Posted on 05/06/2021 7:58:22 AM PDT by Red Badger
Word of a second anti-Trump dossier by British ex-spy Christopher Steele emerged this week in British media following significant developments in the so-called "Russiagate" controversy.
A report by the Telegraph, citing sources who were not named or described, said Steele kept feeding raw intelligence about former President Donald Trump to the FBI during the Trump administration, longer than was previously asserted, through his company, Orbis Business Intelligence.
This adds a new wrinkle to what the public has been told about Steele, a former MI6 agent whose first dossier on Trump has been largely discredited, weeks after it was reported that special counsel John Durham used a subpoena to obtain documents a Washington, D.C., think tank related to its employment of a Russian researcher who served as a main source for Steele in his research about Trump.
It also follows the Treasury Department announcing sanctions against Konstantin Kilimnik, an associate of 2016 Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, assessing he is a Russian intelligence services agent who provided Kremlin spies with “sensitive information on polling and campaign strategy” during the 2016 presidential race.
After special counsel Robert Mueller was unable to establish criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, Trump and his allies used this to argue there was "no collusion," but some have argued that the new revelations about Kilimnik are evidence to the contrary.
The FBI declined to comment on the report to the Washington Examiner. Orbis retweeted a statement given to Scott Stedman of Forensic News. “We can categorically state that there is no ‘second dossier,'" Orbis said. "Media reports may be referring to our willing co-operation with the Mueller inquiry which is a matter of public record."
The original dossier, a 35-page collection of reports about Trump's ties to Russia written between June and December 2016, contained allegations of the Trump team coordinating with the Kremlin and a salacious claim that the Russians had a video of Trump with prostitutes urinating on a bed in a Moscow hotel room in 2013.
The research was compiled for Fusion GPS, an opposition research firm, and Steele was paid with money from Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign and the Democratic National Committee. The reports were shared with government officials as well as media outlets, and, in January 2017, BuzzFeed published the dossier. Trump called it "bogus" while claiming the FBI was "tainted."
Mueller's report, released in April 2019, undercut elements of Steele's reporting. And a report released by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz in December of that year criticized the FBI for its reliance on the dossier to obtain warrants for wiretapping onetime Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. It revealed that the FBI interviewed Steele's primary Moscow-based source, beginning in January 2017, who "raised significant questions about the reliability of the Steele election reporting."
Despite this, Steele's company, Orbis Business Intelligence, argued that "much of the dossier has been proven” since 2017. “We stand by the integrity and quality of our work," Orbis added.
The new report by the Telegraph, a national British daily newspaper, claimed that Steele continuing to send his raw intelligence to the FBI "appears to give credibility to his original dossier" and states that the original dossier sparked the Mueller investigation, appearing to clash with a 2018 memo from House Intelligence Committee Democrats that stated the dossier did not reach the FBI's counterintelligence team at FBI headquarters investigating Russia until mid-September of 2016.
Mueller, a former FBI director, was appointed special counsel in May 2017 after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey. The FBI investigation into the Trump campaign's ties to Russia that was wrapped into Mueller's effort began in July 2016 following a tip to U.S. authorities by an Australian diplomat who said Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos told him that Russia had political “dirt” on Clinton.
This second dossier is said to contain more allegations of Russian meddling in the U.S. election linked to Trump and his associates, "references claims regarding the existence of further sex tapes," and relies on "separate sources to those who supplied information for the first reports."
The report cited an FBI interview with Steele tied to the Mueller investigation, a redacted transcript of which was released in November, in which he said his primary "sub-source" was no longer active and was replaced by another "main agent network is up and running and is now starting to get good information." The Telegraph reported that it "understands this agent, referred to by Mr Steele in his interview with the FBI, supplied information for the second dossier."
It comes less than a month after the New York Times reported Durham, who is investigating misconduct during the Russia investigation, obtained records from the left-leaning Brookings Institution related to Igor Danchenko, who worked for the organization from 2005 to 2010 as a Russia researcher but is best known as being the main source for Steele's first dossier.
The news report further said Durham “has also asked questions that suggested a focus on skepticism about how the FBI approached issues that might have undermined the dossier’s credibility as a basis for wiretap applications” and that Durham has been asking why the FBI did not tell the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that Danchenko “had once been the subject of a counterintelligence investigation."
Danchenko defended the years he worked at the Brookings Institution while welcoming scrutiny of his own work.
"While I see this news of the Brookings angle of Durham inquiry as an attack on the integrity of the Brookings Institution, I can only welcome the review of my file,” he told the Washington Examiner. “There is no ‘there there' but a lot of groundbreaking research and analysis. Wish I also had an opportunity to review my file. It’s a wonderful chapter in my long career."
Adopting oblique language, the Telegraph reported that intelligence gathered by Steele for his second dossier is "understood to include further details of Mr Manafort’s alleged Russian contacts."
Manafort, a GOP lobbyist who also spent years working in Ukraine, was the chairman of Trump's 2016 presidential campaign until he resigned in August 2016 and was convicted of a host of crimes arising from Mueller’s investigation, although, like the others, none of these convictions involved a conspiracy with the Russians. Manafort was released from prison last May amid the coronavirus pandemic, and Trump issued him a pardon just before Christmas.
A Senate Intelligence Committee report, released in August, criticized Manafort's close relationships with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska and with Kilimnik, about whom Mueller said, “The FBI assesses to have ties to Russian intelligence.”
The FBI is offering a reward of up to $250,000 for information leading to Kilimnik’s arrest.
Yup.
Durham indicts Trump.
John Durham does not exist.
closing in on a couple of long necks?
They keep trying to come up with stuff to pin on President Trump as if it’s somehow going to help them. What a waste of time and effort. It’s not going to stop him from doing what he wants to do and if they haven’t come up with anything by now, there’s almost certainly nothing to come up with.
He’s the most vetted US President in history at this point, and he’s clean. Give it up already.
Important to keep the lies about Russian collusion alive. Well played. Nicely placed article
closing in like a sloth
I’d have to really dig around because it’s been a few years, but there was talk (and iirc some paper evidence) suggesting a second dossier - which might have been the first dossier - which may have been put together by Team Hillary people such as S.B. So this would actually make the one referenced here either the third dossier, or more evidence of the first.
So what did Trump do this time? Spank monkeys while dressed as a tranny wearing an Obama mask?
I’m kick that football this time Lucy.
I really hate scumbags like Patrick (Scooter Libby), Mueller et al, and now this fraud Duran who just milk and milk and milk the taxpayers. THEY ARE THIEVES.
“Although some procedural errors were made in good faith due to the magnitude of the charges and allegations made we have concluded that there is nothing here that warrants prosecution. We instead would like to commend the both investigators and Special Prosecutor's office for the outstanding job they did despite heavy political and media pressure. In our final report we are submitting our list of recommendations for use in future investigations to the Attorney General allowing the country to forward. This final report should no in anyway be construed as closing any current or future investigations by any other Prosecutorial authority on either the Federal or State level as it pertains to either Former President Trump, his family or associates, and or current or former employees.”
As Durham circles the drain.
“I was one of the many duped by this bullshitter.”
So we’re a lot of other folks here. Q is a deep state con. Anyone still perpetuating that fraud here should be mocked without mercy.
L
“as John Durham CLOSES UP”! He’s nothing but a HUGE PHONEY!
John Durham is still alive?
And Lucy is going not going to move the football.......yeah....right.
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