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. 

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." 

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?

Sources say longtime bodyguard testified that the Russians offered to send five women to Trump's hotel room before the Miss Universe contest and they were told no. Seriously? Update!

BREAKING: @NBCNews reports: Trump bodyguard Keith Schiller told Congress that before the Miss Universe Pageant in 2013, a Russian participant offered to "send five women" to Donald Trump's hotel room in Moscow https://t.co/dY1A3glCH0

— Evan Rosenfeld (@Evan_Rosenfeld) November 9, 2017

Courtesy of NBC News:

After a business meeting before the Miss Universe Pageant in 2013, a Russian participant offered to "send five women" to Donald Trump's hotel room in Moscow, his longtime bodyguard told Congress this week, according to three sources who were present for the interview. 

Two of the sources said the bodyguard, Keith Schiller, viewed the offer as a joke, and immediately responded, "We don't do that type of stuff.

"The two sources said Schiller's comments came in the context of him adamantly disputing the allegations made in the Trump dossier, written by a former British intelligence operative, which describes Trump having an encounter with prostitutes at the hotel during the pageant. Schiller described his reaction to that story as being, "Oh my God, that's bull----," two sources said. 

The conversation with the Russian about the five women took place after a morning meeting about the pageant in Moscow broke up, two sources said. 

That night, two sources said, Schiller said he discussed the conversation with Trump as Trump was walking back to his hotel room, and Schiller said the two men laughed about it as Trump went to bed alone. Schiller testified that he stood outside Trump's hotel room for a time and then went to bed. 

One source noted that Schiller testified he eventually left Trump's hotel room door and could not say for sure what happened during the remainder of the night.

"We don't do that kind of stuff?"

Has this guy actually ever spent any time with his boss?

That kind of stuff was all he did for most of this life.

And the fact that Schiller was not around the room for the rest of the night means that Trump could have certainly had some Russian provided prostitutes over to do a little urinating for his entertainment.

All this says to me is that the possibility of that "pee pee" tape emerging just went up about a 100%.

Update:

(2) Here is the *Chief Russia Correspondent for the BBC*, writing in The Spectator months ago—and I tweeted it out at the time—CONFIRMING that the offer made to Trump to have women come up to his room was ACCEPTED by Trump, counter to what Keith Schiller told Congress on Tuesday. pic.twitter.com/jO5LS8UzCC

— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) November 9, 2017

Like I said, up 100%

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? 

Well this sounds promising. Update!

Courtesy of WGBH News: 

National security expert Juliette Kayyem is predicting news from Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation will be announced within the next month. 

“I think it is safe to say that before Thanksgiving ... something’s going to drop with Mueller,” she said on Boston Public Radio today. “The pace is too much right now. Every 12 hours we’re now dealing with a piece of this story at a pace we haven’t seen.” 

Kayyem was prompted to make her prediction by the buzz surrounding a story about how Hillary Clinton’s campaign funded what would eventually become the famous “Trump-Russia Dossier” that surfaced in January.

Kayyem speculated that the pace of stories critical of Hillary Clinton represents “a recognition by the White House team” that Mueller is getting close to something substantive as a result of his investigation. 

Kayyem pointed out that Mueller has interviewed former Press Secretary Sean Spicer and former Chief of Staff Reince Priebus. “This is so close to the Oval Office now, if not in the Oval Office, that all of this [dossier news] to me is just background noise to what Mueller is going to deliver,” she said. 

“This is more than an obstruction charge. There is something big underlying the obstruction.”

This is essentially where my thinking has been lately as well.

However hearing it come from a national security expert is certainly encouraging.

Update: According to CNN the Mueller investigation has filed its first charges:  

A federal grand jury in Washington, DC, on Friday approved the first charges in the investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller, according to sources briefed on the matter. 

The charges are still sealed under orders from a federal judge. Plans were prepared Friday for anyone charged to be taken into custody as soon as Monday, the sources said. It is unclear what the charges are. 

A spokesman for the special counsel's office declined to comment.

