Dossier Shocker: Top DOJ Official Sounded Alarm, Warned Of...

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    Dossier Shocker: Top DOJ Official Sounded Alarm, Warned Of Clinton Connection And Possible Bias


    https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-01-16/doj-official-sounded-alarm-over-steele-dossier-warned-officials-clinton-connection

    https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/425739-fisa-shocker-doj-official-warned-steele-dossier-was-connected-to-clinton


    From ZeroHedge (with quotes from The Hill):


    "The Justice Department was fully aware that the notorious Steele Dossier was connected to Hillary Clinton and might be biased - a crucial detail which was omitted just weeks later from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant used to spy on the Trump campaign, reports John Solomon of The Hill.


    "According to Solomon's sources, which have proven impeccable, the former #4 Department of Justice official, Bruce Ohr, who had extensive contact with Steele, briefed 'both senior FBI and DOJ officials in summer 2016 about Christopher Steele's Russia dossier, explicitly cautioning that the British intelligence operative's work was opposition research connected to Hillary Clinton's campaign and might be biased.' 


    "Ohr’s activities, chronicled in handwritten notes and congressional testimony I gleaned from sources, provide the most damning evidence to date that FBI and DOJ officials may have misled federal judges in October 2016 in their zeal to obtain the warrant targeting Trump adviser Carter Page just weeks before Election Day.


    "Ohr's activities also contradict a key argument made by House Democrats in their attempts to downplay the significance of the Steele Dossier; that the FBI claimed it was 'unaware of any derogatory information' about Steele, and that the former MI6 operative was 'never advised ... as to the motivation behind the research.' The FBI further 'speculates' that those who hired Steele were 'likely looking for information to discredit' Trump's campaign.


    "There was no 'speculation' going on by the FBI. Thanks to Ohr's warning, they absolutely knew about Steele's bias against Trump while working for a Clinton-funded project to gather harmful opposition research on him.


    "Ohr also says he told the FBI that his wife and Steele were working for Fusion GPS, the same firm hired by the Clinton campaign through intermediary law firm Perkins Coie, and that they were conducting Trump-Russia research at the behest of Clinton's camp.


    "Perkins Coie eventually admitted to paying Fusion GPS, disguising the payments as legal bills when it was in fact opposition research.


    "Ohr divulged his first contact with the FBI was on July 31, 2016, when he reached out to then-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and FBI attorney Lisa Page. He then was referred to the agents working Russia counterintelligence, including Peter Strzok, the now-fired agent who played a central role in starting the Trump collusion probe.


    "But Ohr’s contacts about the Steele dossier weren’t limited to the FBI. He said in August 2016, nearly two months before the FISA warrant was issued, that he was asked to conduct a briefing for senior Justice officials.


    "Those he briefed included Andrew Weissmann, then the head of DOJ’s fraud section; Bruce Swartz, longtime head of DOJ’s international operations, and Zainab Ahmad, an accomplished terrorism prosecutor who, at the time, was assigned to work with Lynch as a senior counselor.


    "Ahmad and Weissmann would go on to work for Mueller, the special prosecutor overseeing the Russia probe.


    "In early 2018, Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee sought to downplay Ohr's connections to Steele during their investigation, insisting Ohr only notified the FBI about Steele after Steele was fired by the FBI in November 2016 for improper contacts with the media.


    "The memo from House Democrats - led by Rep. Adam Schiff's (D-CA), says that Ohr's contact with the FBI only began 'weeks after the election and more than a month after the Court approved the initial FISA application.'


    "Ohr's testimony refutes Schiff's memo, making clear he was in contact with FBI and DOJ officials long before the FISA warrant or the 2016 US election.


    "Not only that, 'Ohr explicitly told the FBI that Steele was desperate to defeat the man he was investigating and was biased,' according to Solomon, and the FBI didn't have to guess as to Steele's motives."


 
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