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Wednesday, July 1, 2020

Remember Bruce Ohr?

Bruce Ohr was, in 2016, the highest non-political appointee official in the DoJ. He also worked as an informant for the FBI without telling his superiors--hey, that's his story--and was a handler for Chris Steele. His wife Nellie was a ham radio enthusiast and, in her spare time, did Russia related oppo research against Trump and Trump family members for Glenn Simpson's Fusion GPS--all funded by the Clinton campaign, as laundered by Clinton lawyer and all around consigliere, Marc Elias.

Well, Bruce Ohr is still around and, after receiving several serious demotions, is still at DoJ. He also is still an important witness to all things Russia Hoax, and in that capacity he testified yesterday before the Senate Judiciary Committee--behind closed doors. There were no leaks and no announcements of what was said, but we know there would be many fascinating topics the GOP senators would want to discuss with Ohr. Ohr would, of course, have much to say about political bias at the FBI and DoJ, relations among those entities and Fusion GPS--stuff we've all heard about. Another topic of interest--and one for which Ohr was very specifically targeted by Michael Horowitz' OIG report--has to do with the fact that Ohr, while claiming not to have briefed his superiors on what he was doing on DoJ time, admitted to keeping subordinates like Andrew Weissmann and Zainab Ahmed (both later of Team Mueller fame) fully informed on the Russia Hoax in the second half of 2016. Horowitz pointedly stated in his report that, beyond Ohr's many other improper actions, Ohr had absolutely no reason for sharing any such information about a highly sensitive FBI investigation with persons who had no official need to know--not even remotely.

This appears to be another instance in which Durham has completed work on all aspects of his investigation that involve Ohr and for that reason Durham (and Barr) are now willing to make Ohr available as a witness to the Senate--under strict conditions, such as, no public testimony. Sidney Powell may have been alluding to this mode of operation on Durham's part in her interview with Jan Jekielek. Powell noted that only after every single Brady motion she made had been turned down by Sullivan did DoJ on its own begin to turn over portions of the material she had requested. Powell pointed out that she believed that some of the material lacked the usual government markings and stated that she believed that it had come to her via Durham's shop.

While I have no experience with such high stakes public corruption investigations of high DoJ or FBI officials as we see in the Durham investigation, my belief is that the reason that Ohr (and other officials who were key witnesses) has been kept on board has to do with the investigators maintaining tight control over him. That control would be lost if Ohr (or the others) left government employment. In other words, I'm suggesting that a deal was made with Ohr--full cooperation and continued employment as long as the investigation has a need for his cooperation. The fact that, unlike most other key figures in the Russia Hoax, Ohr remains employed at DoJ, is an indicator to me of how important his information and cooperation is to the Durham investigation.

22 comments:

  1. A couple of thoughts. If there were no leaks, then Ohr said nothing useful to the democrat committee members. Did Graham have Barr/Durham's permission to interview Ohr? If so, what was off-limits? I seem to recall Graham's defense for failing to schedule interviews/testimony was the ongoing investigation. What changed?

    DJL

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    1. "What changed?"

      "Durham has completed work on all aspects of his investigation that involve Ohr and for that reason Durham (and Barr) are now willing to make Ohr available as a witness to the Senate--under strict conditions, such as, no public testimony."

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    2. I'm guessing it was a short committee meeting without the cameras to preen for. Still, it would be interesting to learn what questions the democrat members asked, how many were absent, and how many failed to use their allotted time. I don't see anything positive for democrats coming from Ohr if he's already fessed up to Durham.

      DJL

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    3. The Dem senators don't want you to know what was said--for different reasons than Durham has for wanting to maintain privacy.

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    4. Keeping in mind that it was in closed cmte hearings that all the lying #Resistance frauds of Team Collusion confessed to the absolute opposite of what they'd been claiming publicly about evidence and incontrovertible proof: there was none.

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  2. The best barometer of the status of the Durham investigation is the intensity of the Antifa/BLM violence being manufactured around the country. As an example, in Provo Utah of all places, a masked Antifa terrorist fired a pistol point-blank into a vehicle that was being mobbed on a public street, wounding the driver. Provo Utah is not South Side Chicago, so this represents an extraordinary escalation by the Deep State, and is likely designed to send a message nationally. My guess is that the Deep State has reason to believe that Durham is planning to go before the microphones in the near future. And it can't happen soon enough. If the Deep State is prepared to turn cities like Provo into shooting galleries, then there are no bounds to their destructiveness.

