You’ll remember that the hoax was pushed by the Democrats, their allies in the mainstream media, and the so-called “fact-checkers” for 2.5 years, until an investigation found that there was no corruption, and no collusion. Well, a new declassified document released by the Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe sheds so light on who was behind the hoax, and why that person pushed it.
EXCLUSIVE: Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe on Tuesday declassified documents that revealed former CIA Director John Brennan briefed former President Obama on Hillary Clinton’s purported “plan” to tie then-candidate Donald Trump to Russia as “a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server” ahead of the 2016 presidential election, Fox News has learned.
Ratcliffe declassified Brennan’s handwritten notes – which were taken after he briefed Obama on the intelligence the CIA received – and a CIA memo, which revealed that officials referred the matter to the FBI for potential investigative action.
[…]The declassification comes after Ratcliffe, last week, shared newly-declassified information with the Senate Judiciary Committee which revealed that in September 2016, U.S. intelligence officials forwarded an investigative referral on Hillary Clinton purportedly approving “a plan concerning U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russian hackers hampering U.S. elections” in order to distract the public from her email scandal.
That referral was sent to Comey and then-Deputy Assistant Director of Counterintelligence Peter Strzok.
I always include a summary of the key facts of the Trump-Russia collusion hoax in my posts, and fortunately, the Fox News article had one:
Meanwhile, last week, during a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Comey was asked whether he received an investigative referral on Clinton from 2016, but he said it didn’t “ring any bells.”
“You don’t remember getting an investigatory lead from the intelligence community? Sept. 7, 2016, U.S. intelligence officials forwarded an investigative referral to James Comey and Strzok regarding Clinton’s approval of a plan [about] Trump…as a means of distraction?” Graham asked Comey.
“That doesn’t ring any bells with me,” Comey said.
“That’s a pretty stunning thing that it doesn’t ring a bell,” Graham fired back. “You get this inquiry from the intelligence community to look at the Clinton campaign trying to create a distraction, accusing Trump of being a Russian agent or a Russian stooge.”
Graham questioned “how far-fetched is that,” citing the fact that Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, through law firm Perkins Coie, hired Fusion GPS and ex-British intelligence officer Christopher Steele to author and compile information for the controversial and unverified anti-Trump dossier.
The Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, through law firm Perkins Coie, hired Fusion GPS and ex-British intelligence officer Christopher Steele to author and compile information for the controversial and unverified anti-Trump dossier.
The dossier contains claims about alleged ties between Donald Trump and Russia that served as the basis for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants obtained against former Trump campaign aide Carter Page.
So, if this report is true, Hillary Clinton is the source for the Trump-Russia collusion hoax, and Obama knew about it all along. It went right to the top, just like the IRS persecution of conservative organizations in Obama’s re-election year. Another story the mainstream media news ignored.
I remember how the mainstream news media, the Democrat party politicians, and the so-called “fact-checkers” all pushed the Trump-Russia collusion narrative. I don’t find Comey’s failure to remember very convincing.
The source for today’s bombshell story is none other than the highly-respected, but left-leaning, Wall Street Journal. According to a story that was published last Friday evening, the main source for the Steele dossier – which was obtained by a Democrat PR firm, and paid for by a Democrat law firm – was a Russian agent. The FBI said that this man was “a threat to national security”.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham on Thursday released newly declassified FBI documents that contain this stunner: The bureau relied on a suspected Russian agent for the information it used to obtain a secret surveillance warrant against former Trump adviser Carter Page.
[…]Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz last year revealed that former spook Christopher Steele relied on one primary “subsource” for most of his accusations against the Trump campaign. This subsource was later identified as Ukrainian-born Igor Danchenko, who worked as a research analyst from 2005 to 2010 at the Brookings Institution in Washington. The latest disclosures show that Mr. Danchenko was the subject of an FBI counterintelligence investigation from 2009 to 2011, based on concerns he was a Russian agent and “a threat to national security.”
According to the documents, Mr. Danchenko attempted to recruit two individuals connected to “an influential foreign policy advisor in the Obama administration.” He said that if they “did get a job in the government and had access to classified information,” he had a way for them “to make a little extra money.”
Further FBI investigation found Mr. Danchenko was an associate of two other “FBI counterintelligence subjects.” He also had contact with “the Russian Embassy and known Russian intelligence officers,” and the FBI went so far as to apply for a warrant to surveil Mr. Danchenko. The investigation ended because he left the country in September 2010, though the FBI said “consideration would be given to re-opening the investigation” if he returned.
This is the important part:
The FBI identified Mr. Danchenko as Mr. Steele’s source in December 2016, when senior bureau officials also became aware of the prior FBI investigation. The FBI’s realization that it was being fed potential Russian disinformation should have put an immediate halt to the Page probe, if not the entire collusion investigation.
