FBI’s Steele story falls apart: False intel and media contacts were flagged before FISA

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FBI’s Steele story falls apart: False intel and media contacts were flagged before FISA

By John Solomon, The Hill, May 9, 2019:

The FBI’s sworn story to a federal court about its asset, Christopher Steele, is fraying faster than a $5 souvenir T-shirt bought at a tourist trap.

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Newly unearthed memos show a high-ranking government official who met with Steele in October 2016 determined some of the Donald Trump dirt that Steele was simultaneously digging up for the FBI and for Hillary Clinton’s campaign was inaccurate, and likely leaked to the media.

The concerns were flagged in a typed memo and in handwritten notes taken by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec on Oct. 11, 2016.

Her observations were recorded exactly 10 days before the FBI used Steele and his infamous dossier to justify securing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to spy on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page and the campaign’s contacts with Russia in search of a now debunked collusion theory.

It is important to note that the FBI swore on Oct. 21, 2016, to the FISA judges that Steele’s “reporting has been corroborated and used in criminal proceedings” and the FBI has determined him to be “reliable” and was “unaware of any derogatory information pertaining” to their informant, who simultaneously worked for Fusion GPS, the firm paid by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Clinton campaign to find Russian dirt on Trump.

That’s a pretty remarkable declaration in Footnote 5 on Page 15 of the FISA application, since Kavalec apparently needed just a single encounter with Steele at State to find one of his key claims about Trump-Russia collusion was blatantly false.

In her typed summary, Kavalec wrote that Steele told her the Russians had constructed a “technical/human operation run out of Moscow targeting the election” that recruited emigres in the United States to “do hacking and recruiting.”

She quoted Steele as saying, “Payments to those recruited are made out of the Russian Consulate in Miami,” according to a copy of her summary memo obtained under open records litigation by the conservative group Citizens United. Kavalec bluntly debunked that assertion in a bracketed comment: “It is important to note that there is no Russian consulate in Miami.”

Kavalec, two days later and well before the FISA warrant was issued, forwarded her typed summary to other government officials. The State Department has redacted the names and agencies of everyone she alerted.

But it is almost certain the FBI knew of Steele’s contact with State and his partisan motive. That’s because former Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland says she instructed her staff to send the information they got from Steele to the bureau immediately and to cease contact with the informer because “this is about U.S. politics, and not the work of — not the business of the State Department, and certainly not the business of a career employee who is subject to the Hatch Act.”

Even if the FBI didn’t get Kavalec’s memo, it is just as implausible that the bureau couldn’t figure out, during the many hours that its agents spent with Steele, what Kavalec divined in a few short minutes: He was political, inaccurate, spinning wild theories and talking to the media.

All those concerns would weigh against Steele’s credibility and should have been disclosed to the judges under the honor system that governs the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, experts say.

Kavalec’s handwritten notes clearly flagged in multiple places that Steele might be talking to the media.

“June — reporting started,” she wrote. “NYT and WP have,” she added, in an apparent reference to The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Later she quoted Steele as suggesting he was “managing” four priorities — “Client needs, FBI, WashPo/NYT, source protection,” her handwritten notes show.

Those same notes suggest Steele spun some wild theories to State, including one that the Russians had a “plant in DNC” and had assembled an “HRC dossier,” apparent references to the Democratic National Committee and Clinton.

She expounded in her typed memo. “The Russians have succeeded in placing an agent inside the DNC,” she quoted Steele as saying.

Steele offered Kavalec other wild information that easily could have been debunked before the FISA application — and eventually was, in many cases, after the media reported the allegations — including that:

  • Trump lawyer Michael Cohen traveled to Prague to meet with Russians;
  • Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort owed the Russians $100 million and was the “go-between” from Russian President Vladimir Putin to Trump;
  • Trump adviser Carter Page met with a senior Russian businessman tied to Putin;
  • The Russians secretly communicated with Trump through a computer system.

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, released last month, dispelled all those wild theories while hardly mentioning Steele, except for a passing reference to his dossier being “unverified.” That’s significant, because the FISA request from October 2016 that rested heavily on Steele’s information was marked “verified application” before the FBI submitted it to the court.

And, as I reported earlier this week, Kavalec’s memo clearly warned that Steele had admitted his client was “keen” to get his information out before Election Day. In other words, he had a political, rather than an intelligence, deadline.Preside

David Bossie, head of Citizens United, called on State and the FBI to release the rest of Kavalec’s information they redacted: “Christopher Steele was a political operative. The American people have a right to know why the FBI took this garbage to the FISA court.”

Kavalec’s notes aren’t the only red flag that should have caught the FBI’s attention before the bureau vouched for Steele’s credibility.

