Steele’s Second Dossier Included Info From Clinton Associates in Obama’s State Department
Grassley wants all these documents unclassified for transparency.
It looks like former British spy Christopher Steele authored a second dossier against then-GOP candidate Donald Trump. This one included information from failed Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton associates within former President Barack Obama’s State Department.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and member Lindsey Graham (R-SC) revealed that the FBI has “signed off on an unclassified version of the criminal referral” from the two men after the White House declassified House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes’ memo on Friday:
“Seeking transparency and cooperation should not be this challenging. The government should not be blotting out information that it admits isn’t secret, and it should not take dramatic steps by Congress and the White House to get answers that the American people are demanding. There are still many questions that can only be answered by complete transparency. That means declassifying as much of the underlying documents as possible,” Grassley said.
Grassley posted the document on his website, but it’s heavily redacted. One part remained intact:
Unfortunately, this is all we have and the names are blacked out. However, I blogged at the end of January that the FBI is assessing a second dossier authored by Cody Shearer, an activist close to the Clinton family. Steele had contact with Shearer along with “Obama State Department official Jonathan Winer.” From The Washington Examiner:
For example, a press release accompanying the referral said the referral “contains verbatim quotes from the [Carter Page surveillance] application that are not included in the [House Intelligence Committee] memo. Specifically, the referral quotes the application’s descriptions of Steele’s statements to the FBI about his contacts with the media.” Lest anyone get too excited, the press release went on to say that the quotes “remain redacted” in the version of the referral released Monday.
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Some of the redacted passages also relate to the question of statements about Steele’s press contacts that the FBI made to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in applying for the Page surveillance warrant that was the subject of the House Intelligence Committee memo released Friday.
One of those redacted passages refers to reporting from The Washington Post. It blacks out what the report was about about, but it says that whatever it was about, “the Judiciary Committee began raising questions to the FBI and the Justice Department about these matters as part of the Committee’s constitutional oversight responsibility.”
In early January, the two senators asked the Department of Justice to investigate Steele because they believe he made false statements to the FBI concerning his talks with news outlets about the dossier.
NEW: GOP Senators Grassley and Graham are calling for a criminal investigation into the author of the “Trump Dossier,” Christopher Steele. Say have reason to believe he made false statements to investigators: pic.twitter.com/VCVTxeL6CO
— Laura Litvan (@LauraLitvan) January 5, 2018
The document released today is blacked out when it comes to this subject. Normally I wouldn’t post pictures of blacked out material, but damn. It looks like the senators have a handful of information to show that Steele misled the FBI.
Unclassified CEG LG Memo to DOJ FBI (Steele Referral) by Washington Examiner on Scribd
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Comments
Looks to me like somebody has been abusing our classification system to cover up malfeasance. This is always a danger when any amount of governmental secrecy is allowed.
The necessary and proper remedy is full disclosure of the information that should never have been classified in the first place.
I’ll second that motion.
And all the illegal acts of treason all lead back to one place – Obama/Hillary Mob.
I wonder if any of it was marked NOFORN, yet it ended up in the hands of an ex-MI6 senior manager and citizen of the United Kingdom.
“This is always a danger when any amount of governmental secrecy is allowed.”
No. Sometimes there is danger when we allow that attitude to compromise things that SHOULD be classified.
Anything that WAS classified improperly should be exposed. Nothing beyond that.
It seems in the present circumstance that the party or parties who did the original classification are now being tasked to review if the items were in fact properly classified and can be de-classified. What is needed is an impartial outside party to review and decide.
Sure.
What an incredible display of efficiency by the Clinton campaign. Instead of the arduous task of sending money to a law firm, to send money to friendly foreign espionage agents, to send money to hostile foreign espionage agents, to generate fantasy stories on your opponent, have your friendly foreign espionage agent simply interview members of your own staff. The money stays mostly in the campaign, and you still get the implausible deniability factor.
/snark
This is probably the Post article they are referring to https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/josh-rogin/wp/2018/01/23/trump-allies-seek-to-tie-kerrys-state-department-to-the-steele-dossier/?utm_term=.bfef36f9e7af
Hillary is so incompetent she can’t even cheat successfully. Even with the MSM, DNC, FBI, DOJ and State Department propping her up.
Well, they all thought she’d win the election and none of this would surface. I think that’s why they/she were a bit careless.
Hillary thinks she is some sort of God and can silently brutalize the masses; steal public funds provided by hard-working taxpayers, and sell power and access for private interests.
