Hillary
Clinton Lied, Paid For "Trump Dossier"
24
October, 2017
What
was previously widely suspected has now been confirmed. In its latest
bombshell report that - for once - doesn’t include some nefarious
allegations of wrongdoing or incompetence involving President Donald
Trump or members of his administration, the Washington Post reported
Tuesday that the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton
campaign jointly financed the creation of the infamous “Trump
dossier," which helped inspire the launch of the floundering
investigations into whether the Trump campaign colluded with the
Russians.
Though
neither the DNC nor the Clinton campaign worked directly with former
British spy Christopher Steele as he compiled the document, the fact
that Democrats funded the dossier – which includes information
primarily gleaned from sources in Russia – ironically suggests the
Democrats indirectly leveraged Russian sources to try and spread
information of dubious veracity about a political opponent to try and
sway an election.
Sound
familiar?
Even
though the scandalous accusations contained within the dossier
weren’t made public until after the vote, presumably waiting to see
what foot the shoe would end up on, this would’ve provided serious
grist for the collusion narrative, which we imagine would’ve been
stretched to include the entire Republican establishment as
accomplices.
While
it’s impossible to determine exactly how much money was spent on
the dossier, the Clinton campaign paid Perkins Coie – the law firm
of Clinton superattorney Marc Elias - $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 Nov. 2015. Some of that money was presumably
used to pay for the dossier.
Fusion
GPS’s work researching Trump began during the Republican
presidential primaries when an unidentified GOP donor reportedly
hired the firm to dig into Trump’s background. The Republicans who
were involved in the early stages of Fusion’s efforts have not yet
been identified. Fusion GPS did not start off looking at Trump’s
Russia ties, but quickly realized that those relationships would be a
fruitful place to start, WaPo reported.
Steele
previously worked in Russia for British intelligence. The dossier,
which was primarily compiled in Moscow, is a compilation of reports
Steele prepared for Fusion. Allegations contained in the dossier
included claims the Russian government collected compromising
information about Trump and the Kremlin was engaged in an active
effort to assist his campaign for president.
Fusion
turned over Steele’s reports and other research documents to Elias,
and it’s unclear how much of it he shared with the campaign.
The
revelation about who funded the dossier comes just days after Trump
tweeted that the FBI and DOJ should publicly reveal who hired Fusion
GPS. And lo and behold, that information has now been made public.
Officials behind the now discredited "Dossier" plead the Fifth. Justice Department and/or FBI should immediately release who paid for it.
House
Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Dunes has tried to compel
Fusion’s founders to disclose who paid for the dossier, but all
three of them pled the fifth during public testimony last week. Nunes
has also tried subpoenaing the firm’s bank records.
The
most salacious accusations contained in the dossier have not been
verified, and may never be. Still, 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. Officials also decided to
withhold information from the dossier in an intelligence community
report published in January alleging that Russian entities had tried
to sway the US election on behalf of the Russian government.
Of
course, we still don’t know who leaked the dossier to Buzzfeed and
CNN back in January. John McCain – one of the primary suspects –
has repeatedly denied it, and Fusion GPS has said in court documents
that it didn’t share the document with Buzzfeed. However, we do
known that in early January, then-FBI Director James B. Comey
presented a two-page summary of Steele’s dossier to President
Barack Obama and President-elect Trump.
It
therefore strongly suggests that it was the FBI that was instrumental
in spreading the dossier to the media, most of which was too
embarrassed to publish it until Buzzfeed came along and did it... for
the clicks.
So
to summarize:
Hillary
Clinton and the DNC paid to uncover and package dirt, whether factual
or not, on Trump which eventually found its way in the Trump dossier
In
doing so, the Clintons and the DNC were effectively collaborating
with "deep" sources, both among the UK spy apparatus and
inside Russia
Once
Trump won, the FBI was instrumental in "leaking" the
dossier to the mainstream media and select still unknown recipients
(the same way Comey "leaked" his personal notebooks just a
few months later, following his termination, to launch a probe of
Trump).
The
former head of the FBI who was supposed to probe Clinton's State
Department - and the Clinton Foundation - for a bribery and kickback
scheme involving Russia’s U.S. nuclear business, is now
investigating Trump for Russia collusion instead
But
wait, it gets better: as Ken Vogel, formerly the chief investigative
reporter at Politico and currently at the NY Times just reported,
"When I tried to report this story, Clinton campaign lawyer
@marceelias pushed back vigorously, saying "You (or your
sources) are wrong."
When I tried to report this story, Clinton campaign lawyer@marceelias pushed back vigorously, saying "You (or your sources) are wrong." twitter.com/kenvogel/statu…
Another
NYT reporter, Maggie Haberman, confirmed as much saying "Folks
involved in funding this lied about it, and with sanctimony, for a
year", and by folks she ultimately means Hillary Clinton
herself.
Folks involved in funding this lied about it, and with sanctimony, for a year washingtonpost.com/world/national…
Which
in light of the latest news suggests that Clinton was lying, which is
not surprising, especially when considering the recent "revelations"
that the Clintons may themselves have been involved in collusion with
Russia over the infamous uranium deal.
