IG's FISA Probe May Hamper Dems' Impeachment Plans

[Sparko]

Some parts of the dossier have been verified, but very little, and it's all inconsequential stuff that has nothing to do with Trump, his associates, or his campaign.

Well you gotta sprinkle some truth to sell a lie. But in this thing the only bits that could have been true were maybe some dates of when Trump was here or there, etc.

[Mountain Man]

Well you gotta sprinkle some truth to sell a lie. But in this thing the only bits that could have been true were maybe some dates of when Trump was here or there, etc.

Some meetings were confirmed, but they had no connection whatsoever to Trump or his campaign. In fact, nothing related to Trump was ever substantiated, and much of it has been disproved (such as the claim that Michael Cohen visited Prague; those conducting the illegal NSA database searches identified the WRONG Michael Cohen!).

[Mountain Man]

Source: Barr Has Tasked DOJ Officials to Help Him Review FBI’s Investigation into Trump

Attorney General William Barr said Wednesday during a Senate hearing that he has tasked Justice Department officials with helping him review whether the Federal Bureau of Investigation had a proper predicate for investigating the Trump campaign in the summer of 2016.

“Yes I do have people in the Department helping me review the activities over the summer of 2016,” he told Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), a senior member and formerly the chairman of the Justice Committee.

Barr also said he expects there would be “some kind of reporting” at the end of his review.

Barr also committed to Grassley that he would look into text messages sent by former FBI agent Peter Strzok to former FBI lawyer Lisa Page suggesting they wanted to develop sources within the Trump administration to surveil it.

He also said the DOJ has “multiple criminal leak investigations underway” to investigat unauthorized media contacts between DOJ and FBI officials during the Russia investigation.

Grassley noted the irony of the Trump campaign being investigated for “collusion” with Russia, even though the Democrats funded opposition research in the form of a dossier written by an ex-British spy that reportedly drew from Russian sources.

“The Mueller report spent millions investigating and found no collusion between Trump campaign and Russia. But the Democrats paid for the document created by a foreign national with reported foreign government sources. Not Trump — the Democrats. That’s the definition of collusion,” Grassley said.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2...on-into-trump/

© Copyright Original Source

[Mountain Man]

And so it begins...

Source: The Last Refuge

Earlier today John Solomon wrote an article noting how congressional investigators were reviewing Nellie Ohr testimony against last month’s release of FOIA documents. There are significant differences between Mrs. Ohr’s testimony about her communication and contacts with DOJ and FBI officials, and the scale of contact within the FOIA release.

According to an interview with Representative Jim Jordan, Rep Mark Meadows was considering a criminal referral. This evening, John Solomon is following up and affirming Nellie Ohr has now been referred to the DOJ for criminal prosecution (pdf below).

This doesn’t come as a surprise following the release of transcripts and the ability to contrast testimony from 2018 with recent discoveries and evidence. As a point of fact, Ms. Ohr also lied in her testimony about the timing of her Ham Radio license and use.

Not coincidentally, Fusion-GPS owner Glenn Simpson is also being reviewed for lying to investigators about his contacts and activity in connection to the dossier. Nellie Ohr worked for Fusion-GPS and it would appear Fusion was at the center of the effort to construct evidence to support the 2016 election operation against Donald Trump.

Our research indicates a strong likelihood Fusion-GPS was contracted by the Obama intelligence apparatus through the Clinton Campaign, DNC and Perkins Coie specifically to help fabricate evidence that could be used to cover-up prior surveillance operations.

Prior to March 9th, 2016, the political surveillance and spy operations of the Obama administration were using the FBI and NSA database to track/monitor their opposition. However, once the NSA compliance officer began initiating an internal review of who was accessing the system, the CIA and FBI moved to create ex post facto justification for their endeavors. [Full Backstory]

After the NSA alerts, in/around March 9th, 2016, and particularly after the April 18th shutdown of contractor access, the Obama intelligence community needed Fusion GPS to create a legal albeit ex post facto justification for the pre-existing surveillance and spy operations. Fusion GPS gave them that justification in the Steele Dossier.

Since 2017 CTH research has outlined that Christopher Steele was never the factual source of all the material inside the Clinton financed dossier. Instead all indications of the granular details point toward Christopher Steele as the laundry process; where Nellie Ohr and Glenn Simpson’s collaborative work was formatted into an intelligence product known as the “Steele Dossier”.

