So about that Stormy Daniels interview.....

Courtesy of HuffPo: 

What’s important here is the way Trump and his circle of enablers went about trying to cover up these (alleged) affairs, while Trump himself was seeking the top political office in the country. 

Trump’s personal lawyer and his allies at the National Enquirer used nondisclosure agreements to silence these women, taking a page from the corporate playbook. 

NDAs are already far too common in the business world, used to paper over a host of misdeeds, most crucially sexual harassment and discrimination. Disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein is perhaps the most egregious abuser of NDAs, which allowed him to harass and assault women for decades. 

“Donald Trump is acting like he personally owns this information, as though he can act like a king and take any measures to control the way people talk about him,” said Heidi Kitrosser, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Minnesota Law School. “You can’t do that when you’re acting with the power of the federal government.”

Now I will admit that is important to learn, but not so much because it reveals that Trump is a misogynist who controlled women with threats of lawsuits or used his wealth to buy their silence.

But what is most important about that is what Vox reported late last night: 

Stormy Daniels’ 60 Minutes interview was, in its way, fascinating. But it ultimately failed to shed light on the two most interesting questions posed by this entire imbroglio, presumably because Daniels herself doesn’t know the answer.

1. How many other sexual partners has Trump paid hush money to? 
2. How many foreign intelligences services know about one or more of those women? 

Trump has secrets that Trump regards as worth keeping. 

And while that put Daniels under pressure, it means that entities with more power and sophistication than an adult film actress can use those secrets to put pressure on Trump. The president has successfully cultivated an image as so flaky and incompetent, that his many baffling decisions on the world stage — from leaking Israeli intelligence to the Russian foreign minister to undercutting his own administration’s policy on Qatar to mysteriously leaving Japan off a list of allies exempted from steel tariffs — generally get written off as evidence that Trump is flaky and incompetent, rather than being actively manipulated by foreign actors.

Exactly!

Now I alluded to this last night in the comments section, because that is the truly relevant point that is being revealed with this interview, and the one Karen McDougal gave a few days ago.

Donald Trump's careless lifestyle has rendered him vulnerable to blackmail, and manipulation by just just about ANYBODY. And that includes foreign governments.

I am still in the first 100 pages of David Corn's book "Russian Roulette" but I have already learned that Donald Trump went to Russia a variety of times in the 80's, 90's, and 2000's, at least once at the invitation of the Kremlin.

We know that the Russian government has a habit of gathering embarrassing information on American celebrities and politicians that can be used later, yet Trump seems to have clumsily wandered into that lion's den on multiple occasions.

What's more, according to the book, Trump bragged to friends and associates that the Russian women were "without morals," which indicates to me that his interactions with them were less than dignified, and may in fact have been truly pornographic.

And of course all of this was talked about in that Christopher Steele dossier which the conservatives are so desperate to dismiss as "fake news."

So do I think there is a "pee tape?"

Hell, I think the pee tape might only be the first course in a depravity riddled sequence of DVDs which Donald Trump is desperate to see left buried until long after he has shuffled off this mortal coil.

And it was THAT probability which was driven home last night during this interview with Stormy Daniels.

P.S. By the way I would suggest that the trolls simply give up on trying to shame Stormy on social media.....

Yes, I am. Nice to meet ya! https://t.co/kUdVLRWwu0

— Stormy Daniels (@StormyDaniels) March 26, 2018

....it simply doesn't work.

Cable news analyst quits and sends final message to his Fox News peers.

Courtesy of Buzzfeed: 

On March 1st, I informed Fox that I would not renew my contract. The purpose of this message to all of you is twofold: 

First, I must thank each of you for the cooperation and support you've shown me over the years. Those working off-camera, the bookers and producers, don't often get the recognition you deserve, but I want you to know that I have always appreciated the challenges you face and the skill with which you master them.

Second, I feel compelled to explain why I have to leave. Four decades ago, I took an oath as a newly commissioned officer. I swore to "support and defend the Constitution," and that oath did not expire when I took off my uniform. Today, I feel that Fox News is assaulting our constitutional order and the rule of law, while fostering corrosive and unjustified paranoia among viewers. Over my decade with Fox, I long was proud of the association. Now I am ashamed. 

In my view, Fox has degenerated from providing a legitimate and much-needed outlet for conservative voices to a mere propaganda machine for a destructive and ethically ruinous administration. When prime-time hosts--who have never served our country in any capacity--dismiss facts and empirical reality to launch profoundly dishonest assaults on the FBI, the Justice Department, the courts, the intelligence community (in which I served) and, not least, a model public servant and genuine war hero such as Robert Mueller--all the while scaremongering with lurid warnings of "deep-state" machinations-- I cannot be part of the same organization, even at a remove. To me, Fox News is now wittingly harming our system of government for profit. 

As a Russia analyst for many years, it also has appalled me that hosts who made their reputations as super-patriots and who, justifiably, savaged President Obama for his duplicitous folly with Putin, now advance Putin's agenda by making light of Russian penetration of our elections and the Trump campaign. Despite increasingly pathetic denials, it turns out that the "nothing-burger" has been covered with Russian dressing all along. And by the way: As an intelligence professional, I can tell you that the Steele dossier rings true--that's how the Russians do things.. The result is that we have an American president who is terrified of his counterpart in Moscow. 

I do not apply the above criticisms in full to Fox Business, where numerous hosts retain a respect for facts and maintain a measure of integrity (nor is every host at Fox News a propaganda mouthpiece--some have shown courage). I have enjoyed and valued my relationship with Fox Business, and I will miss a number of hosts and staff members. You're the grown-ups. 

Also, I deeply respect the hard-news reporters at Fox, who continue to do their best as talented professionals in a poisoned environment. These are some of the best men and women in the business.. 

So, to all of you: Thanks, and, as our president's favorite world leader would say, "Das vidanya."

Okay that last remark was right on target.

The above is a message from now retired Lt. Colonel Ralph Peters, and former Fox News "expert."

There has been virtually no time in the past where I have found anything admirable about this guy, but apparently there is an ethical line that even HE will not cross.

Now let's watch and see if any other Fox News folks reach there limit in the next few months. 

Former Russian spy reveals Vladimir Putin's "who to poison next list." Christopher Steele is on it, but guess who isn't.

Courtesy of The Mirror: 

A Russian spy who defected to Britain today reveals he was also poisoned – and claims he is on a hit-list of EIGHT targets he says Vladimir Putin wants dead. 

