John Solomon keeps breaking big stories. His latest is huge: Did Brits warn about Steele's credibility, before Mueller's probe? Congress has evidence.
Here's the opening, which pretty much tells it all:
One of the deepest, darkest secrets of Russiagate soon may be unmasked. Even President Trump may be surprised.
Multiple witnesses have told Congress that, a week before Trump’s inauguration in January 2017, Britain’s top national security official sent a private communique to the incoming administration, addressing his country’s participation in the counterintelligence probe into the now-debunked Trump-Russia election collusion.
Most significantly, then-British national security adviser Sir Mark Lyall Grant claimed in the memo, hand-delivered to incoming U.S. national security adviser Mike Flynn’s team, that the British government lacked confidence in the credibility of former MI6 spy Christopher Steele’s Russia collusion evidence, according to congressional investigators who interviewed witnesses familiar with the memo.
Obviously this was a bit of Brit CYA. They knew their own actual "meddling" in the US election was about to be discovered, and they were trying to distance themselves from Steele. But here's where the story attains real blockbuster proportions:
Congressional investigators have interviewed two U.S. officials who handled the memo, confirmed with the British government that a communique was sent, and alerted the Department of Justice (DOJ) to the information. One witness confirmed to Congress that he was interviewed by special counsel Robert Mueller about the memo.
Now the race is on to locate the document in U.S. intelligence archives, to see if the witnesses’ recollections are correct. And Trump is headed to Britain this weekend, where he might just get a chance to ask his own questions.
Oh! Wouldn't that mean that someone very high up at DoJ--Sally Yates or Dana Boente (now Chris Wray's top lawyer at the FBI) knew about this? Wouldn't they have immediately informed James Comey? And Andrew McCabe? And if Mueller knew about it--as claimed--shouldn't we assume that Rod Rosenstein knew about it, too?
If I'm Bill Barr, I want someone among those named above to explain to me how a major investigation of the POTUS was opened up and pursued for nearly three years based on the word of an ex (?) MI6 spook whose own national security apparatus had disowned him to the top US justice officials? That's exactly what Mark Meadows is asking Bill Barr to find out. Meadows adds:
“There now is overwhelming evidence to suggest that on multiple occasions the FBI was warned that Christopher Steele and the dossier had severe credibility issues.”
Solomon explains:
“The message was clear: the Brits were saying they may have done some stuff to assist the investigation that they now regretted after learning the whole thing was based on information from Steele,” the former U.S. official told me. “They wanted Trump’s team to know they did not think Steele’s information was credible or reliable.
“They also wanted Trump to know whatever they had done, they did only at the Americans’ request and didn’t want it to get in the way of cooperating with the U.S.”
Read it all. Is it time for "Bob" Mueller to make another statement? This time to a Grand Jury? I think so.
When Christopher Steele was an MI-6 official stationed in Russia, he was 26-29 years old. The Russian leader was Boris Yeltsin.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that he retired from MI-6 when he was about 45 years old. I assume that he did not foresee any more promotions if he remained in MI-6 and that he had become eligible for a pension.
Supposedly, Steele became valuable to the FBI during its investigation of international corruption in soccer. Supposedly, Steele provided information about corruption in Russia. However, no Russians at all were charged by the FBI.
In particular, Steele provided incriminating Igor Sechin, a prominent Russian official. Sechin was not charged by the FBI in the soccer scandal. One of the Steele's specialties since he retired from MI-6 is making secret, futile accusations against Sechin. It seems to me that Steele has been paid good money for many years to make secret accusations against Sechin.
Who would do that? :-)
DeleteSince Steele retired from MI-6, he has earned his living from two activities:
Delete1) Getting paid by rich people to assemble negative information about people whom those rich people dislike.
2) Leaking that information to officials and journalists who might cause trouble for those people who are disliked by those rich people.
That is how Steele has earned his living -- day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year -- through the past decade.
You could say that he laid that out to Kathleeen Kavalec when he described the various priorities he was "balancing" or "juggling"--I forget the word he used, but that was the gist. Keeping his clients--FBI, CIA, NBC, NYT, etc.--happy. As George Smiley would say, What a dog's life. But the money is good, which is what really matters to a Left/Prog waiting for the Revolution.
