Thread by @JohnWHuber

EXCLUSIVE: The "Steele" dossier source who falsely claimed there was a Russian Consulate in Miami was ALSO was a source for the Moscow “pee tape” AND **the key source** alleging an “extensive conspiracy” between the Trump campaign & Russia involving Manafort and Page 🚨

THREAD

Christopher Steele tells State Dept. Official Kathleen Kavalec on Oct 11 2016 that a "human/technical operation run out of Moscow targeting the election" is "hacking" and "recruiting" and "payments to those recruited are made out of the Russian Consulate in Miami"

Kavalec (likely after a cursory search) says "It is important to note there is no Russian Consulate in Miami" 🚨

This is critical to the credibility of Steele's source for this "payments to hackers" allegation: if they're wrong about "Miami" what *else* are they wrong about? 🤔

N.B: Kavalec was right: at the time, the Russian Consulate in Florida was 450KM away from Miami, in Tampa (apparently in the same building as the US Commerce Dept.) - literally a 60 second Google search would have shown that this allegation about payments from "Miami" was false

FYI: These notes from Kavalec are immediately forwarded to Stephen Laycock in FBI Counterintelligence, who then passes them onto Peter Strzok (note: the Page FISA is generated out of the Counterespionage section [CD4] of the Counterintelligence division, which Strzok supervises)

Here is the part of Steele's dossier about the "Miami" payments to "cyber operators" (i.e. hackers) "based in the U.S." and it is attributed to...

..."SOURCE E" 🚨

("Miami" is not mentioned anywhere else in the dossier except attributed to Source E)

Source E is also "confirms" the Trump/hookers "pee tape" allegations and provides an introduction to a Ritz-Carlton hotel employee for validation of this kompromat allegation

Steele even tells Kavalec that he's only "persuaded the story about the prostitutes is accurate" *BECAUSE OF SOURCE E*. The same guy who doesn't know where the Russian Consulate is in Florida? Yep, he's the Pee Tape confirmation

Reminder: Intel sources called Steele "meticulous" with a "formidable record"

Back to Source E. He is *also* the primary source for "Steele's" explosive claim of a "well-developed conspiracy of cooperation between [Trump] and the Russian leadership", which is managed by Paul Manafort via @carterwpage, including the DNC hacking/release to Wikileaks 🚨

That allegation of a conspiracy involving Page and members of the Trump campaign to interfere in the election in "coordination" with Russia is what the FBI/DOJ swore they believed to the FISA court. "Conspiracy" is also the exact word needed to implicate potential federal crimes

Some conclusions:

–The FBI should have known there was no Russian Consulate in Miami *themselves*, when they attempted to verify the dossier claims

–Even if the FBI didn't try and properly verify the dossier (likely), Kavalec told the FBI this fact explicitly *BEFORE THE FISA*

–So, Steele's SOURCE E for the "Miami" payments is giving Steele FALSE information, either mistakenly, or worse: deliberately

–The next logical source verification step once the FBI realizes this is to check all of the *other* allegations made by SOURCE E as they're also suspect

There is no evidence that the FBI/DOJ even tried to verify the dossier before the FISA, and no evidence they even informed the FISC that SOURCE E was potentially unreliable after the first FISA was sought.

And it gets worse...

Bruce Ohr testified to Congress that Glenn Simpson called him on Jan 20 2017 (the day of Trump's inauguration as POTUS) expressing "concerns for the safety of the source"

This was reported by @ChuckRossDC who noted that *just four days* after Simpson called Ohr, the WSJ and ABC news outed SERGEI MILLIAN as either SOURCE D, SOURCE E or both sources 🚨dailycaller.com/2019/02/21/bru…

FYI: I believe that is misdirection and Millian is not both sources and probably not Source E. Source E may even be Felix Sater - a CIA/FBI asset for decades who is no longer apparently testifying to Congress anytime soon. Wonder why? 🤔

https://twitter.com/johnwhuber/status/1101505690483523584?lang=en

Finally: what effort did "Steele" and Fusion GPS make to verify what they were being told by "Source E" was true? Well, we now know for sure they didn't Google whether a Russian Consulate existed in Miami. So what did they do?

Nellie Ohr was *definitely looking into Sergei Millian* (likely as a dossier source, as Bruce Ohr testified), and this was during the time period of the memos "written" by Steele about payments from the Russian Consulate in Miami (as confirmed by Nellie Ohr's testimony)

So Fusion GPS's "vetting" failed, the FBI's vetting failed, and the FBI/DOJ ignored Kavalec's cursory analysis which showed that anything in the dossier sourced to SOURCE E was suspect as that source couldn't get basic facts right like a non-existent Russian Consulate in Miami

And nobody seems to have told the FISA court any of this @JusticeOIG

/ENDS

N.B.1 Either Steele lied to the FBI because he didn't admit he was revealing the contents of the dossier to the State Dept (as proven by Kavalec's notes)

OR the FBI/DOJ lied to the FISC

Pick one.

CC: @ProfMJCleveland, @jsolomonReports

N.B 2 "Nothing in the Steele dossier has been disproven". Take that talking point outside and shoot it, Collusion Truthers, it's over. 🎯

N.B.3 @SethAbramson once called SOURCE E the "Deep Throat" of a scandal "many times bigger than Watergate" 🤣🤣🤣

https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/846455259430051842