The average opposition researcher would be hard-pressed to get the attention of an associate deputy attorney general, let alone his cooperation. But the Fusion GPS crowd had the right connections. Steele and Ohr are close enough that Steele could sign an email to his old friend with “Love and Best Wishes to you, Nellie and all the family.” Simpson is an acquaintance of long standing. Nellie is, well, Ohr’s wife....
Bruce Ohr's Justice Department disclosure.... was not forthcoming about his wife's "independent contractor" work. The work turned out to be for Clinton-hired oppo research firm Fusion GPS.
Bruce Ohr states of his wife’s work that she is an “Independent contractor.” But look high and low on the form, you won’t find any information describing who Nellie Ohr did her contract work for, or how much she was paid. The Office of Government Ethics explicitly requires those details. When it comes to a spouse’s income, the filer is instructed to: “Provide the name of the source and, for privately held companies, the nature of the business.” Not only should Bruce Ohr have listed Fusion GPS as the source of his wife’s income, he should have revealed her income and included a description of the Fusion enterprise....
Why, if Ohr was willing to tell the FBI about his conflict of interest, had he done his best to hide it on his annual ethics filing? Why didn't he correct his filing to make it consistent with what he was telling the bureau? Perhaps because he counted on the FBI to keep his role in the affair secret. Ohr encouraged the FBI to listen to Steele’s stories. When Steele broke the bureau’s rules and lost his privileged (and paid) status, Ohr stepped in to keep the stories flowing. He would talk to Christopher Steele and then report the conversation to an FBI handler who would write up the discussion in a classified form 302....
The dossier, a bundle of wild accusations that might never have gotten past a junior G-man, was whisked to the bureau’s seventh floor on the strength of Ohr’s relationship with Andrew McCabe and Lisa Page. Ohr exploited one set of powerful connections on behalf of a separate, more personal set of connections.
June 12, 2019
The big "Russiagate" question: Why... did Bruce Ohr admit to the FBI that his wife worked for opposition researchers Fusion GPS while failing to disclose it to the DoJ?"
Asked by Eric Felton at Real Clear Investigations. From his answer:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
97 comments:
The chickens, they are coming home to roost.
Roosted chickens. Mmmmm.
Only a Russian agent would express doubt about the integrity of the FBI.
Why ... did Bruce Ohr ...
Because it's easier to lie by omission than any other way.
Over my many years in IT in DC, I had multiple opportunities to work for the intelligence agencies, but I never did. Why? Because I didn't & don't like those people.
One thing among many I didn't like about them is that they reflexively distrusted anyone outside of whatever charmed circle they happened to inhabit, and they reflexively trusted anyone inside of it, no matter what a miscreant he or she happened to be.
An example from the past would be Aldrich Ames. But, the scenario described here, with everyone using their past times & warm & fuzzies to pull one over on the FISA court is a more recent example of in-group trust being used to abuse the rest of us.
Isn't the question ill-posed? Isn't the FBI a part of the DOJ? If so, disclosing to the FBI is disclosing to the DOJ. He may have failed to disclose to everyone in the DOJ that he was supposed to, particularly those outside the FBI.
"Why... did Bruce Ohr admit to the FBI that his wife worked for opposition researchers Fusion GPS while failing to disclose it to the DoJ?"
The answer is obvious and Felton provides it: "Perhaps because he counted on the FBI to keep his role in the affair secret.". And let's be specific on who he was counting on; not the impersonal "FBI" but rather his friends McCabe and Page.
Ohr's dishonesty in filling out his financial disclosure is incriminating as hell.
I'm sure this will be the top story on most mainstream media outlets any day now. . . . . .
Why is this a question? There are pretty standard reasons for things like this:
1. Laziness - possible if she had recently changed jobs or had multiple private engagements or if he has a history of such laziness elsewhere
2. Ignorance - not possible - he knew what he needed to do. It was a conscious choice. So why?
3. Malice/deceit - Possible, even likely given his active advocacy in direct connection to Fusion GPS and his wife's work.
If you had to weigh those, #3 would be the clear winner because:
1. He chose not to indicate a conflict of interest
2. He took actions that would have shown a conflict of interest and took actions to hide that conflict of interest
So while it's possible there are innocent reasons, they are very unlikely.
