Posted on 05/08/2019 6:14:20 AM PDT by Red Badger
Steele’s stunning pre-FISA confession: Informant needed to air Trump dirt before election
If ever there were an admission that taints the FBI’s secret warrant to surveil Donald Trump’s campaign, it sat buried for more than 2 1/2 years in the files of a high-ranking State Department official.
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec’s written account of her Oct. 11, 2016, meeting with FBI informant Christopher Steele shows the Hillary Clinton campaign-funded British intelligence operative admitted that his research was political and facing an Election Day deadline.
And that confession occurred 10 days before the FBI used Steele’s now-discredited dossier to justify securing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page and the campaign’s ties to Russia.
Steele’s client “is keen to see this information come to light prior to November 8,” the date of the 2016 election, Kavalec wrote in a typed summary of her meeting with Steele and Tatyana Duran, a colleague from Steele’s Orbis Security firm. The memos were unearthed a few days ago through open-records litigation by the conservative group Citizens United.
Kavalec’s notes do not appear to have been provided to the House Intelligence Committee during its Russia probe, according to former Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.). “They tried to hide a lot of documents from us during our investigation, and it usually turns out there’s a reason for it,” Nunes told me. Senate and House Judiciary investigators told me they did not know about them, even though they investigated Steele’s behavior in 2017-18.
One member of Congress transmitted the memos this week to the Department of Justice’s inspector general, fearing its investigation of FISA abuses may not have had access to them.
Nonetheless, the FBI is doing its best to keep much of Kavalec’s information secret by retroactively claiming it is classified, even though it was originally marked unclassified in 2016.
The apparent effort to hide Kavalec’s notes from her contact with Steele has persisted for some time.
State officials acknowledged a year ago they received a copy of the Steele dossier in July 2016, and got a more detailed briefing in October 2016 and referred the information to the FBI.
But what was discussed was not revealed. Sources told me more than a year ago that Kavalec had the most important (and memorialized) interaction with Steele before the FISA warrant was issued, but FBI and State officials refused to discuss it, or even confirm it.
The encounter, and Kavalec’s memos, were forced into public view through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation by Citizens United. Yet, all but a few lines have been redacted after the fact. Officials are citing as the reason national security, in the name of the FBI and a half-century-old intelligence law.
David Bossie, head of Citizens United and an informal Trump adviser, said the documents suggest there was an illegal effort to “frame” the future president with bogus Russia collusion allegations. “This new information proves why the attorney general must conduct a thorough investigation of the investigators,” he said.
Sources tell me there also are handwritten notes from the meeting, with information about Steele’s political ties, that have not been given to Congress. “There’s a connection to Hillary Clinton in the notes,” said one source who has seen them.
Perhaps those will come to light soon.
The mere three sentences that the FBI allowed State to release, unredacted, show that Kavalec sent an email two days after her encounter with Steele, alerting others.
“You may already have this information but wanted to pass it on just in case,” Kavalec wrote in the lone sentence the FBI and State released from that email. The names of the recipients, the subject line and the attachments are blacked out.
Interestingly, one legal justification cited for redacting the Oct. 13, 2016, email is the National Security Act of 1947, which can be used to shield communications involving the CIA or the White House National Security Council.
The three sentences visible in her memo show that U.S. officials had good reason to suspect Steele’s client and motive in alleging Trump-Russia collusion because they were election-related and facilitated by the Clinton-funded Fusion GPS founder, Glenn Simpson.
“Orbis undertook the investigation into the Russia/Trump connection at the behest of an institution he declined to identify that had been hacked,” Kavalec wrote.
At the time, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) was the highest-profile victim of election-year hacking.
“The institution approached them based on the recommendation of Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch (specialists in economic crime, formerly of the WSJ) and is keen to see this information come to light prior to November 8,” Kavalec wrote. “Orbis undertook the investigation in June of 2016.” Steele’s firm Orbis was a subcontractor to Fusion GPS, and WSJ refers to The Wall Street Journal.
Everything else in the memo was redacted. The FOIA notes contain this explanation for the redactions: “Classified by FBI on 4/25/2019 – Class: SECRET.”
In other words, the FBI under Director Christopher Wray classified the document as “secret” just a few days ago. To add injury to insult, the FBI added this hopeful note: “Declassify on 12/31/2041.” That would be 25 years after the 2016 election.
Despite the heavy redactions, Kavalec’s notes have momentous consequence.
For the first time, we have written proof the U.S. government knew well before the FBI secured the FISA warrant that Steele had a political motive and Election Day deadline to make his dossier public.
And we know that information was transmitted before the Carter Page FISA warrant to one or more people whose job is so sensitive that their identity had to be protected. That means there is little chance the FBI didn’t know about Steele’s political client, or the Election Day deadline, before requesting the FISA warrant.