Boris Karpichkov says he survived an assassination attempt – but lost nearly five stone and all of his body hair. 

The ex-KGB major has since learned of seven others – including double agent Sergei Skripal – he believes the Russian President wants to execute. 

In a terrifying development, Karpich­kov says he has been warned to watch for weapons disguised as e-cigarettes but which conceal deadly nerve gas.

 Karpich­kov does not believe he will see his next birthday, and he has reason to worry since the Kremlin was most likely behind the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter.

Others that  Karpichkov identified as being on Putin's hit list include the following:

• OLEG GORDIEVSKY, 79 . MI6 spirited Britain’s top Cold War double agent out of Russia in 1985 in the boot of a Ford saloon. He has provided British Intelligence with information ever since. 
• BILL BROWDER, 53 . A US-born British financier banned from Russia in 2005. Interpol rejected Russian extradition requests after Browder was sentenced in his absence to nine years for tax fraud. 
• CHRISTOPHER STEELE, 53 . Former MI6 officer running private intelligence firm. Made ­unsubstantiated claims of Russian spies holding compromising video of US President Donald Trump cavorting with prostitutes. 
• IGOR SUTYAGIN, 53 . Russian nuclear weapons specialist accused of spying for Britain, for which he served 11 years for treason. Swapped in 2010 along with Skirpal for Russian sleeper agents in a US spy network including femme fatale Anna Chapman. 
• YURI SHVETS, 65 . Former KGB major who defected to America in 1994. A key witness in the police investigation into the 2006 poisoning of former spy Alexander Litvinenko. 
• VLADIMIR REZUN (alias VIKTOR SUVOROV), 70 Captain in GRU Soviet military intelligence until his defection to Britain in 1978. Now writes controversial books on Soviet military history.

I would remind you that Putin is not the only one targeting Christopher Steele: 

Two Republican senators have called for the investigation of Christopher Steele, the former British intelligence officer who compiled a dossier on alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. 

In a letter to the US justice department, Charles Grassley and Lindsey Graham claimed there was reason to believe that Steele had misled US authorities over his contacts with journalists and called for him to be investigated. 

The letter, the first criminal referral from Congress since it started investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 elections, comes at a time when Republicans are seeking to divert those investigations from scrutinising Donald Trump’s links to Russia to focus instead on whistleblowers, the FBI, and the special counsel investigating the issue, Robert Mueller.

Christopher Steele is not an American citizen and yet he felt obligated to reveal to the US authorities that the Republican candidate for president might be compromised, and for his trouble he is marked for death by the Russian leader and is the target of an investigation by the Republicans attempting to protect that Kremlin agent who now resides in the White House.

You know we need more Americans like British citizen Christopher Steele. Individuals who actually put their lives at risk protecting the interests of the United States of America.

As I allude to in my headline one of the prominent names missing from this list is Donald J Trump. And I imagine there are no other Republicans that should fear being added either.

Nor anybody in the Trump White House for that matter as they even refused to identify Russia as the culprit behind these recent attacks. 

Sarah Sanders condemns poisoning of ex-spy in U.K. but declines to accuse Russia despite statements from PM Theresa May. pic.twitter.com/NDGtSiLxab

— Axios (@axios) March 12, 2018

But you can bet your ass that if Hillary had been elected she would be at the very top of this list, with an added financial incentive included for the agent who managed to take her out.

So yesterday the memo from the House Intelligence Committee Democrats was finally released, and yes it essentially refutes every false claim made in the Republican memo.

The Democratic memo is out. It claims that the Nunes memo was a “transparent effort to undermine” DOJ and FBI and special counsel’s probe. https://t.co/ozrui1yKii pic.twitter.com/JzzuNHiqMq

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) February 24, 2018

So here is the pdf of the memo if you want to read it for yourself.

But here is what we have essentially learned:

• Steele Dossier played NO role in opening the Carter Page investigation. They began their investigation prior to even receiving it. 
• The DOJ did in fact inform the court of the origin of the Steele Dossier. 
• They accuse Nunes of deliberately misrepresenting the underlying FISA Warrant intelligence. 
• Four different judge's approved FISA warrants including judge's appointed by Bush and Reagan. Multiple DOJ officials also approved the applications prior to the court even seeing them including Trump appointees Rosenstein and Boente. 
• They actually started listening to Page after he left Trump campaign so the idea they were watching him to spy on Trump is absurd. 
• Page has a long history with Russia going back to 2004 and was being actively investigated once before already in 2013. The FBI had even interviewed him in 2016 again prior to receiving the Steele Dossier. The Steele dossier was referenced in the application as corroboration of certain things, and not to independently demonstrate. 
• A bunch of blacked out additional evidence with a bit in the middle noting Page lied to the HIC in his testimony in 2017 about meeting with Russian officials. 
• It included the footnote that discusses the Steele dossier source which SPECIFICALLY STATES ..."The FBI speculates the the unidentified U.S. Person was likely looking for information that could be used to discredit Candidate #1's campaign." Candidate 1 is Trump I believe, edit I previously thought Person 1 was Steele, this is the person coordinating with Steele. Steele is Source #1. 
• DOJ timely informed the court when the FBI fired Steele and why. 
• The attacks on Bruce Ohr for knowing Steele/and his wife working for Fusion GPS are 100% baseless. He was not involved in the FISA process and disclosed his relationships in November 2016. 

Basically Nunes and Gowdy lied whole cloth that the FISA warrant was primarily based on a news article and the Steele Dossier. Those were in fact the least used and most minor pieces of evidence and they picked them out specifically for that reason to discredit the investigation and lied about their use.

That last part I think we all essentially recognized from the get go.

Nunes is either a Russian agent himself, or somehow compromised, and Gowdy is just a conspiracy theory chasing POS.

Here were the final few paragraphs from the New York Times write up on this memo: 

The wiretap of Mr. Page generated useful intelligence. 

When the Justice Department repeatedly sought the court’s permission to renew the surveillance of Mr. Page, the Democratic memo said, it cited new information it was gathering through the wiretap. 

“The court-approved surveillance of Page allowed F.B.I. to collect valuable intelligence,” the Democratic memo said. It asserted that the repeated renewals “demonstrate that the F.B.I. collected important investigative information and leads by conducting court-approved surveillance.” 

What that intelligence was, however, was redacted.

The memo released by the Republicans of course suggested that the FISA warrants issued on Carter Page were illegal and unnecessary, and this memo completely refutes that argument.

What's more is that when Mueller releases his report on all of this, we are likely going to know what was learned through these warrants.