Joe
This is going to be satisfying isn't it?
Mistakes were made. All is forgiven. Book deals, cable interviews, generous pensions on the horizon.
No Rikers, solitary confinement or bankruptcy for these guys.
I'm sure this will be the top story on most mainstream media outlets any day now
And they wonder why we hate them and regard them an enemy of the people.
Mistakes were made. All is forgiven. Book deals, cable interviews, generous pensions on the horizon. No Rikers, solitary confinement or bankruptcy for these guys.
Just like Lois Lerner, Samantha Powers, Valerie Jarret.
Ya know, if there is one thing Team Obama taught us, it's that women can be every bit as corrupt as men. In that they are truly our equals.
pretty much the whole story was a putup job:
https://apelbaum.wordpress.com/2019/02/15/who-done-it/
apelbaum in an earlier link, traced nellies cv, and how the dossier resembles her presentations on the bratva, (Russian organized crime)
TreeJoe, I think 1, laziness/sloppiness, is most likely for 2 reasons:
1) They think of themselves as the good guys so their ill acts are more likely to be of the cutting corners variety than of the outright fraud variety; and
2) His wife's status was probably common knowledge in his circle at the FBI so he didn't think to making a special point of telling anyone.
That isn’t the big question.
The big question is “What did Obama know and when did he know it?”
Orginal Mike zeroes in on the real explanation. Ohr's involvement was a very small circle in the FBI- McCabe and his direct reports. Ohr lied by omission on the form because that circle isn't so small, because such forms can be requested by anyone, including me.
It is important to note when this form was filed- late December 2016, five months after Crossfire Hurricane was started, and 2 months after the Page FISA was approved. This was also a year before the public was even informed that GPSFusion and the Clinton Campaign were the financial backers of Steele.
I wonder how many times the FBI has created a false narrative, and leaked it for political gain. This seems to be part-n-parcel of the FBI culture.
I'm starting to get the feeling that we will hang the Ohr's, but never get around to talking about Hillary's email server.
TreeJoe, I think 1, laziness/sloppiness, is most likely for 2 reasons:
3) Usually you see this level of laziness/sloppiness from people who have been getting away with it for so long they've lowered the amount of energy they put into the deception.|
First time a husband cheats on his wife, he swings by the gym to shower off the woman's smell and perfume, hits the Car Wash to vacuum any stray blonde hairs out of the passenger seat, slits his own tire and calls a tow truck so he can present the wife with a tow receipt to alibi why he was out later than normal.
When he gets caught, its in bed with the mistress because wifey came home 15 minutes earlier than she normally does and they got tired of spending so much time and energy trying to be careful.
I see this dossier caper as a more elaborate version of the James Rosen perjury affair after which I heard Eric Holder national TV state his only regret was that he did not cover his tracks better.
So this time they cooked up the dossier here and arranged for someone to pass it to Mr. Steele who handed it back to the FBI as "information obtained from foreign intelligence sources," and then they used that as basis for swearing out FISA applications to "wiretap" Trump campaign officials.
The big question is why do all Nellies look like this?
And don't accuse me of cherry-picking.
Why? Because I didn't & don't like those people.
I once interviewed with the CIA. I found the interviewer to be petty, thin-skinned, and a little nuts.
She told me "The CIA was behind the invention of some kitchen appliance, but she couldn't me tell which one because it was a secret"......then why the fuck mention it.
God. The Maryland Babushka hairstyle, how I hate it. It's always a tell that you'll be dealing with a Rachel Maddow type.
The form asks for the spouse's jobs, employers, and a rough estimate of the income received. Ohr provided only the most general kind of descriptor of his wife's job, and completely omitted the other two details-employer and income estimate- the only details that actually mattered for the purposes of such disclosures.
I don't think one can put this down to laziness- it isn't like Ohr forgot to file the disclosure, nor did he forget to put anything in about his wife. He included just enough detail that he could claim forgetfulness, but not enough detail that someone could, someday, tie his wife to working for the Clinton Campaign.
