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FBI notes reveal doubts about Steele dossier promoted by news media leftists

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Left to right: Comey, Lynch, Clinton, McCabe
Left to right: Comey, Lynch, Clinton, McCabe

The mainstream media is being silent about revelations that the FBI had major doubts about the Steele dossier. So, let’s take a look at the newly-released FBI notes.

Here’s the latest from the Wall Street Journal:

A Senate committee released newly declassified documents that showed the Federal Bureau of Investigation was wary in early 2017 of a dossier compiled by ex-British spy Christopher Steele that helped stir a narrative, later debunked, that the Trump campaign had close ties to Russian intelligence.

The documents released Friday by the Senate Judiciary Committee included FBI notes from three days of interviews with a primary source of Mr. Steele who cast doubt on some of the dossier’s contents. FBI notes from the interview in early 2017 indicated that Mr. Steele’s source had told him information about Mr. Trump’s alleged sexual escapades was “rumor and speculation” that he was unable to confirm.

Also released were notes of a former high-level FBI agent, Peter Strzok, who wrote that Mr. Steele himself “may not be in a position to judge the reliability of his subsource network.’’

Reacting to a New York Times report in February 2017 that said the Trump campaign and people around the candidate had repeated contacts with Russian intelligence officials, Mr. Strzok wrote in the margins of a printed copy of the article that “we are unaware of any Trump advisors engaging in conversations with Russian intelligence officials.”

Actually, Strozk wrote a lot more than that.

I found more FBI notes here:

Document number two, also withheld from public view until now, takes apart a New York Times article written by Michael Schmidt, Mark Mazzetti, and Matt Apuzzo.

Comments made by then-FBI agent Peter Strzok undercut a litany of claims made in the Times article, which was entitled: “Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contact With Russian Intelligence.”

Claim in NYT article: “Phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials.”

Note by Strzok: “This statement is misleading and inaccurate as written. We have not seen evidence of any individuals in contact with Russians (both Governmental and non-Governmental)” and “There is no known intel affiliation, and little if any [government of Russia] affiliation[.] FBI investigation has shown past contact between [Trump campaign volunteer Carter] Page and the SVR [Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation], but not during his association with the Trump campaign.”

Claim in NYT article: “… one of the advisers picked up on the [intercepted] calls was Paul Manafort, who was Mr. Trump’s campaign chairman for several months …”

Note by Strzok: “We are unaware of any calls with any Russian government official in which Manafort was a party.”

Claim in NYT article: “The FBI has obtained banking and travel records …”

Note by Strzok: “We do not yet have detailed banking records.”

Claim in NYT article: “Officials would not disclose many details, including what was discussed on the calls, and how many of Trump’s advisers were talking to the Russians.”

Note by Strzok: “Again, we are unaware of ANY Trump advisers engaging in conversations with Russian intel officials” and “Our coverage has not revealed contact between Russian intelligence officers and the Trump team.”

Claim in NYT article: “The FBI asked the NSA to collect as much information as possible about the Russian operatives on the phone calls …”

Note by Strzok: “If they did we are not aware of those communications.”

Claim in NYT article: “The FBI has closely examined at least four other people close to Mr. Trump … Carter Page … Roger Stone… and Mr. Flynn.”

Note by Strzok: “We have not investigated Roger Stone.”

Claim by NYT: “Senior FBI officials believe … Christopher Steele … has a credible track record.”

Note by Strzok: “Recent interviews and investigation, however, reveal Steele may not be in a position to judge the reliability of subsource network.”

Claim by NYT: “The FBI’s investigation into Mr. Manafort began last spring [2016].”

Note by Strzok: “This is inaccurate … our investigation of Manafort was opened in August 2016.”

Claim by NYT: “The bureau did not have enough evidence to obtain a warrant for a wiretap of Mr. Manafort’s communications, but it had the NSA closely scrutinize the communications of Ukrainian officials he had met.”

Note by Strzok: “This is inaccurate …”

Basically, everything the New York Times wrote was judged by Peter Strozk – the anti-Trump FBI adulterer – as inaccurate. Keep that in mind the next time you read something in the New York Times. It’s just fake news, from front to back, top to bottom. Every day. People read it for feelings – not for an accurate view of the world.

