The Ohrs’ Activities Raise New Questions about the December 13 Dossier Report
In recent days, Republicans have leaked details about the actions of Bruce and Nellie Ohr with respect to the Fusion GPS dossier on Trump. Yesterday, Glenn Simpson confirmed those details in a filing in Fusion’s efforts to prevent the House Intelligence Committee from obtaining more details about Fusion’s finances.
The bank records reflect that Fusion contracted with Nellie Ohr, a former government official expert in Russian matters, to help our company with its research and analysis of Mr. Trump[.]
[snip]
I disclosed that I met with Bruce Ohr, at his request, after the November 2016 election to discuss our findings regarding Russia and the election[.]
In short, this revelation means that Fusion employed the wife of then Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr to conduct research on Trump’s Russian ties. Ohr met with Christopher Steele before the election, and met with Simpson after the election.
This probably means that this reference, in HPSCI’s request for documents, is to Nellie Ohr.
Which in turn would man that Fusion paid Ohr on March 22, April 6, May 25, July 13, August 2, September 1, October 5, November 1.
That would mean the payments to Steele are either item 2 or 4 in this analysis. That’s significant because both of those entities received payments in January.
I’m interested in all that for two reasons. First, the record conflicts on whether DOJ ever paid Steele.
WaPo reported that Steele had reached a verbal agreement that the FBI would pay him to continue his investigation of Russia’s involvement with Trump after still unnamed Democrats stopped paying him after the election. CNN then reported that FBI actually had paid Steele for his expenses. Finally, NBC reported Steele backed out of the deal before it was finalized.
If Ohr met with Steele after the election (and after Perkins Coie reportedly stopped paying for Steele’s work), it means it’s possible DOJ paid him, contrary to some reports. Steele has claimed (in otherwise dubious court filings) that he was neither pair nor affirmatively solicited information for the last report, dated December 13.
The December 13 report was by far the most inflammatory one, alleging that Trump’s campaign paid for the hack of the DNC. It’s also at the center of some of the lawfare surrounding the dossier, Webzilla’s multiple lawsuits.
This is by no means definitive. But the circumstances of the December 13 report will come out one way or another. Thus far, the story about it is bad. And it could get far worse.
oh, for christ’s sake. how could experienced high-level gov’t officials be so obdurately politically stupid.
and puting all this personal communication in official email channels? incredible.
at least i now know what ew has meant by “inflammatory” parts of the steele dossier – that trump’s campaign paid to hack the dnc. like the offensive dossier entry that was trivially salacious, this entry should never have been included in a serious dossier without exceptional proof (why pay, e. g., the russians, for what they’d gladly do for free :) ).
it looks, based on the dec 2016 timing, like the original dossier developed a coda, post election.
How could they? Their mindset was that the UniParty had achieved permanent power and political control – Hillary would set Obama’s vast corruption in cement – and there would never be consequences again. Consequences, like laws and taxes, are for the little people.
That’s how.
” how could experienced high-level gov’t officials be so obdurately politically stupid.”
Putin fever.
if you read their words, it would have been more like swamp fever caused by trump, the creature from the great swamp of ignorance. :)
nice spotting of Nellie Ohr’s name in the ledger
Obviously, people were put in a position where they thought a Russian asset was going to be President and they moved without asking permission. I don’t think this is unexpected. What’s intriguing is if this information was planted, and Trump knows that, will Mueller have a much bigger ace up his sleeve that trumps (ahem) all this bs?
so two lover’s are foolish enough to exchange political messages on official paper. how convenient if you are congressmen looking to obscure the trump campaign’s activities with russia:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/12/us/fbi-trump-russia.html?
the discovery of the anti-trump activities of another couple – the ohrs – strike me as a lot more problematic. the wife apparently worked for fusion-glenn simpson. if she wrote or edited any part of the steele dossier, that would cause endless congressional caterwauling and a republican hissy fit that would require some serious facing-down to deal with.
Nothing compared to the Breitbart/Sputnik/Trump merry go round. It is only a matter due to frame of reference.
All this seems to be known to both sides. Likely now that it will come out that sir Ohr and DOJ paid Fusion rather than the FBI paying Fusion? And for what? Stale rumors? Not even the Clinton campaign but only Isikoff, ( note connection to David Corn) and Ioffe seemed to go for the Simpson narrative in summer 2016. But it took only days for Breitbart/Sputnik Stranahan and Roger Stone to jump on Gucifer 2.0 to say the Russians did not do it. Funny how a certain ex FSB is involved in provocations of both campaigns.
Meanwhile commenters were talking 690,000 emails on Weiner’s laptop in 2016 and in May Comey could not/would not say with FBI non denial denial letter following. Not likely Abedin or Weiner knew what was on the laptop so they have no standing. Don’t look behind this curtain.
Gee, who knew this guy is being educated on hacking? No link, just google it. Probably ghost-writter again.
Unless you catch “hackers” in the act, it is very hard to determine who was doing the hacking.
How is it that people who make their living exploiting the trove of electronic communications collected by NSA and others are so oblivious to the reality that they too may be within the envelope of collection? Methinks that the cognitive dissonance over this awareness is now at epidemic proportions. The report that Nellie Ohr obtained a shortwave radio license last year is evidence that they were not only aware of this vulnerability, but proactively trying to circumvent it. So why leave a trail in emails, texts, and financial transfers? Privacy does not exist anymore, and perpetuating the converse mythology is becoming very harmful.