Our research of central dossier claims, suppositions, accuracy and inaccuracy, points toward a process where Nellie Ohr provided Chris Steele with her research material and then Chris Steele was tasked with verifying, finding second sourcing, and formatting the final product into a series of intelligence documents that could be passed back to the FBI.

In essence, Nellie has always been the material dossier author.

Fusion-GPS’s Glenn Simpson hired (contracted) Nellie Ohr in December of 2015. It is highly likely this arrangement was due to Nellie’s research access to the FBI/NSA database. Mrs. Ohr was almost certainly doing unauthorized wide-ranging FISA(702) searches using “about queries” (option 17) and “To/From queries” (option 16).

At the conclusion of her effort (providing material she knew the FBI was exploiting for the Trump-Russia ‘spygate’ scheme), the memory stick Nellie provided to Bruce was the totality of all her raw research files. Those files included stuff Chris Steele had already compiled; raw stuff that neither was able to verify (Cohen-Prague); and search results that never made their way into the dossier.

Turning over all of the raw research would allow the FBI to explore and/or re-explore the information to see if they could extract more value. My suspicion is the memory stick from Nellie Ohr to her husband Bruce Ohr provided the unlawfully extracted seed material for what the Mueller investigation ultimately used against Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn. [The Papadopoulos and Page stuff was not as valuable]

With this hand-off, the FBI research and investigative unit assisting Robert Mueller’s 2017 assembled team of prosecutors etc. was essentially the same FBI small group who constructed the 2016 insurance policy.

Nellie’s files gave Team Mueller a head-start. They didn’t need to look for too much evidence as Nellie had already explored and extracted the material they could use. It’s really not a hard pattern of dot connection once you follow the timeline and process.

https://theconservativetreehouse.com...l-prosecution/

© Copyright Original Source

As the saying goes, the coverup is always worse than the crime.

[rogue06]

And so it begins...

Source: The Last Refuge

Earlier today John Solomon wrote an article noting how congressional investigators were reviewing Nellie Ohr testimony against last month’s release of FOIA documents. There are significant differences between Mrs. Ohr’s testimony about her communication and contacts with DOJ and FBI officials, and the scale of contact within the FOIA release.

According to an interview with Representative Jim Jordan, Rep Mark Meadows was considering a criminal referral. This evening, John Solomon is following up and affirming Nellie Ohr has now been referred to the DOJ for criminal prosecution (pdf below).

This doesn’t come as a surprise following the release of transcripts and the ability to contrast testimony from 2018 with recent discoveries and evidence. As a point of fact, Ms. Ohr also lied in her testimony about the timing of her Ham Radio license and use.

Not coincidentally, Fusion-GPS owner Glenn Simpson is also being reviewed for lying to investigators about his contacts and activity in connection to the dossier. Nellie Ohr worked for Fusion-GPS and it would appear Fusion was at the center of the effort to construct evidence to support the 2016 election operation against Donald Trump.

Our research indicates a strong likelihood Fusion-GPS was contracted by the Obama intelligence apparatus through the Clinton Campaign, DNC and Perkins Coie specifically to help fabricate evidence that could be used to cover-up prior surveillance operations.

Prior to March 9th, 2016, the political surveillance and spy operations of the Obama administration were using the FBI and NSA database to track/monitor their opposition. However, once the NSA compliance officer began initiating an internal review of who was accessing the system, the CIA and FBI moved to create ex post facto justification for their endeavors. [Full Backstory]

After the NSA alerts, in/around March 9th, 2016, and particularly after the April 18th shutdown of contractor access, the Obama intelligence community needed Fusion GPS to create a legal albeit ex post facto justification for the pre-existing surveillance and spy operations. Fusion GPS gave them that justification in the Steele Dossier.

Since 2017 CTH research has outlined that Christopher Steele was never the factual source of all the material inside the Clinton financed dossier. Instead all indications of the granular details point toward Christopher Steele as the laundry process; where Nellie Ohr and Glenn Simpson’s collaborative work was formatted into an intelligence product known as the “Steele Dossier”.

Our research of central dossier claims, suppositions, accuracy and inaccuracy, points toward a process where Nellie Ohr provided Chris Steele with her research material and then Chris Steele was tasked with verifying, finding second sourcing, and formatting the final product into a series of intelligence documents that could be passed back to the FBI.

