themarketswork

a common sense approach to a liberal world

The Clinton Dossier Disclosures

by

The Washington Post reported yesterday that Hillary Clinton, her campaign and the DNC were officially behind the funding of the Trump Dossier.

For this reporting, say a big thank you to Devin Nunes.

The Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee – a Republican Representative from California’s San Joaquin Valley – has been aggressively pursuing the false allegations and disinformation campaign put forth by Democrats.

It started with finding evidence of Obama’s surveillance of President Trump – see, Devin Nunes, Classified Intelligence and Schiff’s Political Pretense.

But is was a July 27, 2017 letter – actually two letters – that really brought things to light – see, A Letter from Devin – Unmasking the Leakers and 14 Issues Worthy of Investigation – A House Judiciary Request:

The members call for the appointment of a second special counsel to investigate grave concerns such as former Attorney General Lynch’s directive to former FBI Director Comey to mislead the American people on the nature of the investigation into former Secretary Clinton; the FBI and Justice Department’s investigative decisions related to the Clinton email investigation, including the immunity deals given to potential co-conspirators; selected leaks of classified information that unmasked U.S. persons incidentally collected upon by the intelligence community; and the FBI’s reliance on “Fusion GPS” in its investigation of the Trump campaign.

It was an October 4, 2017 Subpoena quietly issued by Nunes and the House Intelligence Committtee that finally brought things to a head:

On Oct. 4, as part of its aggressive push for answers about the dossier, which was written by former British spy Christopher Steele, the House panel issued a subpoena to TD Bank for Fusion’s records. That same day, the committee subpoenaed Fusion’s three partners, Glenn Simpson, Peter Fritsch and Thomas Catan to produce documents and provide interviews to the committee.

In Friday’s court filing, Fusion’s lawyer, William W. Taylor of the firm Zuckerman Spaeder, said that the House Intelligence Committee issued the subpoena to TD Bank “without even telling Fusion.” The committee, led by California Rep. Devin Nunes, sought Fusion’s bank records stretching back to Aug. 2015.

The pressure placed on Fusion GPS from this subpoena was intense. A Federal Judge had already given Fusion GPS a deadline of this coming Friday to reach an agreement with the House Intelligence Committee that would circumvent the need for a judicial decision on the release of Fusion’s bank records.

Which leads one to wonder if Fusion GPS chose a different path of disclosure as a means to head off a full release of Fusion GPS’s bank records…

And so it was that yesterday the Washington Post revealed that Hillary Clinton, her campaign and the DNC were officially behind the funding of the Trump Dossier:

The Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee helped fund research that resulted in a now-famous dossier containing allegations about President Trump’s connections to Russia and possible coordination between his campaign and the Kremlin, people familiar with the matter said.

Marc E. Elias, a lawyer representing the Clinton campaign and the DNC, retained Fusion GPS, a Washington firm, to conduct the research.

After that, Fusion GPS hired dossier author Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer with ties to the FBI and the U.S. intelligence community, according to those people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Elias and his law firm, Perkins Coie, retained the company in April 2016 on behalf of the Clinton campaign and the DNC. Before that agreement, Fusion GPS’s research into Trump was funded by an unknown Republican client during the GOP primary.

The Clinton campaign and the DNC, through the law firm, continued to fund Fusion GPS’s research through the end of October 2016, days before Election Day.

The Clinton campaign paid Perkins Coie $5.6 million in legal fees from June 2015 to December 2016, according to campaign finance records, and the DNC paid the firm $3.6 million in “legal and compliance consulting’’ since November 2015.

The FBI was also involved:

Some of Steele’s allegations began circulating in Washington in the summer of 2016 as the FBI launched its counterintelligence investigation into possible connections between Trump associates and the Kremlin. Around that time, Steele shared some of his findings with the FBI.

After the election, the FBI agreed to pay Steele to continue gathering intelligence about Trump and Russia, but the bureau pulled out of the arrangement after Steele was publicly identified in news reports.

Full Stop.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation agreed to fund opposition research conducted by one party’s candidate – in the very midst of a Presidential Election.

