Thread by @ClimateAudit

the recent HGSAC documents (DOJ subset) hsgac.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/… contained the following seemingly uninformative email, which turns out to shed interesting new light on both Horowitz, Bruce Ohr and the Alfa Bank hoax.

2/ a routine search of names in the email showed that Maxwell Marker was the TOC-East Section Chief identified in Horowitz Report as one of Bruce Ohr's two original contacts. So let's re-examine Horowitz with new info in mind.

3/ Simpson contacted DOJ #3 Ohr on Aug 22, 2016 and immediately got access. Simpson purported to identify 3 possible intermediaries in the collusion hoax originated by Steele operation. Ohr talked to Gaeta, but, as usual, neither "recalled" anything. MMarker mentioned.

4/ H reported that Ohr talked to TOC-East Section Chief "sometime prior to Oct 2013", but, as usual, neither could "recall" what they talked about. TOC-East noted it was odd and Ohr seemed "outside his lane".

5/ on Oct 13, 2016, TOC-East Section Chief Marker emailed Ohr, informing him that counterintelligence agents had traveled to Rome and met with Gaeta. Ohr still wanted to share Simpson's fake information on the three "possible intermediaries".

6/ on Oct 18, Steele and Ohr had an "urgent" video call. Ohr almost immediately contacted McCabe, obtaining a meeting with McCabe and Lisa Page that afternoon.

7/ H asked Ohr why he wanted to see McCabe. Ohr said that he was concerned that Steele information get to right place. H asked Ohr why TOC-East Marker's email was insufficient assurance. Ohr "couldn't recall".

8/ that's the last we hear of TOC-East Section Chief in Horowitz. However, on Dec 5, 2016, his superior, Bryan Paarmann, AD of International Operations Division, sent a query to Kevin Lyons and Jennifer Boone, who was about to take responsibility for Carter Page investigation

9/ identity of person of interest in the Paarmann email was redacted, but was a Russian oligarch, and, based on subsequent emails, was almost certainly one of the principals of Alfa Bank, which Perkins Coie and Simpson claimed (falsely) to be secret comms betw Trump and Russia

10/ Boone (AD, CD-2) forwarded Paarmann's speculation to Laycock and three other CD agents, copying Strzok (then AD of parallel branch CD-1)

10/ drawing on years of experience and the accumulated wisdom of the FBI, Laycock acutely deduced that the person of interest "sounds like an oligarch".

11/ no clue was too subtle for the sleuths at FBI counterintelligence. Laycock's remarkable intuition reminds me of famous Beyond the Fringe skit of my youth on Great Train Robbery. It will probably seem dated to readers but is from Beatles/Stones heyday

12/ Strzok forwarded Laycock's astonishing surmise to [Pientka], Moffa and a redacted CD presumably in Strzok's branch. (Email distributions tend to go up, parallel and then down organization trees. One gets used to pattern.)

13/ [Pientka] replied on Dec 15, citing information from Bruce Ohr on Dec 12 from his breakfast with Simpson on Dec 10. Simpson insisted that there was backchannel communications between Alfa Bank servers and Trump campaign and stories dismissing it were wrong.

14/ H discussed the Dec 10 meeting between Ohr and Simpson, but did not mention their discussion of Alfa Bank. It turns out that Ohr had initiated the meeting with a call to Simpson on Dec 8.

15/ H also mentioned the Dec 12 meeting between Ohr and Pientka, but similarly made no mention of the (false) Alfa Bank communications story being discussed.