I just posted an interview
in which Rep. Jordan expressed his impressions on House questioning
of Bruce Ohr. The impressions were informative, yet this Daily Caller article
over the same questioning is specifics about Ohr connections to Steele, Christopher
Steele, Fusion GPS’s Nellie Ohr and most concerning; Mueller’s righthand attack
dog Andrew Weissmann among other FBI, DOJ and Fusion GPS Deep State nefarious
characters.
JRH 8/31/18 (Hat Tip Ali H. at G+ Community United
We Stand One Nation Under God)
In this current state of media censorship & defunding, consider chipping in a few bucks for enjoying (or despising) this Blog.
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HERE IS WHO BRUCE OHR DID AND DID NOT TELL ABOUT HIS
DOSSIER CONTACTS
By Chuck Ross
4:54 PM 08/30/2018
·
DOJ official Bruce Ohr
testified before Congress on Tuesday about his contacts with Christopher
Steele, the author of the dossier
·
One mystery surrounding
Ohr and Steele was who he told at the Justice Department about his interaction
with Steele
·
Ohr testified that he
told his peers, but not his superiors, about the dossier-related contacts
Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr told Congress
earlier this week that he informed half a dozen FBI and Justice Department
officials about his contacts with dossier author Christopher Steele and
opposition researcher Glenn Simpson.
Sources familiar with Ohr’s testimony before the House
Judiciary and House Oversight Committees told The Daily Caller News Foundation
that Ohr informed Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page about his
interactions with Steele and Simpson. He also informed Justice Department
prosecutor Andrew Weissmann about his dossier-related work.
Weissmann is now serving as right-hand man to Robert Mueller
at the special counsel’s office.
Ohr testified that he informed his Justice Department peers,
but not his superiors, about his contacts with Steele and Simpson. One of the
superiors kept out of the loop was former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates.
Ohr said he was demoted as assistant deputy attorney general in December
because he failed to tell Yates and other top officials about his dossier
interactions. (RELATED: Trump: ‘How The Hell Is Bruce Ohr Still Employed?’)
Republicans have sought an interview with Ohr to find out
why he maintained contact with Steele even after the FBI decided to cut ties
with the former British spy just before the 2016 election. The FBI said in
applications for spy warrants against Trump campaign adviser Carter Page that
the bureau dropped Steele as an informant because he had unauthorized contacts
with the media. Despite that, Ohr met and spoke with Steele numerous times
through May 2017. Ohr debriefed the FBI at least 12 times following his
post-election contacts with Steele.
Weissmann’s contact with Ohr about the dossier is
significant because of the mutual interest that Weissmann and Fusion’s Simpson
had in former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
Simpson, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, has told
Congress that Fusion GPS investigated Manafort’s links to Russian oligarchs as
part of its anti-Trump project.
“A lot of what we were talking to the media about were
things in the public record, specifically Carter Page, Paul Manafort had
resigned over allegations of illicit relationships with Russian oligarchs and
Ukrainian oligarchs,” Simpson told the Senate Judiciary Committee during an
Aug. 22, 2017 interview.
“So there was, you know, a lot of open source public
information pointing towards the possibility that the Russians had infiltrated
the Trump campaign,” he added. “So we spoke broadly to reporters and encouraged
them to look into this.”
As chief of the Justice Department’s criminal fraud
division, Weissmann was investigating Manafort even before the special counsel’s
team was formed. Weissmann facilitated a meeting in April 2017 with reporters
from The Associated Press to discuss the Justice Department’s investigation
into Manafort’s work for former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.
Weissmann is the lead prosecutor in two cases against Manafort for that
work.
Weissmann has also attracted criticism from Republicans
because of his overt support for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He
has donated heavily to Democratic political candidates and attended Clinton’s
2016 election night party in New York City.
Ohr’s wife was also a focus of Tuesday’s closed-door
interview.
Republicans pressed Ohr about how his wife, a Russia expert
named Nellie Ohr, came to work for Fusion GPS.
Ohr testified that Fusion approached his wife for a job and
that she began working for the research firm in late 2015. California GOP Rep.
Darrell Issa said Ohr testified that his wife was paid $44,000 by Fusion
GPS. As The DCNF has reported, Ohr did not disclose his wife’s Fusion income
on his annual ethics disclosure form.
Perkins Coie, the law firm for the Clinton campaign and
Democratic National Committee, paid Fusion GPS more than $1 million for the
Trump-Russia project. Fusion paid Steele nearly $170,000 for his work.
Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, a Republican who helped question Ohr,
said that he believes that Fusion GPS chose Nellie Ohr so that the firm could
leverage her husband’s senior position at the DOJ.
“Why did they need Bruce Ohr? Why did Fusion…want to work
with Bruce Ohr?” he said in an interview on Fox News Tuesday night.
“My guess is, because he is associate deputy attorney
general … that just adds heft and weight to what they were trying to do about
this whole dossier, which was the key to everything,” he added.
The special counsel’s office declined to comment on
Weissmann’s links to Ohr.
_______________________
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