More details about the DEMOCRAT 'insurance policy' coming to light

[Legion]

• More than 15 journalists, several U.S. government officials and multiple lawmakers were shown or given the Steele dossier during the 2016 presidential campaign or shortly after.
• Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele disseminated the dossier far and wide in an apparent attempt to insert the document’s salacious allegations into the media.
• Newly unsealed court filings show how widespread this effort was.

Court documents released last week in a lawsuit involving the Steele dossier revealed new details about the campaign to disseminate the infamous anti-Trump report to the press and within the U.S. government.

Much was already known about Fusion GPS and dossier author Christopher Steele’s efforts to seed the dossier with reporters and government officials. Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson orchestrated several meetings between Steele and Washington, D.C.-based journalists prior to the 2016 election. It has also been widely reported that Steele and Simpson met with government officials in an attempt to ensure that Steele’s unverified findings landed on the government’s radar.

A deposition given by David Kramer, a longtime associate of former Sen. John McCain, shed light on even more contacts with reporters and government officials. Kramer’s Dec. 13, 2017, deposition was released on March 14 along with a batch of other documents from a dossier-related lawsuit against BuzzFeed News.

By giving the dossier to government officials, Fusion GPS and Steele were able to create news hooks for journalists to write stories airing the dossier’s unverified allegations.

That was the case with Yahoo! News, Mother Jones, CNN and BuzzFeed News, all of which published stories not about the underlying claims made in the dossier, but about the fact U.S. government officials were handling the document.

Here are all of the contacts that Steele, Simpson and Kramer had with government officials and the press.

Fusion GPS and Steele’s contacts with US government officials

Simpson and Steele, a former MI6 officer, made contact with two separate government officials during the campaign to disseminate the dossier.

Steele met with Justice Department official Bruce Ohr and his wife, a Fusion GPS contractor named Nellie Ohr, on July 30, 2016, to provide some of the information he had gathered in his investigation.

Simpson reached out and met Bruce Ohr on Aug. 22, 2016. Bruce Ohr told Congress on Aug. 28, 2018, that Simpson told him of possible intermediaries between the Trump campaign and Kremlin. Simpson and Bruce Ohr met again on Dec. 10, 2016. During that encounter, Bruce Ohr says Simpson handed him a memory stick with what he believes was a copy of the dossier.

Steele met with Jonathan Winer, a (Deep) State Department official with close ties to former Secretary of State John Kerry, during summer 2016. He told Winer about the information he had gathered, and Winer wrote a two-page summary to give to others at the (Deep) State Department.

Simpson reached out to Winer between Sept. 19-22, 2016. In an email, Simpson requested an urgent phone call with Winer. It would later be reported that Winer was a source for Michael Isikoff, the Yahoo! News reporter who wrote the first article laying out the dossier’s allegations against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

The FBI relied on the dossier to obtain four Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants.

Winer did not just receive intelligence from Steele. He also provided the retired spy with dirt gathered by two longtime Hillary Clinton allies, Sidney Blumenthal and Cody Shearer. Blumenthal gave Winer a copy of a report written by Shearer that contained allegations similar to Steele’s dossier. Winer gave that report to Steele who passed it to the FBI.

Simpson contacted several top national security reporters beginning in summer 2016 to arrange meetings with Steele. He also reportedly tipped ABC News reporter Brian Ross off to a Belarus-born businessman who is believed to be a major source for the dossier.

Simpson also set up meetings in mid-September 2016 between Steele and several other reporters, including Yahoo’s Isikoff, The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer, The Washington Post’s Tom Hamburger and Rosalind Helderman, and Steven Lee Meyer and Eric Lichtblau at The New York Times.

Steele spoke in October 2016 with David Corn, a reporter at Mother Jones who published a dossier-based story on Oct. 31, 2016. Corn provided a copy of the dossier to James Baker who then served as FBI’s general counsel. Corn hoped that Baker would reveal whether the FBI was investigating the dossier’s claims, but Baker told Congress he did not provide any information to the reporter.

Baker would also meet with Michael Sussmann, an attorney at Perkins Coie, the firm that hired Fusion GPS on behalf of the DEMOCRAT National Committee. Sussmann provided Baker with information relevant to the Trump-Russia probe but not from the dossier.

He provided similar information to Slate’s Franklin Foer and reporters at The New York Times.



https://tinyurl.com/y3d5whpz

[Legion]

[Getin the ring]

don't expect anything on this on the fake news networks

[Legion]

don't expect anything on this on the fake news networks

Why would I?

[Legion]

ABC News has released a transcript of a two-year-old interview with Sergei Millian, a Belarus-born businessman who is said to be a major source for the Steele dossier.

Millian’s remarks to ABC News line up with the discredited dossier’s allegations about collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.

The date of the interview, July 29, 2016, is also significant. It took place two days before the Obama-era FBI opened its investigation into "collusion" between the Trump campaign and Russia. Several days before the interview, Millian reached out to and met with George Papadopoulos, the former Trump campaign adviser who pleaded guilty to lying about his contacts with a mysterious Maltese professor.

