Ruling Reveals John McCain Associate Gave Buzzfeed the Steele Dossier
“a former State Department official who was an executive at the McCain Institute”
Whether you call it the swamp, the deep state or the Washington, DC establishment, it was definitely out to get Trump following the 2016 election. He wasn’t supposed to win and he had angered some of the wrong people.
How else can this be explained? The Russian collusion conspiracy that Democrats and their media allies have obsessed over for the last two years was fueled in large part by the Steele dossier. It’s sad to learn that someone associated with John McCain played a role in this.
A businessman named in the dossier filed a defamation lawsuit against BuzzFeed for being named in the initial report, but a judge ruled in BuzzFeed’s favor.
Chuck Ross reports at the Daily Caller:
Breaking: John McCain Associate Gave Dossier to BuzzFeed
A longtime associate of late Republican Arizona Sen. John McCain provided a copy of the infamous Steele dossier to BuzzFeed News, according to an explosive court filing released Wednesday.
David Kramer, a former State Department official who was an executive at the McCain Institute, met on Dec. 29, 2016 with BuzzFeed reporter Ken Bensinger, according to a filing submitted Wednesday by U.S. District Court Judge Ursula Ungaro.
BuzzFeed published the dossier, which was authored by former British spy Christopher Steele, on Jan. 10, 2017.
The disclosure was made as part of a final report ahead of Ungaro’s ruling in favor of BuzzFeed in a defamation lawsuit.
The revelation that Kramer was BuzzFeed’s source settles one of the main mysteries of the dossier, which alleges a vast conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russian government to influence the 2016 election…
McCain dispatched Kramer to London to meet with Steele. After that Nov. 28, 2016 encounter, Kramer obtained a copy of the dossier from Glenn Simpson, the founder of Fusion GPS, the firm that hired Steele on behalf of the Clinton campaign and DNC.
Kramer met Nov. 30, 2016, with McCain and McCain’s chief of staff, Christopher Brose, to review Steele’s reports.
Zoe Tillman of BuzzFeed has more on the lawsuit and the judge’s ruling:
BuzzFeed News Has Won A Lawsuit Over Its Decision To Publish The Trump Dossier
A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed a defamation lawsuit against BuzzFeed News over the publication of a dossier in January 2017 that alleged several years of links between Russia and then–president-elect Donald Trump.
A Cypriot businessman, Aleksej Gubarev, was named in the dossier, and his name wasn’t redacted in the version originally published by BuzzFeed. Gubarev sued shortly after the article came out, claiming he was defamed by having his name included.
US District Judge Ursula Ungaro in Florida found that BuzzFeed News was shielded against defamation claims because the dossier was the subject of official proceedings — both Trump and then-president Barack Obama had been briefed on it, according to reporting at the time, and the FBI investigated allegations in the documents. The judge concluded that BuzzFeed News was protected by what’s known as the “fair report” privilege.
Ungaro also found that the BuzzFeed News article was “fair and true” because it just reproduced the dossier — it didn’t express any opinions about it.
Here’s a statement from BuzzFeed editor Ben Smith:
My statement: pic.twitter.com/apt7j3BToX
— Ben Smith (@BuzzFeedBen) December 19, 2018
This entire Russian affair was so obviously a set-up from the beginning. I can’t believe it’s still a subject of inquiry in our government and a nightly topic on cable news.
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I’m curious (full disclosure: no I’m not) what Meghan has to say about her dad’s cronies.
“McCain dispatched Kramer to London to meet with Steele. After that Nov. 28, 2016 encounter, Kramer obtained a copy of the dossier from Glenn Simpson, the founder of Fusion GPS…
Kramer met Nov. 30, 2016, with McCain and McCain’s chief of staff, Christopher Brose, to review Steele’s reports.”
