear Investigations: Paul Sperry: Exclusive: FBI Kept From U.S. Spy Court Russian View of Carter Page as ‘an Idiot’
The FBI omitted from its application to spy on Carter Page the fact that Russian spies had dismissed the former Trump campaign adviser as unreliable – or as one put it, an “idiot” – and therefore unworthy of recruiting, according to congressional sources who have seen the unredacted document.
The potentially exculpatory detail was also withheld from three renewals of the wiretap warrant before a special government surveillance court. The warrants issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court allowed the FBI to spy on Page and others he was in contact with for almost a year, the sources also confirmed.
The FBI was aware of Russians’ skepticism that Page knew anything of value or was a significant player because the bureau had recorded them voicing such doubts in a wiretap, from an earlier espionage case involving three Russian spies working undercover for the Kremlin in New York...
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2018/09/05/fbi_kept_from_fisa_court_russian_view_of_page_as_idiot.html
Ten million words could be written about how corrupt the Trump-Russia collusion narrative is, but as long as Sleepy Sessions is at the helm, Mueller is still out there conducting his get Trump witch hunt.
“Scam”??
Try coup d’etat, treason, sedition, subversion, tampering with elections, and working clandestinely to overturn the election.
A wee bit more than a “scam.” A scam is a Nigerian “prince”trying to con you out of your money.
NO DC grand jury will ever indict another Democrat....McCabe will skate....maybe even get his job back!
NO DC grand jury will ever indict another Democrat....McCabe will skate....maybe even get his job back!
NO DC grand jury will ever indict another Democrat....McCabe will skate....maybe even get his job back!
NO DC grand jury will ever indict another Democrat....McCabe will skate....maybe even get his job back!
What an absolutely pathetic state of affairs.
It looks like the Ohrs are in a boat without a paddle, and going down fast.
The Hill put forth the comic book version of events, leaving out about 40 or 50 major players that conspired to overthrow the President of the United States.
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