In essence, Nellie has always been the material dossier author.

Fusion-GPS’s Glenn Simpson hired (contracted) Nellie Ohr in December of 2015. It is highly likely this arrangement was due to Nellie’s research access to the FBI/NSA database. Mrs. Ohr was almost certainly doing unauthorized wide-ranging FISA(702) searches using “about queries” (option 17) and “To/From queries” (option 16).

At the conclusion of her effort (providing material she knew the FBI was exploiting for the Trump-Russia ‘spygate’ scheme), the memory stick Nellie provided to Bruce was the totality of all her raw research files. Those files included stuff Chris Steele had already compiled; raw stuff that neither was able to verify (Cohen-Prague); and search results that never made their way into the dossier.

Turning over all of the raw research would allow the FBI to explore and/or re-explore the information to see if they could extract more value. My suspicion is the memory stick from Nellie Ohr to her husband Bruce Ohr provided the unlawfully extracted seed material for what the Mueller investigation ultimately used against Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn. [The Papadopoulos and Page stuff was not as valuable]

With this hand-off, the FBI research and investigative unit assisting Robert Mueller’s 2017 assembled team of prosecutors etc. was essentially the same FBI small group who constructed the 2016 insurance policy.

Nellie’s files gave Team Mueller a head-start. They didn’t need to look for too much evidence as Nellie had already explored and extracted the material they could use. It’s really not a hard pattern of dot connection once you follow the timeline and process.

https://theconservativetreehouse.com...l-prosecution/

© Copyright Original Source

As the saying goes, the coverup is always worse than the crime.

Was just reading about that:

Source: Mark Meadows sends criminal referral targeting Nellie Ohr to DOJ

Nellie Ohr, the wife of Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, is the subject of a criminal referral sent to the Justice Department on Wednesday.

Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., wrote up the referral addressed to Attorney General William Barr, citing concerns that Ohr "knowingly provided false testimony" last year to a joint task force of the House Oversight and Judiciary committees that were investigating decisions made by the Justice Department and FBI surrounding the 2016 election.

The Hill reported Meadows, a member of House Oversight, has filed a referral with the Justice Department in the evening Wednesday. The Washington Examiner has not independently confirmed it has been sent and has reached out to Meadows' office.

"During her transcribed interview, Ms. Ohr testified she 'would not have any knowledge of what [was] going on in an ongoing investigation' at DOJ and would not 'have any knowledge of the Department of Justice’s investigations on Russia.' Ms. Ohr also denied she shared her research on Russian organized crime and Donald Trump with individuals outside of Fusion GPS (her employer); her husband, DOJ attorney Bruce Ohr, and Christopher Steele," Meadows wrote in the referral.

"However, documents reviewed by our committees raise concerns Ms. Ohr not only had knowledge of an ongoing DOJ investigation, but that she shared information and research on Russian organized crime to assist DOJ, in direct contradiction with her testimony," he added.

Ohr conducted research on connections between Russia and President Trump, having been contracted by Fusion GPS, the same opposition research firm behind the infamous Trump dossier. Meadows pointed to emails made public though a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch that show Ohr was in contact with Justice Department officials in 2016.

"For example, in March 2016, DOJ official Lisa Holtyn sent Bruce Ohr an email asking if Nellie would be able to speak with Ivana Nizich and Joe Wheatley to discuss her research as part of an ongoing investigation as she was told 'Nellie might be a great resource.' When Mr. Ohr checked if Nellie would feel comfortable speaking with DOJ, Nellie emailed 'Sure!'" Meadows said.

"A separate email chain indicates Ms. Ohr shared her research on Russian organized crime in contradiction to her testimony. Specifically, on a separate email chain between Nellie Ohr, Mr. Ohr, Ms. Holtyn, and DOJ officials Joe Wheatley and Ivana Nizich, Ms. Ohr provides the Department of Justice with analysis of Shakro, a Russian mafia boss, and the separatists in the Donbass war," he added.

