So, how many heads are going to roll in September? Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz is supposed to release his long-awaited report on Obama-era FISA abuses. The focal point centers on the DOJ’s FISA spy warrant against Carter Page, a former foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, which was secured thanks to the Clinton-funded opposition research project called the Trump dossier. The dossier was compiled by ex-British spook Christopher Steele. It was unverified. It was biased. And the DOJ knew it. Not only that, former top DOJ official Bruce Ohr kept contacting Steele months after it was revealed his work was biased (via Fox News):
The FBI formally documented the anti-Trump bias of British ex-spy Christopher Steele months before the November 2016 presidential election, yet used his unverified dossier in multiple Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court warrant application renewals, records obtained by Fox News show.
The documents, first obtained by Judicial Watch, also revealed that top Justice Department official Bruce Ohr maintained contact with Steele for at least six months after Steele was fired by the FBI for unauthorized media contacts in November 2016.
The summaries of FBI interviews with Ohr, known as 302s, showed that Ohr knew by September 2016 -- a month before the initial FISA application to surveil the Trump campaign -- that Steele was "desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being the U.S. President.”
A source close to the matter told Fox News "this had the effect of putting a senior DOJ official on notice that a witness/source had an extreme bias." Nevertheless, the FISA warrant application went through in October 2016 with multiple renewals.
While the FISA records are heavily redacted, it does not appear that the FBI's documentation about Steele's bias was ever shared with the FISA court.
[…]
The 22 pages of reports on interviews with Ohr also revealed his extensive contacts with Steele. The two communicated on the encrypted messaging app "WhatsApp," according to the records.
The FBI documents showed Ohr's contacts with Steele extended through May 2017, when Special Counsel Robert Mueller was appointed. Ohr then became a kind of backchannel linking Steele to the FBI after his termination.
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So, it was used to renew warrants against Page. Ohr’s wife, Nellie, worked for the research firm Fusion GPS, which was contracted by the Democrats to find dirt on Trump. GPS then reached out to Steele to compile the document.
The DOJ and FBI have been the main institutions bashed by their apparent bias and incompetence in this story. Given the glaring errors in the document, it’s quite possible that a) the DOJ was falling for a Russian misinformation campaign; b) the FBI had no intention to verify anything. Also, the State Department appears to have known the document was biased political propaganda. Steele admitted it to State Department officials in October of 2016. Even the British intelligence community was heavily skeptical of the document, which speaks to the integrity of the Russian probe then-quarterbacked by ex-Special Counsel Robert Mueller. The whole Trump-Russia collusion myth is grounded in this piece of biased political trash.
A lot of dirty laundry is going to be aired out next month. I’ll bet a heavy wager on that—and these people committed these offenses because they were that sure Hillary Clinton would win. They could then sweep this under the rug, some grade-A deep state antics. Election meddling was happening alright, folks—but it was coming from within the halls of the DOJ.
Ohr 302s FOIA Release 080819 by Fox News on Scribd
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