FBI had information Steele dossier was part of 'Russian disinformation campaign,' declassified footnotes show

[Willy Waggers]

In article <t2kptk$3mp8r$1...@news.freedyn.de>
"Buttsniffer Number P01369" <patr...@protonmail.com> wrote:

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/declassified-footnotes-show-fbi-
knew-
christopher-steele-may-have-been-part-of-russian-disinformation-
campaign

The FBI's Crossfire Hurricane team investigating the Trump 2016
campaign
received multiple indications that former British spy
Christopher Steele -
- one of their key informants in their investigation -- was part
of an
elaborate "Russian disinformation campaign," according to
several newly
declassified footnotes from Department of Justice Inspector
General
Michael Horowitz's report on FBI misconduct.

“It’s ironic that the Russian collusion narrative was fatally
flawed
because of Russian disinformation," Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-
Iowa, and Ron
Johnson, R-Wis., who had pushed for the declassification, said
in a
statement to Fox News on Friday. "These footnotes confirm that
there was a
direct Russian disinformation campaign in 2016, and there were
ties
between Russian intelligence and a presidential campaign – the
Clinton
campaign, not Trump’s.”

At the same time, Grassley's office added that "the senators
expect a
fuller declassification in the coming days," including a version
of the
footnotes that does not redact the names of those who raised the
alarm
about Steele. Some in Grassley's office, including Grassley
himself, have
seen the fully declassified footnotes, and want them publicly
released
immediately, Fox News is told.

One of the footnotes, which was previously redacted in its
entirety, read:
“The [REDACTED] stated that it did not have high confidence in
this subset
of Steele’s reporting and assessed that the referenced subset
was part of
a Russian disinformation campaign to denigrate US foreign
relations." That
subset referred to the activities of former Trump lawyer Michael
Cohen,
whom Steele's dossier claimed had traveled to Prague to meet
with Russian
agents. Special Counsel Robert Mueller was unable to
substantiate that
claim, and Cohen has denied it.

The footnote goes on to state that a 2017 report “contained
information …
that the public reporting about the details of Trump’s [REDACTED]
activities in Moscow during a trip in 2013 were false, and that
they were
the product of RIS ‘infiltra[ing] a source into the network’ of a
[REDACTED] who compiled a dossier of information on Trump’s
activities.”


Donald Trump Jr.
?
@DonaldJTrumpJr
It’s amazing what can happen. When the deep state bureaucrats
aren’t the
ones in charge anymore. We need more @RichardGrenell/s in all of
these
agencies.
https://twitter.com/paulsperry_/status/1248814379623211008 …

Paul Sperry
@paulsperry_
Senate investigators could not break free key redacted footnotes
in FISA
report despite 2 full months of haggling with DOJ NSD and ODNI.
Frustrated, they then make same request to Trump's new ODNI
appointee
Grenell & he declassifies them w the snap of a finger in less
than 1 week

24.5K
5:00 AM - Apr 11, 2020
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Another footnote stated: "According to a document circulated
among
Crossfire Hurricane team members and supervisors in early
October 2016,
Person 1[Sergei Millian] had historical contact with persons and
entities
suspected of being linked to RIS [Russian intelligence]. The
document
described reporting [REDACTED] that Person 1 'was rumored to be
a former
KGB/SVR officer.' In addition, in late December 2016, Department
Attorney
Bruce Ohr told SSA 1 [FBI Agent Joe Pietnka] that he had met
with Glenn
Simpson and that Simpson had assessed that Person 1 was a RIS
officer who
was central in connecting Trump to Russia."

WHO IS MYSTERY FBI AGENT JOE PIENTKA, KEY PLAYER IN PAGE FISA?

Pientka was conspicuously removed from the FBI's website after
Fox News
contacted the FBI about his extensive role in Crossfire
Hurricane FISA
matters, but sources say he remains in the agency's field office
in San
Francisco in a senior role. Republicans have sought to question
him
repeatedly.

Millian contacted Fox News after this article was published, and
strongly
denied any links to illicit activities or intelligence services,
saying
there was an attempt to "frame" him that had backfired.

The newly released footnotes gave other reasons to doubt the
knowledge and
credibility of Steele's main sources, as well as the accuracy of
Horowitz's own report.


Undercover Huber
@JohnWHuber
Replying to @JohnWHuber
N.B. This is from Executive Summary of the IG report stating as
a FACT
that the Primary Sub Source (PSS) used “his/her network of sub-
sources to
gather information”

This is directly contradicted by Footnote 334 where the PSS
themselves
said they didn’t have a “network” at all ??

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"When interviewed by the FBI, the Primary Sub-source stated that
he/she
did not view his/her contacts as a network of sources,
[REDACTED] with
whom he/she has conversations about current events and government
relations," one of the previously hidden footnotes reads.

That statement directly contradicted the executive summary of
Horowitz's
IG report, which asserted that Steele's Primary Sub-source "used
his/her
network of sub-sources to gather information that was then
passed to
Steele."