Notes and testimony from senior Justice Department official Bruce Ohr make clear Steele admitted early on that he was “desperate” to get Trump defeated in the election, was working in some capacity for the GOP candidate’s opponent, and considered his intelligence raw and untested. Ohr testified that he alerted FBI and other senior Justice officials to these concerns in August 2016.

Steele eventually was fired by the FBI for leaking to the press — in violation of his source agreement with the bureau — and lying about it. But that did not happen until Nov. 1, 2016 — after the FISA warrant was secured. And, even then, the court wasn’t notified until a few months later, well after Election Day.

Steele’s admission of media contacts on Oct. 11, 2016, and the mere existence of his meeting at the State Department likewise violated his confidentiality agreement with the bureau and clearly were discoverable well before the FISA warrant was secured Oct. 21, 2016.

If the State Department and Ohr could figure out that Steele was a partisan, paid by a political client and facing an Election Day deadline to broadcast raw intelligence that in some cases probably was false, the FBI should have done the same before it ever envisioned taking his evidence to a FISA court.

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. Follow him on Twitter @jsolomonReports.

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felix1999
felix1999
4 years ago

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felix1999
felix1999
4 years ago

Judicial Watch Uncovers Documents Showing Bruce Ohr Continued as Intermediary
Between Christopher Steele and Robert Mueller’s Team…

Posted on March 7, 2019 by sundance

Judicial Watch has received documents from a previous FOIA request to the DOJ which highlight the extent of the communication between DOJ official Bruce Ohr and the FBI.

While there was prior knowledge of the role of Ohr as an FBI intermediary between Fusion-GPS, Chris Steele and the FBI during the original counterintelligence investigation, the new documents show Ohr continued in his role well into Mueller’s appointment.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/03/07/judicial-watch-uncovers-documents-showing-bruce-ohr-continued-as-intermediary-between-christopher-steele-and-robert-muellers-team/
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scherado
scherado
4 years ago

Two times the eighteen months, is better than one! It reminds me of the opening song of David Bowie’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars,

We’ve got eighteen months, what a surprise
eighteen months stuck on my eyes
We’ve got eighteen months my brain hurts a lot
eighteen months, that’s all we’ve got

-David Bowie, “Five Years”

felix1999
felix1999
4 years ago

Christopher Steele Admits He Was Hired To Help Hillary Challenge 2016 Election
By Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/17/2018

Former UK spy Christopher Steele admitted in a London court that he was hired to help Hillary Clinton contest the results of the 2016 election in case Trump won, according to the Washington Times.

Steele assembled an anti-Trump “dossier” of opposition research investigative firm Fusion GPS, which was in turn hired by DNC law firm Perkins Coie LLP. The document used “a senior Russian Foreign Ministry figure,” and “a former top level intelligence officer still active in the Kremlin,” according to Vanity Fair. In other words, Hillary Clinton – through Steele and other intermediaries – was working with Russians against Donald Trump.

He said the law firm Perkins Coie wanted to be in a position to contest the results based on evidence he unearthed on the Trump campaign conspiring with Moscow on election interference.

His scenario is contained in a sealed Aug. 2 declaration in a defamation law suit brought by three Russian bankers in London. The trio’s American attorneys filed his answers Tuesday in a libel lawsuit in Washington against the investigative firm Fusion GPS, which handled the former British intelligence officer.

In an answer to interrogatories, Mr. Steele wrote: “Fusion’s immediate client was law firm Perkins Coie. It engaged Fusion to obtain information necessary for Perkins Coie LLP to provide legal advice on the potential impact of Russian involvement on the legal validity of the outcome of the 2016 US Presidential election.”

(I’d bet money Steele WROTE the disgusting dossier. Steele never married and never associated with women. Male homosexuals don’t like women. It is a known fact that Trump likes women. The content of this disgusting dossier would fit would a homosexual view of women and men that prefer women. Male homosexuals often love potty humor and talk. Steel needs to be extradited over here and interviewed – but DEM Nadler kept him off the list of people to question about the Russian farce. just like Mueller kept him out of it.)

