Solomon has just published first supposed drop from much ballyhooed declassification. justthenews.com/accountability…. A slightly varied redaction of agent notes on Steele's Oct 2017 interview that were already published by Grassley on Dec 3, 2020 hsgac.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/…
What BS.
2/ to show the obstinacy of intel agency bureaucrats, redactions on first page of 2021 version (right) are GREATER than corresponding section of prior version. Unbelievable. (There is some microscopic new info, which I'll parse.)
3/ top of page 2. Left- old. Right -new. Some already public material redacted. Tillerson name unredacted. Uninformative unredaction about former Steele network.
4/ bottom page 2. Fiona Hill's role in introducing Danchenko to Steele is getting some oxygen, but we knew that already from Danchenko's interview last summer.
5/ page 3. A few new scraps unredacted. This concerns information about Prague attributed to Danchenko's school BFF from Perm, Olga Galkina, who had been working in Cyprus for a webhosting service (but had quit in a dispute).
6/ bottom page 3. useless scrap unredacted.
Keep in mind that big allegations (collusion) were attributed to Source D/E, located in the US, where Steele had directed Danchenko to carry out domestic espionage. We'll see if FBI asks him about this as we parse.
7/ top page 4. uninformative questioning and equally uninformative scrap of unredaction.
8/ bot page 4. In previous (& this) version, Steele says that he got info from PSS "and another source". In court, as I recall, Steele consistently said that all his information came from PSS. Carter Page info came from Podobedova; supposed Govorun and Peskov info from Galkina
9/ top page 5. Nothing new from December. Nothing about construction of dossier. Throat clearing.
10/ bottom page 5. some new information on Orbis' activities in 2017 - who cares. An "important" new unredaction. We now know that there are "people" in the Orbis office. This detail previously redacted. Nothing useful in this half-page,
11/ top page 6. A new and interesting detail that was redacted in December. Steele says that Fiona Hill knew of Danchenko's involvement in dossier and that Danchenko contacted her in early 2017 when he went to ground. Hmmm - what was Hill's testimony on this?
12/ bottom page 6. Another interesting new detail. Steele/Danchenko did "report" (presumably more smear that appealed to US and UK intel) that Russia had told Trump transition that Romney unacceptable as Sec'y of State. From whom? "Galkina" or just made up.
13/ top page 7. Remains more or less totally redacted. After pondering by dozens of bureaucrats and lawyers, they grudgingly unredacted the word "wit." and "He kne..".
14/ bottom page 7. Steele has a "new" PSS. (This may explain apparent inconsistency earlier). The new PSS is providing Curveball-level spy pornography in which Ukrainians feed US fantasies.
15/ top page 8. Almost total redacted. Small detail alluded to above: Steele reached out to Fiona Hill in Feb 2017 to check on Danchenko after Danchenko went to ground.
16/ bottom page 8. some unredaction about details peripheral to dossier. Erovkin killing. Interesting mention of Cody Shearer dossier, which Steele says here was a "dangle".
17/ page 9. irrelevant.
A comment on Cody Shearer nonsense is unredacted.
18/ overall, the questioning of Steele was totally useless.
The big issue as of October 2017 was the inconsistency between the Danchenko interview in Jan 2017 and assertions in Steele dossier. There wasn't a SINGLE question on these issues.
19/ also there wasn't a SINGLE question about Danchenko's statement to FBI that he never met Millian, whereas the most damning information in dossier was attributed to "Millian". Who was framed by some combination of Steele and/or Danchenko.
20/ it's hard to believe that FBI was so totally incompetent. On the other hand, US intel agencies have an increasingly long record of being bamboozled by Curveballs and Screwballs, but the uselessness of SIA Brian Auten and his SA sidekick defies credulity.
21/ Trump vs bureaucracy. Trump tricked once again. The ultimate Charlie Brown.
22/ in other news, NYT reports (buried in another article) nytimes.com/2021/01/19/us/… that Durham has closed investigation into leak of classified information to WaPo about Flynn call, saying that "investigators found no wrongdoing". Puh-leeze.
23/ the leak of classified information was clear cut "wrongdoing". The FBI may have been unable or unwilling to figure out who committed the crime - after all, Peter Strzok was in charge of crime scene at the time - but don't say that there was "no wrongdoing".
Let me clarify. The 302 appears to contain redacted references to Millian. I'll cross-check vs the Analyst notes later.