DeleteIt's amazing that the evidence that eventually makes it to the public--and the associated inferences--are all in the same direction: malfeasance at the highest levels to perpetrate a hoax on the American people to effectuate a coup; to overturn a duly elected presidential election.
ReplyDelete"eventually makes it to the public"
ReplyDeleteDespite the best efforts of the "news" media. :-(
Trump now has a very strong hand in negotiating with the Brits over major issues such as trade, foreign policy (read Iran and China), and EU dysfunction (NATO, immigration, etc). He likely already knows the depths of deceit that the Brits engaged in with respect to SpyGate/RussiaGate, and is willing to let the worst of it remain hidden in exchange for cooperation on other issues. This would allow the next British government to save face and start fresh. That said, on this side of the pond, Barr should fully prosecute the US based conspirators or this nonsense will repeat in the next Democrat Administration. You cannot change behaviors with rule changes. For that you need to send a few folks to prison for a while.
ReplyDeleteWould A LOT of folks be OK?
DeleteA LOT of folks would be a bonus. I'm so jaded, I'll be impressed with one actually serving prison time.
DeleteIsn't Felicity Huffman gonna do four months for a college scam? Four years wouldn't be enough for these Deep State suits who scammed America...
At the Liberty Unyielding website, J.E. Dyer writes that under separate contracts (in 2008 and 2009, respectively), John Brennan's firm, The Analysis Corporation, supplied analysts to the National Counterintelligence Terrorism Center and the FBI. These analysts were improperly given access to intelligence databases pursuant to an MoU between the two agencies in 2012 but not reported to the FISC until 2016 by Admiral Rogers. Dyer notes that as Obama's counterintelligence "czar," Brennan pushed for the intel-sharing between FBI and NCTC. All of this is interesting in its own right, but even more so because the "intel" may or may not have related to Muslim terrorists. In 2011, at the urging of CAIR and other groups, Brennan had ordered "Islamophobic" language purged from intel documents. And in 2010, a notorious Hamas supporter on the FBI watch list had been allowed to tour the National Counterintelligence Center. Diana West asked around as to who authorized this breach of security, and her conclusion was that it was Robert Mueller.
ReplyDeleteTx Hidell. As it happens I just got back from my daily walk, and I was trying to mentally put together some of those same ideas--esp. re the MOU--into a much bigger context. A future context. Ha, ha! That's a tease! I touched on that not too long ago: The Fear Of Barr Is Almost Palpable.
DeleteA few thoughts:
ReplyDelete1) Re Mike's comments on Orbis' business model, when you look at the significant overlap it has with Fusion's biz model, it seems pretty clear Simpson & Steele are a pretty natural fit for the work they've done the past few years.
2) Solomon's column says that a "former team member" of Flynn "personally delivered the memo to Flynn on Jan. 12, 2017." Yet Flynn told SC he has no recollection of having seen it. This isn't the sort of thing Flynn would forget, so obviously something doesn't add up here. I can't help but wonder if Flynn calculated at the time that helping Trump's case against the Russia hoax - and revealing that this document actually did exist certainly would be helping Trump's case - would cause SC to put the screws to him even more. Maybe he had reason to believe things would go less poorly for him and his family if he clammed up on this until he was out of hot water. That's pure speculation, but food for thought all the same. I'd certainly welcome other thoughts on how to square this particular circle. (Certainly it's notable - and par for the course - that SC had no interest in pursuing the matter to wherever it might lead.)
3) If the Brits did in fact send this memo, it sure seems fishy they've kept mum ever since. I mean, they've known all along that they actually admitted to USG that Steele's stuff was garbage but have kept that under wraps all this time? Wow, with friends like this...
It's all good, and I like #2 as an explanation. They were squeezing Flynn hard, sweating him. Re #3, I suppose they figured it got into the right hands and they'd done their thing.
