Free Republic

Nearly four years after the now-discredited Russia collusion probe was formally closed, the Justice Department has released heavily redacted memos showing the FBI initially considered resolving concerns about Moscow targeting Donald Trump's campaign by simply giving the GOP presidential nominee a defensive briefing back in 2016. The information was contained in a new release of documents in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by the conservative group Citizens United, which sought the interviews conducted by the Justice Department inspector general of key players involved in the Russia probe, including former DOJ official Bruce Ohr's wife and former Obama Attorney...

Our federal government paid for Russian disinformation to frame the president of the United States for colluding with Russia. ============================================================ The FBI put a contributor to the Hillary Clinton campaign’s Donald Trump smear dossier on FBI payroll as a confidential human source after investigating Igor Danchenko for allegedly spying for the Russian government, revealed Special Counsel John Durham in a court filing unsealed by a Virginia federal court yesterday. The filing contains this bombshell and seven other significant details about the Democrat-led plot to use U.S. intelligence agencies to deny Americans the results of their choice for president in 2016....

Armed Services panel secretly fought court battle this summer to quash subpoena seeking records of contacts with ex-FBI official Daniel Jones and liberal-funded The Democracy Integrity Project nonprofit. ================================================================================= The efforts to disseminate a now-discredited theory that the Trump campaign had secret computer communications with the Kremlin extended beyond the FBI, CIA, and State Department to the U.S. Senate. Under the late Sen. John McCain, the Armed Services Committee engaged a former FBI official and his progressive-funded nonprofit to produce a report on the matter, according to court records obtained by Just the News. The Senate committee, now under Democrats'...

The FBI released 34 pages of notes, known as “302s,” of its 2016 and 2017 interviews with Bruce Ohr, the DOJ official who met with the British dossier author Christopher Steele and opposition research firm Fusion GPS’s Glen Simpson. Ohr’s wife, Nellie Ohr, worked for Fusion GPS throughout the 2016 presidential campaign, when they were hired by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Convention. The FBI was sued by the watchdog group Judicial Watch to comply with their requests for access to the notes via Freedom of Information Act. Read the documents below:

At the Daily Wire, Ryan Saavedra postulates a breakthrough in DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s investigation into alleged FISA abuse against the Trump campaign. Saavedra reports that “at least one witness has started to cooperate in the investigation.” Fox News also reports that an Obama administration official has flipped. Saavedra suggests that the official most likely to be cooperating with Horowitz’s investigation (which in turn, as I understand it, is collaborating with the Durham probe that was ordered by Attorney General William Barr) is Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec. If Kavalec has indeed flipped, how significant is it?...

Former Clinton friend and advisor, Dick Morris suggested in February 2018 that the Steele dossier might have been made up by the Clintons and that Steele was only used to provide it some credibility: “The reason Hillary hired Fusion [GPS] is because she needed someone more credible than Sidney Blumenthal and Cody Shearer to float these charges,” Morris alleges. Just as the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee used intermediaries in financing the Steele dossier to keep its fingerprints off a document styled as intelligence and not opposition research, Shearer allegedly used the tactic of laundering to ensure that...

Former British spy Christopher Steele and Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson claimed to have concerns about the safety and security of one of the sources for the dossier, but outed him anyway by talking to journalists. Steele told a State Department official in October 2016 that “source protection” was a focus in his investigation of President Donald Trump, according to notes from the meeting released earlier this month. That purported concern was also shared by Simpson, who hired Steele on behalf of the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign. He told Justice Department official Bruce Ohr on Jan. 20,...

Did the FBI verify the Trump dossier? It’s a question that then-Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe refused to answer. The dossier is the piece of political opposition research compiled by former MI6 spook Christopher Steele that the Clinton campaign and the Democrats bankrolled. The intention was to find dirt on Trump. It was reportedly used as credible evidence to secure a FISA spy warrant on Carter Page, who briefly served as a foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign. This FISA warrant was renewed at least three times from 2016 up until 2017. Was it verified? Given these glaring errors...

Political watchdog Judicial Watch has uncovered documents containing email conversation threads between top Department of Justice and State Department officials, in which they discuss "targeting" President Trump with Steele Dossier material.Four pages of documents from the U.S. Department of Justice have been released by Judicial Watch.The docs show a conversation between former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of European, former Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr, and Eurasian Affairs Kathleen Kavalec, discussing using material from the unverified dossier to target Donald Trump.

Of all the wild tales that Christopher Steele spun about Russia-Trump collusion during a visit to the State Department shortly before the 2016 election, only one was deemed worth forwarding to his FBI handlers. Long hidden, the now-disclosed email speaks volumes about both the quality of Steele’s so-called intelligence gathering and the FBI’s willingness to vet an informant who was openly biased against Donald Trump, paid by Trump’s Democratic opponent, and motivated by an Election Day deadline. Multiple sources confirm to me that the attachment that Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec sent to then-FBI section chief Stephen Laycock...

Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., hinted Monday the coming release of documents that will "show" U.S. ambassadors conspired with the FBI and the Justice Department to harm President Trump. “It's additional information that is coming out that will show not only was there no collusion, but there was a coordinated effort to take this president down,” Meadows told Fox News’ Sean Hannity. “We talk about the 'Deep State.' There are players now, even ambassadors, that are sitting ambassadors that were involved in part of this with the FBI-DOJ.” Meadows did not name any ambassadors. “As we look at this, it's time...

WASHINGTON – As part of their ongoing oversight efforts to ensure that the FBI’s law enforcement activities are free of improper political influence, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) yesterday sent six letters seeking information and documents regarding Christopher Steele’s work on behalf of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary for America. The letters seek information and documents relating to those political organizations’ knowledge of and involvement in Mr. Steele’s work and his reported interactions with the FBI while he was working on behalf of these political organizations....