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    1. I think you're guessing right.

      The videos are pretty awful. That guy was taking careful aim from close range, not just randomly pointing.

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    2. The idiot has been arrested.


      Rob S

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    3. I'm pretty sure this happened as much as a week ago and that the perp is a lawyer--or maybe I'm confusing this with another incident.

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    4. The UT driver was yesterday, the StL lawyer was Sun.

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    5. Everyone is looking at the closeup shot. If you watch the video taken from about a half block away there is a person standing in the street by himself clearly pointing a handgun at the SUV as it speeds by and into the distance. Wonder why there has been no mention of him?

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    6. Provo incident was yesterday or day before near a Marxist indoctrination center --- oops, I mean university. Provo PD nabbed the alleged shooter and an accessory (obstruction) PDQ.

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  3. Rosenstein and Ohr testifying means Durham has completed quite a lot of investigating. I always thought both were candidates to flip/cooperate in any investigation. Rosenstein seemed to me to be more of a passive participant--he may have had a duty to shut this down, but I think he was just a bureaucratic weasel who played along. Ohr seemed more involved in the plot.

    But what I am really curious about is why Rosenstein could testify publicly but Ohr had to be in private. If Ohr had more knowledge of the inner workings of the conspiracy, it would make sense that his testimony could be more revealing. But then this tips the hat to the Democrats on the committee. Part of me wonders whether this is meant to slowly reveal to Democrats what is coming--a warning shot of sorts that there is a lot the investigation has and continues to uncovered. That's my hope anyway. No leaks doesn't just mean there was nothing useful for Democrats that Ohr revealed. It means it was so concrete that there is no spin possible. I would think if his testimony was inconsequential, that we would hear statements from Dems that there was "nothing new" and nothing disclosed that backs up "crazy GOP theories" that Russian collusion was a hoax. Silence from the Dems speaks volumes.

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    1. All reasonable, and I suspect it won't be that long until we find out. As Barr has said, 'hopefully before the end of the summer'.

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    2. The SCO was Rosenstein's baby. He not only created it but bent over backwards to do so, first not including any crime to be investigated & then backfilling that hole with the Scope Memos that relied completely on Dossier trash that he already knew good and well was just that - trash. Then he signed off on every flagrantly crooked measure taken by SCO and undoubtedly would have kept on doing so indefinitely had Barr not taken over.

      Knowing every step of the way there was no basis for any of it. None.

      Sorry for the rant, but I really have a hard time keeping quiet any time I see a chance to go off on Rod Rosenstein. I don't care if he did what he did out of weakness. He did it, knowing exactly what it was he was doing.

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    3. All true. Very dishonorable role he played.

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    4. "Behind closed doors" suggests discussion of classified material. The lack of leaks subsequent to his testimony further suggests some of it was classified, and none of it was beneficial to the Dem narratives, otherwise it would be headlined in the NYT based on "anonymous sources."

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    5. The classification angle is interesting because we all know how stuff gets overclassified. For example, since the Steele material that Ohr was dealing with was all BS, how could that be classified? Well, one possibility is that the "primary sub source" (or whatever) is an intel asset whose identity would be classified--even though we all know who he is.

      OTOH, the real bottom line is "none of it was beneficial to the Dem narratives."

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    6. Maybe what gets classified is any knowledge he had of his wife's participation in combing through the 702 database on behalf of Glenn Simpson and company. And that began back in November 2015, I believe. Bruce knew SOMETHING about all that stuff because he had lunch with Glenn and Nellie together at some point. In fact, my recollection is that Bruce Ohr met with Simpson before AND after the 2016 election. Nevertheless, the 702 database ransacking is the highly classified part of this entire scandal that nobody wants to discuss, much less report on. And Bruce Ohr undoubtedly knows plenty about it.

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    7. Son of Chico Basin has a great point! Not just the database per se, either...if "it" started here, then went overseas, then came back as 'foreign' intel, then it really could be much more of a serious, well planned conspiracy than many people give them credit for.

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