Quote:
Originally Posted by themystic
Come On Lusty. Tell me you don't really believe that "deep state" bullshit
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Whaddya say mystic? I was distracted reading Kim Strassel's latest column. You know Kim Strassel, right? She was educated at Princeton and now writes for the WSJ. She has been shining the spotlight on the deep state's "bullshit" for the last 2-1/2 years.
You should read her. She is always spot on. No bullshit, no conspiracy theories, just the facts - even if (or especially if) they lead to places that make the libtards uncomfortable.
Fusion, the ‘Collusion’ Puppeteer
Bruce Ohr’s 302s, just released to the public, show Glenn Simpson pulling the strings.
By Kimberley A. Strassel
Aug. 15, 2019 7:02 pm ET
The Justice Department is investigating how a former British intelligence agent, Christopher Steele, came to exert so much influence over the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s erroneous Trump-Russia collusion narrative. Let’s hope the department is also investigating an even more influential man who had even less business manipulating the government: Glenn Simpson, the head of opposition-research firm Fusion GPS.
That’s a pressing question in light of new documents from high-ranking Justice official Bruce Ohr, obtained recently by Judicial Watch. The papers include, among other things, a dozen official FBI interviews (known as 302s) of Mr. Ohr that date from just after the 2016 election through May 2017.
The documents suggest Mr. Simpson was the real puppet master of the collusion drama.
Most of the FBI’s debriefs of Mr. Ohr center on information about or from Mr. Steele—itself a major breach of FBI protocol. The bureau fired Mr. Steele as a source in autumn 2016, when it became clear he was blabbing about the FBI investigation to the press. The FBI nonetheless continued to use Mr. Ohr as a back door to its discredited source. The 302s relate the numerous times and ways Mr. Steele contacted Mr. Ohr with information—although many of the details of the conversations remain redacted.
More eye-popping in the 302s is the
ease with which Mr. Simpson landed meetings with powerful officials, for no apparent purpose other than to peddle unverified accusations against the Trump team. This isn’t a former intelligence officer or government official, or even someone with specialized knowledge of Russia.
Mr. Simpson is a private citizen—and one who Mr. Ohr and the FBI knew was providing information to Hillary Clinton’s team (as Mr. Ohr acknowledges in his initial 302). Yet when Mr. Simpson called, officials across Washington hopped to, swallowing the claims that would become the basis of a false hysteria.
We already knew Mr. Simpson’s relationship with Mr. Ohr began well before the July 2016 launch of the FBI investigation. We knew Mr. Simpson used his many press connections to get the collusion story out. And we know from former FBI counsel James Baker’s House testimony the FBI was aware in 2016 that “Simpson was going around Washington” giving Mr. Steele’s dossier “to a lot of different people and trying to elevate its profile.”
Now we have specifics. Thanks to the 302s, we have Mr. Ohr on Nov. 22, 2016, reporting that Mr. Simpson had been “talking to [then-Assistant Secretary] Victoria Nuland at the U.S. State Department.” We have Mr. Ohr several weeks later relaying that he met Mr. Simpson for breakfast on Dec. 10, where Mr. Simpson turned over a “thumb drive,” which was “entered into evidence.” At that meeting Mr. Simpson also informed Mr. Ohr—who in turn informed the FBI—that Trump lawyer Michael Cohen was “the go-between” who connected “Russia and the Trump campaign,” that a Russian was funneling money “to the National Rifle Association,” that there was “communication” between the Trump campaign and a Russian bank, and plenty more.
Bob Mueller found none of this in his report.
We have Mr. Ohr explaining he received more information from Mr. Simpson on Jan. 20, 2017, the day President Trump was inaugurated. We separately have him offering in early December 2016 to “provide his wife’s research” for Fusion GPS “to the FBI.” The FBI later that month gladly took possession of the “totality of the work Nellie Ohr conducted for Simpson,” and entered it “into evidence.” Put another way, a great deal more of the anti-Trump Simpson file beyond just the dossier made its way to the FBI. These whispers of Mr. Simpson’s helped provoke a counterintelligence investigation into a sitting president, a special counsel and a media frenzy—for more than two years.
Then consider that
Mr. Simpson is the progenitor of the dossier as well. Mr. Steele wrote it because Mr. Simpson hired him to do so, on behalf of the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee. Why Mr. Steele? In Senate testimony, Mr. Simpson casually marked it down to their having previously “worked together.” Then again, if the goal all along was to push opposition research to senior officials, it seems just as likely Mr. Steele was chosen because of his existing high-level contacts—with the Ohrs, with Obama State Department employee Jonathan Winer, and with FBI agents.
The former FBI leadership—Director James Comey, Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, counterespionage chief Peter Strzok—continue to insist the bureau did nothing wrong. But
given the humiliating truth that there was no Russia collusion, the FBI’s actions can be described in only one of two ways. At worst, its leadership willfully acted against the Trump administration on information it knew was bogus. At best, its leadership was so standardless and inept as to allow a paid political operative to lead it around by the nose. In either case, there’s no excuse or justification.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/fusion-...er-11565910174
