Posted on 02/14/2018 6:28:02 PM PST by Eddie01
Justice Department official Bruce Ohr did not disclose Fusion GSP was paying his wife
Ohr was demoted from his post after the information emerged
Willfully falsifying government ethics documents can result in jail time
Bruce Ohr, the Department of Justice official who brought opposition research on President Donald Trump to the FBI, did not disclose that Fusion GPS, which performed that research at the Democratic National Committees behest, was paying his wife, and did not obtain a conflict of interest waiver from his superiors at the Justice Department, documents obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation show.
The omission may explain why Ohr was demoted from his post as associate deputy attorney general after the relationship between Fusion GPS and his wife emerged and Fusion founder Glenn Simpson acknowledged meeting with Ohr. Willfully falsifying government ethics forms can carry a penalty of jail time, if convicted.
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) hired Fusion GPS to gather and disseminate damning info about Trump, and they in turn paid Nellie Ohr, a former CIA employee with expertise in Russia, for an unknown role related to the dossier. Bruce Ohr then brought the information to the FBI, kicking off a probe and a media firestorm.
The DOJ used it to obtain a warrant to wiretap a Trump adviser, but didnt disclose to the judge that the DNC and former Secretary of State Hillary Clintons campaign had funded the research and that Ohr had a financial relationship with the firm that performed it which could be, it turns out, because Ohr doesnt appear to have told his supervisors. Some have suggested that the financial payments motivated Bruce Ohr to actively push the case.
For 2014 and 2015, Bruce Ohr disclosed on ethics forms that his wife was an independent contractor earning consulting fees. In 2016, she added a new employer who paid her a salary, but listed it vaguely as cyberthreat analyst, and did not say the name of the company.
The instructions require officials to Provide the name of your spouses employer. In addition, if your spouses employer is a privately held business, provide the employers line of business. As examples, it gives Xylophone Technologies Corporation and DSLK Financial Techniques, Inc. (financial services). The dollar amount does not need to be disclosed. Report each source, whether a natural person or an organization or entity, that provided your spouse more than $1,000 of earned income during the reporting period, they say.
The DOJ says, Financial disclosure reports are used to identify potential or actual conflicts of interest. If the person charged with reviewing an employees report finds a conflict, he should impose a remedy immediately. Its guidance says, employees should always seek the advice of an ethics official when contemplating any action that may be covered by the rules.
Paul Kamenar, a Washington, D.C., public policy lawyer experienced in executive branch ethics and disclosure laws, said, Based on my reading of the regulations and disclosure guide accompanying the form, he failed to disclose the source of his wifes income on line 4 by not including the name of the employer.'
The law provides that whoever knowingly and willfully fails to file information required to be filed on this report faces civil penalties up to $50,000 and possible criminal penalties up to one year in prison under the disclosure law and possibly up to five years in prison under 18 USC 1001, he said. Since he lists her income type as salary as opposed to line 1 where he describes her other income as consulting fees as an independent contractor its clear that she was employed by a company that should have been identified by name, he said.
And even with respect to her independent contractor listing, it appears incomplete by not describing what kind of services were provided. Both these omissions do not give the reviewing official sufficient information to determine whether there is a conflict, Kamenar added.
Ohr also did not get a conflict of interest waiver from his supervisors, suggesting that he may not have explained to anyone the true source of the income and how it intersected with his official involvement in the case, nor did he have approval.
If a potential conflict is disclosed and explained to supervisors, a government agency can grant a conflict of interest waiver, known as a 208(b) waiver. In response to a records request, officials told TheDCNF, There are no waivers for this filer.
Scott Amey, general counsel of the Project on Government Oversight, said he couldnt get a waiver for that, that would have required outright recusal. Making it potentially even worse than failing to recuse, Ohrs pressing the Trump case appears to be something he decided to do on his own, rather than something assigned to him.
Bruce Ohr was demoted from his DOJ position shortly after the companys founder acknowledged in a Nov. 14, 2017, interview with the House Intelligence Committee that he had met with him. Fox News reported in December that Ohr had concealed his meetings with the firm from his supervisors.
The form says, [F]alsification of information required to be filed by section 102 of the [Ethics in Government Act of 1978] may also subject you to criminal prosecution as well as civil monetary penalty and to disciplinary action by your employing agency.
