Not Even a Hurricane Can Stop Russiagate

Even though he's down to a mere tropical storm. Via the Wombat's In The Mailbox:  08.03.20, Twitchy: Mollie Hemingway Calls Out Media Who Portrayed Christopher Steele As Superspy

The media justified Russia hysteria by claiming Christopher Steele was a "masterspy." The journos who reported that dangerously false narrative have gone silent as the recorded facts contradict what anonymous leakers spoon fed them. I name some names here. https://t.co/kVDgcdv2gZ

— Mollie (@MZHemingway) August 3, 2020

Molly Hemingway at Da Fed, Media Silent As Christopher Steele ‘Hero’ ‘Spymaster’ Narrative Crumbles

It turns out Christopher Steele wasn’t 007.

For years, the media assured Americans that the dossier alleging treasonous collusion between Donald Trump and Russia was based on the scrupulous work of a mastermind British ex-spy and his vast network of credible and well-connected sources spread throughout Europe. It wasn’t true.

Steele did not personally collect any of the factual information in his reports. The “vast network” was instead a “social circle” of an American-based former Brookings Institute junior staffer, recently identified for the first time as Igor Danchenko. The friends didn’t have well-documented claims so much as rumors, drunken gossip, and outright brainstorming, conjecture, and speculation. Even that information was “multiple layers of hearsay upon hearsay” before it got to Steele, who then hyperbolically overstated it. And the damning claims of “collusion” appear to have been scandalously misattributed or invented out of whole cloth.

With such shoddy information collection and analysis methods, there was never any reason to give credence to any of the salacious allegations in the dossier, whether it was claims of secret deals with Russian oil concerns, secret meetings in foreign capitals, prostitutes urinating on Moscow hotel room beds, files of compromising information, or the careful cultivation of Trump, yes Trump, into the most effective Russian agent in history.

The media have a problem, then, given that they repeatedly led viewers and readers to believe Steele was a master spy. They can almost get away with ignoring the recent news that once again shows their previous reporting was catastrophically wrong. In fact, some media outlets did just that.

But after breathlessly reporting — day in and day out for years — what they claimed were important updates buttressing Steele’s collusion narrative, they can’t completely hide the on-the-record revelations showing how the collusion narrative was invented and used to undermine the Trump campaign and administration. . . .

The people who constructed the dossier counted on press compliance and the press complied. Just DNC operatives with press badges.

The rest is a sundance show. First, he reviews history, and catches Rod Rosenstein in misleading the Congress on how the Steele Dossier was used to support the Carter Page FISA warrants: They Won’t Like Full Sunlight – Rod Rosenstein Edition…

The former Deputy Attorney General, a man who AG Bill Barr has praised vociferously, testifies two months ago that the Steele Dossier IS NOT in the FISA application to spy on Team Trump. As Spiropoulos outlines, contrast that position with what the Inspector General and the documents already said.

Factual Stuff That Will Help Reconcile Issues Within Spygate and The Special Counsel…

The special counsel team authorized and released the Lisa Page and Peter Strzok text messages to the public in December 2017. It was a very smart Mueller team using a laser pointer to get their political opposition chasing remote controlled rabbits. The special counsel team controlled the remote.

The special counsel team took control over and then filtered the FBI investigative file of FBI Washington Field Office Supervisory Special Agent, Brian Dugan. The special counsel removed the evidence that James Wolfe leaked the FISA application on March 17th, 2017.

The special counsel team released the Adam Waldman text message capture to the SSCI as a head’s up after likely informing SSCI Vice-Chairman Mark Warner it was coming. On February 9, 2018, Warner had his pre-scripted defense in place. It appears Warner gave the Go8 the text documents knowing it would be leaked to media. Smart maneuver.

The special counsel team informed the FISA court on July 12, 2018, the predicate for the Carter Page FISA application was still valid. They lied. They did this because they planned to release another segment of SSA Dugan’s file to the public to water down the issue. Nine days after telling the FISC the application was valid, on July 21, 2018, the special counsel used the guise of a FOIA release to put the Dugan FISA equity into the public consciousness. What we know as the Carter Page FISA application was/is actually SSA Dugan’s work product. Again, this was from his investigative file.

The special counsel released Dugan’s work product (FBI equity), while simultaneously redacting the dates on the copy they released. It was the special counsel who redacted the dates. They had to do this because Dugan’s FISA copy had incorrect dates as seeded to capture the leak by SSCI Security Director James Wolfe.

Every public release of information from May 2017 through April 11, 2019, came from the special counsel. Neither Main Justice (AG Sessions) nor the FBI (Wray) released anything. The special counsel were releasing information in a controlled method and withholding other documents detrimental to their purpose of framing President Trump.

Status Update – DOJ/FBI Investigative Research on The Road…

USAO John Bash – Lots of discussion amid multiple circles about what West Texas USAO John Bash might be looking into. Is he looking back in time into the FISA(702) abuses that took place during the 2016 primary season?…. That would be in addition to the familiar “unmasking” aspect?… and, if yes, what would that indicate?

Short answer is: no-one is certain. AG Barr did mention that Bash is looking backward on the unmasking issues beyond the timeline scope of the 2016 presidential election. That would indicate surveillance “unmasking” and FISA “minimization” would meld because essentially the terms are synonymous depending on the type of intelligence exploitation.

Prior Obama officials were “unmasking” names associated with FBI investigations simply to dirty them up to give fuel to the fraudulent basis of “Trump-Russia”; that’s the political weaponization of intelligence. This did happen and Bash is cited with authority to review this carve-out of the ongoing DOJ investigation into DOJ/FBI intelligence manipulation.

However, if Bash is going into the issues of the NSA database being exploited for political opposition research via FISA-702 authorities (the intentional extraction of information with intentional non-minimization) well, that’s a more expansive kettle-of-fish than would seem to be possible to fully outline before the November election.

FISC presiding judges Rosemary Collyer (’16) and James Boasberg (’18) have already outlined the continued use of the NSA database for ‘unauthorized’ purposes.

Is this something that AG Barr would authorize USAO Bash to pursue?… that’s a big question without answer. We would hope yes, but think about the scale of that in totality to the interests of DC writ large… Ergo, I’m not confident.