Instead and incredibly, the FBI failed to disclose this information to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in all three of its subsequent renewal applications against Mr. Page. U.S. Attorney John Durham first brought the Danchenko information to Attorney General Bill Barr’s attention and said its public release would not interfere with his investigation.
There was also a related story about how the FBI agents on the case were so concerned about being sued, that they actually got insurance policies.
The same WSJ article explains:
In related news Thursday, the Justice Department disclosed more FBI text messages and notes in the tainted Michael Flynn case. These also reflect horribly on the James Comey-era FBI. Agents (names redacted) express dismay and disdain in the messages for the broader collusion investigation (code-named Crossfire Hurricane) and for the probe of Mr. Flynn.
In October 2016 internal messages, agents refer to the “Crossfire Road Show” and one says: “I’m tell [sic] man, if this thing ever gets FOIA’d, there are going to be some tough questions asked.” Another responds that the problem is “a scope way outside the boundaries of logic,” to which an agent says one team member is engaged in “rabbit holes and conspiracy theories.”
Agents questioned the use of national security letters (subpoenas that don’t require judicial permission) to get Mr. Flynn’s financial records. One series of messages is from Jan. 5, 2017, the same day Mr. Comey briefed Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Susan Rice on the Flynn/Trump investigations.
“[W]hat’s the word on how [Obama’s] briefing went?” asks one agent. “Don’t know, but people here are scrambling for info to support certain things and it’s a mad house.” A few days later, an FBI employee reports that they “all went and purchased professional liability insurance” over concerns about DOJ/FBI leaks and that “the new AG might have some questions.”
Do you remember the details of the FBI-media collaboration on the Trump-Russia collusion story? I have a summary of it for you, below.
The Trump-Russia collusion story that was trumpeted by the progressive media was a joint effort between the Hillary Clinton campaign and high-ranking members of the FBI during the Obama administration.
The goal was to get the government to spy on the Trump campaign, in order neutralize his administration, if he won the 2016 election.
Here’s the left-leaning The Hill, reporting on an important finding from October 2018:
Congressional investigators have confirmed that a top FBI official met with Democratic Party lawyers to talk about allegations of Donald Trump-Russia collusion weeks before the 2016 election, and before the bureau secured a search warrant targeting Trump’s campaign.
Former FBI general counsel James Baker met during the 2016 season with at least one attorney from Perkins Coie, the Democratic National Committee’s private law firm.
That’s the firm used by the DNC and Hillary Clinton’s campaign to secretly pay research firm Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence operative, to compile a dossier of uncorroborated raw intelligence alleging Trump and Moscow were colluding to hijack the presidential election.
The article notes that Perkins Coie is the “Democratic National Committee’s private law firm”.
The Washington Post reported last week that Perkins Coie, an international law firm, was directed by both the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Hillary Clinton’s campaign to retain Fusion GPS in April of 2016 to dig up dirt on then-candidate Donald Trump. Fusion GPS then hired Christopher Steele, a former British spy, to compile a dossier of allegations that Trump and his campaign actively colluded with the Russian government during the 2016 election. Though many of the claims in the dossier have been directly refuted, none of the dossier’s allegations of collusion have been independently verified. Lawyers for Steele admitted in court filings last April that his work was not verified and was never meant to be made public.
In addition, Fox News reports that the FBI paid Christopher Steele ELEVEN TIMES in 2016.
But why would the FBI and the FISA court accept the Democrat-funded dossier as a basis to spy on the Democrat’s main political rival? Answer: there were Democrats in the FBI who covered up the source of funding for the Steele dossier, as well as the anti-Trump bias of the dossier’s author.
The Washington Examiner reported on the released text messages from highly-placed anti-Trump Democrat Lisa Page within the FBI in March 2019:
The text messages, between then-Deputy Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe, who was later fired, and former FBI attorney Lisa Page — who was having an affair with FBI agent Peter Strzok — were obtained by Fox News.
[…]Then-Director of the FBI James Comey ultimately signed off on the application to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for approval to surveil Carter Page. It was dated nine days after the Page-McCabe texts: Oct. 21 2016.
The specific funding of Steele’s dossier was never mentioned to the FISA court, either during that first application or during three subsequent FISA renewals. Steele’s anti-Trump fervor and determination to provide his dossier to the media and members of the U.S. government later became well known.
Do you remember any of the news media shows telling us any of this during their trumpeting of Trump-Russia conspiracies? I don’t.
Have you ever wondered which members of the Obama administration were involved in spying on the Trump campaign? Would you like to hear from former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former FBI Director James Comey? The Senate does. They’ve issued subpoenas for these people, and many more.
