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The former British spy who compiled a dossier of allegations about Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia brought the document to the FBI in July 2016 because he was worried about “whether a political candidate was being blackmailed,” according to a congressional interview transcript released Tuesday. California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, revealed the transcript from an August closed-door interview with Glenn Simpson, a co-founder of the political opposition research firm Fusion GPS. The firm commissioned the dossier, which was initially paid for by a conservative website and then later by Democrats, including Hillary...

A bank has reportedly handed over a series of financial records from intelligence firm Fusion GPS after the firm pushed to prevent the documents from being given to Congress.The release of the documents was in response to a subpoena from the House Intelligence Committee as part of its probe into Russia's meddling in the 2016 election and ties to the Trump campaign.A congressional lawyer said Friday that TD Bank "produced all remaining responsive documents" to the House Intelligence Committee under the terms of a confidential settlement, CNN reported. ADVERTISEMENT The handover of the 70 documents comes after a federal judge on Thursday dismissed the...

The White House got some help last night in fending off Michael Wolff’s dishy, gossipy book on Donald Trump — Tony Blair. The former prime minister blasted Wolff’s reporting as “a complete fabrication” on a claim made that Blair warned about British intelligence surveilling the Trump campaign. Blair expressed consternation that the uncorroborated allegations in Fire and Fury have been embraced so unquestioningly: Speaking of unexpected sources, the best White House response to Wolff comes from the spokesperson who got run out of the West Wing months ago. Sean Spicer calmly dissects the credibility issues in this appearance on ABC’s...

Mueller’s “Pit Bull” Andrew Weissmann under scrutiny as Rosenstein agrees to turn over documents to Nunes The Department of Justice has agreed to turn over all documents related to the controversial dossier to the House Intelligence Committee after four months of wrangling and legal threats ended in a Wednesday night phone call and agreement. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein spoke at length Wednesday night, just hours before Nunes’ imposed midnight deadline on the Justice Department passed. Rosenstein not only agreed to provide all the documents requested, which include unreacted FBI interviews with witnesses,...

GOP senators request criminal investigation of Trump dossier author © Greg Nash Two Republican senators are asking the Department of Justice to open a criminal investigation into Christopher Steele, the author of a controversial research opposition dossier on President Trump. Sens. Chuck Grassley (Iowa) and Lindsey Graham (S.C.) sent a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray asking that they investigate if the former MI6 agent lied to federal authorities. "I don’t take lightly making a referral for criminal investigation. But, as I would with any credible evidence of a crime unearthed in the course...

WASHINGTON — More than a year after Republican leaders promised to investigate Russian interference in the presidential election, two influential Republicans on Friday made the first known congressional criminal referral in connection with the meddling — against one of the people who sought to expose it. Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a senior committee member, told the Justice Department they had reason to believe that a former British spy, Christopher Steele, lied to federal authorities about his contacts with reporters regarding information in the dossier, and they...

Nigergate: the dangerous relations between Democrat Senators and ex spies Here follows an interesting article from the Italian newspaper Il Giornale. I make no comment at all other than ‘read it’. Very soon, under the title “The Rockefeller Connection”, I will post something revealing, something important that until now passed completely under the Radar Screen. Stay tuned .. Nigergate: the dangerous relations between Democrat Senators and ex spies Il GIORNALE 13 November 2005 By Gian Marco Chiocci and Mario Sechi October 9 2002, Rome. Elisabetta Burba, journalist with Panorama magazine, crosses Via Veneto. At the American Embassy someone is waiting...

9) The above text explains why Mueller hired the same-old-same-old Hillary crowd for his supposed "independent" investigation into Trump: The same people had to run both investigations because otherwise the new investigators would discover the shenanigans of the old investigators. Putting Strzok and Page on the team was the FBI's way of protecting itself. 10) Nobody should accord this wretched and corrupted pseudo-investigation the figleaf of respectability. Even in the federal justice system, no successful prosecution by this conflicted team would withstand appeal. As to the ostensible crime they're investigating - "collusion" (which, in fact, is not a crime) with...

FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe abruptly cancelled an appearance before the House Intelligence Committee scheduled for Tuesday. Sources told Fox News reporter Chad Pergram that they believe McCabe canceled on the panel over fears he would be asked about recently demoted Justice Department official Bruce Ohr’s wife, who worked for Fusion GPS during the 2016 presidential election. “FBI’s McCabe was expected to appear before Hse to Intel Cmte Tues. Now told he’s not coming. Expect subpoenas to compel McCabe to appear this wk." Source: “McCabe has an Ohr problem,” tweeted Fox News reporter Chad Pergram.

The co-founder of the firm behind the anti-Trump ‘dossier’ told House investigators Tuesday that he personally discussed with members of the media allegations of Trump-Russia collusion, though he did not speak to the sources behind the claims, a source told Fox News. According to a source familiar with the matter, Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson refused to answer key questions during his seven-hour, closed-door appearance before the House Intelligence Committee. The source said he would not answer questions on his relationship with specific journalists or ties to the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign, which financed the anti-Trump research...

