McCain Associate Invokes Fifth Amendment on Trump Dossier Questions
He told a British court arrangements had been made to give McCain hard copies of the dossier.
An associate of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has invoked his fifth amendment rights to avoid answering questions on the dossier on President Donald Trump.
The House Intelligence Committee brought in David Kramer, a former State Department official, for an interview on the dossier in December. Then they served him with a subpoena in January and he did not for his hearing. Instead he invoked the fifth amendment.
From Fox News:
Yet Kramer gave a videotaped deposition last December in separate civil litigation against BuzzFeed about the dossier and his contact with the former British spy who compiled it, Christopher Steele. Steele was hired by opposition research firm Fusion GPS to write and research the dossier, with funding from the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign.
According to British court records obtained by Fox News as part of its ongoing investigation of the Trump dossier, Kramer was personally briefed in late November 2016 by Steele in Surrey, England. After that briefing, Steele told the British court that an arrangement was made so that Fusion GPS — co-founded by Glenn Simpson – would provide hard copies of the dossier to McCain via Kramer. Shortly afterward, the dossier was given to the FBI, which already had its own copy from Steele.
Fox News reached out to Kramer’s lawyer Marcos Jimenez, who is also “handling one of the defamation suits filed by Russian technology oligarchs against BuzzFeed for publishing the unverified dossier in January 2017.” The network asked him four questions:
- Why did Kramer take the fifth?
- Why did he decide to stop cooperating with the committee?
- Why do they want to keep BuzzFeed’s deposition under seal?
- Did Kramer help provide the dossier to BuzzFeed?
Kramer’s next deposition in BuzzFeed suit should occur on February 27. We do not know if it will be available to the public.
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Comments
Of course he did!
Did he take the fifth or take a fifth.
Curiouser and curiouser
One takes the fifth on the grounds that one cannot be forced to testify against himself in a criminal prosecution – except that the Dossier was a private document, being shopped around by Steele, and therefore there can be no crime associated with leaking a copy of it to anyone. It was not a government document. If he wasn’t the one who leaked it, and simply knows who does, he has even less justification for taking the fifth.
So what crime is Kramer worried about being charged with?
Maybe he’s protecting McCain.
my thoughts exactly, snakes in the grass.
DJT poetry reading today is apropos
“Maybe?”
McCain is as likely is as criminally culpable as anyone in this scam.
Perjury.
Yup. He lied in the Depo about something knowing no one gets charged in a civil proceeding, but they do in a Congressional setting (unless you are a Democrat)
To avoid being Arkancided, or Seth Riched.
Sara Carter reported last night that Kramer invoked the 5th over the question of whether or not he provided the dossier to Buzzfeed, who then published it.
and that’s the point. Since it wasn’t a crime even if he did provide it to buzzfeed, on what grounds does he take the fifth?
To protect some of his fellow traitors???????
not a lawyer, but isn’t the point of the 5th to avoid incriminating ones self and not another?
NcCain is dirty. So is this guy.
Interesting reading:
“A defendant in a criminal case has an absolute right not to testify; not so for a witness:”
https://www.lawyers.com/legal-info/criminal/criminal-law-basics/taking-the-5th.html
Agree, but it seems like we’re missing something here, and something we don’t yet know may make it illegal, or reveal some other detail they don’t want revealed.
Let us suppose for a second that McCain was in constant contact with Clinton thru Kramer. The crime is using a foreign entity (Steele)for political campaigning.
That would be big…
Kramer was at least arguable engaged in unlawful “espionage.” See my more detailed explanation, below.
My last comment was a reply to Tom Servo, and should have a ? mark.
McCain will be gone, just not soon enough. I’ve not been missing him for nearly 40 years.
Over/under is next month.
He can no longer stand.
I wish I cared
It’d be great to expose him before he died – so we don’t have to endure the fraud of his burial ‘with honors.’
This is so tiresome. It should be a pre-employment requirement that anyone taking a federal job must waive their 5th amendment rights if they are involved with an investigation of their job or agency. Lois Lerner is a very good example of someone who got away with claiming her 5th A rights and should have been required to answer questions concerning her role in the IRS. No sign – No job!
Kramer may have been advised to plead the Fifth because even if it seems unlikely he would ever be prosecuted, his participation in dissemination of the dossier might possibly be construed to violate American or British espionage laws.
A British national, Steele, who was paid to do so, disseminated foreign intelligence from Russian FSB agents (which may have been Russian disinformation) with the express purpose of influencing the outcome of the U.S. election.
That sounds like espionage to me, but what do I know? It MIGHT be prosecutable even if it never will actually be prosecuted against Kramer, ergo, he’s allowed to take the Fifth.
It could also be sedition.
I.e. Kramer was Steele’s “cutout” for dissemination of the dossier to McCain for the express purpose of passing Russian FSB disinformation to influence the outcome of the American election. Since even Russian facebook trolls have now been indicted for their much less significant efforts to influence the American election, why wouldn’t Kramer also be indictable?
Hiding behind the 5th is a cowardly move in this case.
What else would you expect from the McCain camp?