That means the House Republicans were counting on their memo derailing an investigation that they had to know would ultimately prove that they were running interference for Donald Trump.

Speaking of Donald Trump he was all over Twitter yesterday trying to refute the findings in this memo.

Mostly he was posting snippets from his insane conversation with Jeanine Pirro. But there were other attempts to discredit the memo as well,

Here was one such attempt being refuted in real time:

Holy moly. The @FoxNews anchor said "Congressman Schiff, he ARGUES the REPUBLICAN memo omitted and distorted key facts." Trump just deleted 5 words from the quote to allege the opposite meaning. https://t.co/UlSQUcc0bD

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) February 25, 2018

I think that kind of sums up Trump's pathetic attempts to save his ass.

Lawyer for Susan Rice explains that Obama Administration was justifiably worried about sharing classified intelligence with the Trump team. Gee, really?

Courtesy of Politico:

A lawyer for President Barack Obama’s national security adviser, Susan Rice, told Congress late Friday that the outgoing administration was fearful of sharing classified intelligence with members of the incoming Trump team, especially Rice’s successor, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn. 

In a letter to lawmakers, Rice’s lawyer Kathryn Ruemmler, said Rice drafted a Jan. 20, 2017, email to herself on the advice of White House counsel to memorialize the outgoing administration’s reluctance. 

“President Obama and his national security team were justifiably concerned about potential risks to the Nation’s security from sharing highly classified information about Russia with certain members of the Trump transition team, particularly Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn,” 

Ruemmler wrote. Ruemmler’s letter was a response to GOP Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who had inquired about the email that Rice sent herself just hours before the Obama administration left office.

I would say that the Obama Administration was quite justified in their apprehension.

After all keep in mind that Rice was handing her job over to Michael "I'm a foreign agent" Flynn. 

And since that hand off of power literally EVERYTHING that Trump and his people have done reinforces the idea that Susan Rice and her boss had very good instincts.

This bullshit inquiry was launched because the Right Wing seems to think that this meeting that Rice had with Obama was all about the  Steele Dossier, and that it was being used to justify the Justice Department investigation, but in fact as the lawyer explains the meeting had nothing to do with that dossier.

Damn do I love the smell of desperation in the morning.

Dianne Feinsten slams Republican probe into Christopher Steele while stating emphatically that "nothing in the Steele dossier has been refuted."

Courtesy of the Washington Examiner:  

Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., slammed the criminal referral of Christopher Steele by Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., saying it has numerous “flaws” and “omits key facts.” 

In a five-page analysis released Friday, Feinstein says the criminal referral is “not based on any allegation” that Steele, the author of the infamous Trump-Russia dossier, lied to FBI investigators about former Trump aide Carter Page, or what was included in the dossier. 

“[N]either provide any evidence that any of the information in Steele’s dossier is wrong. Instead, the referral is limited to a single baseless allegation: that Steele lied about his contacts with the press,” the analysis says. 

This week Grassley made public more details from the Jan. 4 unclassified criminal referral of Steele. The referral asks the Department of Justice to investigate whether Steele lied to FBI investigators about his communications with the press.

Feinstein goes on to say this:  

Feinstein’s analysis concludes that the criminal referral “fails to make a case” that Steele actually lied o the FBI. 

“The criminal referral contains no new information. All the information in the criminal referral was already available to the FBI and the Department of Justice,” the analysis concludes. “In fact, the referral relies on publicly available information and information that was provided to Congress from DOJ and the FBI.” 

In a statement accompanying the analysis, Feinstein said the Grassley-Graham referral has goals that include “undermining the FBI and Special Counsel [Robert] Mueller’s investigation, attacking Christopher Steele and deflecting attention from collusion and obstruction of justice investigations. 

“Not a single revelation in the Steele dossier has been refuted. Unfortunately, the claims in the criminal referral rely on classified information, so it’s difficult to fully repudiate them here. However, as much as possible using unclassified information, the following points lay out the flaws in the criminal referral,” she said.

Here is a link to the analysis to which Feinstein is referring.

"Not a single revelation in the Steele dossier has been refuted."

I bet that every single time that is mentioned it just pisses Donald Trump off to no end.

It really appears that the Republicans are essentially in a blind panic right now.

These tactics are so transparent and obvious that you would think they would be embarrassed to be caught using them.

It kind of makes you wonder if the Russians do not have kompromat on the entire Republican party.

Release the Memo! Oh, is that it?

Upon memo’s release, Nunes claims GOPers "discovered serious violations" https://t.co/rS9sZAH0jr pic.twitter.com/lSRZmu7r8h

— Talking Points Memo (@TPM) February 2, 2018

Okay so the memo got released today.

I read it. (You can also read it here.)

My very well thought out and cleverly worded response is, um....seriously?

Here is what the Washington Post had to say about it: 

The four-page, newly declassified memo written by the Republican staffers for the House Intelligence Committee said the findings “raise concerns with the legitimacy and legality of certain (Justice Department) and FBI interactions with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC),’’ calling it “a troubling breakdown of legal processes established to protect the American people from abuses related to the FISA process.’’ 

The memo accuses former officials who approved the surveillance applications – a group that includes former FBI Director James B. Comey, his former deputy Andrew McCabe, former deputy attorney general Sally Yates and current Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein — of signing off on court surveillance requests that omitted key facts about the political motivations of the person supplying some of the information, Christopher Steele, a former intelligence officer in Britain. 

The memo says Steele “was suspended and then terminated as an FBI source for what the FBI defines as the most serious of violations — an unauthorized disclosure to the media of his relationship with the FBI.’’ 

The memo is not an intelligence document and reflects information the committee has gathered, which Democrats, the FBI and Justice Department have criticized as incomplete and misleading.

Much of the focus of the memo, is that the surveillance of Carter Page...

Yeah, this dude.

...was almost wholly approved due to information provided in the Steele dossier, which the Republicans suggest is tainted by the fact that Democrats funded a portion of the investigation. (Remember originally it was the conservatives footing the bill.)

They also suggest that the information was tainted by the fact that Steele also discussed the dossier with various news outlets. (I am not really sure how that is a thing.)

However as Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson testified "sources said the dossier was taken so seriously because it corroborated reports the bureau had received from other sources, including one inside the Trump (campaign)."

That suggests that the FISA court likely had other information available to help decide whether surveillance was necessary, that the memo has conveniently left out.

Besides as the Wall Street Journal points out Carter Page was on the counterintelligence radar from as far back as 2013.

