Something Being Overlooked in the Danchenko Indictment – A Bigger Indictment of U.S. Media
There is an issue being overlooked, well, not so much ‘overlooked’ per se’, but rather intentionally being ignored by everyone in the discussion.
Maybe not an 800lb gorilla in the room, but at least to a troop of screaming spider monkeys swinging from the drapes and chandeliers.
As everyone is well aware, back in 2016 the entire U.S. media apparatus was given copies of the Clinton-funded Christoper Steele dossier, as Fusion GPS worked every source in their contact list to push the fabricated claims into the headlines. Eventually the stenographers in/around DC, led by CNN and Buzzfeed, acquiesced.
As a result of the Durham indictment, we now know a fellow named Igor Danchenko was working closely with Democrat Party public relations executive Charles Dolan to funnel the fabricated source material to Chris Steele.
Chris Steele, under contract with Fusion-GPS to assemble opposition research that would be used by allies in the media and FBI, then took the Danchenko/Dolan fabricated claims and put it into his dossier.
DOJ official Bruce Ohr, the husband of another Fusion-GPS employee Nellie Ohr, was used as the laundry conduit to put the dossier into the hands of the FBI. Simultaneously Glenn Simpson took the dossier and shopped it to his media pals. That’s how the entire story was created; and yes, we already knew most of this and Durham is simply filling in the details. However, there is something missing from all reporting.
We know the dossier was used as the resource material for the October 21, 2016, FISA application -a Title 1 search warrant- to conduct political surveillance against the Trump campaign by accusing Carter Page of being an agent of the Russian government. The Steele dossier was essentially a substitute for the ‘woods file’ that justifies an intrusive search warrant against a U.S. citizen. The dossier was the evidence used by the FBI and DOJ to justify the warrant application.
What’s missing from this context is not just the fabricated dossier in the hands of the media; but rather, in March 2017 the actual FISA application was in the hands of the media. Not only did most mainstream U.S. media like Buzzfeed, Politico, The New York Times and the Washington Post have the dossier in their hands, effective March 17, 2017, they also had the full and unredacted FISA application as it was leaked by the Senate Intelligence Committee Security Director James Wolfe.
James Wolfe leaked the Carter Page FISA application on March 17th to journalist Ali Watkins. The details of the process Wolfe used to leak the FISA application were outlined in Wolfe’s grand jury indictment and the subsequent filings in the DC criminal court case. {Go Deep}
Despite the fact that Wolfe entered a plea agreement with the DC U.S. Attorney Jessie Liu and was never charged with leaking the FISA application – you can debate the motive of that DC coverup in a much bigger context – there is zero doubt from the sworn affidavits of the FBI investigator of the case, Brian Dugan, that Wolfe leaked the FISA to the media.
♦ Why is that important? Well, for the past five years, not only has the U.S. media had in their possession the Steele Dossier that was given to the FBI, but the U.S. media has also possessed (never admitted) the full and unredacted FISA application showing how the dossier was used in the FISA application.
The media, through journalist Ali Watkins, specifically Buzzfeed, Politico, New York Times and likely The Washington Post, have held the unredacted Carter Page FISA application and the Steele Dossier since early 2017. They have never reported on their possession of it; likely because the unredacted and highly classified FISA application was unlawfully gained.
The media have never admitted it; but those same media outlets clearly have held the ability to see exactly how the dossier was used in the FISA application, because they have both the source material (dossier) and the outcome (FISA application).
As the Wall Street Journal takes these new Durham revelations and starts looking quizzically at Andrew Weissmann and Robert Mueller, in the softest way possible – attempting to avoid triggering all those DC sensibilities that might turn WSJ into a target – the fact that the media held both dossier and FISA application makes the screaming spider monkeys a little more difficult to ignore. Yet ignore they must:
Wall Street Journal – … [H]is Durham indictment reads like a story with more to come, but some lessons are already clear. One question is why the country is only now learning these facts. The Durham indictments treat the FBI as the duped party, but the record shows former FBI director James Comey and his investigators knew from the summer of 2016 that Clinton campaign fingerprints were all over the dossier.
A transcript in the Danchenko indictment suggests that FBI officials knew Mr. Danchenko was lying in the 2017 interviews. But they did nothing to blow the whistle, nor to tell the public or Congress everything they had learned about the origins of the Russia collusion tale.
The Durham prosecutions also speak poorly of former special counsel Robert Mueller. Mr. Mueller’s job was to learn the facts about the collusion allegations, and he had access to everything that the FBI had learned. Yet the Mueller team, led by Democratic partisan Andrew Weissmann, never told the public the Clinton side of the story.
The media also has a lot to answer for. In its conformist disdain for Mr. Trump, the Washington press corps with rare exceptions pursued the Russia collusion story with partisan blinders. They gave each other awards for stories that in retrospect amounted to nothing or, worse, misinformation. Anyone who raised doubts about this narrative, even as the facts mounted against it, was deemed a “Trump enabler.”
The Washington Post this week offered a first sign of media self-reflection, noting the Durham indictments “cast new uncertainty on some past reporting on the dossier by news organizations,” including its own. Yes they do. (read more)
Perhaps the media will eventually arrive to a place where they admit the entire purpose of Andrew Weissmann and Robert Mueller was to coverup the issues that are much bigger than the digestible bites John Durham is currently serving.
Regardless, let’s be clear with our own discussion. Every single person in Washington DC, and every single person who reports on the people in Washington DC, knows that Robert Mueller’s purpose was to coverup for the corrupt activity of the FBI, DOJ, intelligence community and politicians in congress. They all know it. They all know it to a demonstrable certainty. Yet, they pretend as if it’s something just not discussed in polite company.
F**k Joe Biden !
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