The lack of disclosure is the latest of several examples of people apparently trying to conceal the financial relationship that Fusion GPS, which was funded by the DNC, had with the family of the DOJ official.
In Fusion GPS founder Simpsons November House interview, he conspicuously omitted his relationship with Nellie Ohr, painting Bruce Ohr as someone who he was connected to independently. Investigators said, Youve never heard from anyone in the U.S. Government in relation to those matters, either the FBI or the Department of Justice?
I was asked to provide some information by a prosecutor named Bruce Ohr, he said.
Investigators said, Did Mr. Ohr reach out to you?
It was someone that Chris Steele knows and I met Bruce too through organized crime conferences or something like that Chris told me that he had been talking to Bruce and that Bruce wanted more information, and suggested that I speak with Bruce, Simpson said.
Simpson also said his firm was not affiliated with any Russian speakers, even though Nellie Ohr appears to speak the language.
In addition to meeting with Simpson, Ohr also met with Steele before the election.
In an earlier Aug. 22, 2017, interview with the Senate Judiciary Committee, Simpson didnt mention either of the Ohrs by name. He said he had not met with any FBI officials about the matter, without noting his contact with the DOJ official.
Simpson suggested in court records on Dec. 12, 2017, that the only way government investigators could have found out about Nellie Ohrs relationship with the company was through its bank records. Bank records reflect that Fusion contracted with Nellie Ohr, a former government official expert in Russian matters, to help our company with its research and analysis of Mr. Trump. I am not aware of any other sources from which the committee or the media could have learned of this information, he said.
Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, a conservative legal group that has been critical of the departments handling of the Trump investigation, said, This document ought to trigger an immediate criminal investigation if one isnt already ongoing.
Kathleen Clark, an ethics expert and law professor at Washington University in St. Louis, said beyond the disclosure issue, as far as the legal definition of conflict of interest requiring a recusal, it could depend on whether Ohrs actions would have had a direct and predictable effect on his wifes income from Fusion GPS.
Kamenar said what is known as the frequently used catch-all provision clearly applies, saying Circumstances would cause a reasonable person with knowledge of the facts to question an employees impartiality require recusal.
Amey said, As a lawyer and a top Justice official, Ohr should know that he cant participate in anything related to his wifes work Ohr should have been upfront about his wifes employment and not touched anything related to Steele, the dossier, and Fusion GPS. The DOJs judgment is only as good as the information volunteered to them by Ohr, he said, and because he didnt list the name of his wifes employer, they likely had no reason to suspect it might have impacted his work.
Walter Schaub, a former government ethics czar who is an expert on the forms and resigned after offering sharp criticisms of Trump, declined repeated requests to weigh in on Ohr.
Bruce Ohr did not return a request for comment, nor did the DOJ.
and nothing will come of it. DemoncRATS don't do jail time.
The swamp is deep, very deep....
I do wonder what Scooter Libby must think of all of this. He spent time in jail. Over nothing.
Democrats are LAW-LESS because Republican “leaders” are BALL-LESS! NOTHING will happen to Brucie and WHOA NELLIE!....NOTHING!
Ethics forms have to be approved by someone up the food chain. Who signed off on his?
He forgot. He’ll submit a revised form and be ok.
Funny thing is, if he had disclosed it on the form nothing would have been done anyway! The fix was in and Fusion GPS was a benign oppo-research entity to everyone who wasn’t involved until they pimped the dossier.
Lets not step over dollars to pick up penny. Ohr will swing with the others when this is over.
Its my experience that 99.99% of govt employees are corrupt
Perp Walk em!!
Major player in the soft coup gets demoted instead of fired and jailed.
Drip, drip, drip...
This is getting so fun.
Will he receive the usual $130,000 bonus?
The alternative is that high-level people in the federal government actually believed all the BS that was generated in the dossier, and then subsequently didn't notice that they had built a perfect echo chamber with which to "validate" it.
I agree. If he had disclosed, the ethics folks likely never would have even connected it to his work. His concealment seems to be a strong admission that he was knowingly and willfully engaged in wrongdoing.
I’d like to see how she got the money. Check to her and deposited to their joint account? anonymous LLC with bank account in another jurisdiction? Cash in a bag?
Next, well learn that the Ohrs are Russian agents.
And a another one. Too bad the MSM refuses to mention things like this.
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