This is from a release by the House minority in response to this misleading memo:

“The Republican document mischaracterizes highly sensitive classified information that few Members of Congress have seen, and which Chairman Nunes himself chose not to review. It fails to provide vital context and information contained in DOJ’s FISA application and renewals, and ignores why and how the FBI initiated, and the Special Counsel has continued, its counterintelligence investigation into Russia’s election interference and links to the Trump campaign. The sole purpose of the Republican document is to circle the wagons around the White House and insulate the President. Tellingly, when asked whether the Republican staff who wrote the memo had coordinated its drafting with the White House, the Chairman refused to answer. 

“The premise of the Nunes memo is that the FBI and DOJ corruptly sought a FISA warrant on a former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser, Carter Page, and deliberately misled the court as part of a systematic abuse of the FISA process. As the Minority memo makes clear, none of this is true. The FBI had good reason to be concerned about Carter Page and would have been derelict in its responsibility to protect the country had it not sought a FISA warrant. 

“In order to understand the context in which the FBI sought a FISA warrant for Carter Page, it is necessary to understand how the investigation began, what other information the FBI had about Russia’s efforts to interfere with our election, and what the FBI knew about Carter Page prior to making application to the court – including Carter Page’s previous interactions with Russian intelligence operatives. This is set out in the Democratic response which the GOP so far refuses to make public. 

“The authors of the GOP memo would like the country to believe that the investigation began with Christopher Steele and the dossier, and if they can just discredit Mr. Steele, they can make the whole investigation go away regardless of the Russians’ interference in our election or the role of the Trump campaign in that interference. This ignores the inconvenient fact that the investigation did not begin with, or arise from Christopher Steele or the dossier, and that the investigation would persist on the basis of wholly independent evidence had Christopher Steele never entered the picture. 

I mean at this point it is almost giving it too much credit to call this memo a "nothing burger."

Here is what Twitter is saying about the release of the memo:

Senate Intel Vice Chair Warner on memo release:

"Unlike almost every House member who voted in favor of this memo's release, I have actually read the underlying documents on which the memo was based. They simply do not support its conclusions.”

Latest: https://t.co/X0E7hXhGni

— NBC News (@NBCNews) February 2, 2018

This, all the way at the bottom of the Nunes memo, literally proves that the FBI didn't use the Steele dossier as its sole source for a FISA warrant. Papadopoulos was not mentioned in the dossier and he came on the FBI's radar before Steele even handed them his first report. pic.twitter.com/XOcMt6WjM8

— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) February 2, 2018

#NunesMemo concedes that #Steele had provided reliable intel in the past. Pretty much undercuts the whole argument about the #FISA warrants being corrupt. #Nothingburger.

— Howard Fineman (@howardfineman) February 2, 2018

LOL

A year attacking the Steele dossier.

A month hyping that the dossier started the whole FBI investigation.

Weeks hyping that they have a memo (a memo!) that will finally prove it!

So... is there some other memo?

Because this one says it was Papadopoulos, not the dossier.

— Rachel Maddow MSNBC (@maddow) February 2, 2018

There is literally so much fail here that I am not even sure that Fox News can make a mountain out of this pathetic little molehill.

But we know they're gonna try. 

Now about that #ReleaseTheMemo hashtag that is trending on Twitter.

Courtesy of WaPo: 

A document described by House Republicans as a top-secret memo about surveillance “abuse” contains talking points focused on discrediting Fusion GPS, the firm that hired a British ex-spy to compile intelligence reports about alleged connections between President Trump’s associates and the Kremlin, according to people who have read it. 

It suggests that the former spy, Christopher Steele, lied to FBI agents who interviewed him during their probe of the 2016 election and that this purported lie was included in a successful application for a federal court order to conduct electronic surveillance on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, said these individuals, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the material’s sensitivity. 

The document was produced by the House Intelligence Committee’s GOP majority, which voted Thursday to make it available to the entire House membership, though not to the public. The panel’s Democrats all opposed the move. 

In a statement issued Thursday, the committee’s ranking Democrat, Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), called the document “profoundly misleading,” saying it was “drafted by Republican staff attacking the FBI.” He did not discuss the document’s contents. 

“Rife with factual inaccuracies and referencing highly classified materials that most Republican Intelligence Committee members were forced to acknowledge they had never read, this is meant only to give Republican House members a distorted view of the FBI,” Schiff said. “This may help carry White House water, but it is a deep disservice to our law enforcement professionals.”

Apparently this "damning" bit of "evidence" was created by Devin Nunes and his congressional cohorts and it is designed to end the Mueller investigation by destroying Christopher Steele's credibility.

Of course this seems to ignore the fact that the FBI investigation was not launched due to the dossier, but instead by a drunken conversation that former Trump staffer George Pappadopolous had with an Australian diplomat.

What's more House members who read this memo must sign a non-disclosure agreement because it contains classified information, which means that this whole #ReleaseTheMemo thing is a farce to suggest that there is something explosive in the memo which undercuts the credibility of Fusion GPS, without any real danger that it will be made public and Nunes will be exposed as once again making a mountain out of what barely qualifies as a molehill.

And it should come as no surprise to anyone that he is getting help with that from the Russian trolls.

Courtesy of The Hill: 

#ReleaseTheMemo is the top trending hashtag among Twitter accounts believed to be operated by Kremlin-linked groups, according to Hamilton 68, a website which tracks Russian propaganda online. 

Hamilton 68 is spearheaded by Clint Watts, an expert on foreign actors using American social media. Watts has testified before Congress multiple times on the matter. 

The #ReleaseTheMemo hashtag has increased by 286,700 percent over the past two days and is being used 100 times more than any other hashtag by accounts Hamilton 68 is tracking. 

The accounts have also frequently been tweeting out links to Wikileaks.org and specifically to its page to submit documents.

Keep in mind that if the Russians want you to believe something, you can guarantee it is not good for the country.

Senator Dianne Feinstein gets fed up with all of the Republican excuses and releases the Fusion GPS transcript onto the internet.

Courtesy of Politico:  

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) on Tuesday unexpectedly released the transcript of congressional investigators' August 2017 interview with Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson, whose firm was behind a controversial dossier alleging ties between President Donald Trump and Russians. 

Feinstein's move represents an escalation of partisan tensions that have long been simmering on the Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley. Simpson had called for the transcript of his appearance to be made public, but Republican leaders so far had not agreed to release it. 

A spokesman for Grassley said Feinstein posted the transcript with "no agreement" from committee Republicans. 