Consider it this way from Ohr's perspective- you want to hide your wife's connections to the Steele Dossier, but you have to fill out this disclosure form in December of 2016. What do you do? You could just make up details out of whole cloth, but that opens you up to criminal prosecution for outright lying on the form. What Ohr appears to have done is put in something that wasn't lie- the part about "independent contractor", but then omitted all the details that would have revealed his wife's connections to the Steele Dossier.
I find it nearly impossible to believe this was just a careless mistake on Ohr's part. He knew what his wife was doing, he knew how much she was being paid, and he knew who she was working for- all of that information was in his brain when he filled out that form, and yet he just wrote "independent contractor", and then omits the key fields altogether. He isn't that stupid and careless.
The big question is why do all Nellies look like this?
Ya' mean.....looking like she should be the owner of a lesbian book store??
Her eyes are filled with self-righteous indignation.
I had to file financial disclosures in my job as University faculty who also did outside consulting. They were very explicit that I had to disclose spousal information as well, for the obvious reason.
'...they cooked up the dossier here and arranged for someone to pass it to Mr. Steele who handed it back to the FBI as "information obtained from foreign intelligence sources," and then they used that as basis for swearing out FISA applications to "wiretap" Trump campaign officials.'
And had Cankles been elected - as they assumed would happen - this treachery would have remained hidden, and the perpetrators would have been well rewarded and working their magic on the likely 2020 Republican candidates.
I think Nellie is a top.
Deception on Ohr's part.
Laziness and sloppiness on the FBI text lovers' part. They thought no way would they get caught so why hide in such a simple-to-discover manner?
THEOLDMAN
there's no real proof they had a romantic relationship, it was just a cover for the plotting,
The big question isn't why Bruce Ohr did what he did? The information provided compared to the omissions paints a story that is at least as questionable as the actions of General Flynn.
Ther big question is why is the behavior of Bruce Ohr ignored by the DOJ, FBI, and MSM.
from an earlier thread, the daily caller has been closer to obtaining the other set of comey memos from richman,
he worked the bureau's organized crime division, she the company's, counterintelligence and organized crime overlaps in these area, but the evidence starts becoming very dubious,
for example in the butina case, much was made of torshins communications with Romanov, a bratva figure living in spain, however the fact that the latter had been arrested before the events in question, raises questions as to the validity of the whole case,
And why did Nellie Ohr get a ham radio license, out of the blue, in May 2016? That would be one way to get around NSA surveillance.
No need to get excited.
Many seasoned commenters and lurkers here have taken delight in Inga's and Chuck's well deserved misery upon the release of Mueller's report.
We all are liable to experience the same let down.
Difference is, we expect it, so we will not be crushed and abandon Althouse blogspot in disappointment and humiliation.. Chuck and Inga were sucker punched by their friends.
I’m sure Jerry Nadler can get John Dean to help us sort this out.
2) His wife's status was probably common knowledge in his circle at the FBI so he didn't think to making a special point of telling anyone.
ADAG Ohr was DoJ, and not FBI. He was, at the time, the head of the DoJ’s organized crime task force, and as an Associate DAG, appears to have reported directly to DAG Sally Yates. And of course, Andrew Weissman also worked in Organized Crime, so was brought along by Ohr to some of his FBI meetings, starting in Aug or Sept of 2016.
Ohr apparently went to DD McCabe because they were both high enough up to have worked together before on a number of issues. Ohr knew that McCabe would get him with the FBI’s counterintelligence people, which initially meant Peter Strzok. Later, one of Strzok’s people was designated as Ohr’s FBI handler.
ADAG Ohr’s Congressional testimony late last year was more forthcoming than that of the current and former FBI people, because he didn’t have a n FBI atty sitting at his side, objecting whenever anything involving Russian collusion was brought up, due to the ongoing (Mueller) investigation. He seemed to have testified that his boss, DAG Yates didn’t really know, or probably care, about what he was doing with the FBI (since he worked with them routinely, as the head of the Organized Crime task force). He very definitely didn’t tell her that he was acting as a go-between between Fusion, Steele, and his wife, on the one hand, and McCabe Strzok, and his handler on the other hand. And there is no evidence, as of now that I have seen, that anyone above Ohr (I.e. Yates or Lynch) in the DoJ knew what he was doing, or that his wife was working for a Clinton and DNC contractor (Fusion) as their Russia expert, to help develop material that could be used to attack Clinton’s Republican opponent for supposedly collaborating with the Russians.