There is a nice re-cap of left-wing news sources trumpeting the Steel dossier as genuine in this Twitter thread. Make note of the names, and don’t trust these news sources in the future. CNN, MSNBC, Brian Stelter, Rachel Maddow, New York Magazine, Jonathan Chait, Catherine Rempell, Katy Tur, Mother Jones, David Corn, Newsweek, Slate, Rick Wilson, Joy Reid, Jennifer Rubin, Max Boot, Charles Blow, Seth Abramson, Matthew Dowd, Kurt Eichenwald, The Daily Beast, The New Yorker, etc.

The Federalist had some details about the source for the Steele dossier.

The Primary Subsource was in reality Steele’s sole source, a longtime Russian-speaking contractor for the former British spy’s company, Orbis Business Intelligence. In turn, the Primary Subsource had a group of friends in Russia. All of their names remain redacted. From the FBI interviews, it becomes clear that the Primary Subsource and his friends peddled warmed-over rumors and laughable gossip that Steele dressed up as formal intelligence memos.

On Twitter, I found a thread that presented a case that the source of the dossier was a PRESS SECRETARY. Not an intelligence agent.  Not a “veteran spy”. A PRESS SECRETARY. I guess we’ll find out if this is correct soon.

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If Biden wins in November, don’t expect him to confront China’s totalitarianism

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China has 1 million Uighurs in Chinese in concentration camps, although they deny it
China has 1 million Uighurs in Chinese in concentration camps, although they deny it

As a Christian, I’m obligated to stand up for chastity, sobriety, right to life, and natural marriage. But there are other things happen in the world that also catch my attention. For instance, I’ve noticed that socialist China is basically a totalitarian nation, with concentration camps similar to those of Nazi Germany or communist USSR. And Joe Biden has connections to them.

This story is from the far-left Foreign Policy:

Two recent disturbing events may finally awaken the world to the scale and horror of the atrocities being committed against the Uighurs, a mostly secular Muslim ethnic minority, in Xinjiang, China. One is an authoritative report documenting the systematic sterilization of Uighur women. The other was the seizure by U.S. Customs and Border Protection of 13 tons of products made from human hair suspected of being forcibly removed from Uighurs imprisoned in concentration camps. Both events evoke chilling parallels to past atrocities elsewhere, forced sterilization of minorities, disabled, and Indigenous people, and the image of the glass display of mountains of hair preserved at Auschwitz.

[…]Over a million Turkic Uighurs are detained in concentration camps, prisons, and forced labor factories in China. Detainees are subject to military-style discipline, thought transformation, and forced confessions. They are abused, tortured, raped, and even killed. Survivors report being subjected to electrocution, waterboarding, repeated beatings, stress positions, and injections of unknown substances. These mass detention camps are designed to cause serious physical, psychological harm and mentally break the Uighur people. The repeated government orders to “break their lineage, break their roots, break their connections, and break their origins”; “round up everyone who should be rounded up”; and systematically prevent Uighur births demonstrate a clear intent to eradicate the Uighur people as a whole.

Here is drone footage of the Chinese Muslims being sent to concentration camps by train:

These camps are run by Chinese communists. They are secular. They are leftist. The Democrats are in charge in China.

And in fact, the Democrats here in America are not terribly concerned by any of this socialism in China. And that’s because the son of the Democrat presidential candidate has links to the CCP.

Fox News explains:

For almost six years, the firm connected to Hunter Biden in China has moved more than $2.5 billion into various automotive, technology, energy, and mining endeavors.

[…]Biden served as one of nine directors of the private equity firm Bohai Harvest RST – better known as BHR Partners – which is 80 percent mandated by shareholders in the Chinese government, according to the Wall Street Journal.

[…]The firm was registered less than two weeks after Biden flew with his then-vice president father on Air Force Two for official business in China in December 2013…

[…]In the closing days of that December, China’s central bank, the Bank of China in conjunction with Rosemount Seneca – the firm Biden founded in 2009 with John Kerry’s stepson Christopher Heinz and family friend Devon Archer – set up the $1 billion investment joint venture called Bohai Harvest RST.

[…]“The Bank of China is a major Chinese state-run bank, overseen by the powerful China Investment Corporation,” Isaac Stone Fish, a senior fellow at the Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations, told Fox News. “While it often makes decisions based on economic considerations, it exists to serve the interests of the Chinese Communist Party.”

