Posted on 04/13/2020 9:26:06 AM PDT by Kaslin
These facts establish the FBI used Russia’s meddling with the 2016 election as a pretext to investigate Donald Trump and the special counsel’s office was complicit in this ploy.
On Friday, the Department of Justice released newly declassified information from an inspector general report on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuse, revealing for the first time that the FBI had received information indicating the Christopher Steele dossier contained Russian disinformation. The newly unredacted portions of the IG’s report also confirmed there was no “network of sources” backing up Steele’s reporting.
While both revelations provide further fodder for attacking the Carter Page surveillance proceedings, the significance is much greater: These facts establish the FBI used Russia’s meddling with the 2016 election as a pretext to investigate Donald Trump and the special counsel’s office was complicit in this ploy.
More than two months ago, Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson dispatched a letter to William Barr requesting the attorney general declassify information and unredact information contained in four footnotes in Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s 478-page report on FISA abuse. In their letter, the senators noted that they “[were] deeply concerned about certain information that remains classified.”
They added, “certain sections of the public version of the report are misleading because they are contradicted by relevant and provocative classified information redacted in four footnotes.” Further, according to the Republican senators, “this classified information is significant not only because it contradicts key statements in a section of the report, but also because it provides insight essential for an accurate evaluation of the entire investigation.”
Based on Attorney General William Barr’s finding that it is in the “public interest” to declassify the information, three of the four footnotes were released on Friday with “minimal redactions to protect national security interests.”
The fourth footnote, identified as footnote 342, “presents unique and significant concerns,” a letter accompanying the declassified footnotes explained, because it “refers to information received by a member of the Crossfire Hurricane team regarding possible previous attempts by a foreign government to penetrate and research a company or individuals associated with Christopher Steele.” While the Department of Justice left that footnote redacted in full, it noted that “a further declassification or summary substitution” may later be made.
The three Barr declassified were footnotes 302, 347, and 350. Footnote 302 concerned “Person 1,” who is widely reported to be Sergei Millian. Here is an excerpt of the relevant text of the IG report and a comparison of the footnote redactions:
From the additional information disclosed, footnote 302 now reveals that “Crossfire Hurricane team members and supervisors in early October 2016” had circulated a document stating that “Person 1 had historical contact with persons and entities suspected of being linked to [the Russian Intelligence Service] RIS.” “Person 1 ‘was rumored to be a former KGB/SVR officer,’” according to the document. Steele’s business partner, Glenn Simpson, had also “assessed that Person 1 was a RIS officer.”
These new details take on an oversized significance when read together with the information contained in footnote 350. Here is an excerpt of that relevant text, and a comparison of the footnote redactions:
As can be seen from a comparison of the footnotes, the original redaction created the impression that the details hidden in footnote 350 concerned Steele’s connection to various Russian oligarchs. But the declassification now reveals that the focus was on Russian disinformation.
Specifically, the IG discovered that the Crossfire Hurricane team had received reporting “indicating the potential for Russian disinformation influencing Steele’s election reporting.” And in 2017, the Crossfire Hurricane team received a report highlighting Steele’s inaccurate reporting concerning activities of Michael Cohen.
The Crossfire Hurricane team was told that portion of Steele’s reporting was assessed to be “part of a Russian disinformation campaign to denigrate U.S. foreign relations.” A follow-up report, also from 2017, asserted that “public reporting about the details of Trump’s [redacted] activities in Moscow during a trip in 2013 were false, and that they were the product of RIS ‘infiltrat[ing] a source into the network’ of a [redacted] who compiled a dossier of information on Trump’s activities.”
The remaining redactions in footnote 350 leave unanswered the identity of the source of intel that informed the FBI of Russia’s purported disinformation campaign and the claimed RIS infiltration into the source of networks. But read together, footnotes 302 and 350 reveal that both members and supervisors of the Crossfire Hurricane team knew in early October of the possibility that the Steele dossier was Russian disinformation. Yet they continued to use the dossier as a basis to investigate the Trump campaign and failed to disclose those details to the FISA court.
Then, in 2017, after Americans had elected Trump president, the investigation continued, even though the Crossfire Hurricane team received multiple additional reports that Russia was engaged in a disinformation campaign. The IG report, however, hid those facts from the country, and instead portrayed the possibility of disinformation as merely a general risk—not one based on evidence and facts.
“We found that the FBI was aware of the potential for disinformation in the Steele election reporting and, in part to address that issue, made some effort to assess that possibility,” Horowitz’s report read. Horowitz added that “Steele told us that Russian intelligence is ‘sophisticated’ and relies on disinformation. He said it can involve ‘planted information,’ which he described as ‘controlled information,’ and that often the information is true but with ‘bits missing and changed.’” The IG then concluded that, “Steele told us that he had no evidence that his reporting was ‘polluted’ with Russian disinformation.”