If this is accurate it is a HUGE deal, and may indicate that what this national security expert mentioned in the original article was dead on in her assessment. 

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."

The Washington Post reveals that a Clinton attorney and the DNC helped to fund some of the research that went into that Russian dossier. And that's a good thing.

Courtesy of WaPo: 

The Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee helped fund research that resulted in a now-famous dossier containing allegations about President Trump’s connections to Russia and possible coordination between his campaign and the Kremlin, people familiar with the matter said. 

Marc E. Elias, a lawyer representing the Clinton campaign and the DNC, retained Fusion GPS, a Washington firm, to conduct the research. 

After that, Fusion GPS hired dossier author Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer with ties to the FBI and the U.S. intelligence community, according to those people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. 

Elias and his law firm, Perkins Coie, retained the company in April 2016 on behalf of the Clinton campaign and the DNC. Before that agreement, Fusion GPS’s research into Trump was funded by an unknown Republican client during the GOP primary. 

The Clinton campaign and the DNC, through the law firm, continued to fund Fusion GPS’s research through the end of October 2016, days before Election Day. 

Okay so first off this is not really news.

In fact I wrote a post before election day that linked to a Mother Jones story which said the following: 

This was for an opposition research project originally financed by a Republican client critical of the celebrity mogul. (Before the former spy was retained, the project's financing switched to a client allied with Democrats.) "It started off as a fairly general inquiry," says the former spook, who asks not to be identified. But when he dug into Trump, he notes, he came across troubling information indicating connections between Trump and the Russian government. According to his sources, he says, "there was an established exchange of information between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin of mutual benefit." 

At the time David Corn, the author of the Mother Jones piece, did not identify Christopher Steel by name, nor did he seem to know who the "client allied with the Democrats" was for sure, but I think most of us probably assumed they would be connected to the Clinton campaign or some big DNC donor.

The important point of the article was that people were finally reporting on what was in the dossier after the original Republican operatives stopped paying the bills, and the information was almost lost for all time.

Yesterday some troll in the comments section attempted to make the case that this muddies the waters, and that it proves the Democrats were also engaged in the same sort of shady dealings to undermine the Republican candidate that the Trump campaign was using in their attempt to undermine the Clinton campaign.

But of course that is ridiculous as this is NOT a case of a campaign working hand in hand with an adversarial foreign government which hacked one party's computers, and paid millions of dollars to spread misinformation, to help that campaign's candidate get elected.

The Democrats were actually working to reveal information which has now proven critical in understanding just how compromised Donald Trump and his campaign staff were by the Russians during the 2016 campaign cycle.

Ultimately if Trump gets impeached this Russian dossier may prove to be the key to making that happen, and at the very least it allowed us to be vigilant when it came to how Trump defers to Vladimir Putin, and focused our attention on the fact that he seems extremely reluctant to support the Russian sanctions voted into place by the majority of the Republicans in the House and Senate.

Here is how Josh Marshall of TPM summed this up yesterday: 

The country owes the Democrats a debt of gratitude for keeping Steele’s research going. The FBI had apparently missed a lot of what he found. 

I’ve heard some suggest that the Clinton campaign had denied that it helped fund Steele’s work. Or maybe that Elias had. I don’t know if that’s the case or not. It’s possible that the Clinton camp or the DNC didn’t know they had. The Post piece suggests they didn’t know that Fusion GPS was involved. 

If someone lied, then by all means identify that person as lying. Even call them a liar. But in the big picture, who cares? Even in the small picture who cares. It was a service to the country. Donald Trump and his campaign knowingly accepted assistance from a foreign adversary power. There’s good reason to believe, though as yet no hard proof, that they agreed to help Russia in exchange for assistance subverting the 2016 campaign. The President is still actively covering up for the Russian effort, as of this week. 

Whether the execs at top of the Clinton campaign knew about it, Marc Elias may have helped save his country by making the decision to fund this critical research. Thank you, Marc Elias! I know that sounds a bit hyperbolic but it’s really not.

Yes, and I agree completely with that.

We are suffering a national crisis right now in this country.