"The American people deserve the opportunity to see what he said and judge for themselves,” Feinstein, the top Democrat on the judiciary committee, said in a statement about her decision to release the Simpson transcript.

“The innuendo and misinformation circulating about the transcript are part of a deeply troubling effort to undermine the investigation into potential collusion and obstruction of justice. The only way to set the record straight is to make the transcript public," she said.

(If you want to read that transcript you can do so here.)

Since the release a number of news outlets have reported on its contents.

For instance Axios reported that at least a portion of the dossier had been confirmed to the FBI by a White House source: 

Fusion GPS head Glenn Simpson told Senate Judiciary Committee staffers in August that the FBI had independently received information from an Trump campaign insider that led them to find some of the allegations in former MI6 agent Christopher Steele's Trump-Russia dossier credible. That revelation comes from a transcript of his testimony to the committee released unilaterally today its ranking member, Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

That source of course turned out to be George Papadopoulos.

Simpson revealed that there was evidence of Russian money laundering:

During his testimony, Simpson detailed ways that money had been stolen from a bank in Kazakhstan, then laundered throughout multiple countries — before possibly being funneled in part to the Trump Soho hotel project. 

At the center of the ordeal appears to be Felix Sater, a Trump-linked Russian-born businessman who in 1998 pleaded guilty to taking part in a mafia-related stock fraud scheme, and who is now cooperating with an international investigation into an alleged money laundering network.

Business Insider reports that Christopher Steele had initially reached out to the FBI, but then became concerned that they were being manipulated by Trump and cut ties with them: 

Simpson said Steele "stopped dealing" with the FBI after the New York Times reported in October 2016 that the FBI had found no clear links between Trump and Russia. Steele was also irked by the letter that then-FBI Director James Comey sent to Congress on October 28, effectively re-opening the Hillary Clinton email investigation. 

"That episode, you know, obviously created some concern that the FBI was intervening in a political campaign in contravention of long-standing Justice Department regulation," Simpson said. "So it made a lot of people, including us, concerned about what the heck was going on at the FBI." 

Simpson called the New York Times piece, published on October 31, "a real Halloween special." 

"Sometime thereafter the FBI -- I understand Chris severed his relationship with the FBI out of concern that he didn't know what was happening inside the FBI and there was a concern that the FBI was being manipulated for political ends by the Trump people and that we didn't really understand what was going on," Simpson said. "So he stopped dealing with them."

We also learned that according to Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson's lawyer that at least one person has been killed due to the release of the dossier.

!!!

Glenn Simpson's lawyer said someone has been killed as a result of the Steele dossier being published. pic.twitter.com/TMjbi7oPU7

— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) January 9, 2018

I have been busy today so I have only started to read through the 312 page transcript, but I have already concluded that the Republicans did not want this released for some very scurrilous reasons.

This is how Scott Dworkin responded to what he read.

After reading the Fusion GPS transcript it’s clear Republicans have been completely ignoring all of the credible allegations of money laundering, conspiracy with Russia against the US & other crimes committed by Donald Trump & his pals. It’s proof Republicans are traitors—Period.

— Scott Dworkin (@funder) January 9, 2018

Yeah, essentially that.

Republicans now take aim at the author of the Russian dossier, Christopher Steele.

Courtesy of WaPo: 

A pair of GOP senators sent a letter to the Justice Department on Friday urging an investigation into Christopher Steele, the intelligence agent behind that famous dossier from the Russia investigation. 

And the whole thing is rather strange. 

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) sent the letter to the DOJ and FBI. In it, the pair says they have reason to believe Steele might have lied about disseminating information from the dossier. 

But while they make the allegation publicly in the letter, the details of Steele's potential lying are contained within an attached document marked classified. In other words, they are suggesting Steele may have lied, but don't say what he might have lied about.

As the New York Times points out these are allegations that Steele lied to the FBI, which is a crime: 

More than a year after Republican leaders promised to investigate Russian interference in the presidential election, two influential Republicans on Friday made the first known congressional criminal referral in connection with the meddling — against one of the people who sought to expose it. 

Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a senior committee member, told the Justice Department they had reason to believe that a former British spy, Christopher Steele, lied to federal authorities about his contacts with reporters regarding information in the dossier, and they urged the department to investigate.

Gee, I cannot begin to imagine why they are doing this. Can you?

And if you are confused keep in mind that House Republicans are also calling for Jeff Sessions to step down.

So to sum up the Senate Republicans are trying to undermine the honesty of the former spy who compiled the dossier, while the House Republicans are working to remove Sessions, so that Trump can appoint a new Attorney General, who will then put a halt to the Robert Mueller investigation.

What's the definition for "collusion" again?

Or "obstructionism?"

Or "treason." 

Fusion GPS op-ed in the New York Times blows the Trump Administration talking points out of the water.

Glenn R. Simpson, founder of Fusion GPS.

Courtesy of the New York Times:  

Three congressional committees have heard over 21 hours of testimony from our firm, Fusion GPS. In those sessions, we toppled the far right’s conspiracy theories and explained how The Washington Free Beacon and the Clinton campaign — the Republican and Democratic funders of our Trump research — separately came to hire us in the first place. 

We walked investigators through our yearlong effort to decipher Mr. Trump’s complex business past, of which the Steele dossier is but one chapter. And we handed over our relevant bank records — while drawing the line at a fishing expedition for the records of companies we work for that have nothing to do with the Trump case. 

Republicans have refused to release full transcripts of our firm’s testimony, even as they selectively leak details to media outlets on the far right. It’s time to share what our company told investigators. 

We don’t believe the Steele dossier was the trigger for the F.B.I.’s investigation into Russian meddling. As we told the Senate Judiciary Committee in August, our sources said the dossier was taken so seriously because it corroborated reports the bureau had received from other sources, including one inside the Trump camp. 

The intelligence committees have known for months that credible allegations of collusion between the Trump camp and Russia were pouring in from independent sources during the campaign. Yet lawmakers in the thrall of the president continue to wage a cynical campaign to portray us as the unwitting victims of Kremlin disinformation.

"Our sources said the dossier was taken so seriously because it corroborated reports the bureau had received from other sources, including one inside the Trump camp."

I think that's the money quote right there.

Fusion GPS also says that they alerted investigators to look into Trump's dealings with  Deutsche Bank, and told Congress that there was widespread evidence of Russian money laundering.

They also said this:

Yes, we hired Mr. Steele, a highly respected Russia expert. But we did so without informing him whom we were working for and gave him no specific marching orders beyond this basic question: Why did Mr. Trump repeatedly seek to do deals in a notoriously corrupt police state that most serious investors shun? 

