STEELE DOSSIER: The Document That Kicked Off Mueller Report Was Possibly ‘Russian Disinformation’
Why did it take a declassification of redacted footnotes to find proof that the witchhunt against Trump was known to be bogus from the very beginning?
And for those of you who only accept news from the big networks, and will dismiss anything that exonerates Trump as ‘partisan’ — this story is from CBS.
It’s run by an experienced journalist that CNN celebrated for her integrity when she defected from Fox to join another network.
Now that she’s exposing some validity to what ‘trustworthy’ news sources would normally write off as merely Deep State conspiracy theories MAGA voters tell each other at night on Twitter, we’re going to need some questions answered.
The more we learn about the investigations into Trump and his associates, the uglier the picture of the characters coordinating it appear. These are not ‘honorable’ men and women serving the public interest. These are cynical and vindictive people willing to leverage tools they have no authority to use in the destruction of someone they have no right to investigate.
All for political gain.
Chuck Grassley went looking for answers about something that seemed a little off. You know, like those with oversight are SUPPOSED to do.
He wanted the unredacted version of this report:
#FISA @ChuckGrassley who pushed for declassification footnotes with @SenRonJohnson issued this statement “FBI Ignored Early Warnings that Debunked Anti-Trump Dossier was Russian Disinformation
Declassified footnotes…reveal faulty predicate in Russia probe @CBSNews pic.twitter.com/oc3rEjYGWZ— Catherine Herridge (@CBS_Herridge) April 10, 2020
(This is perhaps a good time to point out that Democrats DEMANDED that the entirety of the Mueller Report be unredacted… even in such cases as the content was related to information that cannot lawfully be disclosed.)
#FISA Who or What is behind 15 redacted characters – the specific warning about Russian disinformation? “The (redacted) stated that it did not have high confidence in this subset of Steele’s reporting and ASSESSED that the..subset was part of a Russian disinformation campaign..” pic.twitter.com/qkk8n7kiat
— Catherine Herridge (@CBS_Herridge) April 11, 2020
#FISA Three footnotes IG report declassified. Footnote 342 withheld citing “unique and significant concerns.” Comes from section about “..miscommunications between Steele and the (dossier’s) Primary Sub-source, exaggerations or misrepresentations by Steele about the information” pic.twitter.com/PjmcIyKm4I
— Catherine Herridge (@CBS_Herridge) April 11, 2020
But some of Horowitz’s findings were disputed by U.S. Attorney John Durham, who is conducting a broader investigation. At the time, Durham said “we do not agree with some of the report’s conclusions as to predication and how the FBI case was opened.”
Several footnotes in Horowitz’s report were redacted, and Republican Senators Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson pushed for the declassification of four footnotes related to the Steele dossier, a collection of opposition research notes on the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer.
The dossier was used, in part, by FBI investigators to secure four surveillance warrants for Page.
Footnote 350 in the IG report addresses the FBI’s knowledge of Russian contacts with Steele and the potential for disinformation. Steele had “frequent contacts with representatives for multiple Russian oligarchs, we identified reporting the Crossfire Hurricane team received from (redacted) indicating the potential for Russian disinformation influencing Steele’s election reporting.”
The footnote also indicates that warnings to the FBI’s Russia probe became more pronounced over time.
“The (redacted) stated that it did not have high confidence in this subset of Steele’s reporting and assessed that the referenced subset was part of a Russian disinformation campaign to denigrate US foreign relations.”
Footnote 302 relates to the FBI’s efforts to verify information contained in the Steele dossier, commissioned by the DNC through opposition research firm Fusion GPS.
“According to a document circulated among Crossfire Hurricane team members and supervisors in early October 2016, Person 1 had historical contact with persons and entities suspected of being linked to RIS (Russian Intel)……In addition, in late December 2016, Department Attorney Bruce Ohr told SSA 1 that he had met with Glenn Simpson (Fusion GPS) and that Simpson had assessed that Person 1 was a RIS (Russian intel) officer who was central in connecting Trump to Russia.”
The third footnote also relates to the Steele source.
Assistant Attorney General Stephen E. Boyd, in a letter to Grassley and Johnson, wrote that the “fourth and final footnote presents unique and significant concerns. — Source: CBS
It will be interesting to see how the Left passes this off as merely a conspiracy theory, or an attempt to deflect from … whatever it is they will claim Trump is trying to hide.
It couldn’t POSSIBLY be exactly the OPPOSITE of that, could it? That they’ve tried to keep Trump on the ropes for his entire presidency so that what THEY have to hide wouldn’t pop up and embarrass them, could it?
Either way, that leaves a BOATLOAD of unanswered questions about the Mueller probe (what did they know, when did they know it, and what was their REAL intent with this investigation), AND the key figures that helped launch it in the first place — including Comey, Brennan, and Rosenthal.
If we had more honest reporters like Catherine, perhaps we’d have broken the back of this sham before it had hijacked the presidency for years, wasted millions of dollars, dragged innocent men and women through the wringer, subverting justice, and almost certainly tainting the outcome of the midterm elections.
Maybe now we know why Mueller had so little to say about the document that launched the investigation that made him a household name.
It was possibly the only real evidence of Russian Collusion in the whole exercise, and it implicated PRECISELY the wrong people.