Add tag, "Hillary is in trouble."
Yeah, what about that ham license for Nellie Ohr? She was communicating with her Russian handlers.
These people need to go to jail.
“he worked the bureau's organized crime division, she the company's, counterintelligence and organized crime overlaps in these area, but the evidence starts becoming very dubious,”
Again, he was DoJ, not FBI. The connection between the two is obviously Russian Organized Crime. My memory is that the two of them spoke at at least one conference together on that subject.
StateFBICIANSADoDDoJ and so on.
and "Section 31."
is it that many in various agencies/departments have been in on the whole process that it didn't matter? Didn't Nellie have her mitts in different areas so that she was a sort of hub of questionable activities?
None of this was ever supposed to come to light.
So one of the witnesses before the committee, Robert Anderson works for the Chertoff group whose principal worked with Lanny Davis on the firtash case, you see the sham here.
"Yeah, what about that ham license for Nellie Ohr? She was communicating with her Russian handlers."
This has always puzzled me. Who was she communicating with? I don't think I've ever seen a plausible theory as to who was on the other end.
Good lord, I'd completely forgotten the disclosure forms I had to fill out as a state-U smurfaculty. I'd have been tossed in a nonce if I'd played cute on them, like our high-IQ spy-ocrats did.
I did most of my outside-the-office stuff for free (or on the school's dime), so nobody could say they were ripped off. Kind of a like a retail blogger.
Narr
Worth every penny
"I did most of my outside-the-office stuff for free (or on the school's dime), so nobody could say they were ripped off."
Yeah, I eventually started doing things for free when the school wanted to set up an oversight committee on me. Big paper work headache, so I stopped taking money for my consulting. Their response was "we still want you to report to a committee". I respectfully declined.
Chuck? Help us out here, will you?
How was all This, Trump's Fault? I can't follow it, without your guidance
Bruce Ohr lied to the FBI.
Treat him like an ordinary citizen who has lied to the FBI.
Treat him like a Trump-supporter who has lied to the FBI.
As long as these people can exist in an environment of Ø accountability, they will do bad things. Human nature is human nature; it's as simple as that.
I read a good Victor Davis Hanson piece today about the FBI. This may not go over well, but I believe the entire organization is rotten to the core. FBI first, citizens second ... no matter what.
Not one agent went on record (blew the whistle)on the crap that was going on against Trump. Not one! Some people must have known what was going on, but they're the FBI, and they are right, and everyone else is wrong.
I'm not saying that there aren't good people in the FBI. I'm saying directly that there are a LOT of bad people in the FBI who get away with way too much crap. And the "good" people let them get away with it. So they are "bad" by the transitive property.
In the private sector, when someone screws up you can fire them. You can't do that with the FBI because it might make the agency look bad.
And Wray? He's about as characterless as they come. Hey dude! Lead, follow, or get out of the way.
Horse hockey!
wray was a mutineer back in 2004, in the fraud section of the bureau, he wrangled his way to bailing out chris Christie, out of bridgegate, now the choices were not optimum, there was mike rogers fmrly of the intelligence committee, and a few others,
Nellie worked for CIA/Fusion/Verisign- was she one of the "4 contractors" illegally spying?
and backchannel to doj
https://aim4truth.org/2019/03/10/nellie-ohr-worked-for-the-russians-via-verisign/
in general, re this mess, isnt the answer to the question "why did Person X lie?"-
a)to frame Trump, b)to save your own ass?
I hope Barr has the fortitude to fire Wray if he is obstructing.
stephanie douglas handled the Benghazi investigation, and defended the initial interrogation of the tsarnaev's older brothers, heck of a job, these people could spot a Russian spy if they brought their own stroganoff,
Dave Begley said...
Add tag, "Hillary is in trouble."
Yeah, what about that ham license for Nellie Ohr? She was communicating with her Russian handlers.
These people need to go to jail.
No.
Traitors hang.
Mike Sylwester said...
Bruce Ohr lied to the FBI.
Treat him like an ordinary citizen who has lied to the FBI.
Treat him like a Trump-supporter who has lied to the FBI.