The Senate Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday voted to authorize subpoenas for former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former FBI Director James Comey, and other Obama administration officials as part of its broad review into the origins of the Russia investigation.
[…]The committee also authorized subpoenas for Sidney Blumenthal, former Obama chief of staff Denis McDonough, former FBI counsel Lisa Page, former FBI agent Joe Pientka, former ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, former FBI director of counterintelligence Bill Priestap, former White House national security adviser Susan Rice, former FBI agent Peter Strzok, former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith – who pleaded guilty to making a false statement in the first criminal case arising from U.S. Attorney John Durham’s review of the investigation into links between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign – among others.
The committee further authorized subpoenas for “the production of all records” related to the FBI’s original Russia investigation and the Department of Justice Inspector General’s probe, as well as the process of “unmasking” for James Baker, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, DOJ official Bruce Ohr, FBI case agent Steven Somma, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Teftt, former deputy assistant attorney general Tashina Gauhar; and Stefan Halper.
Do you remember the details of the FBI-media collaboration on the Trump-Russia collusion story? I have a summary of it for you, below.
The Trump-Russia collusion story that was trumpted by the progressive media for the last two years was a joint effort between the Hillary Clinton campaign and high-ranking members of the FBI during the Obama administration.
The goal was to get the government to spy on the Trump campaign, in order neutralize his administration, if he won the 2016 election.
Here’s the left-leaning The Hill, reporting on an important finding from October 2018:
Congressional investigators have confirmed that a top FBI official met with Democratic Party lawyers to talk about allegations of Donald Trump-Russia collusion weeks before the 2016 election, and before the bureau secured a search warrant targeting Trump’s campaign.
Former FBI general counsel James Baker met during the 2016 season with at least one attorney from Perkins Coie, the Democratic National Committee’s private law firm.
That’s the firm used by the DNC and Hillary Clinton’s campaign to secretly pay research firm Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence operative, to compile a dossier of uncorroborated raw intelligence alleging Trump and Moscow were colluding to hijack the presidential election.
The article notes that Perkins Coie is the “Democratic National Committee’s private law firm”.
The Federalist reports that the Obama presidential election campaign also paid $972,000 to Perkins Coie in 2016 alone:
Former president Barack Obama’s official campaign organization has directed nearly a million dollars to the same law firm that funneled money to Fusion GPS, the firm behind the infamous Steele dossier. Since April of 2016, Obama For America (OFA) has paid over $972,000 to Perkins Coie, records filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) show.
[…]Federal records show that Hillary Clinton’s official campaign organization, Hillary For America, paid just under $5.1 million to Perkins Coie in 2016. The DNC paid nearly $5.4 million to the law firm in 2016.
[…]The Washington Post reported last week that Perkins Coie, an international law firm, was directed by both the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Hillary Clinton’s campaign to retain Fusion GPS in April of 2016 to dig up dirt on then-candidate Donald Trump. Fusion GPS then hired Christopher Steele, a former British spy, to compile a dossier of allegations that Trump and his campaign actively colluded with the Russian government during the 2016 election. Though many of the claims in the dossier have been directly refuted, none of the dossier’s allegations of collusion have been independently verified. Lawyers for Steele admitted in court filings last April that his work was not verified and was never meant to be made public.
In addition, Fox News reports that the FBI paid Christopher Steele ELEVEN TIMES in 2016. So this dossier was funded by Democrats from many different groups. They probably thought that no one would ever find out who was behind it.
But why would the FBI and the FISA court accept the Democrat-funded dossier as a basis to spy on the Democrat’s main political rival? Answer: there were Democrats in the FBI who covered up the source of funding for the Steele dossier, as well as the anti-Trump bias of the dossier’s author.
The Washington Examiner reported on the released text messages from highly-placed anti-Trump Democrat Lisa Page within the FBI in March 2019:
The text messages, between then-Deputy Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe, who was later fired, and former FBI attorney Lisa Page — who was having an affair with FBI agent Peter Strzok — were obtained by Fox News.
[…]Then-Director of the FBI James Comey ultimately signed off on the application to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for approval to surveil Carter Page. It was dated nine days after the Page-McCabe texts: Oct. 21 2016.
The specific funding of Steele’s dossier was never mentioned to the FISA court, either during that first application or during three subsequent FISA renewals. Steele’s anti-Trump fervor and determination to provide his dossier to the media and members of the U.S. government later became well known.
The reason why the mainstream media reported on a #FakeNews story for two years was because they wanted to sway voters away from Trump in the 2018 elections. And it worked.
WINTERY KNIGHT 