What came back shocked us. Mr. Steele’s sources in Russia (who were not paid) reported on an extensive — and now confirmed — effort by the Kremlin to help elect Mr. Trump president. Mr. Steele saw this as a crime in progress and decided he needed to report it to the F.B.I.

So to sum up the Russian sources were not paid, Christopher Steele was not working with a political agenda, his dossier was not the impetus for the FBI investigation, and what he uncovered indicated to him that Trump was involved in criminal behaviors, and that is why he notified the authorities in America.

Well that certainly crushes the life out of a number of Right Wing conspiracy theories. 

British journalist, who wrote a book called "Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win," explains that the Steele dossier is not "fake news."

Courtesy of Business Insider:  

Luke Harding: Well I mean, saying the dossier is fake news doesn't make it fake news. It's just an assertion. 

My name is Luke Harding. I'm a journalist and a writer. And my new book is called "Collusion" and it's about Donald Trump and Russia. 

According to people I've talked to, who are kind of close to "Steele", believe that the dossier is not flawless. One or two things may be wrong. He acknowledges that there's raw intelligence but broadly he thinks it's right. And he says it's between 70-90% correct. That's his kind of assessment. Which for an intelligence report is pretty good. 

As we learn more about the Trump team and engagements with Russia, we were told to begin with, "nothing to see here." I think the dossier kind of is standing up pretty well. 

The thing about intelligence is it's kind of not black and white. It's sort of grey. Some sources are better than others. But my understanding is that even though Steele hasn't revealed who his sources are we don't need to know who they are. They're sources that have kind of proven themselves in other areas. 

For example, Steele read a whole lot of reports about the war in Ukraine in 2014, using these same sources that were behind the Trump dossier. And they were well received by US intelligence, who were actually sent up to John Kerry in the State Department and they were accurate.

Harding also responded to the allegation that the dossier was tainted since some of the research was funded by the Democrats, but his response was that it really did not matter WHO paid for it, only whether it was true or not.

And he believes that the majority of it is in fact true.

It is enough to worry the Kremlin, a fact that is supported by the fact that their news agencies have gone out of their way to attack Harding and discredit his new book.

Keep in mind that Trump himself has also ramped up attacks on the dossier which makes me think that portions of it are about to be proven accurate.

WOW, @foxandfrlends “Dossier is bogus. Clinton Campaign, DNC funded Dossier. FBI CANNOT (after all of this time) VERIFY CLAIMS IN DOSSIER OF RUSSIA/TRUMP COLLUSION. FBI TAINTED.” And they used this Crooked Hillary pile of garbage as the basis for going after the Trump Campaign!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 26, 2017

Christopher Steele leaves Robert Mueller a trail to follow that may be the key to the Russian investigation.

Courtesy of Vanity Fair:  

As federal investigators pour over the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia, the work of ex-British spook Christopher Steele continues to loom large. At least part of Robert Mueller’s probe has been informed by Steele’s infamous dossier, which alleges substantive ties between Donald Trump and the Russian government. Though Trumpworld has cast doubt on the document’s legitimacy, with former Trump aide Carter Page dubbing it the “dodgy dossier,” Steele has stood by his research and, reportedly, has offered up another tip: zero in on the president’s foreign real-estate deals. 

In December of last year, Steele informed Luke Harding, a journalist for the Guardian, that “the contracts for the hotel deals and land deals” between Trump and individuals with the Kremlin ties warrant investigation. “Check their values against the money Trump secured via loans,” the former spy said, according to a conversation detailed in Harding’s new book, Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win. “The difference is what’s important.” 

According to his book, Steele did not elaborate on this point to Harding, but his implication was clear: it’s possible that Trump was indebted to Russian interests when he descended Trump Tower’s golden escalator to declare his candidacy. After the real-estate mogul suffered a series of bankruptcies related to the 2008 financial crisis, traditional banks became reluctant to loan him money—a reality he has acknowledged in past interviews. As a result, the Trump Organization reportedly became increasingly reliant on foreign investors, notably Russian ones. As Donald Trump Jr. famously said in 2008, “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross section of a lot of our assets. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”

Remember now Trump warned Mueller not to investigate his business dealings?

This is definitely why. 

The article goes on to say that Mueller is already on the trail of Trump's business dealings with Russia (Remember he has already interviewed Steele.), so in the end it may really be the Russian dossier that leads to the end of Trump's presidency.  

How is that for some sweet karma?

Christopher Steele was only paid $168,000 to compile the Russian dossier, despite claims from Donald Trump that it was as much as 12 million.

Courtesy of Reuters: 

A Washington research firm paid a former British spy's company $168,000 for work on a dossier outlining Russian financial and personal links to Donald Trump's 2016 election campaign, the U.S. firm said in a statement on Wednesday. 

Although it was public knowledge that Fusion GPS paid for the work, the amount had not been disclosed. Fusion GPS hired former MI6 officer Christopher Steele to collect information about Trump and his advisers. 

Fusion GPS' statement said it had told Congress about how $168,000 was paid last year to Orbis Business Intelligence, Steele's company. The money paid to Orbis was taken from $1.02 million it received in fees and expenses from the Perkins Coie law firm, the statement said. 

The law firm represented the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, although initial research by Fusion into Trump and other Republican primary candidates was commissioned by a conservative website.

This is interesting because earlier Trump tweeted this:

Never seen such Republican ANGER & UNITY as I have concerning the lack of investigation on Clinton made Fake Dossier (now $12,000,000?),....

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 29, 2017

So altogether the Democrats only paid Fusion GPS about 1.02 million, and only a fraction of that actually went to pay for this dossier.

Well that certainly helps to stick a pin in the idea that the Clinton campaign spent millions and millions to find dirt on Donald Trump.

Now I'm kind of interested in how much the Washington Free Beacon paid before the Democrats arrived on the scene?

You knew this was coming, conservatives ramping up calls for Robert Mueller's resignation.

Courtesy of Fox News (Huge surprise.): 

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is facing a fresh round of calls from conservative critics for his resignation from the Russia collusion probe, amid revelations that have called into question the FBI’s own actions and potentially Mueller’s independence. 

This week’s bombshell that a controversial anti-Trump dossier was funded by the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign has Republicans asking to what extent the FBI – which received some of the findings and briefly agreed to pay the same researcher to gather intelligence on Trump and Russia – used the politically connected material. 

