Jonathan Winer, Chris Steele, Worked For Oleg Deripaska

I think we pretty much knew that Chris Steele had close ties to Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska. That was part of Steele's attraction for the FBI. Today Eric Felten has a pretty comprehensive round up of the ties of key figures associated with Steele's hoax "dossier" to "Putin's favorite industrialist": Top Kerry Aide, Key Conduit for Dossier, Once Worked for Russian Oligarch, as Did Steele.

The main focus of the very detailed article, however, is on Jonathan Winer. Felten works off the SSCI report, but I think we can be absolutely certain that John Durham has also been examining Winer's role in the Russia Hoax. It's a good example of the "sprawl" that Durham has had to contend with--in his position he can't afford to leave stones unturned.

Who is Winer?

Winer was for a decade an aide to Sen. John Kerry. From 1994 to 1999 he was a deputy assistant secretary at the Department of State. From government he went to the international lobby and law firm Alston & Bird. Winer moved to APCO Worldwide in 2008, about the time he met Steele, who had just left British intelligence and was setting up his own shop. Winer told the Senate that in his private sector jobs he “was still engaged in various types of Russian representation all over the map.” Pro-Putin, anti-Putin: Winer didn’t care, he told senators: “It was any work that was consistent with their needs and my values.”

"My values." Gotta luv that! What would those values have been? The almighty dollar is my guess.

Winer returned to the State Department during Obama's second term, rejoining Kerry. Here are some of the highlights of Felten's article, to whet your appetite for the whole thing. Note that both Winer and Glenn Simpson of Fusion - GPS may have perjury problems connected with their Senate testimony:

Chris Steele: Hillary Knew, Susan Rice And Victoria Nuland, Too

The Alfa Bank's defamation suit against Christopher Steele continues to bear fruit. John Solomon has an excellent round up of what's been learned from Steele's testimony in depositions:

Steele reveals he believes Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice knew about his anti-Trump research

Rice denies former British spy's account, which comes in a novel litigation by three Russian businessman suing over Britain's data laws.

Importantly, Steele testified that it was his clear impression--based on statements by Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS--that he was ultimately working for the Clinton Campaign, no matter what the technicalities of the money being laundered to Fusion GPS through the DNC and the Perkins Coie law firm.

But the bombshell--something I'm sure John Durham is also aware of--is that Steele passed that knowledge about the Clinton sponsorship of the dossier on to the FBI, and Steele kept notes to that effect.

Let's Talk About Michael Gaeta

In Margot Cleveland's article today (referenced in the immediately prior post), she mentions FBI SA Michael Gaeta, who contacted Chris Steele in London during the summer of 2016. I've always found that fact curious and possibly important. To set the stage, here's what I wrote about Gaeta in The FBI: Working Hand In Glove With Clinton Operatives, in the context of tracing the FBI's contacts with Steele:

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We know that over the years from at least 2009 the FBI had been in periodic contact with Steele, beginning with the FIFA case. Our first publicly documented contact with Steele in this Russia Hoax occurred when the FBI's Michael Gaeta (working for the FBI's Rome Legat office) traveled to London on July 5, 2016, and obtained the first two Steele reports that later featured in Steele's "dossier." We don't know to whom Gaeta sent that reporting, but given that the Trump campaign was the subject of the "reports" it should have gone pretty much straight to the top of the FBI chain of command--at least to the Deputy Director, Andy McCabe, if not to Comey himself. The next FBI contact with Steele came later that same month, July 2016.

To my mind, the most plausible supposition is that the FBI, which we know had for months been targeting advisers to the Trump campaign (Carter Page, Papadopoulos, etc.) was now prepared for further communications from Steele. It seems likely that Gaeta would have asked Steele--whom he had known and worked with for years and apparently trusted--to keep in touch with future developments. Given that Gaeta had traveled from Rome to London to meet Steele, the FBI's interest should have been obvious. Also, given that Gaeta had to get approval for the trip from Rome (remember, the FBI has a large Legat office in London that could have met with Steele) from Victoria Nuland at the State Department, Gaeta must have had a fairly good idea as to the topic he'd be discussing with Steele in order to justify the trip. For what it's worth, however, the WaPo has provided Steele's version of events.

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