“Based on that advice, parties such as the Democratic National Committee and HFACC Inc. (also known as ‘Hillary for America’) could consider steps they would be legally entitled to take to challenge the validity of the outcome of that election.” -Washington Times
More here:
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-12-17/christopher-steele-admits-he-was-hired-help-hillary-challenge-2016-election

felix1999
felix1999
4 years ago

Or foreign criminals like Christopher Steele.
He needs to be extradited here and tried for lying and writing the Russian dossier
Notice how the DEMS ignore Christopher Steele.

ssparks19
ssparks19
4 years ago
Reply to  felix1999

I bet he would sing a loud tune, if he didn’t have a Clinton suicide on the way to court.

robert v g
robert v g
4 years ago

I like how it’s exposed the Fibbies (Comey in particular) knew the info in dossier was “unverified”,all the while swearing to the FISA judge that the dossier was “verified” and even had been used in some prior legal proceedings. Further, why feature J.Solomon here while he works at goofy “The Hill”,which has just one sensible opinion, ‘Barr beats Congress.’ “The Hill” claims to be the whackadoodles in Congress fav.newspaper, disqualifying it for our use.

ssparks19
ssparks19
4 years ago

These have to be the greatest group of criminals ever assembled in the effort to overthrow our government. This is NOT a joking matter, people.

1PierreMontagne1
1PierreMontagne1
4 years ago

This is starting to become the stuff of suicides and disappearances

sodacrackers2
sodacrackers2
4 years ago

Oh what a tangled web we weave…

Tm.
Tm.
4 years ago
Reply to  sodacrackers2

My exact thought. I hope they go to jail for what they are putting us through, and for not accepting the election results, indeed for attempting to sabotage the process.

John Acord
John Acord
4 years ago

Steele was and may remain an agent of British Intelligence and his involvement clearly shows the Brits,especially PM May attempting to get her girl friend Hillary elected or Trump removed from office.Its really chilling to believe that our major ally would commit such an act that borders on aggression.

Poppey
Poppey
4 years ago
Reply to  John Acord

If you mean by “the Brits” John the UK political elite, most would agree with you, but remember how WE feel about her. We like you have a deep state, and T May is at the head of it, it’s full of people like Olly Robbins we cannot sack.

John Acord
John Acord
4 years ago
Reply to  Poppey

I Apologize for my careless use of language. I was referring to the sorry band of highway men disguised as Tories.

byronmullet
byronmullet
4 years ago

The only way to preserve the rule of law, stop seditions, weaponization of government for political purposes…is for perpetrators to spend compensatory time in jail.

AR154U☑ᵀʳᵘᵐᵖ DEPLORABLE 2020
AR154U☑ᵀʳᵘᵐᵖ DEPLORABLE 2020
4 years ago

The Neo-DNC Socialist Workers Party promises of FREE STUFF,…. have created some of the most depressing, violent and morally void areas of our country !!
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MAS
MAS
4 years ago

This is what happens when law enforcement plays fast and loose with the rules (playing on the edge of the envelope) to prove their preconceptions. The scariest thing is that if they’d do this to a candidate (and then President) they’d have no problem doing worse to us little people…

Jeanne Ballard
Jeanne Ballard
4 years ago

Keep plodding along and uncover this traitorous plot!!! I hope they all hang for what they have done

knightsstrength
knightsstrength
4 years ago

Round them all up and lock them up till all sorted. All iars, decievers.

Enough their to hang the lot

knightsstrength
knightsstrength
4 years ago

Here is Alexander Downer with his role in the mess with George Papadopoulos

https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6034584734001

Brenda Sinclair
Brenda Sinclair
4 years ago

WOW IT WAS A CLEAR SETUP ORDERED BY OBAMA CARRIED OUT BY JAMES COMEY BRENNAN MCCAIN, CLAPPER PAUL RYANcomment image

dad1927
dad1927
4 years ago

2 muslim converts in that pic.. Brennan and claptrap

For the money!

Maranatha
Maranatha
4 years ago

Comey…or commie??
What difference does it make….

Scott Smith
Scott Smith
4 years ago

Until we start executing people for treason, this will continue. Let our laws have teeth or just do away with them.

John Nosser
John Nosser
4 years ago

The FBI had to have known that the dossier was not verified, yet it was presented as a key attachment to the FISA application presented to the FISA judge. Did the judge bother to ask them how the dossier was verified? Where were the checks and balances? The director took the word of the supervising agent that it was done and signed it? Then the judge took the director’s signature only as the basis for his approval? So now we are to believe that in this case, and in this case only, there was a complete breakdown of proper procedure? There was a con going on alright; and the con men were the investigating agents, the supervising agent, the deputy attorney general in lieu of the attorney general, and the FISA judge. Who was conned? President Trump, the Trump administration, and the general public. Just this FISA issue alone dwarfs Watergate. People in the Judicial branch, in the justice department, and in the FBI, at the very least will eventually face jail time. Some could even end up in Gitmo for involvement in this as well as many other crimes, even to the level of traitorous crimes. I have put on my seatbelt!

dad1927
dad1927
4 years ago

Looking for a coup, they were.

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