Marc Elias and the DNC attempted to keep that from happening, and failing that they may have been instrumental in providing the tools needed to eventually stop it.

In my book that makes them heroes.

Trump is now suggesting that the Russians, FBI, and Democrats worked together to create Russian dossier.

Workers of firm involved with the discredited and Fake Dossier take the 5th. Who paid for it, Russia, the FBI or the Dems (or all)?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 19, 2017

.@foxandfriends "Russia sent millions to Clinton Foundation"

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 19, 2017

Holy shit!

The smell of desperation is almost overpowering at this point.

Yes folks the Russians, FBI, and Democrats were working together that is why Clinton won in a landslide and Donald Trump is now sitting behind bars.

Oh wait......

Apparently the Senate Judiciary Committee is not really involved in the Russia investigation, instead they are focused on investigating the FBI.

Courtesy of the Daily Beast:  

The Senate Judiciary Committee has demanded documents on Russian meddling from the CIA, interviewed Donald Trump Jr. about his infamous Trump Tower meeting, and subpoenaed Paul Manafort, the president’s Kremlin-friendly former campaign chairman. 

In May, the committee held a subcommittee hearing called “Russian Interference in 2016 United States Election.” In June, Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley issued a pair of press releases about his “Russia Probe.” One of them, produced with fellow committee Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, asked for documents from the FBI, citing the committee’s “investigations into allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians.” 

But the Judiciary Committee is not, in fact, running a Trump-Russia investigation—at least, not a full-fledged one. 

A staffer for Grassley, speaking on the condition of anonymity to give his candid assessment, told The Daily Beast that the committee is instead engaged in routine oversight of the Justice Department—though under extraordinary circumstances.

“The Judiciary Committee is not running a comprehensive Trump/Russia investigation,” the staffer added. “Intel matters are the purview of the Intelligence Committees. The Judiciary Committee is engaged in the DOJ oversight for which it’s responsible and related issues that intersect with the Russian meddling in our democratic system.” 

The staffer also said Grassley’s team is not trying to determine whether anyone broke the law. 

“The Judiciary Committee does not have a prosecutorial function and does not conduct criminal investigations,” the staffer said, adding that committee investigators will share any evidence of crimes they find with law enforcement.

While I am a little unclear as to why the Judiciary Committee wanted to talk to Junior, it may help to explain why they subpoenaed two FBI agents and wanted to know if the FBI warned Donald Trump that some of his staff had ties to Russia.

Chairman Grassley also seems a little overly concerned that the FBI is relying too much on the Steele Dossier.

Courtesy of Politico: 

Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley on Friday asked the FBI to explain how foreign intelligence sharing has affected its use of an unverified dossier containing salacious allegations about President Donald Trump for its Russia investigation.

Noting that the dossier was passed on to the U.K. government according to lawyers representing author Christopher Steele, Grassley asked the FBI to clarify whether the document's contents could have been "surreptitiously funneled into U.S. intelligence streams through foreign intelligence sharing." 

Steele, a former British intelligence agent, initially compiled the dossier — replete with unproven details of alleged Russian efforts to compromise Trump — for the firm Fusion GPS. 

If the FBI had interpreted a foreign intelligence service's receipt of the Steele dossier as a de facto confirmation, "it would be alarming," Grassley wrote on Friday to FBI Director Christopher Wray. 

"Mr. Steele’s dossier allegations might appear to be 'confirmed' by foreign intelligence, rather than just an echo of the same 'research' that Fusion bought from Steele and that the FBI reportedly also attempted to buy from Steele."

So at this point one might ask themselves if Grassley and his committee were simply providing oversight to make sure that the FBI and Justice Department are doing their jobs effectively, or if the Iowa Republican is attempting to undermine the validity of any evidence connected to the Russian dossier?

I already have my opinion.

Simply put I do not trust any of these Republicans to REALLY work hard to get to a truth which might invalidate the election of their president, and worry that they are working instead to provide cover for Trump, or to slow down the process until the policies of the GOP agenda can be put firmly into place before he is removed from office.