Posted on 08/28/2020 3:46:36 PM PDT by MarvinStinson
The associate of John McCain who spread anti-Trump dossier claims around Washington planned to leak a story to Washington Post columnist David Ignatius about Paul Manafort, according to court testimony.
Ignatius wrote the Jan. 12, 2017 column that eventually doomed retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn. The source was an Obama administration official, Ignatius wrote.
The McCain evidence emerged in a London courtroom, where dossier creator Christopher Steele faces a defamation lawsuit from a Russian CEO. Steele compiled the dossier for the Democratic Party. After Trump won the presidency Steele provided memo copies to the Republican McCain and his associate David J. Kramer.
Trial evidence showed that Kramer not only took the dossier to the Obama White House and news media, he also tried to help reporters confirm its dozen or so felony allegations against Trump.
Kramer and Steele engaged in across-the-Atlantic messaging as Kramer would receive followup questions from reporters and relay them to Steele.
Andrew Caldecott, the attorney for Russian Aleksej Gubarev, read in court messages between Kramer and Steele.
“The Flynn calls story is picking up legs,” Kramer says. This is a reference to the Ignatius column that Mr. Flynn had spoken to Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the transition.
Then Kramer tells Steele, “I think it’s time to get that other [Manafort] story out there. Get some sleep. Best, D [avid].”
“Thanks.”
Mr. Kramer says, “And Ignatius is the one I’ll feed it to.”
By then, the dossier had been published by BuzzFeed. Mr. Steele alleged that Mr. Manafort, the campaign manager, and volunteer Carter Page worked as a team to conspire with the Kremlin on election interference.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s March 2019 report disproved this claim. The two men did not know each other.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
McCain’s true colors have been proved. We always knew he was an ASSHOLE. Working against America and the Republican Party.
And Cindy McCain is a whiner. Gee, wonder why?
How the land of Goldwater produced such trash as McCain,Flake and Kolbe I’ll never know.
Goldwater flaked out, too. He should’ve stayed retired after 1964.
Fishtalk post—I distinctly remember Rhino John McCain bringing the Steele dossier (paid for by Hillary/DNC) to some meeting or another, big grin on his face. I know McCain was part of this, probably begged for the glory of what he hoped would be the beginning of the removal of the duly elected Trump.
John McCain dispatched a trusted aide across the Atlantic to get dirty dossier from ex-spy after former British diplomat told him about blackmail tapes. The Guardian charted the path the dirty dossier made from a British intelligence professional to Sen. John McCain and then the FBI.
McCain, 80, put out a statement Wednesday saying that he was the bureau’s source of the controversial dossier The Arizona Republican found out about the dossier’s existence while at a meeting in Canada and dispatched an emissary to hunt it down He met an ex-British diplomat in Canada - now identified as Sir Andrew Wood -who in one version of events told him about the file Wood is a former associate of Tony Blair the ex-British prime minister, and admitted talking to McCain He issued a nuanced statement saying he did not give McCain the dossier and had ‘done nothing wrong’ - but he did not deny telling McCain the file existed PUBLISHED: 16:33 EDT, | UPDATED: 23:59 EDT, 12 January 2017 e-mail 5.5k shares 1.2k View comments Sen. John McCain said he did ‘what any citizen would do’ in turning over the dirty dossier, which contained unconfirmed secrets about the president-elect, over to the FBI. The Guardian charted the path of how the dossier came to be and how it was that McCain got his hands on the controversial documents. The story of the dossier began with an investigative firm in Washington, D.C., being tapped by one of Trump’s primary allies to dig up some opposition research on the Republican hopeful. Scroll down for video Statement: Ex-ambassador Sir Andrew Wood issued a nuanced explanation of his dealings with McCain: ‘I would like to stress that I did not pass on any dossier to Senator McCain or anyone else and I did not see a dossier at the time.’ He did not deny alerting McCain to its existence +7 Shortly after the election, Sen. John McCain was attending a conference in Canada and spoke with a ‘former senior western diplomat’ who knew of the dossier’s existence +7 Shortly after the election,John McCain (right) was attending a conference in Canada and spoke with a ‘former senior western diplomat’ who knew of the dossier’s existence. That man was Sir Andrew Wood. He issued a nuanced explanation of his dealings with McCain: ‘I would like to stress that I did not pass on any dossier to Senator McCain or anyone else and I did not see a dossier at the time.’ He did not deny alerting McCain to its existence.