Sadly, this isn’t even new information. The House Judiciary Committee had already formally requested information on this matter:

Mr. Comey’s and the FBI’s apparent reliance on “Fusion GPS” in its investigation of the Trump campaign, including the company’s creation of a “dossier” of information about Mr. Trump, that dossier’s commission and dissemination in the months before and after the 2016 election, whether the FBI paid anyone connected to the dossier, and the intelligence sources of Fusion GPS or any person or company working for Fusion GPS and its affiliates.

To make matters worse, Fusion GPS was apparently employed by Russia at exactly the same time it was working on the Trump Dossier. I cover the whole series of events in-depth in Fusion GPS, the Trump Dossier, Russian Money & the Magnitsky Act. It’s a bit complicated but the gist as it relates here is this – from Congressional testimony contained in the article:

SEN. GRAHAM: So, I just want to absorb that for a moment. The group that did the dossier on President Trump hired this British spy, wound up getting it to the FBI. You believe they were working for the Russians?

BROWDER: Yes. And in the Spring and Summer of 2016 they were receiving money indirectly from a senior Russian government official.

After the hearing, Lindsey Graham had this to say:

“If we have to subpoena the people at Fusion GPS, we need to subpoena them. Because Mr. Browder has now accused them of working for the Russians. And at the end of the day, if that’s true, the Democratic Party is working with somebody who was working with the Russians, whether they knew it or not.”

Turns out the Hillary and the DNC knew full well. The FBI had to know as well.

The question then becomes this.

Did the FBI use the information from the Trump Dossier as the basis for obtaining FISA Warrants that were then used to unmask members of the Trump Campaign  – and spy on President Trump himself?

The answer to this question is almost certainly – Yes.

This much is already fact.

The FBI used this dossier as part of their reasoning for generating FISA surveillance warrants on the Trump campaign in June 2016.

To restate, the FBI was actually utilizing propaganda potentially commissioned and directly sourced from Russia – paid for by the DNC and Clinton’s Campaign – as the reason for launching the entire Trump-Russian investigation in the first place.

Information that was not only compromised but also discredited.

Information from a firm that Thor Halvorssen, President and CEO of the Human Rights Foundation had this to say – under oath – during Congressional testimony:

Fusion GPS isn’t an “opposition research” or a crisis communications company. Fusion GPS is a group of highly paid smear experts who function as an accessory to the crimes committed by Derwick Associates. I urge you to probe into Fusion GPS’s Venezuelan activities and especially into their willingness to pay journalists in exchange for the publication of baseless smears.

And it was all paid for by Hillary Clinton’s Campaign and the DNC.

Russian meddling in our election process – serious meddling – paid for by the DNC, using information sourced from Russia – with the FBI as the dissemination vehicle.

Astonishing.

It gets stranger. Remember Paul Manafort – the ex-Campaign manager for President Trump – who is reportedly being investigated by Mueller?

On Monday, it was reported that the Podesta Group is now being investigated by Mueller.

Last night, Tucker Carlson broke this news:

Media reports describe Paul Manafort as a central figure in the Russia investigation due to the several months he spent as Donald Trump’s campaign chairman. According to our source, that’s only half true. Manafort is indeed at the center of this investigation, but not because of his ties to Trump. In fact, Paul Manafort spent years working with the Podesta Group on behalf of Russian government interests.

According to our source, Manafort was clear, crystal clear that Russia wanted to cultivate ties to Hillary Clinton in the belief she was likely to become president. These links to Hillary were apparently quite valuable to the Russians.

Our source believes that the Russian money Manafort funneled to the Podesta Group greatly exceeds the roughly $1 million they were officially paid. Some of these payments he indicated could be hidden kickbacks that would be hard for investigators to trace. Our source described the Podesta groups books as, quote, “A treasure trove, and highly secret.”

He told us the Podesta group had no board overseeing it and that all financial decisions internally were made by Tony Podesta personally.

As our source put it, quote, “Tony Podesta was basically part of the Clinton Foundation.”

The source we spoke to has been interviewed extensively by Robert Mueller’s independent investigators.