While Friday's disclosure was significant, the partial
declassification of
the footnotes didn't fully comply with previous requests to the
DOJ from
Grassley and Johnson, whose letter to Barr sought the full and
complete
declassification of the four footnotes in the IG report in
January.

Grassley and Johnson wanted the DOJ to declassify footnotes 302,
334, 342
and 350; all were only partially unredacted, and 342 remains
fully
redacted.

The fully redacted footnote "refers to information received by a
member of
the Crossfire Hurricane team regarding possible previous
attempts by a
foreign government to penetrate and research a company or
indiviudals
associated with Christopher Steele," the DOJ said, adding that
it would
continue to "review" the footnote's classification for possible
release.
It was unclear which foreign government was implicated; the DOJ
IG report
refers to Russia numerous times without any redaction.

In a letter to Barr in January seeking the full declassification
of four
footnotes in Horowitz's report, Grassley and Johnson had
written: "We are
concerned that certain sections of the public version of the
[IG] report
are misleading because they are contradicted by relevant and
probative
classified information redacted in four footnotes within the
classified
report."

Friday's partial declassification, which suggested Steele's
sources were
part of a Russian interference effort, was immediately
highlighted by
Trump allies and Republicans, who have long pushed the
administration to
publicize more details of the FBI's flawed investigation, even
as U.S.
Attorney John Durham is pursuing a criminal probe into the
conduct of U.S.
intelligence agencies.

The FBI heavily relied on Steele's now-discredited dossier to
obtain a
surveillance warrant to spy on former Donald Trump aide Carter
Page, in
which FBI officials asserted that Page was an "agent" of Russia.
However,
the FBI did not share the information about the Russian
disinformation
campaign with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC)
when it
moved to obtain the warrant, just as it did not tell the court
that
another Trump aide had denied collusion during a recorded
conversation
with an FBI informant.

The FBI's legal counsel later described the warrant to surveil
Page as
"essentially a single source FISA" wholly dependent on the
dossier, which
also made numerous other unsubstantiated claims about Russian
hackers in a
nonexistent consulate in Miami, Cohen's purported trips to
Prague, and
lurid blackmail tapes.

Aspects of the Page FISA that did not rely on the dossier have
not fared
well, either. For example, The Washington Post ended up in the
Page FISA
application as a key source alongside the dossier. A 2016
opinion piece by
the Post's Josh Rogin entitled, "Trump campaign guts GOP’s anti-
Russia
stance on Ukraine," had overstated developments at the
Republican National
Convention in 2016. A single delegate had proposed a sweeping
amendment to
change the GOP platform to provide lethal weapons to Ukraine, in
a major
shift from the Obama administration's policy; parts of that
amendment were
rejected.

But, the Post's opinion piece framed the development as
nefarious, and a
possible smoking gun. In a Page FISA application, the FBI went
on to cite
Rogin's article word-for-word – without quotation marks, but
with a
footnoted citation – as evidence that the Trump campaign could
be working
with the Russians in an illicit manner. The FBI apparently did
not obtain
independent verification of the article’s claims.

"The 'central and essential' evidence used to justify invasive
surveillance of an American citizen in the FBI’s probe into
Russian
interference was, itself, an example of Russian interference,
according to
once-secret footnotes declassified at the urging of two U.S.
Senators,"
Grassley's office said in a statement to Fox News on Friday.

FBI SYSTEMATICALLY IGNORED KEY FISA RULES -- CONTRADICTING
MEDIA, DEMS

"For years, the public was fed a healthy diet of leaks, innuendo
and false
information to imply that President Trump and his campaign were
part of a
Russian conspiracy to spread disinformation," Grassley and
Johnson said
separately. "The FBI’s blind pursuit of the investigation,
despite
exculpatory and contradictory information, only legitimized the
narrative.
The mounting evidence undercutting this narrative should have
stopped the
investigation early in its tracks. Instead, it took several
years and
millions in taxpayer dollars to conclude that the allegations
were
baseless."

The senators continued: “Had FBI leadership heeded the numerous
warnings
of Russian disinformation, paid attention to the glaring
contradictions in
the pool of evidence and followed long-standing procedures to
ensure
accuracy, everyone would have been better off. Carter Page’s
civil
liberties wouldn’t have been shredded, taxpayer dollars wouldn’t
have been
wasted, the country wouldn’t be as divided and the FBI’s
reputation
wouldn’t be in shambles.

The Justice Department IG, Michael Horowitz, has found that the
FBI
systematically violated rules designed to protect Americans from
unauthorized surveillance, including Page, prompting the FISC to
rebuke
the FBI and demand changes.

“Why have all these details remained unnecessarily secret for so
long?"
Page asked Fox News on Friday. "In our dual system of Justice,
the Mueller
Witch Hunt crew falsely misrepresented my own 'historical
contact with
persons and entities suspected of being linked to RIS,' when I
was
actually serving my country in support of the U.S. Intelligence
Community.
The time has finally come for the Office of the Director of
National
Intelligence and related agencies to release the full facts
about the
Obama-Biden Administration’s election interference campaign
against
candidate Trump and the illicit coup attempt against our
President.”

