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18 Questions from Jim Jordan

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Representative Jim Jordan has been one of the few in Congress willing to ask tough questions that many of us want answers to.

He has done so during Congressional Committee Sessions – requiring the questions and answers to become part of Congressional record.

Now he is asking those same questions in a more public forum.

Yesterday, Representative Jordan went public on Twitter with a series of related – and specific – questions. Questions that deserve answers (Double click to see full thread):

Here they are:

1) Did the FBI pay Christopher Steele, author of the dossier?

2) Was the dossier the basis for securing FISA warrants to spy on Americans?

And why won’t the FBI show Congress the FISA application?

3) When did the FBI get the complete dossier and who gave it to them?

Dossier author Christopher Steele?
Fusion GPS?
Clinton campaign/DNC?
Sen. McCain’s staffer?

4) Did the FBI validate and corroborate the dossier?

5) Did Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, or Bruce Orr work on the FISA application?

6) Why and how often did DOJ lawyer Bruce Orr meet with dossier author Christopher Steele during the 2016 campaign?

7) Why did DOJ lawyer Bruce Orr meet with Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson after the election?

To get their story straight after their candidate Clinton lost?
Or to double down and plan how they were going to go after President-elect Trump?

8) When and how did the FBI learn that DOJ lawyer Bruce Orr’s wife, Nellie Orr, worked for Fusion GPS?

And what exactly was Nellie Orr’s role in putting together the dossier?

9) Why did the FBI release text messages between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page?

Normally, ongoing investigation is reason not to make such information public.

10) And why did FBI release only 375/10,000+ texts?

Were they the best?
Worst?
Or part of a broader strategy to focus attention away from something else?
And when can Americans see the other 96% of texts?

11) Why did Lisa Page leave Mueller probe two weeks before Peter Strzok?

This was two weeks before FBI and Special Counsel even knew about the texts.

12) Why did the intelligence community wait two months after the election to brief President-elect Trump on the dossier (January 6, 2017)?

Why was James Comey selected to do the briefing?

13) Was the briefing done to “legitimize” the dossier?

And who leaked the fact that the briefing was about the dossier?

14) The New York Times reported last week that George Popadopoulos’ loose lips were a catalyst for launching the Russia investigation.

Was President-elect Trump briefed on this?

15) Why did Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson meet with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya before and after her meeting with Donald Trump Jr.?

16) Why was FBI General Counsel Jim Baker reassigned two weeks ago?

Was he the source for the first story on the dossier by David Corn on October 31, 2016?
Or was it someone else at the FBI?

17) Why won’t the FBI give Congress the documents it’s requesting?

18) And why would @SenSchumer, leader of the Democrat party, publicly warn President-elect Trump on Jan. 3, 2017 that when you mess with the “intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you?”

Jordan closes with this:

Apparently in response to Jordan’s tweets (note the times), an increasingly-nervous James Comey sent out his feelings on the matter:

Which elicited a response from Senator Grassley:

I couldn’t agree with Senator Grassley more.

There is a reason our Founders constructed a government comprised of Checks & Balances.

We are a Constitutional Republic – a Republic with a Constitutionally Limited Government.

In a Republic, political authority comes from the people. Powers are vested in the people and exercised through representatives chosen by the people. And Republics are bound by charters, which limit the responsibilities and powers of the state.

Sentiments like the ones being expressed by Comey have led us to this point.

This isn’t the first time Jordan has asked such questions. Here’s an exchange between Jordan and Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein during December 13, 2017, House Judiciary testimony:

Jordan pursues the same themes I’ve highlighted in earlier posts – the FBI used the Trump Dossier as the basis for obtaining a FISA warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), thereby allowing the FBI – and the Obama Administration – to spy on the Trump Campaign.

While the exchange appears heated, don’t read too much into the emotions on display. Jordan is indeed angry – but not at Rosenstein:

Don’t forget the timeline here… Peter Strzok, January 10. He’s the guy who changes the exoneration letter [for Hillary Clinton] from ‘gross negligence’ to ‘extreme carelessness.’ July 2, he’s the guy who sits in on the Clinton interview. July 5, 2016. That’s when Comey has the press conference and says we’re not going to prosecute… and then August 2016, we have this text message, the same month the Russia investigation was opened at the FBI, August 2016. My guess is that is the same month the application was taken to the FISA court to get the warrants to spy on Americans.

If you guys [FBI] paid Christopher Steele at the same time the Democrats and the Clinton campaign paid him, or if you took the dossier, dressed it all up, took it to the FISA court and used it as the basis to get a warrant … this is unbelievable.

On December 7, 2017, Jordan presented some of the same questions to the new FBI Director, Christopher Wray, during House Judiciary Committee testimony:

Again, the exchange appears heated, but like with Rosenstein, it isn’t Wray that Jordan is angry with:

It has been reported that this dossier “was all dressed up” by the FBI, taken to the FISA court where it was painted as a legitimate intelligence document, that it became the basis for granting a warrant to spy on Americans.

I’m wondering if that all actually took place, it sure looks like it did…

I think Peter Strzok, head of counterintelligence at the FBI, Peter Strzok, the guy who ran the FBI’s Clinton investigation, did all the interviews, Peter Strzok, the guy who was running the Russia investigation at the FBI, Peter Strzok, Mr. Super Agent at the FBI, I think he is the guy that took the application to the FISA court.

And if this happened, if you have the FBI working with the Democrats’ campaign, to take opposition research, dress it all up and turning it into an intelligence document to take it to a FISA court so they can spy on another campaign, if that happened, that is as wrong as it gets…

Wray’s response is telling:

We will not hesitate to hold people accountable after there has been an appropriate investigation, independent and objective, by the Inspector General into the handling of the prior matter and based on that I will look at all available remedies pending on what the facts are when they are found.

As to the access to the Dossier, that’s something that’s of ongoing discussion between my staff and the various intelligence committees.

Make no mistake here.

We are talking about the unraveling of a coordinated effort by certain members of the DNC/Clinton Campaign, our Intelligence Agencies and the Obama Administration to influence our Presidential Election.

I’ve made this point before. It’s worth making again.

Most Americans wouldn’t be willing to entertain many of these allegations without some lengthy groundwork.

These aren’t the kind of things you simply disclose at once to the public without a proper preamble. They have to be shown – repeatedly, over time, and in a systematic pattern.

Which is exactly what appears to have been happening.

The American people are being prepped for what is coming.

Thus far, most of the revelations and focus have been on actions taken by the FBI.

The greater level of deception likely lies within the Department of Justice. Look for disclosures beginning to move more firmly in that direction.

Representative Jim Jordan is one of the few honest men in Congress. Senator Chuck Grassley, Representatives Devin Nunes and Bob Goodlatte also fall into this all too rare category.

Pay attention to what these four men are saying in the days to come.

 

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