Aide: Sir ANdrew Wood was Tony Blair’s ambassador to Moscow until 2000 +7 Aide: Sir ANdrew Wood was Tony Blair’s ambassador to Moscow until 2000
In turn, that firm outsourced the research to a ‘retired western European former counter-intelligence official, with a long history of dealing with the shadow world of Moscow’s spooks and siloviki (securocrats),’ explained the Guardian.
Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal identified the ex-spy as Christopher Steele. By the time the contractor had started digging, Trump’s primary opponent had dropped out. But the firm found a Democrat who wanted dirt on the now Republican nominee instead.
The Guardian pointed out that just because a Democrat was willing to pay for the information that didn’t mean that said Democrat was Hillary Clinton’s campaign or the Democratic National Committee. Sometimes donors seek out this information in order to ensure they’ve made a sound investment.
The contractor, who the Guardian didn’t name, but the Wall Street Journal identified as Steele, reportedly found the information that he dug up to be concerning. He and another ex-British diplomat, Christopher Burrows, run their own company, Orbis Business Intelligence.
‘If the allegations were real, their implications were overwhelming,’ the Guardian wrote. RELATED ARTICLES Previous
So over the summer he delivered the intelligence he had gathered from his Russian sources, living within the country and also in the west, to former colleagues in the FBI. The Guardian suggested he also delivered the documents to his country’s own intelligence service.
As fall approached, and he heard nothing about any FBI investigation into the documents, he was persuaded to tell journalist David Corn, of Mother Jones, of their existence. The veteran reporter wrote about the dossier on October 31. The intelligence agent, the Guardian reported, was worried about an FBI cover-up, as the bureau seemed to be spending most of its time and energy on an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server. It wasn’t until mid-November, and after the presidential election, that the chips fell in place for the dossier to make its more public way to Washington.
Christopher Steele +7 Christopher Steele runs the company along with Christopher Burrows (pictured) +7 Report: Christopher Steele (left) and Christopher Burrows (right) jointly run Orbis Business Intelligence which produced the report London headquarters: This is the prestigious London headquarters of the intelligence firm run by an ex-spy who authored the discredited dirty dossier on Trump +7 London headquarters: This is the prestigious London headquarters of the intelligence firm run by an ex-spy who authored the discredited dirty dossier on Trump
On November 18, at the Halifax International Security Forum, McCain was introduced to a ‘former senior western diplomat’ who had set eyes on the documents and knew who put them together, telling the Arizona Republican that the individual was ‘highly reliable.’
That man can now be named as Sir Andrew Wood, British ambassador to Moscow from 1995 to 2000. Wood told the Independent that he had met McCain, spoken to him about Trump, and about the potential for him to be compromised. In a carefully nuanced statement he said: ‘Yes I did meet Senator McCain and his aides at the conference. ‘We spoke about the kind of activities the Russians can be engaged in. ‘We also spoke about how Mr Trump may find himself in a position where there could be an attempt to blackmail him with Kompromat [a Russian term for compromising material] and claims that there were audio and video tapes in existence.’ He added: ‘I would like to stress that I did not pass on any dossier to Senator McCain or anyone else and I did not see a dossier at the time. I do know Christopher Steele and in my view he is very professional and thorough in what he does.’
He did not however address whether he told McCain there was a dossier - and how to get it. Clearly, somebody did. Ultimate recipient: The FBI Director James Comey was handed the document by McCain after its extraordinary transatlantic journey +7 Ultimate recipient: The FBI Director James Comey was handed the document by McCain after its extraordinary transatlantic journey
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Linda Graham MUST GO!
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