Treat him like a Trump supporter that didn't lie to the FBI.
Then hang him for treason.
the attack against heshmat alavi is to get around declarations like this:
https://www.ncr-iran.org/en/ncri-statements/iran-resistance/25987-hamburg-court-prohibits-der-spiegel-from-spreading-false-allegations-against-iranian-pmoi-mek
an interesting detail I found is the times iran flack, erdbrink had his press credentials suspended by the mullahs he was such a faithful toady to,
What's interesting is the Liberal MSM seems almost completely UNINTERESTED. Just like they were UNINTERESTED in Hillary's Email scandal.
Hopefully, we'll learn more with the IG Report. Which is supposedly coming out in July- which means it will come out in September.
BTW, i just want congratulate Jeff Sessions for all his hard work in uncovering this scandal.
Meanwhile the press accuses dan Crenshaw of voting against a bill he cosponsored, (well that was a cair flack) and of trump sending immigrant children, to a former internment camp, well the same one Obama did in 2014,
I'd like to be assured that if people in the Government, or connected to the Government, are found to have lied, or to have intentionally failed to disclose information they were required to disclose, they will be punished, and their punishment should be comparable to what was meted out through the Mueller probe. I'm thinking of Manafort and Cohen in particular.
If they are/were government employees, they should lose their jobs and their pensions. If they are lawyers, the relevant Bar authorities should be alerted so they can take appropriate disciplinary action.
This, of course, is in addition to the punishment they should receive for criminal actions they are convicted of committing, or plead guilty to.
Original Mike said...
I hope Barr has the fortitude to fire Wray if he is obstructing.
I hope you all have the fortitude to burn DC to the ground if nothing happens and there are no real consequences.
If they don't think there will be any consequences they clearly don't give a shit about this republic or it's laws or it's 1st principles.
"Why ... did Bruce Ohr admit to the FBI that his wife worked for opposition researchers Fusion GPS while failing to disclose it to the DoJ?"
He failed to disclose it for the obvious reason that he had a conflict of interest and was participating in a political hit job.
But did he "admit" his wife's role to the FBI--or simply confirm what his buddies knew anyway, and vouching for the validity of his message that way?
I think the Trump Troubles tag is inapt. He seems to be out of trouble when it comes to Russiagate and a whole lotta other people are starting to sweat. Not that I have a better suggestion for Althouse. It is kind of ambiguous and could refer to the trouble others get into when they try to entangle Trump in their mischief.
FBI is part of DOJ. Not possible to disclose information to FBI w/o disclosing it to DOJ
Blogger steve uhr said..."FBI is part of DOJ. Not possible to disclose information to FBI w/o disclosing it to DOJ"
He didn't "disclose" it to the FBI. He told it to his buddy McCabe. Not the same thing.
“Not possible” = impossible, hm? That word seems a bit overused here.
steve uhr apparently can not conceive of a DOJ or FBI official doing something illicit. I don't know if he's really this naive or is just playing dumb.
That's easy, urh just playing dumb like most of my liberal friends. Oh sure the FBI made sex tapes of Martin Luther King, leaked to oust Nixon and have always been there to serve the interest of the swamp but there is no way on earth they would have spied on a candidate with a snow balls chance in hell of winning. No siree bob! That's unheard of.
“I hope Barr has the fortitude to fire Wray if he is obstructing.”
I think that Trump would have to be the one firing Wray. Last time around, DAG Rosenstein made the case for firing Comey, but Trump actually did the firing.
“He seems to be out of trouble when it comes to Russiagate and a whole lotta other people are starting to sweat.”
Wishful thinking.
“If they don't think there will be any consequences they clearly don't give a shit about this republic or it's laws or it's 1st principles.”
The “they” are you Trump sycophants.
“As long as these people can exist in an environment of Ø accountability, they will do bad things. Human nature is human nature; it's as simple as that.”
Apply this to yourselves first.
Well they listened in, on some communications with kings staff, the same fellow who oversaw the break ins was the one who neared his soul to Woodward and bernstein.
You good with Ohr hiding his wife's employment at Fusion, Inga?
