Share this page!

Stephen McIntyre Profile picture
Twitter logo
13 Oct, 15 tweets, 5 min read
like many readers, I'm reading and dismayed by the FBI spreadsheet purportedly summarizing their analysis of Steele dossier. scribd.com/document/47978…

if incompetence, laziness and stupidity were crimes, then Comey's "right people" would all be in jail long ago.
2/ but, before further editorializing, let's consider FBI General Counsel James Baker's description of verification techniques, as told to Telegraph telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/02/1… (Episode 2, 15:42 ff). Always best to judge work product by their own standards and protocols.
3/ Baker observed that reliance on open source for verification was "tricky because source could have gotten information from open source as well, so you have to be wary". It doesn't take John LeCarre or James Jesus Angleton to figure that out. Yet spreadsheet abounds in examples
4/ Baker pointed to importance of verifying phone records to confirm a phone call; travel records to corroborate that someone took a trip. Does spreadsheet describe any such efforts in connection with key purported contact between Danchenko and Millian? Of course not.
5/ Yet Ben Riley-Smith, the Telegraph's fatuous stenographer of intel community puff, hyperventilated about FBI verification process as "a long, laborious painstaking process" to which the Steele dossier had supposedly stood up.
6/ here is a summary table of footnotes on provenance. Sources redacted for 114 of 390 footnotes, despite Trump's promises. Some redactions stupid. FBI's primary verification resource was Beltway media articles.
7/ many commenters have already observed the inanity of using media articles which were seeded by Steele/Fusion as confirmation. One amusing example is footnote 9 which noted that Alexandra Chalupa was cited on Trump having an orgy in Russia in Australian article on Nov 1, 2016
8/ the FBI partly redacted their source for no valid reason
9/ the article is easily identified : smh.com.au/world/north-am… They cited a Twitter message from Chalupa, a notorious pro-Ukraine Dem operative and zealot, whose information is circular to Steele
10/ the supposedly confirming Australian article was a rehash of Beltway articles, pushing Steele fabrications plus fraudulent Alfa Bank server claims directly promoted by Perkins Coie in side operation to Steele.
11/ there is some information on Report 139, not in Buzzfeed, which cites Millian by name, not just as Source E. FBI failed to observe that Millian is from Belarus, not Russia. FBI puported to cite no fewer than 6(!) open sources for "working relationship" betw Trump and Millian.
12/ there aren't actually 6 different media sources for this claim: the FBI triple-counted a Daily Beast article.
13/ one of the articles is a Crocus Group (Agalarov) press release archive.is/VNYRs from 2013 which talks about why the Agalarovs hosted Miss Universe 2013 contest, but did not show promised "working relationship" between Trump and Millian. Invalid reference.
14/ another citation supposedly showing promised "working relationship" is April 2016 interview with Millian sputniknews.com/business/20160…. But it contained no mention of Trump. Another invalid "verification".
more tomorrow

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with Stephen McIntyre

Stephen McIntyre Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @ClimateAudit

Stephen McIntyre Profile picture
7 Oct
always lots of debate about US COVID numbers. Here's how I like to look at data: three panels: daily NewCases, hospitalizedCurrently and daily NewDeaths. Decline in NewCases and hospitalized in summer has seemingly stalled. Reason interesting,
2/ first wave was in NY, NJ area which subsided after ~8 weeks; then 2nd wave in southern states (FL,AZ, TX shown here). It had very similar case pattern but much lower hospitalizations and deaths. So why hasn't overall data also diminished as 2nd wave dissipates?
3/ there's a third pulse in more "remote" states in northern plains and midwest: ND, SD, MT, UT; also WI. Since populations small, 3rd pulse led to much lesser national increase. Even lower hospitalizations and deaths thus far then 2nd pulse, much lower than 1st pulse.
Read 4 tweets
Stephen McIntyre Profile picture
6 Oct
Here's a scatter plot showing (my interpretation) of stated Dancheno "proximate" sources (numbered in interview) vs use in Steele dossier by date. There is pattern and structure that has gone almost entirely unnoticed.
2/ on the evening of June 15, Ivan Vorontsov (S2) and Sergei Abyshev (S1) went drinking with Igor Danchenko (PSS) in Moscow. Vorontsov went to huge St Petersburg economic conference the next day (which, ironically, Millian attended). Igor stayed in Moscow.
3/ S1 and S2 were both described by PSS as sources for Report 80, the first ("pee tape") report, which I believe to have been primarily fabricated into very embellished and fraudulent document in Steele's office based on context from Danchenko. Danchenko also told FBI that
Read 25 tweets
Stephen McIntyre Profile picture
2 Oct
@shipwreckedcrew problem with your argument is there was real distinction betw sanctions and expulsions, which was important and relevant to Flynn. In his only contemporary interview (Feb 15, 2017), he readily admitted that he had discussed expulsions, but vehemently denied discussing sanctions.
@shipwreckedcrew 2/ this interview was in response to blockbuster WaPo article which, based on conversations with /893/ anonymous officials in a position to know, said that Flynn had specifically discussed sanctions.
@shipwreckedcrew 3/ Flynn was not guilty of lying about "US Sanctions" as defined in Statement of Offense. At the time, for various reasons, Flynn seems to have assumed that, despite his memory otherwise, the government must have had transcripts showing that he had discussed US Sanctions
Read 9 tweets
Stephen McIntyre Profile picture
29 Sep
recent Barr letter on Danchenko contained unredaction of Horowitz Footnote 334, which commented on claim that "Steele himself was not the originating source of any of the factual information in his reporting". What does this actually mean? Is it true? Image
2/ as someone who's studied this very closely, it seems virtually certain to me that many details in the Steele dossier, including nearly all of the details of interest, did NOT originate with the PSS, but were embellishments or fabrications introduced in Steele's writeup.
3/ Was Horowitz archly trolling readers by his use of the term "factual information" (as opposed to more generic term of (say) details in the Steele dossier. I.e. anything that was true did not originate with Steele. But I really don't think that Horowitz was being that cute.
Read 10 tweets
Stephen McIntyre Profile picture
29 Sep
in 2008, Danchenko, according to his now deleted CV archive.is/rK4M6, while at Georgetown and Brookings, also did an assignment for Jane's, now a subsidiary of IHS Markit, which annually publishes Jane's Fighting Ships en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane%27s_…
2/ in the recent Barr letter, the FBI reported that, in their prior investigation, one of Danchenko's associates (presumably at Brookings) said that he "persistently asked about" their knowledge of a particular military vessel.
3/ in the spirit of an aluminum tube not necessarily being evidence of WMD - a possibility insufficiently scrutinized by Colin Powell, is it possible that Danchenko's inquiry about military vessel was to make money from Jane's, as opposed to spying for Russia?
Read 5 tweets
Stephen McIntyre Profile picture
28 Sep
I'm re-examining what was unredacted in April. Here's a small but interesting point clarified when Danchenko network unrolled. FN 347 refers to Olga Galkina, Danchenko's longtime BFF from Perm, who had very active social media presence.
2/ Danchenko identified Galkina as Source 3 in his Jan 2017 interview. Unredaction of FN 347 says that "FBI received information in **early June 2017** which revealed that, among other things, there were.. personal and business ties between the sub-source" and Primary Sub-Source.
3/ but Danchenko interview in **January** 2017 already disclosed that Danchenko and Galkina had been friends since the 8th grade in Perm.
Read 5 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

Like this author's thread?

Get email notifications when new thread is out from this Author!

Check out other threads from this Author!

Read all threads by @ClimateAudit