Christopher Steele is mentioned throughout the Inspector General report on the FBI’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Glenn Simpson, founder of Fusion GPS, is also central to the whole debacle. But there are contradictions being noticed in the official sworn testimonies of both men and what the IG report has revealed. Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel noticed a discrepancy that should raise some eyebrows.
2)Indeed, the FBI says it was only the Downer tip-off at end-July that spurred the investigation. Downer for his part says it was public revelation in July of the DNC hack that caused him to finally wonder about collusion and connect his spring conversation with Papadopoulos.
— Kimberley Strassel (@KimStrassel) December 12, 2019
4) But here is what Steele told the IG: That in May 2016, Simpson approached Steele to "assist in determining Russia's actions related to the 2016 election"; "whether Russia was trying to achieve a particular election outcome"; and…
— Kimberley Strassel (@KimStrassel) December 12, 2019
6) Let's hope Attorney John Durham provides some answers on who exactly knew what in the spring of 2016.
— Kimberley Strassel (@KimStrassel) December 12, 2019
It seems like some people didn’t get their stories straight before retelling them. If the FBI didn’t conceive of something until July that both Steele and Fusion GPS were pursuing in May, it’s a mind-blowing coincidence that they were brought together so conveniently. We also now understand the depths to which the FBI, Steele, and Fusion GPS descended to be able to keep their alliance intact after the election as Senator Ben Sasse and IG Michael Horowitz discussed today. It seems like further coincidences combined with unnatural shifts within the FBI allowed the director of the FBI’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, Bruce Ohr, to somehow meander into the counterintelligence investigation.
Horowitz, Sasse dismantle Bruce Ohr as the real Spygate linchpin: ‘What the hell was he doing here?’
In November, 2016, the FBI “closed” (meaning released from being an informant) Steele because he had leaked information to Mother Jones magazine. That’s when Bruce and Nellie Ohr got involved.
“The FBI was not a reluctant participant in this relationship that was a conduit from Bruce Ohr – through Bruce Ohr to Steele – as we lay out here (pointing to the IG report),” Horowitz said, “So I just want to be clear. They’re not saying ‘we don’t want to deal with him.’ They’re saying “oh, ya, call… essentially if you have something we would love to hear from him.”
This is huge. It demonstrates the FBI went far out of its way to make sure they had access to Christopher Steele even after he had been “closed.” They needed the Steele Dossier to remain as the key for them to continue renewing warrants and spying on the administration in its early days even though they had come to the conclusion it was debunked months before.
We see Steele, Fusion GPS, and the FBI reengaging after the election. At this point there can be no coincidences. There was a plan in place that could have only one possible desired outcome shared by all three entities: Revelations that could be used to somehow take down President Trump. Nothing else makes sense.
But there’s more intrigue involved in the way the relationships seemed to magically come together. You see, Fusion GPS didn’t fire Steele first. Steele initially hired Fusion GPS to help him dig up dirt on Paul Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign manager. Shortly after, the relationship reversed and Fusion GPS hired Steele to connect Russia’s interests to candidate Trump’s 2016 election hopes.
Fusion GPS Chiefs Spin Hard Before the Horowitz Report
There are a few bombshells tucked in the new book authored by Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch, co-owners of Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm responsible for the most infamous dossier in American political history.
Here’s one that—as far as I know—hasn’t been disclosed until now: Before Fusion hired Christopher Steele in 2016 to produce his sketchy dossier on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, Steele hired Fusion to help him with a client at odds with a key figure in the Trump camp. The London-based operative, misleadingly portrayed in the press as a mere former British intelligence officer, needed help investigating the Trump advisor for his client.
“Weeks before Trump tapped Manafort to run his campaign, Christopher Steele had hired Fusion for help investigating Manafort,” Simpson and Fritsch write. “The matter had nothing to do with politics and was a typical commercial assignment.” Fusion and Steele’s firm “inked a small deal to research Manafort’s finances for Steele’s client.”
Here’s how this all looks when seen together. Christopher Steele went to Fusion GPS to help his client get dirt on Paul Manafort. Once connections had been made to candidate Trump in May, 2016, Fusion GPS told Steele he was onto something bigger and hired him to dig up dirt on Trump instead. The FBI got wind of this, likely through Bruce Ohr’s wife, Nellie, who was a contractor for Fusion GPS at the time. They needed a reason to engage with Fusion GPS and begin investigating the Trump campaign domestically while Steele sought dirt abroad, so they cooked up Alexander Downer to give them a reason to look closer in July, 2016. From there, it was “natural” for all Steele, Fusion GPS, and the FBI to work together since they were seeking the same endgame. It all sounds like fodder for conspiracy theorists, except that it all matches up perfectly with everything we’re learning about the whole Russia investigation.
As Strassel notes, the best hope for a proper resolution to this whole mess is for U.S. Attorney John Durham to piece it together and start dishing out charges. Otherwise, this could be the biggest unpunished government scam of the modern era.
We are currently forming the American Conservative Movement. If you are interested in learning more, we will be sending out information in a few weeks.
[gravityform id=”2″ title=”true” description=”false”]
