Image 01 Image 03

McCain Associate Invokes Fifth Amendment on Trump Dossier Questions

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.

DONATE

Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.

Comments

Of course he did!

CaliforniaJimbo | February 23, 2018 at 2:38 pm

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?

regulus arcturus | February 23, 2018 at 2:55 pm

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.

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.

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.

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.