But the declassified details show it was much more than a “potential for disinformation” of which the FBI was aware—it had received multiple reports that Steele’s reporting included Russia disinformation. The IG report obscured that reality, and in fact conveyed the impression that Russia disinformation was not in play, which is exactly why Grassley and Johnson sought declassification of the footnotes.
With this information now public, questions abound: Did Russia actually feed Steele disinformation? Which Crossfire Hurricane team members and supervisors knew of the reports of Russia disinformation? Why did they ignore that potential?
Most significantly, why did Special Counsel Robert Mueller fail to investigate whether Russia interfered in the 2016 election by feeding Steele disinformation to launch an investigation into the Trump campaign?
Mueller spent more than two years and more than $30 million supposedly investigating Russia interference in the 2016 election, and not once in his 448-page opus did the special counsel mention an investigation into whether Russia interfered with the U.S. presidential election by feeding dossier author Steele disinformation. Logic alone should have prompted Mueller to investigate the possibility that Russia interfered in the 2016 election by feeding Steele disinformation because there were only two possibilities in play: Steele lied to the FBI about his sources or intel, or both; or Russia fed Steele disinformation.
But now we know that Mueller’s team had reports and evidence of a Russian disinformation campaign and ignored the question of whether Russia interfered in the 2016 election by feeding Steele fake intel, prompting an FBI investigation into the Trump presidential campaign. If it wasn’t clear before, it should be clear now: Mueller was either incompetent or a political hack—or both.
While the revelations concerning a potential Russia disinformation campaign prove the most significant from the Friday release, the declassification in the third footnote adds another damning detail, both to the FISA process and to Horowitz’s report. As seen below, Horowitz reported that “[a]s noted in the first FISA application, Steele relied on a primary sub-source (Primary Sub-source) for information, and this Primary Sub-source used a network of sub-sources to gather the information that was relayed to Steele; Steele himself was not the originating source of any of the factual information in his reporting.”
But the declassified footnote contradicts the IG’s conclusion that “the Primary Sub-source used a network of sub-sources to gather the information that was relayed to Steele.” “When interviewed by the FBI,” the report reads, “the Primary Sub-source stated that he/she did not view his/her contacts as a network of sources,” but individuals “with whom he/she had conversations about current events and government relations.”
That Steele’s primary sub-source did not have a “network of sources” establishes two points. First, it hammers home the amount of deception used to obtain a FISA surveillance order on Carter Page. When the government presented its first application to the FISA court, the court’s legal advisor queried the National Security Division’s Office of Intelligence on the basis for Steele’s intel. How was it that Steele had a network of sub-sources, the FISA representative asked?
In response, the government told the FISA court that Steele had a network of sources in place based on his former work as British intelligence agent. But, as I explained previously, that was a misrepresentation because, as the IG report revealed in footnote 214, Steele had said that his “source network did not involve sources from his time as a [redacted] and was developed entirely in the period after he retired from government service.” (The redacted language undoubtedly referred to Steele’s work for MI6.)
But now we know that not only did the government misrepresent Steele’s “source network,” it misrepresented the existence of a primary sub-source “source network.”
This revelation has a second and broader implication than further evidence of FISA abuse: The complete lack of a “source network” undermines the entire basis for the Crossfire Hurricane investigation and the special counsel probe.
While team members and supervisors knew early that there was no source network, that Russian disinformation was potentially in play, and that there was no Russia collusion, rather than drop the investigation into candidate, and then president, Trump, they continued for more than two years to undermine the Trump administration. And as Friday’s declassification shows, the depth of the deception and the plot to take down the duly elected president is still not fully known.
Wouldn’t be surprised if Steele were on Putin’s payroll. I have to hand to them - the Russians have always been good at disinformation operations. This particular operation tied up an American president for 3 years, and the aftereffects are still reverberating through his first term in terms of approval numbers that are several % points lower than where they should be.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Infektion
Trump should simply say that Putin ran an operation against him, and the Democrats colluded with Putin to smear him.
bttt
Furthermore, Mueller knew by the end of the first week that the entire Trump-Russia collusion scheme was a hoax, yet he continued to ‘investigate’ for two more years.
If one was looking for a single photograph depicting unethical, incompetent, self-congratulatory, and pathetic government office holders, that one would suffice.
AG Barr just signaled that things are about to get ugly for the Russia collusion team
Why do we never hear exactly what the contents of the info theft was and how much material was sent to Bammy?
declassified?