Why wouldn’t she think that?
She and her hubby have been getting away with it for decades.
When they say “nothing to see here folks, move along”,,, they aren’t kidding. There must be a significant shortage of redacting ink in Washington these days. This opaque transparency must be a comfort to the Left right now. No “Pentagon Papers” will be forthcoming.
The Clinton’s have a bevy of “friends” but somehow this piece just screams “Sidney Blumenthal”.
If you recall, Sidney Blumenthal was cited has having material that looked amazing like NSA reports, but the FBI seemed to have no interest. I’m not saying he was at State but rather that he had a constant feed of classified material including State Dept reports.
I’ve thought of Sid. Why would anything he provides to the State Dept. be classified, then?
So, let me get this straight….The FBI sought a Title I warrant against Carter Page, in which they had to represent that Page was a Russian agent, based upon a collection of information from Steele, who was hired by and paid for by a Hillary Clinton campaign entity (Fusion GPS through Perkins Coie), but which, in reality, was used to investigate the Trump campaign. Since a Title I warrant is against an individual and since it allows ALL contacts to be investigated who have had ANY interaction AT ANY TIME with the subject of the warrant, ANYONE who spoke to, emailed, or wrote to Carter Page could have his/her communications monitored by the FBI. Thus, the ostensible “target” of the investigation was Carter Page (against whom no charges have been disclosed), but the warrant was used to target the opposition candidate, Donald Trump, and then, his presidency. Does the Steele “dossier” even mention Carter Page???
If I were someone who has ever spoken to, met, or stood next to Carter Page at a urinal, I’d sue to find out if the FBI had scooped up my communications- FOIA request???
Yes. The one verified fact in the dossier is that Page did travel to Russia on the dates alleged — something that anyone could easily have known, since he made no attempt at all to hide it.
And may have done it as an FBI employee…..
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/02/05/in-march-2016-carter-page-was-an-fbi-employee-in-october-2016-fbi-told-fisa-court-hes-a-spy/
No, he didn’t. Only an idiot trusts anything from the Conservative Nuthouse. I’ve already demolished this claim below.
The would be “de-classified” rather than “unclassified”.
I have been saying for weeks that Trump should de-classify all the FISA warrant applications, affidavits, supporting documents, applications for renewals, and court orders.
I surmise that it will happen as part of a multi-step process that allows Dems time to make stupid contentions and allegations on the record only too see them eviscerated when the final docs are released.
I believe Gowdy said that some of the material he’d seen in the FISA applications was…and should remain…classified.
Hence the need for an impartial third party review as I noted above.
I doubt that Gowdy, or any other member of Congress has any idea what should and should not be classified. That is why there is only 8 members of the Congress who have access to the majority of classified material. That way it is easier to nail the leaker, if only 8 people have access to the info.
At this point, it is doubtful that any information directly bearing on the case of the FISA warrants and Steele’s activities has any need to be classified. I would be surprised if we see a single, verifiable piece of foreign intelligence anywhere in this pile of horse manure.It is all made up.
As seen in the above redactions, democracy dies in darkness.
Cmon DOJ. Do your job and root out the corruption.
All the palaver qualifying this scandal as being about the D.C. brass and how pure and pious the FBI is in general is nonsense. FBI is long overdue for a reckoning.
The law enforcement side still has a big scandal afoot, but for some reason, the media lost interest in it very quickly despite the fact that innocent people may have been sent to federal prison for long terms based on junk science and lying “experts”.
https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-testimony-on-microscopic-hair-analysis-contained-errors-in-at-least-90-percent-of-cases-in-ongoing-review
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/21/fbi-jail-hair-mass-disaster-false-conviction
Why are a lot of people lying to the FBI, but only Republicans under investigation or having to plea?
Why is there a lot of government covering up and stonewalling, but only Republicans seem concerned about transparency? Where’d all the good government types go?
Why are Dems screaming about national security risks on nonsense stuff but hiding or ignoring the fact that almost i) half their congress critters every electronic move was monitored by 4 sketchy Pakistanis?, ii) Hillary leaked like a sieve, iii) DNC leaked like a sieve, iv) OPM leaked everything, v) they LOVE their little Manning spy?
And in an era where police have to wear body cams to record what they do, why does the FBI not tape interviews or make it easy to retain emails and text messages?
These are rhetorical questions. We kinda know the answers.