DeleteRegarding #2, on the other hand, if Flynn in fact knew about the memo, but claimed ignorance he'd have potentially opened himself up to another 1001 charge or an adverse sentencing recommendation from Mueller, in a similar fashion to how he exposed himself to the first 1001 charge. In both instances there was a record (a transcript then a memo) and Flynn's testimony that contradicted the record.
DeleteAlso, while I believe your explanation possibly explains Flynn's response to Mueller, it fails explain why Flynn wouldn’t have informed Trump about the memo during the transition, which Solomon infers is what happened. He could be wrong, of course.
Alternatively, I don't believe a cadre of NSC officials, at least some of whom were loyal to Flynn, would have kept the memo from Flynn, and Solomon's article strongly implies they couldn't have, since there was a discussion about the memo within Flynn's own office.
At the Liberty Unyielding website, J.E. Dyer suggests that as counterintelligence chief during Obama's first term, Brennan planted his employees/former employees at TAC as contractors at both the NCTC and FBI (under contracts made in 2008 and 2009, respectively), and that under an MoU between the agencies in 2012, the contractors/analysts improperly accessed intelligence databases, a fact not revealed to the FISC until 2012 by Admiral Rogers. This is interesting, made more so by the Obama Administration's skewed view of terrorism. In 2011, Brennan had purged "Islamophobic" content from intel documents, as requested by CAIR and others. In 2010, a Hamas supporter on the FBI watch list had toured the National Counterintelligence Center, and was authorized to do so (according to Diana West) by Robert Mueller.
ReplyDeleteHmmmm. See my reply to you under the tag "Hidell," above.
DeleteFor those who haven't noticed, I do moderate comments here. That can cause inconvenience and delay--like, when I go somewhere--but for me I thought it was a good solution. Bear with me.
" 'Congressional investigators have interviewed two U.S. officials who handled the memo, confirmed with the British government that a communique was sent, and alerted the Department of Justice (DOJ) to the information. One witness confirmed to Congress that he was interviewed by special counsel Robert Mueller about the memo.' "
ReplyDelete[...]
"Oh! Wouldn't that mean that someone very high up at DoJ--Sally Yates or Dana Boente (now Chris Wray's top lawyer at the FBI) knew about this? Wouldn't they have immediately informed James Comey? And Andrew McCabe? And if Mueller knew about it--as claimed--shouldn't we assume that Rod Rosenstein knew about it, too?"
From Meadows' quote, I understood the alert to DoJ by congressional investigators to have occurred within the last few weeks. Your final question salient. Mueller knew, whether he informed Rosenstein, and if he did WHEN he informed Rosenstein presently are unknowns. Hopefully Barr/Durham remedies that, post haste.
For, Michael Flynn agreed to his plea deal on 11/30/17, while the final FISA order on Carter Page expired sometime in 09/17. A source claimed that Mueller learned of the memo from members of Flynn's NSC team, however when he did is unclear. Did he learn of it before the decision, declining to renew Page's FISA, was made? If so, did he promptly inform Rosenstein?
A few other questions I have are:
1. Did the Brits send a similar memo, expressing their lack of confidence in Steele and his dossier, to the Obama administration?
2. If so, was that memo a piece of intelligence that the Obama administration deemed unfit to share with the incoming administration, as outlined in Susan Rice's account of the "by the book" meeting?
3. What efforts, if any, were made by Mueller or those he informed at DoJ to find the memo?
4. How can Flynn have no recollection of receiving or having read the memo? One witness confirms that he gave the memo to Flynn, and that there was a discussion about the memo in Flynn's office. Was Flynn present? The other witness confirms that the memo was in Flynn's office.
All good questions, and you can bet Solomon's working his sources on all of those questions.
DeleteI thought about the 1001 exposure as well and just thought that maybe he was between a rock and a hard place and chose what he thought was the least bad option. Pure and utter speculation of course. Many, probably better, explanations surely exist.
ReplyDeleteI think your other points (Jeffrey) are all excellent and it all goes to show that plenty more will have to be known before this story even begins to add up. Mark mentions below that Solomon is sure to be working his sources hard to learn more, and maybe we’re all just left to wonder until he or others fill in more blanks.