So in the space of three days McCain sent Kramer to London, Kramer apparently asked for a copy from Simpson and McCain, Brose and Kramer had a meeting over the dossier. Shortly thereafter Kramer gave the dossier to Buzzfeed. And are we supposed to think that McCain had nothing to do with ensuring the public dissemination of the phony dossier? Sure, that old SOB who screwed the American people over and over, most particularly the last time with the Obamacare repeal, had nothing to do with his hatred of Donald J. Trump. I suspect, without proof, that it really grated on McCain that Trump won the election when he was supposed to have been President in 2008 (another time when McCain’s actions at least contributed to screwing us – “suspending” his campaign to rush back to the Senate, yielding the field to that junior Senator).
McCain was an honorable Naval officer who was fatally flawed, most likely by his years of POW torture and incarceration.
Don’t blame being a POW for McCain’s character flaws. He liked attention and did what was necessary to get it- including thumbs down on Obamacare. Loathsome act that it was, sending the dossier on its public rounds was even worse.
I couldn’t agree with you more about McCain. He suffered from “sons of famous fathers” syndrome- a mediocre student, a failure as a pilot, a philanderer as a husband and and a self-centered father. His only claims to fame were staying in captivity when he was offered release (of course, his father would have disowned him if he had accepted and he would have brought great shame upon himself, his father and even his grandfather) and his other claim to fame was in marrying an heiress. Quite a guy!
His military service notwithstanding, I cannot loathe a human being more than I do the late senator from Arizona. After campaigning specifically to build the border wall, he turned tail. After campaigning specifically to repeal and replace Obamacare, he cast the deciding vote to KEEP it! Now it is confirmed that he played a pivotal part in launching the Mueller abomination. Swine!
He should be hanged by his tiny gonads.
There is enough in McCain’s military service history to say that had he been anyone else he would have been dishonorably discharged. He broke so many rules flagrantly that had I, also a Naval Aviator, done even one of his many infractions would have been dismissed. His POW records are sealed and I do not know if we will ever learn the truth of his captivity. But his active duty record is there for all to see. He was a clown with a huge ego and knew that his family’s Navy history would save him. From the Keating Five to his last stab in the back on obamacare he was a traitor to his country.
This is old news. It has been common knowledge that Kramer released the Steele Dossier to Buzzfeed, for McCain, since February of 2017. The media simply refused to report on it. Even Fox News and most of the alternative media ignored it after a minimalist release of the information.
As for John McCain, he was a liberal Progressive who sided with the Dems as much or more than with his own party. That the Republican Party not only allowed him to remain a member, but actively supported him, speaks volumes to the theory that there has only been ONE major political party, the Uniparty, in this country for decades. McCain was a stooge, though a dangerous one.
I’m just a ditchdigger from the cornfields of flyover country and I damsure knew about it.
I only didn’t have a name (Kramer) to go with the rest of it
WHAT. A. TURD.
This has been known for quite a while, but I guess the media is just getting up to speed. McCain was a spiteful, egotistical, self-serving little weasel who didn’t have a problem trying to take down others when it suited his purposes. I hate to speak ill of those who served in the military and were POWs, but McCain is an exception.
It’s too bad that he died in the manner in which he did – it must’ve been awful to go through – but absolute truth and nothing but the truth be told, the United States of America, without any shred of a doubt, is far far better off without John Sidney “Maverick” McCain III in its ruling federal government.
And I, for one, am damn glad that John McCain is finally no longer in our government lording over us all from his little patch of desert scrub dirt in Arizona. Good riddance! Hallelujah!
All I can really say about McCain is that he never learned how to write legislation, and never learned how to pick people to supplement his weak spots.
“He wasn’t supposed to win and he had angered
some of the wrongall of the right people.”Fixed it.
No wonder the Democrats or so gushing with praise at his funeral. As usual, thete was a something more to the story than they let on.
I certainly don’t miss him, he was vile and vindictive small man. When history deals with him, when his secrets are laid bare, I think his legacy will be that of a liar, a thief, a traitor to his party, and one who only worked for one interest, himself.
I have found very little honorable about him. Voting for him was the most difficult vote I ever cast. I wish I could take that vote back.
Bradley manning and that ‘Bo’ deserter obama pardoned: do we thank them for their military service?
Enough of mccains military service. He used up that cache long ago.
Can we dig him up and move his body to a landfill? He doesn’t deserve to share soil with heroes.