A long piece, but worth reading. The research done prior to publication seems to have been quite thorough and it ties a lot of disparate information together. Enlightening.
http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/251897/obama-steele-dossier-russiagate
The Clintons thought that once Hilliary was in the Oval Office, and the LibDems back in control of the House, that all of their scheming would be safe from public view. More the fools they.
Gee, it was only a short couple weeks ago that the meeja here in the UK was breathlessly reporting on this second dossier as being something akin to the truth.
Turns out is full of shit and fuck me sideways but that same breathless media has lost interest all of a sudden!!
The Storm has been rolled out slowly so as to give the perps enough rope to hang themselves.
Today, I read Steele described as “very close” to The Guardian. Now, I am Canadian, not British, but… wait. The ex-head of MI6’s Russia House is “very close” to The Guardian? And has been for years? And was being paid by an American opposition research firm doing work for both a Russian oligarch (in good standing with Putin, in this case) and the Hillary campaign? Perhaps it really is a small world.
I’d really like to see some charges leveled…real soon.
Deputy Press Secretary Raj Shah told reporters on Air Force One Monday that President Trump’s attorneys have already approved the idea of appointing a second special counsel to investigate the FBI and Justice Department’s actions during the 2016 presidential campaign, according to White House pool reports.
Have a ink to that? I would like to read it.
Heads up: Somewhere else I came across someone citing the Conservative Nuthouse as a source that “In March 2016 Carter Page Was an FBI Employee – In October 2016 FBI Told FISA Court He’s a Spy”. Be aware that, like most things you’ll see on that site, this is a load of garbage. It rests on the supposedly “transparently clear” assertion that the “undercover employee” who met regularly with Igor Sporyshev was the same person as “Male 1” whom Victor Podobnyy, a different Russian spy, tried to recruit as a source.
But if you actually read the “sources” cited for this conclusion you’ll find that they don’t support it at all, and in fact make it blindingly obvious that these were two different people. “Male 1” has since been identified as Carter Page; “UCE” was therefore someone else. In fact it seems it was through a listening device “UCE” planted on Sporyshev that the FBI found out about “Male 1” and the attempt to recruit him.
“UCE” was posing as an analyst at a New York energy firm, and formed a solid relationship with Sporyshev, based on his delivering information supposedly from his company in return for cash and gifts. “Male 1”, on the other hand, is described by the FBI as someone actually working as a consultant in New York City, which fits Page, who founded a NY investment company in New York called Global Energy Capital. Unlike “UCE”, whom Sporyshev trusted, Podobnyy thought “Male 1” was a self-promoting blowhard who “wants to earn a lot of money”, and whom Podobnyy hoped to take for a ride, by making empty to pull strings to get him contracts in Russia.
Ruh-rowh…
https://hotair.com/archives/2018/02/05/nunes-well-technically-maybe-doj-disclose-dossiers-political-bias-fisa-court/
Nunes is no more straight than anyone he accuses.
Sorry, Rags, there is a huge difference between mentioning that “the source for this information may have some sort of political motivation” and “we’re hoping to use this warrant as a back door to spy on a major-party presidential campaign, and oh, by the way, this information on which our application is based came directly from the opposing campaign”.
Your ASSumptions are hanging out, Milhouse.
You have no more idea of what you’re talking about than SwineReports.
My only assumption is that Nunes and his R colleagues on the committee, who have no known history of lying, haven’t started now, while Schiff, who just now got caught with his pants in fire over his claim that the R memo would betray national security, is being true to form. The characterization I put on the two options is completely consistent with Allahpundit’s piece you linked. They obliquely mentioned the possibility of some sort of political motivation, without saying how strong they knew it to be.
As for Kerr, he lost me when he suggested the FBI may not have known the source for the Yahoo! news story; they could have asked, especially since they did know Steele was shopping his claims around.
No, Milhouse, you make a whole raft of ASSSSSSumptions, starting the the motives of the investigators.
You didn’t read the Kerr analysis very well.
When investigators get information…even from a very dubious source…THAT has to be examined. That’s how you “verify” things. Via investigation.
No law enforcement organization would…or should…dismiss information out-of-hand based on its source. It might color its views, but it should never determine its investigative approach.
And the “dossier” contains information that HAD to be investigated. That’s how you “vet” stuff.
Yeah, Rags, except your fellow TDS sufferers didn’t bother.
Didn’t bother with WHAT, cultist?
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/03/opinion/nunes-memo-trump-mueller.html
I thought Kerr’s analysis was quite good.