Hill investigators also are looking into a Russian firm’s uranium deal that was approved by the Obama administration in 2010 despite reports that the FBI – then led by Mueller – had evidence of bribery involving a subsidiary of that firm. 

Critics question whether Mueller’s own ties to the bureau as well as fired FBI director James Comey now render him compromised as he investigates allegations of Russian meddling and collusion with Trump officials in the 2016 race.

I really think this is less about the newly surfaced revelations that a Clinton attorney and the DNC helped finance Christopher Steele's investigation, and more about the fact that Mueller and his team are ready to start the indictments.

Things are getting much too hot, so of course Trump supporters are going to be going after Robert Mueller, Christopher Steele, Fusion GPS, Hillary Clinton, and anybody else associated with these investigations to deflect blame and distract from the indictments.

And the Republicans in Congress appear to be going along as well:

President Trump and Republicans in Congress are demanding new scrutiny of Hillary Clinton’s actions as secretary of state, potentially jeopardizing investigations of Russian meddling in the 2016 election just as the probes are closing in on Trump’s inner circle. 

In the span of a week, House and Senate Republican leaders announced two investigations into Obama-era decisions involving a uranium deal that increased Russia’s share of the U.S. nuclear market — and another into how the FBI handled Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state. 

Trump has cheered on the new Republican-driven investigations, which have resurrected some of the president’s most- favored jabs against Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign. 

Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein has seen all of this before.

Carl Bernstein: Trump ‘Trying to Sabotage’ Mueller Investigation https://t.co/EDncGpAINd (VIDEO) pic.twitter.com/8zDU61etGH

— Mediaite (@Mediaite) October 28, 2017

In the 70's the Republicans refused to allow the president to sabotage the investigation.

Do they still have that courage today? 

For those wondering why Hillary Clinton did not use the Christopher Steele dossier that her lawyer helped finance during the campaign, the answer is she did not know about it.

Courtesy of CBS News:  

Hillary Clinton only learned about the now-infamous "Trump dossier" after BuzzFeed News posted it, despite the fact that the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee helped fund it, a source confirmed to CBS News. 

A former British spy, Christopher Steele, complied the explosive allegations in the 35-page dossier for Fusion GPS during the 2016 campaign. In January 2017, BuzzFeed News published the full dossier, though it contained unsubstantiated allegations.

That Clinton was unaware of the Trump dossier was first reported by The New York Times. 

Law firm Perkins Coie, which represented both the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, and Clinton campaign lawyer Marc E. Elias confirmed Wednesday it had retained the firm Fusion GPS in April 2016 to "perform a variety of research services." 

I think that the fact that much of the dossier has still not been confirmed is why Elias did not notify Hillary about what it contained.

And if he HAD informed her there is no way that such a careful candidate would have allowed it do be used in campaign ads or mentioned by her surrogates.

To be honest. considering what we know now, it is unlikely that having it out there would have changed the outcome of the election anyhow.   

If the "grab them by the pussy" tape was not enough to turn these people off to that pig, it is highly unlikely that mention of the pee pee tape would have done the job either. 

NBC News lists the reasons why the Russia investigation is a real thing even WITHOUT the Christopher Steele dossier.

Courtesy of NBC News: 

With the revelation that the Clinton campaign and DNC paid the money to finance the Steele dossier, Trump and his supporters now argue that he’s off the hook when it comes to the Russia investigation. “‘Clinton campaign & DNC paid for research that led to the anti-Trump Fake News Dossier. The victim here is the President.’ @FoxNews,” Trump tweeted on Wednesday. But here’s a timeline to remind everyone that the Trump-Russia investigation is real — even outside of what we know about the Steele dossier: 

Jan. 6: Intel community details that Russia interfered in the 2016 election — to hurt Hillary Clinton and benefit Trump. 

Feb. 13: National Security Adviser Michael Flynn resigns just after the Washington Post first reported that the Justice Department had informed the White House that Flynn could be subject to blackmail after misleading statements about his interaction with Russia's ambassador. 

Feb. 14: The New York Times reports that Trump's 2016 campaign "had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials." 

Feb. 14: Then FBI Director James Comey met at White House with Trump, where Trump tells him: "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go," the president says, per a memo Comey wrote about the meeting. "He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go." 

March 1: The Washington Post reports that Attorney General Jeff Sessions met with Russia's envoy twice in 2016 -- which Sessions didn't disclose in his confirmation hearing. 

March 2: Sessions recuses himself from any federal inquiries involving Trump's 2016 campaign. 

March 20: Comey confirms his agency is investigation allegations that Trump's 2016 campaign might have contacts with Russian entities. 

May 9: Trump fires Comey. The original explanation is that it was due to how Comey handled the Hillary Clinton email investigation — and was based on the recommendation from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. 

May 10: In Oval Office meeting, Trump tells Russian officials, "I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job," he said, according to the New York Times. "I faced great pressure because of Russia. That's taken off." 

May 11: In interview with NBC's Lester Holt, Trump said he firing Comey regardless of what Rosenstein recommended. And he suggested the Russia investigation was a reason behind the dismissal. "When I decided to [fire Comey], I said to myself, I said you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story." 

May 17: Rosenstein appoints former FBI Director Robert Mueller as a special counsel in Russia probe. 

July 9: NYT reports that Donald Trump Jr. met with a Kremlin-connected lawyer on June 9, 2016 after being promised damaging information on Hillary Clinton — "the first public indication that at least some in the campaign were willing to accept Russian help." 

July 11: NYT publishes emails between Rob Goldstone ("This is obviously very high level and sensitive information, but is part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump") and Donald Trump Jr. ("If it's what you say, I love it." The entire email exchange is entitled: "Russia — Clinton — private and confidential." 

July 31: WaPo reports that Trump dictated his son’s misleading statement about that meeting with the Russian lawyer. 

Aug 3: WSJ reports that special counsel Mueller impaneled a grand jury in his Russia investigation. 

Aug 9: WaPo reports that the FBI searched Paul Manafort's home on July 26. 

Oct. 4: Richard Burr, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, says his committee continues to look at whether there was collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. “There are concerns that we continue to pursue: collusion. The committee continues to look into all evidence to see if there was any hint of collusion.” 

Oct. 25: The Daily Beast reports that the head of Trump’s data-analytics firm Cambridge Analytica wrote in an email last year that he reached out to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange about Hillary Clinton’s missing 33,000 emails.

That's actually a lot, and significantly more than the Republicans typically have when they launch one of their endless investigations against Hillary Clinton or the Democrats.