Tucker’s full video report:

To sum up:

  • Manafort was colluding with Russia, the Podesta Group and the Clinton Campaign to enable Russia to cultivate ties with Hillary Clinton in the mistaken belief that she would win the presidency.
  • The Clinton Campaign and the DNC were paying for the creation of the Trump Dossier – and other “opposition research”.
  • The Clinton Campaign was directly colluding with spy sources within Russia and the UK.
  • The FBI agreed to pay for continued information gathering by Steele – although they reneged when it became public.
  • The FBI used this information to begin an investigation into the Trump Campaign.
  • The FBI was instrumental in the dissemination of this information – and used it as part of the FISA Warrant process.
  • The FBI investigation of the Clinton State Department and Uranium One became twisted into an FBI investigation of fabricated Russian ties with the Trump Campaign.
  • The Obama Administration used the FBI’s information – and subsequent FISA Warrants – to unmask members of the Trump Campaign – and possibly President Trump himself.

My early – and more concise – summation yesterday:

It turns out that two reporters at the New York Times had known of details reported by the Washington Post for almost a year – but had not reported it themselves – because of severe pushback and outright lies – from the very Clinton Campaign lawyer who retained and paid Fusion GPS – Marc E. Elias:

Ironically, upon making these statements, both reporters were immediately attacked by their liberal readers on Twitter. The NYT was inundated with subscription cancellation requests.

Members of Clinton’s Campaign responded:

I don’t care much for Brian Fallon.

A quick aside that may ultimately prove incredibly relevant. Andrew McCarthy at National Review picked up on what may become a very important detail.

In its capacity as attorney for the DNC, Perkins Coie – through another of its partners, Michael Sussman – is also the law firm that retained CrowdStrike, the cyber security outfit, upon learning in April 2016 that its [DNC] servers had been hacked.

The conclusion that Russia is responsible for the invasion of the DNC servers rests on the forensic analysis conducted by CrowdStrike. Rather than do its own investigation, the FBI relied on a contractor retained by the DNC’s lawyers.

Coincidence…

A final aside. About that mystery Republican donor mentioned in the Washington Post’s article:

Elias and his law firm, Perkins Coie, retained the company in April 2016 on behalf of the Clinton campaign and the DNC. Before that agreement, Fusion GPS’s research into Trump was funded by an unknown Republican client during the GOP primary.

Byron York does an excellent job explaining that situation in, Republicans Skeptical About Origin of Trump Dossier.

One key talking point whenever the dossier is discussed is that it “started with Republicans,” that is, it was originally commissioned in fall 2015 by a GOP donor who hired a dirt-digging firm called Fusion GPS to look into candidate Trump.

The GOP strategists most involved in the competing campaigns that were trying to stop Trump — Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, the campaigns that were closely linked to big Republican donors and were hungry for any negative information they could use against Trump — say they knew nothing about the effort at the time and do not believe it was in fact begun by a Republican donor.

All of this brings us to the single most important question.

Exactly how much did Obama know?

I am willing to bet Obama knew everything.

Obama certainly had plenty of ties to the law firm involved in retaining Fusion GPS:

Three senior Obama administration officials, including two who worked side by side with President Barack Obama in the White House, left the administration to go to work at Perkins Coie and still work there.

Obama White House Counsel Robert (Bob) Bauer served from January 3, 2010 until June 30, 2011 when he left for Perkins Coie where he is a partner. Bauer is married to former Obama official Anita Dunn who served as White House Communications Director.

Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, appears to have become more interested in finding some answers. He finally decided to step up today and lend Devin Nunes some much-needed political support:

Sebastian Gorka summed events up nicely:

Let’s stop using the word “collusion” because the evidence we now have is about subversion, it’s about sabotaging the political process and it’s about propaganda. In the cold war, the Soviet Union used what was called active measures to undermine our democracy. This is the Democrat party, this is the Hillary campaign using active measures to undermine Donald Trump and to undermine the democratic process in America…. It is a shocking story.

A shocking story indeed. One that will only have more details forthcoming.

Keep an eye out for some WikiLeaks releases…

It’s going to get very interesting.

 

newer post  Obama’s DOJ Slush Fund Deception

older post  Unraveling – Undisclosed Emails & Two Joint House Committee Investigations