Which
brings us to the questionable role played by the FBI in all of this,
and ultimately, the role still being played by Robert Mueller. Here
is the WSJ,
Let’s
give plausible accounts of the known facts, then explain why demands
that Robert Mueller recuse himself from the Russia investigation may
not be the fanciful partisan grandstanding you imagine.
Here’s
a story consistent with what has been reported in the press—how
reliably reported is uncertain. Democratic political opponents of
Donald Trump financed a British former spook who spread money among
contacts in Russia, who in turn over drinks solicited stories from
their supposedly “connected” sources in Moscow. If these people
were really connected in any meaningful sense, then they made sure
the stories they spun were consistent with the interests of the
regime, if not actually scripted by the regime. The resulting Trump
dossier then became a factor in Obama administration decisions to
launch an FBI counterintelligence investigation of the Trump
campaign, and after the election to trumpet suspicions of Trump
collusion with Russia.
We
know of a second, possibly even more consequential way the FBI was
effectively a vehicle for Russian meddling in U.S. politics.
Authoritative news reports say FBI chief James Comey’s intervention
in the Hillary Clinton email matter was prompted by a Russian
intelligence document that his colleagues suspected was a Russian
plant.
OK,
Mr. Mueller was a former close colleague and leader but no longer
part of the FBI when these events occurred. This may or may not make
him a questionable person to lead a Russia-meddling investigation in
which the FBI’s own actions are necessarily a concern. But now we
come to the Rosatom disclosures last week in The Hill, a newspaper
that covers Congress.
Here’s
another story as plausible as we can make it based on credible
reporting. After the Cold War, in its own interest, the U.S. wanted
to build bridges to the Russian nuclear establishment. The Putin
government, for national or commercial purposes, agreed and sought to
expand its nuclear business in the U.S.
Ah
yes, the Clinton's own Russia collusion narrative which recently
emerged to the surface and which as of today is being investigated by
the House:
The
purchase and consolidation of certain assets were facilitated by
Canadian entrepreneurs who gave large sums to the Clinton Foundation,
and perhaps arranged a Bill Clinton speech in Moscow for $500,000. A
key transaction had to be approved by Hillary Clinton’s State
Department.
Now
we learn that, before and during these transactions, the FBI had
uncovered a bribery and kickback scheme involving Russia’s U.S.
nuclear business, and also received reports of Russian officials
seeking to curry favor through donations to the Clinton Foundation
This
criminal activity was apparently not disclosed to agencies vetting
the 2010 transfer of U.S. commercial nuclear assets to Russia. The
FBI made no move to break up the scheme until long after the
transaction closed. Only five years later, the Justice Department, in
2015, disclosed a plea deal with the Russian perpetrator so quietly
that its significance was missed until The Hill reported on the FBI
investigation last week.
As
the WSJ correctly notes, "for anyone who cares to look, the real
problem here is that the FBI itself is so thoroughly implicated in
the Russia meddling story."
Which
then shifts the focus to the person who was, and again is, in charge
of it all: former FBI director, and current special prosecutor Robert
Mueller:
The
agency, when Mr. Mueller headed it, soft-pedaled an investigation
highly embarrassing to Mrs. Clinton as well as the Obama Russia reset
policy. More recently, if just one of two things is true—Russia
sponsored the Trump Dossier, or Russian fake intelligence prompted
Mr. Comey’s email intervention—then Russian operations, via their
impact on the FBI, influenced and continue to influence our politics
in a way far more consequential than any Facebook ad, the
preoccupation of John McCain, who apparently cannot behold a mountain
if there’s a molehill anywhere nearby.
Which
means that Mr. Mueller has the means, motive and opportunity to
obfuscate and distract from matters embarrassing to the FBI, while
pleasing a large part of the political spectrum. He need only confine
his focus to the flimsy, disingenuous but popular (with the media)
accusation that the shambolic Trump campaign colluded with the
Kremlin.
Mr.
Mueller’s tenure may not have bridged the two investigations, but
James Comey’s, Rod Rosenstein’s , Andrew Weissmann’s , and
Andrew McCabe’s did. Mr. Rosenstein appointed Mr. Mueller as
special counsel. Mr. Weissmann now serves on Mr. Mueller’s team.
Mr. McCabe remains deputy FBI director. All were involved in the
nuclear racketeering matter and the Russia meddling matter.
The
punchline: it's not the Clintons that should be looked at, at least
not at first - their time will come. It's the FBI:
By
any normal evidentiary, probative or journalistic measure, the big
story here is the FBI—its politicized handling of Russian matters,
and not competently so. To put it bluntly, whatever its hip-pocket
rationales along the way, the FBI would not have so much to cover up
now if it had not helped give us Mrs. Clinton as Democratic nominee
and then, in all likelihood, inadvertently helped Mr. Trump to the
presidency.
We
eagerly look forward to Trump's furious tweetstorm once he learns of
all of this... and how long before he fires Mueller, in this case
with cause.
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