"Taking these communications into account, in addition to other information we have reviewed, Meadows said, "Ms. Ohr misled the committees when she testified she would not have any knowledge of what was going on in an ongoing DOJ investigation, and that she had not shared her research outside of Fusion GPS, her husband, and Christopher Steele. Truthful witness testimony is crucial to the integrity of investigations conducted by the House of Representatives. Ms. Ohr violated her oath to tell the truth by making demonstrably false statements during her testimony before the Committee. Accordingly, I am referring Nellie Ohr to the Department of Justice for investigation of potential violation(s) of 18 U.S.C.§1001 et seq."

Ohr testified to the Oversight and Judiciary committees in October. The transcript was made public by Judiciary ranking member Doug Collins in March.

The testimony focused heavily on her time with Fusion GPS and its relationship with the DOJ. Nellie Ohr said she met three times with Christopher Steele, the author of the dossier that contained unverified claims about Russia having compromising information about Trump. The last of those meetings took place on July 30, 2016, a day before the FBI initiated a counterintelligence investigation into links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign. It is believed that FBI agent Peter Strzok, now-infamous for exchanging anti-Trump text messages with a colleague, signed the order that launched the inquiry.

Ohr's husband, Bruce Ohr, acted as an unofficial back channel between the FBI and Steele. He was demoted when it was revealed he met with Steele and Glenn Simpson, the co-founder of the opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which commissioned Steele's work. Ohr also told lawmakers his wife shared a thumb drive with him to hand over to the FBI.

The dossier, which contained unverified claims about Trump's ties to Russia, has been a subject of concern for GOP lawmakers, particularly for how it was used by the FBI in Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant applications to gain the authority to spy on onetime Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

The FBI suspended its relationship with Steele in October 2016 for unauthorized contact with the media. Despite this, the FBI maintained an unofficial back channel with Steele up to at least November 2017 via Ohr

More criminal referrals from Meadows could be in the works. At an event Tuesday, the congressman said he knows of "two or three individuals" tied to Fusion GPS who could be the subject of criminal referrals for lying to Congress.




Source

© Copyright Original Source

[Mountain Man]

THIS is the story that Democrats are desperately trying to hide with all their theatrics surrounding Barr's testimony.

[Mountain Man]

Well well well...

Source: The Last Refuge

A report in the New York Times, transparently timed and placed by officials within the intelligence apparatus trying to get out ahead of internal investigations, outlines how the FBI sent counterintelligence spies to engage with Trump campaign officials in 2016.

In a stunning admission The New York Times describes how the FBI enlisted a female agent to work the “operation” in the U.K. during August-September 2016 posing as an aide for U.S. intelligence asset/FBI informant Stefan Halper.

Halper was an FBI operative and Cambridge professor who set up meetings with Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos. The female agent used a fake name, Azra Turk, and presented herself as an assistant to Stefan Halper; however, she was actually an undercover intelligence operative of the FBI.

https://theconservativetreehouse.com...rump-campaign/

© Copyright Original Source

And remember, the only thing Mueller could get Papadopoulos on was a process crime -- I think he got the date wrong with regards to a meeting or something else similarly innocuous -- and he spent something like 10-days in jail as punishment.

[Mountain Man]

Some interesting questions being asked about who Joseph Mifsud is exactly, and who was he working for when he approached Parapolous in 2016. There are indications that he was, in fact, working for the FBI and/or CIA when he met Papa and suggested that he had access to Hillary's emails. This is significant because it was this meeting that was used as the predicate to begin a counter intelligence operation against Trump and his campaign.

"Wait a minute," you might be thinking, "Why would an employee of our intelligence agencies be running a sting on a US citizen prior to and as justification for a later Intelligence operation?"

That, my friend, is the right question.

https://theconservativetreehouse.com...ge-1/#comments

[seer]

Some interesting questions being asked about who Joseph Mifsud is exactly, and who was he working for when he approached Parapolous in 2016. There are indications that he was, in fact, working for the FBI and/or CIA when he met Papa and suggested that he had access to Hillary's emails. This is significant because it was this meeting that was used as the predicate to begin a counter intelligence operation against Trump and his campaign.

"Wait a minute," you might be thinking, "Why would an employee of our intelligence agencies be running a sting on a US citizen prior to and as justification for a later Intelligence operation?"

That, my friend, is the right question.

https://theconservativetreehouse.com...ge-1/#comments

This is key, Mifsud tells Papadopoulos that the Russians had the e-mails, then (key word here is then) Papadopoulos mentions this to the Australian diplomat Alexander Downer*, who dutifully reports this to US authorities. It looks like a set up from beginning to end.

