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Beginning in or around March of 2017, had the FBI begun an attempt to verify that Col. Alexander Poteyev—an enormously helpful CIA asset who had defected from the SVR's Directorate S back in 2010—was a "source" for the Steele dossier?
1) Gowdy says that the FBI had not made an honest effort to verify the Steele dossier until at least sometime after the first renewal of Carter Page's surveillance warrant on January 12th, 2017.
Beginning in or around March 1st, 2017, and continuing through till at least the next month, the FBI and the media seem to take a sudden interest in Carter Page, specifically about what he could tell them about the Steele dossier.
Two things:
1) In March 2017, Carter basically told the FBI to go pound sand. (my interpretation)
2) I can find no connection between Page and Poteyev, other than both of them potentially getting sucked in by the whirlwind that is the Steele dossier, thru no fault of their own.
1) In March 2017, Carter basically told the FBI to go pound sand. (my interpretation)
2) I can find no connection between Page and Poteyev, other than both of them potentially getting sucked in by the whirlwind that is the Steele dossier, thru no fault of their own.
The blackest of black swans—something that I still can't reasonably explain—is that, also in March of 2017, the good folks at BuzzFeed, seemingly out of nowhere, get the wild idea to go and attempt to track down Col. Alexander Poteyev. buzzfeednews.com/article/alexca… 
BuzzFeed, however, wasn't the only entity who had managed to track down the whereabouts of Poteyev in 2017.
(You'll also never guess where Poteyev had been purportedly living.)
Bit of an old thread, attempting to connect Daniel Jones to Col. Alexander Poteyev and the various LLC's that Poteyev's son had set in anticipation of his father defecting to the U.S. back in 2010:
To be clear, I very very very much doubt that Poteyev had been a legit source for Steele's dossier, if indeed my highly speculative theory turns out to be accurate.
The reason being: He already has everything he wants here in the U.S., and risked his life and the safety of his family to get them all here to America.
He's also very, very rich.
Something else very odd had happened to Poteyev, at a very peculiar time during the 2016 election.
On July 7th, 2016, the Russian news agency Interfax reported—without evidence—that they had heard reports that Col. Poteyev, while living in the U.S., had up and suddenly.....died.
fssb.su/history-state-…
fssb.su/history-state-…
Of course, he wasn't actually dead, but I'm sure he and his family had met the news with shock and surprise.
Later on, he defied the news report by registering to vote, obtaining a fishing license from Wal-Mart, and then voting in the 2016 election.
(BuzzFeed says Poteyev had registered as a Republican.)
(BuzzFeed says Poteyev had registered as a Republican.)
Years earlier, the Kremlin had sent a hitman to Miami and other cities in order to track down Col. Poteyev's whereabouts, as well as those of his family. archive.is/xYg2J
The NYT hadn't named Poteyev in their article as the target of the Russian assassin for safety reasons, but the story would later be confirmed by the BBC the following month.
(Really good video here. Explains maybe 80% of Poteyev's story.)
(Really good video here. Explains maybe 80% of Poteyev's story.)
Long story short, Putin wants Poteyev dead, by any means, and at any cost, probably.
Before ya can exterminate someone, though, ya gotta know their location first.
Here's a fun table: (h/t @nick_weil)
Two guesses for which source Surkov might likely be.
And for Trubnikov.
But what if...
I mean, it'd be a total fabrication from the whole get-go.
Take, for instance, Trubnikov, a former Director of the SVR.
From Chapter 14 of "The Skripal Files" (written by Mark Urban, the same guy who narrated the BBC video earlier in this thread):
According to a Moscow court in 2011, Col. Alexander Poteyev had decided to defect to the U.S. during the penultimate year of Director Trubnikov's leadership at the SVR.
How embarrassing.
Game it out to March 2017.
IC leadership is made aware that the Steele dossier had never been verified.
Comey orders his team to get as much of it verified as possible.
Carter Page is interrogated a total of five times.
Comey orders his team to get as much of it verified as possible.
Carter Page is interrogated a total of five times.
And......BuzzFeed goes looking for Poteyev.
Gud job, gud efort.
Even the New York Times had the common courtesy not to expose Poteyev for the sake of a scoop.
