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2017-09-01 Home Front: Politix

Byron York: FBI fights public release of Trump dossier info

[Wash Examiner] Senate investigators have had problems getting the FBI to reveal information about the Trump dossier. They're not the only ones. Outside groups filing Freedom of Information Act requests are running up against a stone wall when it comes to the dossier.

On March 8, Judicial Watch filed a FOIA request for documents regarding the bureau's contacts with Christopher Steele, the former British spy who dug for dirt in Russia on candidate Donald Trump in the months before the 2016 presidential election. Steele's effort was commissioned by the oppo research firm Fusion GPS, which at the time was being paid by still-unidentified Democrats who supported Hillary Clinton. Just weeks before the election, the FBI reportedly agreed to support Steele's oppo project -- an extraordinary action in the midst of a campaign which Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley said raised "questions about the FBI's independence from politics."

So Judicial Watch asked the Justice Department for:

Any and all records of communications between any official, employee, or representative of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Mr. Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer and the owner of the private firm Orbis Business Intelligence.
Any and all records regarding, concerning, or related to the proposed, planned, or actual payment of any funds to Mr. Steele and/or Orbis Business Intelligence.  
Any and all records produced in preparation for, during, or pursuant to any meetings or telephonic conversations between any official, employee, or representative of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Mr. Christopher Steele and/or any employee or representative of Orbis Business Intelligence.

The idea was that the records would shed light on the basic questions regarding the dossier. Just what did the FBI do? Why? And -- this is very important to Grassley -- did the FBI ever use the "salacious and unverified" (the words of former FBI Director James Comey) information in the dossier as a basis for applying for warrants to put Americans under surveillance?

The Justice Department's response to Judicial Watch was simple: No. And not just no: The Department would not even confirm or deny whether any such documents or communications even existed.

So on May 16, Judicial Watch filed suit, seeking to force release of the information. In response, the department told Judicial Watch to forget about it. "Plaintiff's claims are moot," Justice lawyers wrote, "because Defendant has notified Plaintiff of its decision to neither confirm nor deny the existence of any responsive records, and the reasons for that decision."

Posted by Besoeker 2017-09-01 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11128 views ] Top

#1 Maverick and Buzzfead evidently have copies, as well as the copies in Soetoro's intelligence community distribution. Surely a copy can be found somewhere. Strange how things simply....disappear.

Now, two lawsuits — one in the United States and a second in the U.K. — are being brought by lawyers for Aleksej Gubarev, a Cyprus-based Internet entrepreneur whom Steele’s Russian sources accused of cyber spying against the Democratic Party leadership.

According to a new court document in the British lawsuit, counsel for defendants Steele and Orbis repeatedly point to McCain, R-Ariz., a vocal Trump critic, and a former State Department official as two in a handful of people known to have had copies of the full document before it circulated among journalists and was published by BuzzFeed.

McClatchy report Link

Posted by Besoeker 2017-09-01 06:55|| 2017-09-01 06:55|| Front Page Top

#2 The dossier is a fake so why not bring it out and get to the bottom of the whole sordid mess--McCain's role, Hillary and the DNC's role, and the intelligence agencies involved both here and abroad?

Posted by JohnQC 2017-09-01 09:54|| 2017-09-01 09:54|| Front Page Top

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