A senior Justice Department official was demoted on Wednesday amid an ongoing House intelligence committee investigation into his contacts with Fusion GPS, the firm responsible for the Trump dossier, according to Fox News. Bruce G. Ohr, who was until Wednesday associate deputy attorney general, met during the 2016 campaign with the author of the dossier, Christopher Steele, according to evidence obtained by committee investigators. Ohr also met “shortly after” the election with Glenn Simpson, co-founder of Fusion GPS, investigators also found. Congressional sources told Fox News that Simpson and Ohr met sometime around Thanksgiving last year, when President-elect Trump was...

EXCLUSIVE: A senior Justice Department official was demoted this week amid an ongoing investigation into his contacts with the opposition research firm responsible for the anti-Trump “dossier,” the department confirmed to Fox News. Until Wednesday morning, Bruce G. Ohr held two titles at DOJ: associate deputy attorney general, a post that placed him four doors down from his boss, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein; and director of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF), a program described by the department as “the centerpiece of the attorney general’s drug strategy.” Ohr will retain his OCDETF title but has been stripped...

Americans generally know nothing about our European "allies" and the nefarious plans they may occasionally hatch against us. But people familiar with history know how the British Foreign Office was a primary mover in getting the United States into World War I. Winston Churchill certainly wanted us to join the Brits in WWII, and after Pearl Harbor, we did. By the 1930s, the Soviets had deeply suborned and penetrated the U.K., and sentimental Marxism is still the main religion of Britain, though the name "Mohammed" is now the most popular name for baby boys. A BBC survey several years ago...

Investigators from the House Intelligence Committee were finally able to get a peek at classified documents related to the controversial anti-Trump dossier behind closed doors at the Justice Department this week, Fox News reported. The committee's chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), subpoenaed the FBI and the Justice Department over two months ago for documents relating to the Russia dossier. Nunes told Fox News that in a bizarre turn of events, Democrats from the committee, who had argued all year that there was no need for a subpoena, were the first ones to show up at the DOJ on Tuesday to...

The Brits seem to do a good job of record-keeping, as far as companies are concerned. So the link above goes to a profile of Christopher Steele's company - Orbis Business Intelligence. First of all, Steele is supposed to be the "Former MI6" mastermind and general James Bond character, who accumulated the Trump pee story. In reality, he just runs a third rate political consulting company. As far as I can tell, his last post in Russia was no later than 1998...so his contacts there might be a tad bit stale. But lets look at this juggernaut of a company....

SNIPAnd a former senior intelligence officer for a Western country who specialized in Russian counterintelligence tells Mother Jones that in recent months he provided the bureau with memos, based on his recent interactions with Russian sources, contending the Russian government has for years tried to co-opt and assist Trump—and that the FBI requested more information from him.SNIPIn June, the former Western intelligence officer—who spent almost two decades on Russian intelligence matters and who now works with a US firm that gathers information on Russia for corporate clients—was assigned the task of researching Trump's dealings in Russia and elsewhere, according to...

In the face of scandal allegations, the normal response of Democrats is to circle the wagons and defend their comrade under fire. That’s not happening now that the dam is breaking, and people are catching on that the hysteria ginned over alleged Trump collusion was a cover, a means of deflecting attention away from the real corruption.   Both the Clinton and Obama wings of the Democrat establishment are implicated, and so are the henchmen who got the Special Counsel investigation of Trump going. So when Tom Perez, the head of the DNC ran for the hills, I took...

[Editor’s Note: In this special Just Security article, highly respected former member of the CIA’s Senior Intelligence Service, John Sipher examines the Steele dossier using methods that an intelligence officer would to try to validate such information. Sipher concludes that the dossier’s information on campaign collusion is generally credible when measured against standard Russian intelligence practices, events subsequent to Steele’s reporting, and information that has become available in the nine months since Steele’s final report. The dossier, in Sipher’s view, is not without fault, including factual inaccuracies. Those errors, however, do not detract from an overarching framework that has proven...

The strange and fascinating world of the British spy known as ‘Chris Whatsit’ was unravelling yesterday. Christopher Steele was once MI6’s top spy on Russian affairs and lived in the shadows until being unmasked as the alleged author of the ‘dirty dossier’ on Donald Trump. He was dubbed ‘Chris Whatsit’ by his late wife on their first date because she could not remember his name – but he revelled in being a man of mystery. Now the 52-year-old is hoping to return to anonymity after fleeing his £1.5million home in Surrey, telling his neighbour to look after his three cats....

The former British spy who put together an unverified dossier of explosive allegations about President Trump during last year’s campaign has been ordered to give a deposition in a multi-million-dollar libel case brought against a media outlet that published the document. Former MI-6 British Intelligence Officer Christopher Steele is fighting the decision by U.S. District Court Judge Ursula Ungaro, of the Southern District of Florida that he must answer questions in the suit against Buzzfeed. A lawyer directly involved in the case said the issue will likely be argued before the British courts where a similar libel case is being...