Thread by @themarketswork

1) My latest @EpochTimes Lawsuit Reveals McCain Associate Provided Steele Dossier to BuzzFeed, Other Reporters

Paul Ryan’s chief of staff; Rep. Kinzinger; an Obama White House official; and a British intelligence officer, received final memo via Steele
theepochtimes.com/lawsuit-reveal…

2) A federal judge ruled in favor of BuzzFeed after it had been sued for defamation following its publication of the Steele dossier on Jan. 10, 2017.

Within this ruling were a significant number of details related to the dossier and its dissemination.
assets.documentcloud.org/documents/5637…

3) Steele provided his final memo—Report 166—to Kramer, an unnamed British security official, Senior Director for Russian Affairs at the National Security Council Celeste Wallander, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), and House Speaker Paul Ryan’s Chief of Staff, John Burks.

4) The disclosure that Steele provided copies of his final memo to Wallander, Kinzinger, and Ryan’s Chief of Staff, Burks, appears to be new information.

The ruling states that “the record does not reveal what, if anything, these people did with the Report.”

5) The identity of the unnamed British security official remains unknown, although former GCHQ Head Robert Hannigan and current MI6 Head Alex Younger have been suggested as possibilities.

6) Steele and his partner, Burrows, met with Dearlove at the Garrick Club in London in Fall '16.

According to the WAPO, Dearlove “advised Steele and Burrows to work discreetly with a top British government official to pass along information to the FBI.”

7) In the summer of 2016, Robert Hannigan, head of Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) traveled to Washington to meet with then-CIA Director John Brennan regarding alleged communications between the Trump campaign and Moscow.

8) Hannigan abruptly announced his retirement on Jan. 23, 2017—three days after Trump’s Jan. 20, 2017, inauguration.

This prompted “speculation that it might be related to British concerns over shared intelligence with the US in the wake of Donald Trump becoming president.”

9) The ruling also revealed that Kramer showed a copy of the dossier to BuzzFeed News reporter Ken Bensinger on Dec. 29, 2016, during a meeting at the McCain Institute.

Bensinger left the meeting at the McCain Institute with copies of “all seventeen memos.”

10) The ruling does not reference whether McCain directed Kramer to provide the dossier to BuzzFeed, but it would seem unlikely that Kramer would take that action upon himself.

Particularly after McCain personally provided Comey a copy of the dossier just over a week prior.

11) Kramer testified that “Bensinger took photos of the Dossier when Kramer was out of the room.”

The ruling also notes that “in a later declaration, Kramer stated that he had no objection to Bensinger taking a hard copy and had provided hard copies to other journalists.”

12) According to the ruling, Kramer, McCain, and Christopher Brose, McCain’s chief of staff, met to review the dossier on Nov. 30, 2016.

Kramer “advised McCain to share the reports with the FBI and CIA.”

McCain later passed a copy of the dossier to Comey on Dec. 9, 2016.

13) It is not known if McCain also provided a copy to then-CIA Director John Brennan.

Notably, Brennan did attach a two page summary of the dossier to the Intelligence Community Assessment that he delivered to Obama on Jan. 5, 2017.

14) Several days after McCain, Brose, and Kramer met to discuss the dossier, the court ruling notes that McCain instructed Kramer to meet with Victoria Nuland, the Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia Affairs, and Russian Affairs Director Wallander.

15) Nuland and Wallander were already aware of the dossier’s existence and both officials previously knew Steele, whom “they believed to be credible.”

Kramer did not physically share the dossier with them.

Nuland had received a copy of the earlier Steele memos in July 2016.

16) Steele had already been providing reports informally to the State Department:

“These were written for a private client but shared widely within the U.S. State Department, and sent up to Secretary of State John Kerry and Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland"

17) Gaeta, an FBI agent and an assistant legal attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Rome, met with Steele in London on July 5, 2016, for the express purpose of receiving the dossier.

For this visit, the FBI sought permission from the office of Nuland.

18) Nuland provided this version of events during a Feb. 4, 2018, appearance on CBS’ Face the Nation:
cbsnews.com/news/victoria-…

19) It is unknown if Wallender also received a preliminary copy of the dossier in July, but as the court ruling notes, Wallander had been aware of the dossier prior to her December meeting with Kramer.

20) Steele also met with Jonathan Winer.

“In September 2016, Steele and I met in Washington and discussed the information now known as the ‘dossier."

Steele and Winer had known each other since at least 2010.

21) Winer also received a separate dossier, very similar to Steele’s, from long-time Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal.

This “second dossier” had been compiled by another longtime Clinton operative, former journalist Cody Shearer, and echoed claims made in the Steele dossier.

22) Winer then met with Steele in late September 2016 and gave Steele a copy of the “second dossier.”

Steele went on to share this second dossier with the FBI, which may have used it to corroborate his dossier.

23) It is somewhat ironic that these disclosures are being made just as the credibility of the Steele dossier is falling apart.

Even Michael Isikoff, who met with Steel in September 2016, has admitted to his doubts regarding the dossier:
theepochtimes.com/four-major-blo…

24) “When you actually get into the details of the Steele dossier, the specific allegations, we have not seen the evidence to support them, and, in fact, there’s good grounds to think that some of the more sensational allegations will never be proven and are likely false.”

25) Steel admitted in recent court doc that he was hired for the purpose of providing information to allow Clinton to challenge the validity of the 2016 election.

A formal legal challenge was never mounted, but the Steele dossier was used precisely for its intended purpose.
/End