TRUMP AIDE DENIED COLLUSION TO FBI INFORMANT, BUT FBI DIDN'T
TELL SECRET
COURT: TRANSCRIPT

In Page's case, an ex-FBI lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith, even
falsified an
email from the CIA to make Page's Russian contacts seem
nefarious, when
Page in fact had been an informant to the CIA about those
contacts,
according to Horowitz.

It emerged separately on Thursday that an FBI confidential human
source
secretly recorded George Papadopoulos in the final days of the
2016
presidential election and pressed him over whether the Trump
campaign was
involved in Russian election meddling -- something the campaign
aide
emphatically denied, according to a transcript of that
conversation.

Fox News obtained the transcript of the recording, which spreads
over 171
pages. Papadopoulos, a former Trump campaign foreign policy
adviser, is
referred to in the transcript as "Crossfire Typhoon" or "CT."

Trump claims he was saved by firing former FBI director
ComeyVideo
The recording covers a more than four-hour conversation on Oct.
31, 2016.
According to the obtained transcripts, the confidential human
source (CHS)
met with Papadopoulos and asked whether he thought Russians
hacked the
Democratic National Committee (DNC) ahead of the Democratic
National
Convention.

“No,” Papadopoulos replied.

DOJ'S RUSSIA PROBE REVIEW FOCUSING ON 'SMOKING GUN' TAPES OF
MEETING WITH
TRUMP AIDE: SOURCES

The comments made by Papadopoulos are noteworthy because,
according to
officials, they were never provided or included in evidence to
the FISC
when seeking warrants to surveil Page over suspicion of Trump
campaign
ties to Russia.

When asked whether he thought the Russians had “special
interests” in the
election, Papadopoulos replied: “That’s all bullsh--. No one
knows who’s
hacking them,” and added that it “could be the Chinese, could be
the
Iranians, it could be some Bernie, uh supporters. Could be
anonymous.”


Carter Page, Ph.D.
@carterwpage
Why have all these details remained unnecessarily secret for so
long?
@ODNIgov @RichardGrenell @TheJusticeDept should release the full
facts
about the Obama-@JoeBiden Administration’s election interference
campaign
against candidate @realDonaldTrump.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/declassified-footnotes-show-
fbi-knew-
christopher-steele-may-have-been-part-of-russian-disinformation-
campaign …


FBI had information Steele dossier was part of 'Russian
disinformation
campaign,' declassified...
The FBI's Crossfire Hurricane team investigating the Trump
campaign
received multiple indications that former British spy
Christopher Steele -
- one of their key informants in their investigation --...

foxnews.com
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Papadopoulos was then asked whether he thought Russians “have
interest in
Trump.”

“They, dude, no one knows how a president’s going to govern
anyway. You
don’t just say, oh I like—,” he said before being cut off. “I
don’t know.
Even Putin said it himself. It’s all, it’s like conspiracy
theories.”

The source went on to press Papadopoulos, saying: “I feel like
there’s
some heavy Trump supporters out there that kind of want to rig
this f—king
election in Trump’s favor and then at the same time, I don’t
know.”

Papadopoulos quipped: “Dude, you, you..there is no rigging in
his favor.”

Durham's criminal probe concerning the FBI's Russia probe
remains ongoing.
Speaking to Fox News' "The Ingraham Angle" on Thursday, Barr
said he has
seen troubling signs from the investigation.

"My own view is that the evidence shows that we're not dealing
with just
the mistakes or sloppiness," Barr told host Laura Ingraham.
"There was
something far more troubling here. We're going to get to the
bottom of it.
And if people broke the law and we can establish that with the
evidence,
they will be prosecuted."

BARR SAYS 'FAR MORE TROUBLING' EVIDENCE COMING FROM DURHAM PROBE

It has emerged since former National Security Adviser Michael
Flynn's
guilty plea that the FBI officials who interviewed Flynn, anti-
Trump agent
Peter Strzok and "SSA [Supervisory Special Agent] 1," have each
separately
been implicated by Horowitz in apparent misconduct and
mismanagement in
both the Flynn case and the Carter Page matter.

Strzok's anti-Trump bias is well-documented. The identity of SSA
1 is
protected in the Flynn legal proceedings by a court order, but
Fox News
has reported that documents point to Joe Pientka, who moved last
year from
the Washington, D.C., area to San Francisco. Pientka briefly
appeared on
the FBI's website as an "Assistant Special Agent in Charge" of
the San
Francisco field office late last year, according to the Internet
archive
Wayback Machine.

However, Pientka no longer appears on any FBI website after
being removed
shortly after Fox News identified him as the unnamed SSA in the
IG report;
Fox News is told Pientka received a promotion to a senior role
in the
bureau's San Francisco field office. Pientka's extensive role in
handling
the Page FISA has been outlined in Horowitz's report, and top
Republican
senators, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., have requested
that
Pientka sit for an interview to explain himself.

Fox News' Brooke Singman contributed to this report.