But the burning question about Millian is whether the businessman was telling the truth in the interview or when he unwittingly spoke to an intermediary who reported back to Christopher Steele, the former British spy who compiled the dossier with unverified Internet posts and help from Fusion-GPS contractor Nellie Ohr, who was on the Clinton campaign's payroll.

Millian’s credibility has been called into question, and he has been accused of exaggerating his links to Trump. Millian’s associates have told The Washington Post that he has a penchant for embellishment. And even Glenn Simpson, the opposition researcher who hired Steele and Ohr to make up dirt on Trump, reportedly doubted Millian.

According to the recent book, “Russian Roulette,” Simpson “had his doubts” about Millian.

“Had Millian made something up or repeated rumors he had heard from others to impress Steele’s collector? Simpson had his doubts. He considered Millian a big talker,” the book reads.

Despite his doubts, Simpson tipped off ABC’s Ross to Millian’s purported links to Trump.

Millian, whose real name is Siarhei Kukuts, was first linked publicly to the dossier on Jan. 24, 2017 when The Wall Street Journal and ABC News identified him as “Source D” in the salacious 35-page report.

Described in the dossier as a “close associate of Trump,” Source D claimed that the Trump campaign was conspiring with the Kremlin to influence the 2016 election. The source also claimed that the Russian government was blackmailing Trump with video footage of the real estate tycoon with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel room during a trip there in 2013.

ABC News and The Wall Street Journal reported that Millian was Source D. The Journal and The Washington Post have also reported that Millian is identified in parts of the dossier as “Source E.” That source claimed that former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page was the campaign’s liaison to the Kremlin.

Trump and Page have vehemently denied the dossier’s allegations.

Ross, who has since left ABC News after bungling a story about former national security adviser Michael Flynn, was able to interview Millian about Trump’s "links to Russia" as well as his own purported ties to "Russian intelligence agencies". Ross also asked Millian if Trump had a “Russian girlfriend.” Millian acknowledged having contacts in the Russian government but denied being a Russian spy.

Millian made the remark about Trump having “tricks up his sleeve” when he was asked whether he believed that the Republican had any chance of defeating former Secretary of (Deep) State Hillary Clinton.

Days before the Millian interview, WikiLeaks released 20,000 emails that Russian government hackers stole from the DEMOCRAT National Committee. In October 2016, WikiLeaks began publishing emails hacked from the Gmail account of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, who founded The Podesta Group with his brother Tony. That was the unregistered foreign lobbying firm that Paul Manafort worked with when his criminal activities allegedly occurred.

Trump and President Putin were "involved in a conspiracy to release the emails" in order to damage the DNC and Clinton, according to the Steele dossier.

Ross asked Millian if he had any information about whether the Russian government hacked the DNC’s computers.

“I’ve been asked this question a few times,” said Millian. “If Putin wanted to support Donald Trump, he would share those emails that got deleted. That would be real support,” said Millian.

Millian also gave inconsistent statements about his alleged interactions with Trump, as well as whether he was in Moscow on the night of the alleged blackmail scene.

In the interview with Ross, Millian said that he was in Moscow at the same time as Trump but that he did not accompany the real estate mogul.

“He was not with me. He was at the same time in Moscow as I was. But he worked with some of our advisors,” said Millian.

That comment contradicts what Millian told reporters in March. Millian said in an email that he “was not in Moscow” on the same night as Trump.

Millian also suggested to Ross that he has met Trump in Florida as well as Moscow.

“Have you ever talked to Mr. Trump about Ukraine?” Ross asked Millian.

“No, we only spoke about Moscow in Russia,” said Millian.

But in an interview in June 2017, Millian said that he had only met Trump once a decade ago.

When asked if had ever met Trump, Millian acknowledged that he had and said that “there was only one meeting” regarding “strategy and marketing opportunities for the Trump Hollywood project in Florida.”

He said that the meeting occurred “about 10 years ago,” but he complained that “the media portrays these events and meeting as if it happened yesterday.”

On the same day that ABC released its transcript of the Millian interview, the alleged dossier source was a topic of discussion during Justice Department official Bruce Ohr’s congressional testimony about his contacts with Steele and Simpson.

A recently-released transcript of Ohr’s testimony reveals that Millian was mentioned when Ohr was asked about an Aug. 22, 2016 interaction he had with Simpson.

Ohr’s notes show that Simpson told him about “possible intermediaries” between the Trump campaign and Russia as well as a “longtime associate of Trump” who “put together several real estate deals for Russians to purchase Trump properties.” Millian was identified as the purported intermediary.

Millian’s contacts with Papadopoulos have also recently been in the news.

Papadopoulos’ attorneys said in a court filing submitted on Aug. 31 that FBI agents initially quizzed Papadopoulos about Millian during a Jan. 27, 2017 interview.

Papadopoulos has pleaded guilty in the special counsel’s investigation to lying to the FBI in that interview.