EVERYONE KNEW.
Problem: NO ONE WAS PUNISHED.
so they decided to do more, and more.
Answer: Indict them already and hang them.
Furthermore, Mueller knew by the end of the first week that the entire Trump-Russia collusion scheme was a hoax, yet he continued to ‘investigate’ for two more years.
I disagree. That doddering old fool was assigned a cubicle from the beginning where he could sit and eat his oatmeal and play Solitaire on his iPad.
Weissman ran this show.
It all goes back to Usurpation Day.
Obama should never have been sworn in.
He is not a natural born citizen.
That’s why nothing will be done about this.
Why would the Democrat leaders do this?
This was a very risky operation.
If it was exposed, it would look very bad for the Democrats.
So why do it?
Because they have done much worse things and don’t want them revealed.
Wow. Talk about using Russian disinformation to affect an election. Oh wait, wasn’t that supposed to be Trump doing that? Well, thanks for clearing that up, Deep State hacks (0bammer’s FBI and DOJ)...
Yeah. He says a lot of crap.
Apparently everybody but Sessions and Barr knew this.
Bullcrap. This is the FBI/Steele/CIA claiming they were “tricked”. Laughable. How did we learn this? Why, the intel community GAVE us the memo with the damning evidence...right? (Yeah, the same intel community that flips the finger to FOIA and subpoenas, and won’t even cooperat eith AG Barr suddenly, graciously, “complied”? I gotta bridge to sell you)
“See, we weren’t corrupt, running a coup, lying to secret courts and setting up Trump safe in knowing when Hillary won it would never see the light of day...see? We good-hearted public servants was tricked I say, tricked by Russians!! So see, now youse people can see that we was just loyal patriotic Americans, protecting America from Russians and we didn’t do nothing wrong! In fact, you should feel better that we was trying so hard to keep America safe... see?”
The whole damned thing was written by Steele right there. No sources, none. He was paid a handsome sum for it. You think he was spreading that money around to “sources”? That went into his pocket.
Don’t be naive people. This is US intel community disinformation. The way you can tell is;
1) that THEY released it.
2) It confirms Hillary’s claims of “Russia”.
3) And it reassures us that the FBI/CIA was not running an attack on the US government.
FAKE NEWS
And 4) the story is suddenly everywhere, at once... kinda like the “dossier story” now that I think of it.
Democrats colluded with Putin
I am shocked.... isn’t this what they accused Trump of?
Trump would be a blithering idiot to lie and say Putin ran an operation against him. Because that didn’t happen. He would be confirming the Hillary claim.
She would say she was also tricked.
This was a British/Aussie intel effort in cooperation with the CIA/FBI. This new BOOM is misdirection. This is the clean up operation.
BTW, why did Putin run this supposed “attack” on the Trump campaign? Trump wanted to get us out of Syria and to knock off support for Syrian jihadi rebels. Trump wasn’t particularly interested in Crimea or Ukraine. Trump ran repeatedly on wanting better relations with Russia and ending Obama’s hostility over homosexual issues. Trump was not a big fan of NATO and Flynn his advisor was on very good terms with Moscow.
And if he DID attack Trump, why did Putin then “hack” Hillary’s emails?
That obvious nonsense spawned the theory that they didn’t want favor with either candidate. They just wanted to make American’s distrust elections.
Utterly idiotic to claim such a childish goal form them. They wanted Trump like all sane people did, but they suspected Hillary would win. If they supported Trump and she found out, it would be a rough time. Shes a communist so she hates them passionately as apostate.
Those facts would lead them to just stay out of it and trying to navigate the world of hoping for Trump while realistically expecting Hillary.
All of this “Russia”came straight out of a DNC fever swamp focus group. They brainstormed “what conservatives hate” and tried to tar Trump with it.
Divorces, check. Porn stars and whores, check. Vulgar language, check. Mafia, check. Financial corruption check. And of course, conservatives HATE Russia so they tried to make him a Russian controlled man. (Of course, they are not deep enough to get that conservatives hated the USSR and are happy to see Russia building churches, fighting homosexuality, encouraging people to have babies, etc)
Democrat lunacy. The DNC, the US intel community and the 5 eyes are everything they are accusing Trump and Russians of.
The president would not have been tied up for 3 years if mentally disturbed people like Schiff, Nadler, Schumer & Pelosi had not orchestrated a massive web of hearings, laws, etc. expressedly designed to do that, evil pieces of excrement that they are. They are explicitly enemies of the United States and should be jailed for the rest of their miserable lives.
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