Toward the end of January we ran a short post relating the verdict of well-known Brit "spy expert", Nigel West, regarding the Steele "dossier": NEWSFLASH: Steele Made It All Up! That was West's conclusion--the dossier was "totally fabricated." This past week Orbis Business International, aka Chris Steele, denied that the "dossier" was a total fabrication and claimed, to the contrary, that three individuals---John Sipher, Chuck Rosenburg and Anthony Ferrante--had "confirmed" the dossier. The Gateway Pundit has a nice roundup on the story.
It turns out the three individuals are more or less the usual suspects--well known Deep State actors who have long since either outed themselves or have been exposed by investigative reporters. Of the first two,
John Sipher, was a member of the CIA’s Senior Intelligence Service. He wrote an article in September 2017 where he claimed the dossier was reliable.
We know that Chuck Rosenburg was disgraced former Jim Comey’s Chief of Staff.
The third person, former FBI agent Anthony Ferrante, was exposed in an excellent investigative article by Paul Sperry, which we covered in Sperry's OIG Bombshell: Comey Targeted Trump. At that time, July of 2019, Sperry reported that Ferrante--who had been detailed to the NSC essentially as Comey's spy within the White House--left the FBI in April, 2017, and
"contracted with BuzzFeed to lead the news site's efforts to verify the Steele dossier, in connection with a defamation lawsuit."
In other words, BuzzFeed paid Ferrante to say that the Steele "dossier" was legit because BuzzFeed was being sued for having published it. BuzzFeed paid to rent Ferrante's supposed credibility as a former FBI agent.
What's new is that Chuck Ross quickly responded to Orbis' self serving tweets with this:
Chris Steele's firm published a letter to the editor suggesting that ex-FBI official Anthony Ferrante had validated the dossier.
The firm did not disclose that a.) Ferrante did not validate the dossier, and b.) BuzzFeed paid Ferrante $4 million to try to do so. pic.twitter.com/YeBnHXNZVG
— Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) February 25, 2020
I assume that Durham is checking all of this out, too.
In my own current theory, the anti-Trump cabal at the top of the US Intelligence Community tried to keep the Dossier out of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.
ReplyDeleteChristopher Steele gave two Dossier reports (80 and 94) to the FBI's Michael Gaeta in the first half of July 2016, but those reports did not reach the Crossfire Hurricane team until the last half of September 2016. I think that the Dossier reports were misrouted and hidden intentionally.
The Dossier reports belatedly reached the Crossfire Hurricane team in late September 2016 only because Andrew McCabe decided they had become potentially useful. Therefore, McCabe arranged for them to be provided by the FBI's New York Field Office to the Crossfire Hurricane team.
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Before mid-September 2016, the cabal's intention was to prepare for an October Surprise that might enable Donald Trump to defeat Hillary Clinton on November 8. The cabal feared that a few days before Election Day, some stolen, embarrassing e-mails or documents would be released to the public.
To prepare for that possibility, the cabal prepared to argue that the e-mails and documents were stolen AND ALTERED by Russian Intelligence. This argument had to work only for the few days between the revelation and Election Day.
For that argument to work, the cabal did not need the Dossier. The cabal needed only two kinds of evidence:
1) Russian Intelligence stole the e-mails and documents, according to CrowdStrike.
2) Vladimir Putin wanted Trump to win, according to the "meddling" done by Russia's Internet Research Agency.
In this situation, the Dossier might muddy the waters too much. The Dossier was ultimately a product of Clinton's election campaign. The Dossier claimed that Russian Intelligence blackmailed and controlled Trump. The Dossier supposedly was based on many sources known to Steele but not known to the cabal. Any such source might spill the beans -- might publicly disavow the Dossier -- during the crucial days before the Election.
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Before mid-September 2016, the cabal did not care much whether or how much the Dossier was true. Rather, the cabal cared that the Dossier might turn out to be troublesome for the cabal's main goal, which was to deal with an October Surprise.
That previous comment was written by me, Mike Sylwester. I did not expect that the comment would be Anonymous. I think I have fixed that problem.
ReplyDelete=======
Anyway, I want to continue as follows.
Before mid-September 2016, the cabal also did not care much about the alleged "Enterprise" -- about Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Carter Page and George Papadopoulos. The investigations of those four Enterprise members were delegated to FBI field offices.
Meanwhile, the Crossfire Hurricane team at FBI Headquarters concentrated on preparing the two main arguments for dealing with an October Surprise:
1) Russian Intelligence had stolen e-mails and documents from Democrats' computers.
2) Russian Intelligence was using provable methods (Facebook ads, Russian cable-television broadcasts, etc.) to help Trump defeat Clinton.
Those were the arguments that had to be prepared, as the highest priority, to deal with an October Surprise. Russian Intelligence had stolen AND ALTERED the e-mails and documents because Putin wanted Trump to win. That argument had to be simple and effective during the few days between the October Surprise and Election Day.
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After mid-September, however, Andrew McCabe decided to arrange the delivery of Dossier reports to the Crossfire Hurricane team.
My explanation is that McCabe decided that the Dossier was needed to obtain a FISA warrant. Perhaps some communications could be collected that might help convince the public that Russian Intelligence was helping Trump win the election. If necessary, such communications might be leaked to the public during the few, crucial days following the October Surprise.
Another consideration was that Glenn Simpson and Christopher Steele were distributing much of the Dossier to journalists and to government agencies. Therefore, the Dossier no longer could be simply ignored by the cabal.