The point of this article is that even without the dossier there is plenty of evidence that Trump and his people are hiding things, and also plenty of evidence that they are desperate to keep the investigators from discovering what that might be.

Remember the lesson of Watergate.

"It's not the crime, it's the coverup."

Rachel Maddow explains what we know is factual about the Russian dossier, and that despite what they say the Senate Intelligence Committee can talk to Christopher Steele essentially anytime they want.

This came on last night right after I had finished reading through some rather ignorant comments on my post yesterday about the Senate Intelligence Committee.

So here was Rachel doing her deep dive to explain all of the things we know that are factual about the Russian dossier, and also putting to rest the allegation from Richard Burr that Christopher Steele will not return his phone calls.

If you ever had any doubts about the importance of this dossier I think Rachel does an excellent job of explaining, in detail, what makes it so important, and how hard people are working to damage its credibility or make the dossier itself the scandal.

Now let me take a moment to point out that during the 2016 election IM received an unusual amount of visits from Russia.

This started well before we knew much about the Russian interference and at first I was kind of puzzled.

Typically the most visits come from the US and the second highest number are from Canada, and way back in third place is usually Australia. 

But in the spring of 2016 that changed and suddenly the second highest number of visits were coming from Russia, and now I think we all know why that was the case.

Well now that is happening again.

So if you read a comment on IM where somebody is working a little too hard to call into question the validity of the Russian investigations, or poo pooing this dossier, just keep in mind that they may have an agenda. 

Mother Jones points out that those Donald Trump Jr. emails seem to confirm claims from the Russian dossier.

Ex-MI6 agent Christopher Steele.

Courtesy of Mother Jones: 

One interesting element of the Donald Trump Jr. emails now in the news is that they track with parts of the Steele memos. 

In that first memo, dated June 20, Steele wrote that Trump “and his inner circle have accepted a regular flow of intelligence from the Kremlin, including on his Democratic and other political rivals.” The Trump Jr. email chain began on June 3, 2016. This was shortly after Trump had secured the Republican presidential nomination. It was that day that Rob Goldstone, a talent manager for middling pop-star named Emin Agaralov, contacted Trump Jr. and said that Emin’s father, Aras Agalarov, a Putin-friendly billionaire developer, had met with the “crown prosecutor of Russia” who offered to provide the Trump campaign with negative information on Clinton. The Agalarovs and Goldstone had a close relationship to the Trumps, because they all had worked together in 2013 to bring the Miss Universe pageant, which Trump owned at the time, to Moscow. (Part of the deal was that Emin would get to perform two songs.) Following that event, both Trumps worked with both Agalarovs to develop a major project in Moscow. (It never happened.) 

This email from Goldstone to Trump Jr. led to a meeting six days later, where a Kremlin-connected Russian attorney spoke to Trump Jr., Kushner, and Manafort about negative information on Clinton. In a statement, Trump Jr. says that what she offered was vague and meaningless, suggesting there was nothing to it. (But Trump Jr. has dissembled repeatedly about this meeting.) 

That is an excellent point.

We know what the meeting was supposed to be about from the emails that were released, but we only have Junior and the Russian attorney's word that no actual information was presented.

Knowing what we do about how the Trumps play fast and loose with the truth, that should certainly not be taken as factual.

Here's more to chew on from the Christopher Steele memo:

'Source A confided that the Kremlin had been feeding TRUMP and his team valuable intelligence on his opponents, including Democratic presidential candidate Hillary CLINTON, for several years…This was confirmed by Source D, a close associate of TRUMP who had organized and managed his recent trips to Moscow, and who reported, also in June 2016, that this Russian intelligence had been “very helpful”.'

The memo also reported that there was anti-Clinton information that Putin was sitting on: 

'A dossier of compromising material on Hillary CLINTON has been collated by the Russian intelligence services over many years and mainly comprises bugged conversations she had on various visits to Russia and intercepted phone calls rather than any embarrassing conduct. The dossier is controlled by Kremlin spokesman, PESKOV, directly on PUTIN’s orders. However it has not as yet been distributed abroad, including to TRUMP. Russian intentions for its deployment still unclear.'

There has been no confirmation that Putin steadily fed information to Trump’s camp or that a Kremlin-controlled anti-Clinton dossier existed. But one of Steele’s overarching points in this memo was that Putin’s regime was funneling derogatory Clinton material to Trump. The Trump Jr. emails suggest that the Russian government was aiming to do that and that the Trump campaign was willing and eager to receive assistance from Putin. So Donald Trump Jr. has done what Steele could not: produce evidence that the Trump campaign was—or wanted to be—in cahoots with a foreign adversary to win the White House.

I am somewhat skeptical that Putin actually had anything other than the DNC and Podesta email hacks to use against Hillary, as we would surely have seen anything else he had by now, and as we know essentially all of the most potentially damaging of those WERE dumped on the internet.

However we have no way of knowing, for sure, whether or not there was anything else gathered by the Russians that made its way to Trump campaign and was deemed too weak to use, or whose origins were to hard to explain.

But at the very least these emails from Trump Junior certainly confirms that, as the Steele dossier stated, Vladimir Putin wanted to help the Trump campaign, and the Trump campaign aggressively sought that help.

And that is no small confirmation. 

Buzzfeed requests FOIA of the Federal Government for access to information and testimony pertaining to that Russian dossier.

Courtesy of Politico: 

Add this surprising entry to the growing list of those issuing subpoenas for insight into the imbroglio involving President Donald Trump and the Russians: BuzzFeed. 

The online media outlet sent formal demands Thursday to the CIA, the FBI and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, seeking details on the distribution of an unverified intelligence dossier about Trump said to have been in the possession of Russian intelligence during last year’s presidential campaign, POLITICO has learned.

BuzzFeed is also seeking testimony from fired FBI Director James Comey, as well as former DNI James Clapper and CIA Director John Brennan, said a source familiar with the subpoenas.

Now the reason that Buzzfeed is requesting this FOIA is to bolster their claim that publishing the dossier was protected by  the fair report privilege in order to fight a lawsuit against them from one Aleksej Gubarev, a Russian technology executive whose name happened to be included in that dossier.

Whatever the reason this could prove quite interesting as Buzzfeed will surely report on the progress of the subpoenas as well as share what they can of the testimony from Comey, Clapper, Brennan, and whoever else gets caught in their net.

I am also curious as to exactly how much of that dossier has been confirmed by the various intelligence agencies.

And this could be one way to find that out.