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here is a thread from 2023 in which Eric Ciaramella's "yikes" is placed in a more detailed context.
In this thread, I suggested that the linkage was connected to Jan 21, 2016 meeting of Ukrainian prosecutors with State Dept officials, noting that Jamie Gusack (reporting to Bridget Brink) had distributing the first demand for Shokin's head (Nov 22 TPs)
as pointed out in that thread, Gusack (State Dept) had been coordinating with Ciaramella (NSC) prior to arrival of Ukr prosecutors in Jan 2016, referring to Shokin replacement.
State Dept cited "diamond prosecutors case" as big deal. But what happened to it next? A long story.
Bridget Brink, Jamie Gusack's boss, reported to Victoria Nuland. Brink was appointed Ambassador to Ukraine in April 2022. Unanimous approval by Senate in early days of war at the exact time that US and UK were sabotaging the peace deal negotiated in Istanbul
as observed yesterday, , after 2014 US coup, the tsunami of billion dollar US/IMF loans was associated with unprecedented embezzlement by Ukr oligarchs thru corrupt Ukr banking system. Rescues of failed banks (mostly unnoticed in west) were markers
in today's thread, I'll provide a short bibliography of articles (mostly Ukrainian language via google translate) on the Ukr banking corruption crisis that began and exploded after the 2014 US coup, while Biden, Blinken, Nuland et al were running Ukraine
once one searches specifically for the topic, there are interesting references, but the topic has received essentially next to zero coverage in the west. I'll take myself as an example. Despite following Ukr affairs quite closely, my prior knowledge was three vignettes.
May 25, 2021: US DOJ announced indictment & arrest of Austrian banker Peter Weinzierl
Mar 13, 2024: we learn that Alexander Smirnov was an FBI informant against Weinzierl and had lured Weinzierl to UK on behalf of FBI for arrest justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/t… archive.is/zO1rt
the DOJ charges against Austrian banker Weinzierl, filed during first six months of Biden admin, pertained to allegations that payments made via Meinl Bank in Austria by Brazilian construction company Odebrecht were connected to evasion of taxes in Brazil.
if the concern of US DOJ and FBI with administration of Brazilian tax collection seems somewhat quirky, there may be an ulterior motive: Meinl Bank had a central role in the looting of Ukrainian banks during the 2014-2016 Biden administration of Ukraine.
Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, named by NYT as architect of 2014 post-Maidan takeover of Ukrainian intelligence by CIA, is former head of Ukrainian SBU. His comments on Biden corruption deserve attention, but have been ignored.archive.is/zXXQV
on October 10, 2019, early in the Trump impeachment saga, Nalyvaichenko published an op ed in Wall St Journal saying "alliance with US depends on answering questions about Bidens and election interference" [by Ukraine] archive.is/wsrjP
in that editorial, Naluvaichenko, the former SBU hear, stated that Ukraine had responsibility to investigate allegations that Ukraine interfered in 2016 election (a separate issue from Russian interference) and whether Burisma hired Hunter Biden for "cynical purposes".
as Svetlana @RealSLokhova explained to us, intelligence fabricators (like Halper) begin by juxtaposing two targets in the same room and using that juxtaposition for their smear.
Smirnov had multiple Burisma contacts in 2017-Jan 2018, that are provable by email and travel records. See diagram below.
But, according to Weiss, instead of attaching narrative to provable meetings, Smirnov attached his narrative to non-existent contacts in 2015-16 and 2019.
Obvious question: why would Smirnov attach his narrative to fabricated meetings/telecons, when he had multiple real meetings/telecons to which he could have attached the narrative just as easily?
NYT () has major article on how CIA constructed "a network of spy bases [in Ukraine that] includes 12 secret locations along the Russian border", which @aaronjmate has drawn attention to. A couple of interesting chronology points in today's thread.archive.is/zXXQV
first NYT "hero" is Valentyn Nalyvaichenko who, despite Ukraine's constitutional neutrality, on Feb 24, 2014, on first evening of Maidan coup that had overthrown the democratically elected president of Ukraine, as incoming "spy chief", colluded with CIA and MI6 station chiefs
later in the article, NYT laconically stated that, in summer 2015, Ukr president Poroshenko "shook up the domestic service" and "installed an ally to replace Nalyvaichenko, the CIA's trusted partner".