The FBI agents wanted to ask Papadopoulos a “couple of questions” regarding “a guy in New York that you might know,” Papadopoulos’ lawyers said.

“Less than twenty minutes into the interview, the agents dropped the Millian inquiry,” reads the court filing.

Millian first met Papadopoulos after sending the former low-level campaign aide a message on LinkedIn on July 22, 2016. The pair met, and continued their relationship for several months.

Papadopoulos’s wife, Simona Mangiante Papadopoulos, testified that Millian offered her husband a job working for the Russian energy company Bashneft. The catch was that Papadopoulos had to work from within the Trump administration.

Papadopoulos rejected the offer.


https://tinyurl.com/ybqvd88a

[Stretch]

• More than 15 journalists, several U.S. government officials and multiple lawmakers were shown or given the Steele dossier during the 2016 presidential campaign or shortly after.
• Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele disseminated the dossier far and wide in an apparent attempt to insert the document’s salacious allegations into the media.
• Newly unsealed court filings show how widespread this effort was.

Court documents released last week in a lawsuit involving the Steele dossier revealed new details about the campaign to disseminate the infamous anti-Trump report to the press and within the U.S. government.

Much was already known about Fusion GPS and dossier author Christopher Steele’s efforts to seed the dossier with reporters and government officials. Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson orchestrated several meetings between Steele and Washington, D.C.-based journalists prior to the 2016 election. It has also been widely reported that Steele and Simpson met with government officials in an attempt to ensure that Steele’s unverified findings landed on the government’s radar.

A deposition given by David Kramer, a longtime associate of former Sen. John McCain, shed light on even more contacts with reporters and government officials. Kramer’s Dec. 13, 2017, deposition was released on March 14 along with a batch of other documents from a dossier-related lawsuit against BuzzFeed News.

By giving the dossier to government officials, Fusion GPS and Steele were able to create news hooks for journalists to write stories airing the dossier’s unverified allegations.

That was the case with Yahoo! News, Mother Jones, CNN and BuzzFeed News, all of which published stories not about the underlying claims made in the dossier, but about the fact U.S. government officials were handling the document.

Here are all of the contacts that Steele, Simpson and Kramer had with government officials and the press.

Fusion GPS and Steele’s contacts with US government officials

Simpson and Steele, a former MI6 officer, made contact with two separate government officials during the campaign to disseminate the dossier.

Steele met with Justice Department official Bruce Ohr and his wife, a Fusion GPS contractor named Nellie Ohr, on July 30, 2016, to provide some of the information he had gathered in his investigation.

Simpson reached out and met Bruce Ohr on Aug. 22, 2016. Bruce Ohr told Congress on Aug. 28, 2018, that Simpson told him of possible intermediaries between the Trump campaign and Kremlin. Simpson and Bruce Ohr met again on Dec. 10, 2016. During that encounter, Bruce Ohr says Simpson handed him a memory stick with what he believes was a copy of the dossier.

Steele met with Jonathan Winer, a (Deep) State Department official with close ties to former Secretary of State John Kerry, during summer 2016. He told Winer about the information he had gathered, and Winer wrote a two-page summary to give to others at the (Deep) State Department.

Simpson reached out to Winer between Sept. 19-22, 2016. In an email, Simpson requested an urgent phone call with Winer. It would later be reported that Winer was a source for Michael Isikoff, the Yahoo! News reporter who wrote the first article laying out the dossier’s allegations against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

The FBI relied on the dossier to obtain four Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants.

Winer did not just receive intelligence from Steele. He also provided the retired spy with dirt gathered by two longtime Hillary Clinton allies, Sidney Blumenthal and Cody Shearer. Blumenthal gave Winer a copy of a report written by Shearer that contained allegations similar to Steele’s dossier. Winer gave that report to Steele who passed it to the FBI.

Simpson contacted several top national security reporters beginning in summer 2016 to arrange meetings with Steele. He also reportedly tipped ABC News reporter Brian Ross off to a Belarus-born businessman who is believed to be a major source for the dossier.

Simpson also set up meetings in mid-September 2016 between Steele and several other reporters, including Yahoo’s Isikoff, The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer, The Washington Post’s Tom Hamburger and Rosalind Helderman, and Steven Lee Meyer and Eric Lichtblau at The New York Times.

Steele spoke in October 2016 with David Corn, a reporter at Mother Jones who published a dossier-based story on Oct. 31, 2016. Corn provided a copy of the dossier to James Baker who then served as FBI’s general counsel. Corn hoped that Baker would reveal whether the FBI was investigating the dossier’s claims, but Baker told Congress he did not provide any information to the reporter.

Baker would also meet with Michael Sussmann, an attorney at Perkins Coie, the firm that hired Fusion GPS on behalf of the DEMOCRAT National Committee. Sussmann provided Baker with information relevant to the Trump-Russia probe but not from the dossier.

He provided similar information to Slate’s Franklin Foer and reporters at The New York Times.



https://tinyurl.com/y3d5whpz