Bared, that was tongue in cheek, now this isnt unique to security services mi 5 with the likes of Peter Wright kept an eye on Wilson, Chirac was surveyed in the late 90d Los by the dgse, and of course the Italian derp state
Trump, admitting that he sees nothing wrong with a foreign power interfering with our elections in an interview with George Stepenoopolis today. What fools you people are.
"I think you might want to listen, there isn't anything wrong with listening," Trump continued. "If somebody called from a country, Norway, [and said] ‘we have information on your opponent' -- oh, I think I'd want to hear it."
Deep state, including one fellow who was not lucky like sr occhionero,
And what is with the OIG report release date slipping again? These fucks have told us is would come out in May... Mid May...Early June...Mid June... now its fucking July? This is going to wind up like the Huber non-investigations. I don't really have any hope that Horowitz will be doing anything other than nail no bodies and folks who have already retired. Our only hope is Barr but there is only so much he can do in a swamp.
Inga berates Trump for thinking what the Obama Administration actually did.
Nellie Ohs looks cut from the same cloth as Elizabeth Warren; they could be sisters.
Yes she was a Russian studies major specialized in the Ukrainian famine deniers (athis is a real thing)
Inga...Allie Oop said...
Trump, admitting that he sees nothing wrong with a foreign power interfering with our elections in an interview with George Stepenoopolis today. What fools you people are.
Were you as outraged, Inga, when Obama deeply interfered in Netanyahu's re-election in Israel?
Of course you weren't, because you are a deranged left-wing lunatic with zero honesty.
Shorter leftwing fascist hivemind delusion: If anyone ever has ANY actual dirt on any democrat, they should be prosecuted and thrown in prison. or sent to a re-education camp.
Inga once said this:
"After reading this thread, I think you nutbags are are going to lose whatever marbles you still have left when the Mueller report is made public. I think whoever ends up in the role of President before 2020 might need to declare martial law, until you Cultists get yourselves deprogrammed. Have hope, there might still be a normal life after Trump for you poor souls.
-Baghdad Inga
Yes - Inga the liar who adores leftwing fascism, has no problem when Bill and Hillary dig dirt on any opponent using foreign sources.
*Christopher Steele* *cough*.
The corrupctocratics made it retroactively illegal to talk to ANY Russian, after Obama's time was up. Can't even have a non-nefarious conversation with a diplomat! Illegal - so says 14 year old boy Maddow. But the Obama administration is exempt from that rule.
Amazing.
Fucking hypocrite.
Remember that Inga defended the Obama/Hillary lie that Benghazi was caused by the filmmaker. You can look it up in the archive. She never changed that position, as far as I know. The strange thing is, looking back is, how willingly she climbed into bed with Cedarford with that stance. Those two were the sole defenders of the lie.
Original Mike@earlier--yeah, paperwork too. I already had too much.
Narr
Still in recovery
If someone offers dirt on Trump, you take it.
If someone offers dirt on any precious democrat, you run to your mommy at the FBI and whine about collusion and obstruction of justice.
Hillary must win! Any other outcome is illegal!
The entire Benghazi fiasco was a total failure on the part of Hillary and Obama, and the obvious lie used to cover it up is only believed by the truly deluded koolaid-drinking idiots.
It's illegal to talk to anyone who has dirt on the Clintons.
Smug
Washingtonians
Asserting
Majestic
Power
Lacking
Any
Normal
Decency
The. End.
So Inga's cool with federal employees lying on their financial disclosure forms, as long as they're federal employees that agree with her politically. What a surprise.
Trump, admitting that he sees nothing wrong with a foreign power interfering with our elections in an interview with George Stepenoopolis today.
I will believe you guys are serious about foreign interference in elections when Hillary is in a jail cell.
Apparently Americans should not hear the truth because that’s election interference! I would say that the made up lies in the Steele Dossier were election interference, but the truth, wherever it comes from is fine with me.
When the FBI investigates Democrats colluding with UK spies to develop dirt on Republican opponents in an attempt to overturn an election; then I might believe Democrats cares about foreign government interference. In the meantime, I'll wait for John Kerry to be investigated for violating the Logan Act when he negotiated with the terrorist government of Iran during the Trump Administration. And always, I'll expect Trump to play by the rules Democrats impose on themselves.
They are all dirty. Need to build another Leavenworth.
Post a Comment