The FBI’s Christopher Steele sworn story to the federal court fell apart (even more) on Thursday with the release of new memos and handwritten notes taken by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec on October 11, 2016.
Award-winning investigative journalist John Solomon obtained memos from a high-ranking government official who met with former British spy Christopher Steele in October of 2016, who determined that Steele’s ‘dirt’ on Trump was inaccurate and likely leaked to the media.
Kavalec flagged this in memos and handwritten notes just 10 days before the first FISA warrant on Trump campaign advisor Carter Page was granted.
Recall, the FBI swore to the FISA judge that Christopher Steele’s “reporting has been corroborated and used in criminal proceedings” and the FBI determined him to be “reliable” and was “unaware of any derogatory information pertaining” to their CHS [Confidential Human Source], who was also working for Fusion GPS, the oppo research firm paid by Hillary Clinton and Perkins Coie to dig up dirt on Trump.
One red flag Kavalec caught? Steele claimed that ‘payments to those recruited by the Russians to target the election were made out of the Russian Consulate in Miami.’ There’s only one problem with this claim — there is no Russian Consulate in Miami.
Via John Solomon of The Hill:
In her typed summary, Kavalec wrote that Steele told her the Russians had constructed a “technical/human operation run out of Moscow targeting the election” that recruited emigres in the United States to “do hacking and recruiting.”
She quoted Steele as saying, “Payments to those recruited are made out of the Russian Consulate in Miami,” according to a copy of her summary memo obtained under open records litigation by the conservative group Citizens United. Kavalec bluntly debunked that assertion in a bracketed comment: “It is important to note that there is no Russian consulate in Miami.”
Kavalec, two days later and well before the FISA warrant was issued, forwarded her typed summary to other government officials. The State Department has redacted the names and agencies of everyone she alerted.
But it is almost certain the FBI knew of Steele’s contact with State and his partisan motive. That’s because former Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland says she instructed her staff to send the information they got from Steele to the bureau immediately and to cease contact with the informer because “this is about U.S. politics, and not the work of — not the business of the State Department, and certainly not the business of a career employee who is subject to the Hatch Act.”
Even if the FBI did not receive Kavalec’s memos, how did they not catch all of the red flags put out by Christopher Steele? We know the answer…
Had the FBI acknowledged Kavalec’s memos, they would have been forced to disclose the information to the FISA judges.
Kavalec’s notes flagged Steele’s contacts with the media, notably WaPo and NYT:
“June — reporting started,” she wrote. “NYT and WP have,” she added, in an apparent reference to The New York Times and The Washington Post.
Later she quoted Steele as suggesting he was “managing” four priorities — “Client needs, FBI, WashPo/NYT, source protection,” her handwritten notes show.
Those same notes suggest Steele spun some wild theories to State, including one that the Russians had a “plant in DNC” and had assembled an “HRC dossier,” apparent references to the Democratic National Committee and Clinton.
She expounded in her typed memo. “The Russians have succeeded in placing an agent inside the DNC,” she quoted Steele as saying.
Steele offered up Kavalec the same lies that he put in his 35-page dossier and the same garbage Hillary Clinton pushed out to the public:
- Trump lawyer Michael Cohen traveled to Prague to meet with Russians;
- Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort owed the Russians $100 million and was the “go-between” from Russian President Vladimir Putin to Trump;
- Trump adviser Carter Page met with a senior Russian businessman tied to Putin;
- The Russians secretly communicated with Trump through a computer system.
Christopher Steele’s claims have been debunked over and over again — even Mueller’s report destroyed most of Steele’s claims (save for the unverified claim Trump was peeing on a bed with Russian prostitutes).
Last week it was revealed by memos taken by Kavalec that Steele admitted his client was “keen” to get his information out to the public before Election Day, revealing it was a political hit job.
Kvalec’s notes on Steele corroborate twice-demoted Bruce Ohr’s notes which revealed the same information about Christopher Steele.
According to Bruce Ohr, Steele was “desperate” to stop Trump from getting elected. Ohr even testified that he alerted FBI and other DOJ officials about potential ‘anti-Trump bias’ by Steele in August of 2016, well before the first FISA warrant was granted on Carter Page.
The fraudulent dossier formed an essential part of the FBI/DOJ obtaining a FISA warrant and THREE subsequent renewals on Carter Page.
Carter Page was never even charged with a crime, so what did the FBI present to the FISA court FOUR TIMES in order to obtain 4 warrants to spy on Carter Page for nearly a year?
Breaking: Memo flagged false intel, media contacts by Steele before FBI used dossier for FISA. https://t.co/tcW4pH1MsI
— John Solomon (@jsolomonReports) May 9, 2019