Downer tried moved $25,000,000 of Aussie taxpayer monies into the Clinton foundation.

https://spectator.org/the-papadopoul...such-a-downer/

[Mountain Man]

The more threads they pull, the more the coup unravels...

Source: The Last Refuge

John Solomon has a new article at The Hill centered around this email from State Department official Kathleen Kavalec after her October 11, 2016, interaction with dossier author Christopher Steele.

The substantive point of the article is how the email proves the political motives of Steele two weeks prior to the FBI/DOJ seeking a FISA application using his work product, the dossier. Despite knowing the bias motive, the FBI/DOJ persisted in using the dossier for a Title-1 FISA warrant against U.S. person Carter Page on October 21, 2016.

A second issue, perhaps more alarming, surrounds: (1) how the current DOJ and FBI kept the email hidden from congressional investigators; and (2) how the current DOJ and FBI have recently redacted the email, highlighting an ongoing institutional cover-up.

https://theconservativetreehouse.com...-chris-steele/

© Copyright Original Source

[Cow Poke]

I hope somebody told Barr not to take a stroll through Fort Marcy Park.

[Mountain Man]

I like how our resident liberals have studiously ignored this thread in their "Orange man bad!" zeal, but not only is this story not going away, it's getting bigger...

Source: The Hill

If ever there were an admission that taints the FBI’s secret warrant to surveil Donald Trump’s campaign, it sat buried for more than 2 1/2 years in the files of a high-ranking State Department official.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec’s written account of her Oct. 11, 2016, meeting with FBI informant Christopher Steele shows the Hillary Clinton campaign-funded British intelligence operative admitted that his research was political and facing an Election Day deadline.

And that confession occurred 10 days before the FBI used Steele’s now-discredited dossier to justify securing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page and the campaign’s ties to Russia.

Steele’s client “is keen to see this information come to light prior to November 8,” the date of the 2016 election, Kavalec wrote in a typed summary of her meeting with Steele and Tatyana Duran, a colleague from Steele’s Orbis Security firm. The memos were unearthed a few days ago through open-records litigation by the conservative group Citizens United.

Kavalec’s notes do not appear to have been provided to the House Intelligence Committee during its Russia probe, according to former Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.). "They tried to hide a lot of documents from us during our investigation, and it usually turns out there’s a reason for it," Nunes told me. Senate and House Judiciary investigators told me they did not know about them, even though they investigated Steele’s behavior in 2017-18.

One member of Congress transmitted the memos this week to the Department of Justice’s inspector general, fearing its investigation of FISA abuses may not have had access to them.

Nonetheless, the FBI is doing its best to keep much of Kavalec’s information secret by retroactively claiming it is classified, even though it was originally marked unclassified in 2016.

...

Despite the heavy redactions, Kavalec’s notes have momentous consequence.

For the first time, we have written proof the U.S. government knew well before the FBI secured the FISA warrant that Steele had a political motive and Election Day deadline to make his dossier public.

And we know that information was transmitted before the Carter Page FISA warrant to one or more people whose job is so sensitive that their identity had to be protected. That means there is little chance the FBI didn’t know about Steele’s political client, or the Election Day deadline, before requesting the FISA warrant.

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-ho...air-trump-dirt

© Copyright Original Source

[Mountain Man]

Roger Stone recently filed a court motion demanding that the government 1) Prove its claims that Russia "hacked" the DNC servers; and 2) If they can't satisfy 1 to suppress all downstream warrants and evidene derived from the unfounded claim.

https://theconservativetreehouse.com...ge-1/#comments

Some folks are saying that Mueller made a huge miscalculation going after Stone because it has given Stone legal standing to question the entire narrative and compel the government to prove its case against him.

[Mountain Man]

The FBI knew at least a week prior to using Steele's report to secure a FISA warrant that the dossier was sketchy at best.

https://theconservativetreehouse.com...sa-submission/

[rogue06]

The FBI knew at least a week prior to using Steele's report to secure a FISA warrant that the dossier was sketchy at best.

https://theconservativetreehouse.com...sa-submission/

Have you noticed how in the past couple of weeks that several of those involved in that sordid mess have begun to turn on each other? Looks like they are getting nervous about the investigation.