Documents and testimony from Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr, whose wife Nellie worked for Fusion GPS, show he told the FBI in August 2016 that Steele was “desperate” to defeat Trump and his work had something to do with Clinton’s campaign.
Kavalec’s notes make clear the DNC was a likely client and the election was Steele’s deadline to smear Trump.
Likewise, there is little chance the FBI didn’t know that Steele, then a bureau informant, had broken protocol and gone to the State Department in an effort to make the Trump dirt public.
That makes the FBI’s failure to disclose to the FISA judges the information about Steele’s political bias and motive all the more stunning. And it makes the agents’ use of his unverified dossier to support the warrant all the more shameful.
Kavalec’s notes shed light on another mystery from the text messages between the FBI’s Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, which first revealed the politically-biased nature of the Trump collusion probe.
Strzok, the lead FBI agent on the case, and Page, a lawyer working for the FBI deputy director, repeatedly messaged each other in October 2016 about efforts to pressure and speed the review of the FISA warrant.
For instance, on Oct. 11, 2016, Strzok texted Page that he was “fighting with Stu for this FISA,” an apparent reference to then-Deputy Assistant Attorney General Stu Evans in DOJ’s national security division.
A few days later, on Oct. 14, Strzok emailed Page he needed some “hurry the F up pressure” to get the FISA approved.
If the evidence is good and the FISA request solid, why did the FBI need to apply pressure?
The real reason may be the FBI was trying to keep a lid on the political origins, motives and Election Day deadline of its star informant Steele.
And that would be the ultimate abuse of the FBI’s FISA powers.
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 serves as an investigative columnist and executive vice president for video at The Hill.
“Why do you think Valerie Jarrett still lives with the Obamas?......”
I suspect cuz her life would be unbearable without all the protection living with the OBUMSTER’S affords her...
“In other words, the FBI under Director Christopher Wray classified the document as “secret” just a few days ago. “
So, why is this guy in charge of the FBI?
Bump
True!
.......excellent deconstruction.....
“I think it was the CIA pushing this,” he added.
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Woodward may well be engaging in some form of misdirection to protect his pals in the FBI. Remember, Deep Throat was an FBI Associate Director. Woodward’s ties to the FBI are, quite likely, still deep indeed.
If John Solomon wrote a book, I’d be first in line to buy it.
I hope he does.
Wake me when anyone on the list is Frog Marched in an orange jump suit to a Fed prison. Until then it’s business as usual.
24/7/365 Secret Service protection free ala the US Taxpayers...........
Bfl
I can’t say this enough. Wray was put in place to protect the coup plotters. Wray is the one who recommended Sally Yates for DOJ job. Don’t understand why Trump didn’t vet Wray before appointing him. Wray and Sally Yates were law partners at a big law firm. After Trump fired Yates she went back to the firm. I worked there before I retired a few years ago.
You forgot the one that they are constantly blaming President Trump for... obstruction of justice. Their goal is to obstruct until the Democrats are back in charge and then all will be forgotten no matter what the crime.
So, why is this guy in charge of the FBI?
*************
Good question. He doesn’t appear to exhibit any outward concerns about what’s happened to his once trusted bureau. By all rights, he should be outraged and trying to convince the American public that he’s doing everything he can to restore integrity and confidence. Yet he demurs. Very curious, if not suspicious.
The whole Obama-Jarrett Administration was up to his EARS in this scandal....
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Someone orchestrated this plot from above. Bureaucrats just don’t go rogue and do things that could get their bosses in legal and political trouble WITHOUT approval. Obama and Jarrett certainly knew, as indicated by Strzok.
The moment is fast approaching when we learn what Obama knew and when he knew it.
I read that Christie was the one who recommended Wray.
I always thought Christie was not involved in that idiotic Bridge thing and I felt sorry for him. But, if he is responsible for Wray, he got what he deserved.
Sorry you had to work with Yates.
My bad.... But, I, like any other sane person wonders, what is/has he obstructed? What was the underlying crime?
Isn’t it amazing that no one ever seems to be able to answer the question?
All they say is, “Russia interfered with our election”. How? Haven’t they been doing that for the last 70 f*cking years, in some way? Historically, haven’t the Democrats been aligned with the Russians? Didn’t Ted Kennedy actually go to Moscow and enlist their help? I guess when the previous occupant of the White House, publicly tried to interfere with Israeli elections and others, that was ok, right?
Our country is getting to the point where it may be beyond repair. It’s getting to the point where the coastal states/cities need to be let go and form their own countries. Let everyone else enjoy their lives. It seems to be the only way or at least heading in that direction.
Revelations always “coming” but never happen.
I wish these people would shut up.
Better yet, before a Grand Jury!
I thought Cody Shearer, Hillary’s dirty trickster, wrote the original “dossier?”
Col. Sanders now talking his BS.
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