Nothing to see here I guess except that the man who provided the tip to the FBI that started the whole Trump-Russia collusion investigation has ties to failed Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
A recent report claims former Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer organized a $25 million donation to the Clinton Foundation.
The Hill published government memos from 10 years ago on the foreign ministry’s website that shows what Downer did to secure that donation:
Downer and former President Clinton jointly signed a Memorandum of Understanding in February 2006 that spread out the grant money over four years for a project to provide screening and drug treatment to AIDS patients in Asia.The money was initially allocated to the Clinton Foundation but later was routed through an affiliate of the charity known as the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), officials said. Australia was one of four foreign governments to donate more than $25 million to CHAI, records show.
Downer now serves as Australia’s ambassador to London.
The Hill noted that Downer told officials about “a conversation with Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos at a London bar in 2016 that became the official reason the FBI opened the Russia counterintelligence probe.”
The FBI allegedly never told lawmakers that Downer had previous ties to the Clintons:
Republicans say they are concerned the new information means nearly all of the early evidence the FBI used to justify its election-year probe of Trump came from sources supportive of the Clintons, including the controversial Steele dossier.“The Clintons’ tentacles go everywhere. So, that’s why it’s important,” said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) chairman of a House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee that has been taking an increasingly visible role defending the Trump administration in the Russia probe. “We continue to get new information every week it seems that sort of underscores the fact that the FBI hasn’t been square with us.”
Jordan told The Daily Caller that the information refutes claims from House Intelligence ranking member Adam Schiff and shows that Attorney General Jeff Sessions needs to have a second special counsel:
“Schiff made a big point of this in his memo and comments he’s made, where he said ‘the dossier wasn’t the most important thing they were investigating, and the catalyst for the Russian investigation was this Papadopoulos meeting,” the Ohio Republican told The Daily Caller. “Now we’ve learned, the thing they kept hanging their hat on was the Papadopoulos meeting with Ambassador Downer, and it turns out that Mr. Downer now had ties to the Clintons as well.”“He arranged $25 million in contributions to The Clinton Foundation, and I believe that Downer arranged the meeting with Papadopoulos. It wasn’t just, ‘oh shazam, we’re in the same bar and this guy is just shooting his mouth off.’ It wasn’t a coincidence.”
Not only that, but it brings up new questions about when and what Obama’s administration knew:
“We learned in July that the FBI had the dossier. And then we subsequently learned it wasn’t just the FBI who had the dossier, it was also the Justice Department, mainly Bruce Ohr. So it’s, like wait. The obvious question is now did the White House have it? Did Obama know? We don’t know the answer to that question. But the pattern suggests that those 10 questions that Devin [Nunes] sent to those 24 people a couple of weeks ago, and he got those first responses back on Friday, those 10 questions on the dossier are so important.”
Of course, Democrats accuse Republicans of overreaching because it’s totally not a big thing that a man with ties to the Clintons started this investigation:
“The effort to attack the FBI and DOJ as a way of defending the President continues,” said Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence panel. “Not content to disparage our British allies and one of their former intelligence officers, the majority now seeks to defame our Australian partners as a way of undermining the Russia probe. It will not succeed, but may do lasting damage to our institutions and allies in the process.”Nick Merrill, Hillary Clinton’s spokesman, said any effort to connect the 2006 grant with the current Russia investigation was “laughable.”
The Clinton family said the story should be about how that donation helped bring medicine to those with AIDs in Asia. Yes, that’s great, but that doesn’t excuse corruption. But it seems that’s all the Clintons know…corruption.
Clinton Downer Feb 2006 Mou by JohnSolomon on Scribd
[Featured image via The Hill video]
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