So, it seems to me that if Biden is elected President, it’s unlikely that anything wil be done about China’s concentration camps. He’s just too close to the Chinese goverment and the Chinese Communist Party.

On the other hand, China doesn’t like the Republicans very much, because they’re actually trying to do something about the concentration camps:

China announced Monday it is issuing sanctions against U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and three other U.S. officials for “interfering in China’s internal affairs,” a move that drew a dismissive reply from Cruz.

The announcement came days after the United States issued sanctions against three Chinese officials for Beijing’s human rights abuses against ethnic minority groups in the Xinjiang region.

If Trump wins in November, then expect to see the United States continue to take action against China. They’ve already been doing it over the past 3.5 years.

News

William Lane Craig lectures on the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus

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Sherlock Holmes and John Watson: let's take a look at the facts
Sherlock Holmes and John Watson: let’s take a look at the facts

Here is Dr. William Lane Craig giving a long-form argument for the historical event of the resurrection of Jesus, and taking questions from the audience.

The speaker introduction goes for 6 minutes, then Dr. Craig speaks for 35 minutes, then it’s a period of questions and answers with the audience. The total length is 93 minutes, so quite a long period of Q&A. The questions in the Q&A period are quite good.

Introduction:

  • Many people who are willing to accept God’s existence are not willing to accept the God of Christianity
  • Christians need to be ready to show that Jesus rose from the dead as a historical event
  • Private faith is fine for individuals, but when dealing with the public you have to have evidence
  • When making the case, you cannot assume that your audience accepts the Bible as inerrant
  • You must use the New Testament like any other ancient historical document
  • Most historians, Christian and not, accept the basic minimal facts supporting the resurrection of Jesus

Fact #1: the burial of Jesus following his crucifixion

  • Fact #1 is supported by the early creed found in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor 15)
  • Fact #1 is supported by the early Passion narrative which was a source for Mark’s gospel
  • Fact #1 passes the criterion of enemy attestation, since it praises one of the Sanhedrin
  • Fact #1 is not opposed by any competing burial narratives

Fact #2: on the Sunday following his crucifixion, Jesus’ tomb was found empty by some women

  • Fact #2 is supported by the early Passion narrative which was a source for Mark’s gospel
  • Fact #2 is implied by the early creed found in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor 15)
  • Fact #2 is simple and lacks legendary embellishment, which argues for an early dating
  • Fact #2 passes the criterion of embarrassment, because it has female, not male, witnesses
  • Fact #2 passes the criterion of enemy attestation, since it is reported by the Jewish leaders

Fact #3: Jesus appeared to various people in various circumstances after his death

  • Fact #3 is supported by the early creed found in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor 15)
  • Fact #3 is supported by multiple, independent reports of the events from all four gospels
  • Fact #3 explains other historical facts, like the conversion of Jesus’ skeptical brother James

Fact #4: the earliest Christians proclaimed their belief in the resurrection of Jesus

  • Fact #4 explains why the earliest Christians continued to identify Jesus as the Messiah
  • Fact #4 explains why the earliest Christians were suddenly so unconcerned about being killed

Dr. Craig then asks which hypothesis explains all four of these facts. He surveys a number of naturalistic hypotheses, such as the hallucination theory or various conspiracy theories. All of these theories deny one or more of the minimal facts that have been established and accepted by the broad spectrum of historians. In order to reject the resurrection hypothesis, a skeptic would have to deny one of the four facts or propose an explanation that explains those facts better than the resurrection hypothesis.

I listened to the Q&A period while doing housekeeping and I heard lots of good questions. Dr. Craig gives very long answers to the questions. One person asked why we should trust the claim that the Jewish leaders really did say that the disciples stole the body. Another one asked why we should take the resurrection as proof that Jesus was divine. Another asks about the earthquake in Matthewand whether it is intended to be historical or apocalyptic imagery. Dr. Craig is also asked about the Jewish scholar Geza Vermes, and how many of the minimal facts he accepts. Another questioner asked about the ascension.

If you are looking for a good book to read on this topic, the best introductory book on the resurrection is “The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus” and the best comprehensive book is “The Resurrection of Jesus“.